num_pages: 191
description:  A War against the People investigates Mozambican politics past and present through an examination of the nature and effects of the war that has been waged there since 1976. The Renamo rebel movement's foreign origins and its development into a movement for which the pursuit of power has become paramount is traced, as are its operational tactics and its targets.The main targets and victims of the war are the rural civilians of Mozambique, who make up 84 per cent of the country's total population. The war has forced them to flee in every direction for fifteen years, so that today 3.3 million Mozambicans are refugees in their own or neighbouring countries.This has had a devastating effect, not just on the economies of the countries hosting the refugees, but on the refugees themselves psychologically and physically, and as a consequence, on Mozambique. The Frelimo government's past policy failures have caused it recently to turn its hopes for development to capitalism and democracy. The legacies of a war that has been waged against the people, however, threatens even the new route. All this comes in a country of great natural and human potential.
language: English
title: Mozambique: A War Against the People
publisher: Palgrave Macmillan