The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo-Renamo Struggle, 1977-1992
Why write a book about a seemingly minor sideshow to larger, better known conflicts in Angola, Ethiopia or South Africa?As a political-military analyst writing about the Mozambican war for senior American policymakers in Washington back in the mid-1980s I thought I had a very clear and accurate understanding of events, personalities, and the ebb and flow of the fighting. I was mistaken. And the more I delved into the existing literature while living in southern Africa in the mid-1990s the more I discovered that I was not alone. Many others--including some notable academics, scholars and journalists--had gotten it wrong too. Some had become caught up in embracing a cause and their writing was deliberately skewed to make 'their side' look better. Others, in a desperate search for any scrap of seemingly reliable information on an underreported conflict, found themselves caught up in apartheid South Africa's sophisticated campaign of disinformation and unwittingly repeated stories hook, line and sinker. Thus, many of the so-called 'facts' surrounding the war and the people in it are more myth than reality. Moreover, to this day controversy continues to surround many pivotal events and the real story has yet to be revealed.This critique is not intended to downplay the hard work and cutting edge scholarship on the war or the insurgency that was undertaken in the past. Many of these groundbreaking accounts contain highly useful and relevant information and, accordingly, are cited extensively within this work where appropriate. Nonetheless, many popular accounts of the war are fraught with major inaccuracies. Over time, unfortunately, these flawed works have come to be widely accepted as a true reflection of the historical record without critical examination by those seeking to better understand the conflict. The pages of this book hopefully provide a desperately needed reality check.