INTRODUCTION

The inauguration of Mozambique’s first elected president, on 9 December 1994, brought the mandate of one of the United Nation’s largest and most successful peacekeeping operations to an end. Over a three-day period from 27 to 29 October 1994, Mozambique conducted, with the assistance and support of the UN, the first multiparty elections in the country’s history. The elections brought together in an open democratic contest the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) and the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO), the country’s two major political parties and former foes.

These elections were the culmination of a major success story in wider peacekeeping in Africa under UN auspices — a brand of peace operation which included peacemaking, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding and electoral assistance. Mozambique’s peace process has subsequently been cited as a model UN peacekeeping operation which could be adapted to post-conflict situations elsewhere. However, the UN operation in Mozambique was more a successful political and humanitarian mission, than one which reflected Security Council responsibilities for creating a greater degree of ‘peace and security’.

While the electoral and, to some extent, political success of the United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) cannot be denied, the neglect of military and security issues has already had significant negative consequences for the country and for the broader Southern African region. The aim of this article is to briefly re-examine the Mozambican peace process from the perspective of possible lessons to be learned a few years after the conclusion of the UN operation — while international attention is focused elsewhere, and while Mozambique still faces the arduous task of post-conflict reconstruction.

THE ‘BLUEPRINT’ FOR SUCCESS

The UN intervened in Mozambique after nearly thirty years of ruinous civil war — initially against the Portuguese colonialists and then among the two major post-independence political movements — had claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and destroyed much of Mozambique’s economic and social infrastructure. Without discussing the causes of the conflict or the degree of government authority at the time of the establishment of ONUMOZ, it is a fact, as Ajello claimed, that "[t]he Mozambicans had 16 years to make peace on their own and finally they felt the need for an external partner to achieve a peace agreement."¹ The post-conflict peace process was made possible by a "mutually hurting stalemate."² Neither the warring parties nor the population could afford the material and human costs of continuing the war.

The government realised that economic stagnation, the destruction of the very fabric of society, and the untenable political situation were turning the country into a state of absolute chaos. The ever changing regional and international settings and the inhuman conditions within RENAMO-controlled zones were also destroying the legitimacy that the latter eventually might have achieved through its struggle for political power.³ On the other hand, the people of Mozambique had become increasingly aware that, no matter whom they supported, they remained the victims of the war — and ultimately the losers.⁴

The peace process really began on 4 October 1992, when a General Peace Agreement (GPA) was signed in Rome by Joaquim Chissano, President of the Republic of Mozambique and Afonso Dhlakama, President of RENAMO. This agreement provided for:

a firm ceasefire date;



the concentration of RENAMO and government forces in assembly areas;



the withdrawal of foreign troops (Malawian and Zimbabwean forces guarding transport corridors);



the demobilisation of government and RENAMO soldiers who would not serve in a unified national defence force; and



the forming of new political parties and the conduct of elections.

The mandate entrusted to ONUMOZ by the Security Council in Resolution 797 of 16 December 1992, was to verify and monitor the implementation of this agreement. Although not a textbook exercise in wider peacekeeping, the Mozambican process actually worked, despite a number of temporary setbacks. This success has been explained in terms of the role of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), adequate resources, political leadership and donor co-ordination. As the SRSG, Aldo Ajello of Italy was willing and able to use the political muscle at his disposal to push the process forward, to challenge the UN bureaucracy, and to deal squarely with foot-dragging by both Mozambican parties. The latter was a constant source of delay, but never fundamentally threatened the peace process, as intransigence on the part of Savimbi has done in Angola on the opposite side of the continent. Indeed, Afonso Dhlakama repeatedly said that he and RENAMO would not go back to war, regardless of the outcome of the elections. And although he rejected any notion of a government of national unity, President Chissano nonetheless remained committed to the peace process.

ONUMOZ was also blessed with adequate resources. Although money was surely wasted in places, it was at least available whenever needed to finance the peace process. Donor generosity was partly due to Mozambique’s long term popularity with certain donors, particularly the Nordic countries, who supported the process as part of their anti-apartheid efforts in Southern Africa. Not least, the international community desperately needed a success to cancel out the dismal result of the UN Verification Mission In Angola (UNAVEM II), which saw the rebel UNITA movement reject the results of internationally supervised elections and return to war against government forces. Without the mineral wealth which has corrupted so many African regimes, Mozambique’s extraordinary dependence on donor assistance for economic survival, one of the highest in the world, was a positive influence in pushing the peace process forward.

On the UN side, what worked well in Mozambique was an unexpected (and perhaps unprecedented) mix of strong leadership, donor co-ordination, and aggressive diplomacy which provided the critical underpinning for continued forward movement throughout the process. However, there were a number of operational difficulties which caused concern among observers and which may have seriously threatened overall success in a more volatile post-conflict environment.

OPERATIONAL DIFFICULTIES

It has been said that many of the UN’s achievements in Mozambique materialised despite, and not because of the UN’s supervision of the peace process. ONUMOZ cannot be considered a model peacekeeping operation when timetables slipped, the local parties delayed compliance, budgets soared, parent UN agencies engaged in obstructionism, and UN resources on the ground were underutilised.

For example, while the Rome Accords called for elections within a year from October 1992, the implementation calendar slipped so badly that they were delayed by a full year. Part of the reason for this was that ONUMOZ did not begin its troop deployments to Mozambique until some six months after the Security Council had passed Resolution 797, which authorised deployment. In more volatile circumstances, it could be expected that the ceasefire would break down during such a lengthy period of delay between political decision and multinational action.

ONUMOZ was also the first UN peacekeeping operation to incorporate a large humanitarian component. While the SRSG was nominally in charge from the outset of the mission, he lacked the authority necessary to force the various elements of ONUMOZ to operate as a team. Instead, he had to contend with various parent UN agencies pushing their own agendas and having their own lines of authority and communication with their representatives in Mozambique. In particular, the creation by the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs (UNDHA) of a parallel bureaucracy to oversee humanitarian operations not only duplicated the efforts of other UN agencies and dozens of non-government organisations (NGOs) already active on the ground, it actually served to slow and even block donor efforts to deal with problems.

Frequent delays were experienced in the implementation of the GPA, due to a lack of trust, inertia and the occasional unwillingness of some of the actors to see their power lessened as the process advanced. Bickering among the Mozambican parties seriously delayed the passage of an electoral law and the attendant voter registration and electoral arrangements. RENAMO and the government also delayed compliance with the Rome Accord provisions on the assembly and demobilisation of forces, and never fully complied with turning over their weaponry to the new national military (the FADM).

When some 6 000 UN troops were eventually deployed (starting in May 1993), the force structure, although large, was not very mobile. It lacked critical air assets in an extensive country with a weak and war-ravaged ground transportation network. Engineering and logistical units were deployed without the equipment or training to accomplish their tasks. There was also little flexibility in the implementation of the mandate. Although the operational and mission environment changed over time, ONUMOZ did not. The sites selected for the deployment of five battalions in three operational regions corresponded more with the logistical needs of the units than the military requirements of the mission. Moreover, the capabilities of the different national contingents ranged from NATO standards to units that could do little.

In fact, the majority of the military mission burden was carried by a small contingent of military observers who staffed assembly areas, assisted with demobilisation, collected arms from caches and verified weapons deposits — while the bulk of the military contingents spent their time patrolling transportation corridors in a relatively secure environment. The result was that the demobilisation and reintegration of combatants, the formation of the new FADM, and the disposal of surplus small arms were the most desultory aspects of the entire peace process.

While conventional analyses of the ‘lessons learned’ kind would tend to focus on such operational problems, many of the more pertinent problems of ONUMOZ can be traced more directly to the legal foundations of the peace process — the GPA — and the effects of its implementation on the legal status of the government vis-à-vis the peacekeepers.

THE GPA, ONUMOZ AND THE GOVERNMENT

The basis for a dominant UN role in the Mozambican peace process was rooted in paragraph V of Protocol I of the GPA, in which both parties indicated their desire to include UN representation in the Commission of Supervision and Control of the implementation of the peace accord. Legally, SRSG Ajello realised that the first problem concerning ONUMOZ/ government relationships would be related to the whole issue of sovereignty.⁵ This is because the GPA had primacy over all existing Mozambican legislation, and formed the basic law of the country throughout the period it was in force. Indeed, the first paragraph of Protocol I of the GPA specifically states that "the government undertakes not to act in contrary manner to the terms of the protocols to be established thereof, not to adopt laws or any other measure, not to enforce the existing laws that are deemed to jeopardise the protocols."⁶

This created a rather ambiguous legal situation, where the GPA was simultaneously above and subordinated to the existing constitution. The government was recognised, but at the same time restricted in the application of one of the basic instruments of governance: the making and enforcement of national laws. The national assembly and the executive (which, to all intents and purposes, remained the same thing) soon became a group of bureaucratic officers for stamping and dispatching documents of the Commission of Supervision and Control, which had the de facto power of ratifying laws and sanctioning public acts.⁷ This situation was a major source of concern for the government from the very beginning of the UN presence in Mozambique. Members of the cabinet were quoted as saying that "the UN may become a state within a state", and that "we are not a protectorate of the UN Security Council."⁸

According to Ajello, this problem was overcome through the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which was eventually signed on 14 May 1993.⁹ However, it was argued that the signing of this agreement was little more than a ceremonial ritual that did more to maintain traditional UN peacekeeping practice, than it did to clarify the position and status of the host government. The SOFA had insignificant political value because the government was already bound by UN supervision of the GPA, and was consequently not in a position to negotiate the terms of the agreement. The FRELIMO government, in effect, had already been stripped of the authority of an autonomous government.

On the other hand, UN insistence on the signing of a SOFA did not necessarily correlate with the legal value of the agreement. Rather, the SOFA contributed to perceptions of a desire for ONUMOZ to maintain a supposed status quo, and to the idea that the force was impartial and enjoyed the consent of the parties. It also served to camouflage the fact that Mozambique had become a temporary UN trusteeship. From a government perspective, it was often hard to believe in the notion of UN impartiality.

The prevalent idea that a sustained solution to any conflict requires relatively symmetric power relations among belligerents, meant that both the political mediation in Rome, as well as the post-accord ONUMOZ worked to strengthen the opposition in general and RENAMO in particular. In fact, the UN Secretary-General made it clear that "it is essential to have the necessary conditions to allow RENAMO to assume a proper role in the social and political life of Mozambique."¹⁰ Following the same line of argument, Ajello stated that "it was necessary to help RENAMO to achieve a minimum level that could allow the functioning of the whole mechanism of the GPA."¹¹ To this end, a trust fund was created to transform RENAMO from a guerrilla movement into a political party, and to help other (non-armed) political parties in developing political activities throughout the national territory.

There was a perceived contradiction between this approach and the traditional peacekeeping principles of neutrality and impartiality, which contributed to tensions between the government and ONUMOZ. From a conflict resolution perspective, support to RENAMO was probably necessary, and it did prove appropriate to the circumstances in Mozambique. This does not mean, however, that the model may be equally successfully prescribed for the resolution of other conflicts. The dynamics of the Mozambican conflict were rather unique, and are unlikely to be replicated.

For the Mozambican government, "the price for peace implied a dramatic contraction of state power, limiting the capacity of governing."¹² To be fair, this capacity had been steadily weakened by donor dependency long before the deployment of ONUMOZ. Since 1980, most government foreign policy initiatives (such as joining the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1984, and joining the Lomé Convention) resulted in a rapid deepening of its dependence on the international community.¹³ By the time the GPA was signed, more than half the government’s budget was met by donor funds. Under such circumstances, the government had little choice but to accept ONUMOZ authority, while trying to capitalise on the areas where it still enjoyed some legitimacy. However, even this strategy led to tensions between the government and ONUMOZ.

For instance, to bridge the gap left by the cantonment and demobilisation of its armed forces, the government tried to beef up its public order policing capacity. This led RENAMO to pressure ONUMOZ into playing a more intrusive role in monitoring the activities of the Mozambican police, and to the stationing of UN civilian police at police headquarters to monitor its activities. In turn, several accusations were made by the Mozambican police of UN interference in their internal affairs, including an allegation that the UN civilian police had broken into headquarters without a prior request for entry.¹⁴ The animosity eventually reached a point where the government declared a certain UN civilian police officer persona non grata.

For the Mozambican police, the UN was failing to respect the institutions of a sovereign state (and a UN member state in its own right). On the other hand, the UN civilian police felt that they were merely fulfilling their duty according to the ONUMOZ mandate which, according to Protocol V of the GPA, included the supervision of police activities. The animosity was worst at the junior levels, where most of the strongest accusations were made. However, the senior police leadership seemed to have a calming effect, and managed to resolve disputes through more cordial negotiations. Both the government and ONUMOZ avoided discussing the sovereignty question in public.

Given the sacrosanct nature of the principle of non-interference, the UN would obviously not admit that a peacekeeping operation could usurp the general authority of a host government. This would create a dangerous precedent and escalate interventionism in world politics, while it is clearly far better to take control in an indirect way. However, there is no escaping the fact that the UN enters legally questionable territory whenever exceptional circumstances prompt it to contribute to the resolution of internal conflicts by means of the peacekeeping ‘tool’.

Despite these arguments, ONUMOZ and the government managed to adjust themselves to the legal ambiguities of the situation in a pragmatic manner. Ajello exerted sufficient pressure to keep the peace process going, but only to the point where this did not cause too much resentment from the government. The government, in turn, attempted to exert only that authority which was necessary to ensure itself of an adequate political future. Of course, there were instances when the government was not willing to make any concessions — for example, when the international community exerted pressure for the establishment of a transitional government prior to the elections and for a post-election power-sharing arrangement through the concept of a government of national unity.

However, the legal confusion surrounding the implementation of the GPA, the thorny issue of sovereignty, and the resulting tensions between the peacekeepers and the host government were overcome. This was possible because:

the international and regional strategic environment determined that neither RENAMO nor the government would receive any further support for their war aims;



the will for peace was enormous;



the government was bound by such an unprecedented economic and financial dependency that, even if it perceived an international conspiracy favouring RENAMO, it could not have acted otherwise;



ONUMOZ leadership pragmatically balanced their authority under the GPA with the need to provide equal treatment of the parties, while also providing some sense of sovereignty for the government; and



the government realised and succeeded in managing its weaknesses and strengths with maturity.

In the final analysis, however, it was neither the government nor ONUMOZ that determined the outcome of the peace process, but the long-suffering people of Mozambique themselves.

THE PEOPLE AND THE PEACE PROCESS

It is generally accepted that the success of the Mozambican peace process was due to the will of the people to end a war which had been "... characterised by a strong violence against the people."¹⁵ The population was the weakest party in the conflict. Civil society was undermined to the extent where it was unable to undertake actions with considerable impact on the course of the war. Tired of the dying, the maiming, and the other deprivations of war, the people were prepared to accept anything — provided it would be an alternative to violence. Economic decline, the destruction of the social fabric, and the fear of going back to war led the civil population to take reconciliation measures even before the ceasefire was in place.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the people of Mozambique generally responded far more favourably than the government to the UN presence in their country. ONUMOZ proved to be more than simply a symbol of the silencing of the guns — it facilitated the reunification of thousands of formerly separated families.¹⁶ The humanitarian assistance component of the mission went beyond conventional emergency relief activities, by also providing support for, among others, agricultural production, road rehabilitation, water supply, health and education. By mid-1994, the UN had assisted in resurrecting or establishing 750 primary schools, 250 health centres and 200 wells.¹⁷

The people of Mozambique had also lost all trust in the warring parties’ capacity to provide for their future well-being and to provide resources for their basic immediate needs. Demobilised soldiers from both parties, and displaced people from different political affiliations, all came together to receive aid with a unifying identity: that of the needy, the sick, the deprived, and the hungry. Even for the soldiers awaiting demobilisation in the assembly areas, the legitimate agent that should be addressed was not the headquarters in Maputo or Maringue, but ONUMOZ. According to Gaspar, the 317 mutinies which were registered in the assembly areas provided a demonstration of the former combatants’ disapproval of the leadership of their former armies, rather than a sign of dissatisfaction with the demobilisation programme.¹⁸

By including a strong humanitarian component in ONUMOZ, the UN established a critical linkage between conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Mozambique.¹⁹ The various programmes — dealing with issues such as the reintegration of former soldiers into civilian life, humanitarian assistance, and the resettlement of refugees and displaced people — were undertaken without looking at the political affiliation of the beneficiaries. This served to reunify and reconcile individuals who had been separated for years, many for no other reason than the fact that they had held different political opinions. By helping to establish relationships between individuals supporting different parties in the conflict, the UN ensured that the social base of the conflict became a strong peace constituency.

ONUMOZ was able to capitalise on good relationships with the masses. It simply had to fill the humanitarian and social gaps which would have widened while RENAMO and the government concentrated their efforts on political mobilisation for the upcoming general elections. ONUMOZ was helped in this process by a strong emphasis on strengthening civil society, which had increasingly led the international community to channel aid to Mozambique through NGOs rather than the government, since the second half of the previous decade.²⁰ Under the ONUMOZ umbrella, and enabled by its legitimacy within the international community, the UN managed to effectively co-ordinate the humanitarian assistance efforts of the international community in a manner which supported the peace process and the role of the blue helmets.²¹

It is quite safe to argue that ONUMOZ came to Mozambique at a moment which was particularly ripe for building good relations with a frustrated population. The humanitarian component seized the opportunity to contribute towards a healthy peace constituency. This observation does not deny the fact that there were certain socio-cultural animosities and even economically driven tensions related to the ONUMOZ presence, but the political impact of these maladies was negligible in the greater process of conflict resolution.²² While the legal and human dimension of local interactions by ONUMOZ may shed more light on wider peacekeeping operations and the degree of ‘real success’ they bring to the field, an examination of the UN’s handling of demobilisation and disarmament is perhaps a matter of greater urgency for ‘lessons learned’ purposes.

DISARMAMENT AND DEMOBILISATION

The short-sightedness with which the disarmament and demobilisation of redundant soldiers were undertaken, proved a significant impediment to the post-conflict reconstruction process. The UN neglected the need for a comprehensive ‘security first’ approach to peace in Mozambique, as can be clearly demonstrated by the contempt for issues of security and stability during the ONUMOZ deployment.

While the UN Secretary-General called for a comprehensive operation in Mozambique, including political, military, humanitarian and electoral components, there was a clear hierarchical emphasis on military issues in the mission mandate. Indeed, in his report which recommended the establishment of ONUMOZ, the Secretary-General stated that he felt "... obliged to recommend that very substantial resources be made available for this purpose, especially on the military side. This reflects my conviction that it will not be possible in Mozambique to create the conditions for successful elections unless the military situation has been brought fully under control. If the United Nations is to undertake the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Mozambicans, what has to be done must be done well and quickly."²³

These sentiments, and the political enthusiasm within the Security Council and the UN at large, seemed to indicate that the operation in Mozambique would be a real departure from the traditional, rather low profile kind of peacekeeping that is focused on war termination issues, towards a more proactive, future-oriented process. In particular, it was hoped that the UN would be determined to clean up the ‘military mess’ in Mozambique through a comprehensive disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme.

However, any initial resolve to prevent ONUMOZ from becoming a ‘second UNAVEM II’ soon dissipated, when the UN realised that the soldiers’ weapons would not be used for political violence. In other words, there was a prevailing philosophical wisdom that "war [and hence instability] is the result of political decision: the arms are the instruments of war not its cause."²⁴ The UN perhaps understood better (and perhaps sooner) than Dhlakama or Chissano that the armed forces of the two parties were totally fed up, and that they would not return to war — weapons or no weapons.²⁵ There was therefore no perceived motive for placing a high priority on effective disarmament within the ONUMOZ mission.

Although disarmament was initially a high UN priority, the above realisation was evident in the shift of ONUMOZ emphasis from military to electoral and political issues. A forthright reason for this downgrading of disarmament and military issues, which enjoyed a high priority at the beginning of peace processes, is provided by Virginia Gamba. She contends that "the reason why weapons themselves are not the primary focus of attention in the reconstruction of post-conflict societies is because they are viewed from [a] political perspective."²⁶ With the benefit of hindsight, this proved to be very true in the case of ONUMOZ.

While the UN Secretary-General reported that some 190 000 weapons were collected under ONUMOZ supervision, very few of these arms (and the ammunition which was recovered) were destroyed — while many found their way back into illegal hands. Moreover, it is estimated that there were probably as many as one million assault rifles in circulation in Mozambique at the time. According to Potgieter, "Mozambique is a good case in point for demonstrating ... that ineffective or non-existent disarmament components to UN peace support operations fuel the proliferation of small arms at regional level and assist in the rise of crime, instability and political violence."²⁷

The neglect of safety and security issues becomes even more apparent when one views Mozambique’s longer term security concerns. Although the country needed support for demobilisation and reintegration, it also needed an army for the maintenance of security in the aftermath of the peace process. The UN remained totally unconcerned with the fact that less than ten per cent of the registered soldiers volunteered to join the new Mozambican defence force (FADM). This lack of enthusiasm to serve in a new peacetime national army was partly because of the war fatigue mentioned above but also, significantly, because no material or moral incentives were provided for joining — there was nothing akin to even the paltry demobilisation packages which were sponsored by the international community.²⁸ The result, as one former military officer later lamented, is that "the country is unprotected."²⁹

As far as long term security and stability are concerned, it may therefore be concluded that ONUMOZ did very little for Mozambique. Demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration programmes were tailored primarily towards the staging of peaceful elections. The irony of this short-sightedness is illustrated by the fact that, at the time when the UN Secretary-General reported that the security situation was conducive to peaceful elections, there had already been a sharp increase in general criminality, particularly in arms-related violent crimes.³⁰ As Berman argued, the overriding concern was for the elections to be held in a peaceful environment. Any social problems resulting from the legacy of war would be dealt with by the elected government.³¹

CONCLUSION

While analyses of the ONUMOZ operation may seem rather irrelevant in the light of new and ‘more exciting’ developments in the realm of international peace operations (such as the role of NATO in the former Yugoslavia), there are still significant lessons to be learned by revisiting concluded operations — especially a few years down the line, when the implications of such interventions for longer term peacebuilding become apparent. This article suggests that ONUMOZ was a successful political and humanitarian mission, rather than one which reflected Security Council responsibilities for creating a greater degree of ‘peace and security’.

Politically, the leadership of the two Mozambican parties to the GPA remained committed to the end-state of the process, but they were helped along by a population exhausted by war and drought. While the electoral and, to some extent, political success of ONUMOZ cannot be denied, the neglect of military and security issues has already had significant negative consequences for the country and for the broader Southern African region. One of the pertinent lessons which has emerged from the ONUMOZ experience is that the military terms of any peace agreement need to be subjected to aggressive, intrusive outside oversight, rather than passive monitoring.³²

The operational lessons from ONUMOZ — delays in deployment, unwillingness of certain contingents to take risks, etc. — have probably enjoyed the most attention in UN circles. On the other hand, the legal anomalies of the mission need to be further explored. If such ambiguities are not adequately addressed, they may well undermine future peace processes where there is less will for peace and where the government has more economic leverage.

On the human side, the situation was so terrible that the will for peace among the population had created a basis for non-conflictual relations between the people and the peacekeepers. The leadership of the warring parties had frustrated the people of Mozambique to the extent that they needed to redirect their loyalties to other institutions which were able to solve their problems. Although there were some areas where local people were exploited or economies distorted, the humanitarian and peacebuilding activities of ONUMOZ provided a very real source of hope.

However, if the primary objective of peace operations is meant to be that of enhancing security, long term stability and therefore sustainable development, then issues of violence, peace and stability should not be viewed through a purely political lens. Elections, for example, should not be viewed as an end in themselves, but also as a means for promoting long term political and social stability. When people continue to suffer from widespread insecurity, violence and social instability during and after a peace process, no mission can be regarded as an unqualified success.

ENDNOTES

A Ajello, O papel da ONUMOZ no Processo de Democratização, in B Mazula (ed.), Moçambique: Eleições, Democracia e Desenvolvimento, Inter-Africa Group, Maputo, 1995, p. 125.



According to Zartman, a "mutually hurting stalemate defines the moment as ripe for resolution: both sides are locked in a situation from which they cannot escalate the conflict with their available means at an acceptable cost." See I W Zartman, (ed.), Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil War, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1995, p. 8.



See J L Cabaço, A Longa Estrada da Democracia Moçambicana, in Mazula, op. cit., pp. 79-114.



A C Gaspar, O Papel da ONUMOZ na Pacificação e Democratização de Moçambique, paper read at the Seminar on Political Transition in Mozambique, Maputo, 19-21 April 1995, p. 5.



Ajello, op. cit., pp. 126-127.



Acordo Geral de Paz, Protoclo I, paragrafo I, Lei N. 13, 14 e 15/92.



According to Ajello, the Commission for Supervision and Control was a strong political structure that replaced the government in all aspects related to the implementation of the GPA; Ajello, op. cit., p. 126.



Mozambique File, 17 December 1992.



Acordo entre o Governo de Moçambique e as Nações Unidas sobre o Estatuto da Operação das Nações Unidas em Moçambique, Nova Iorque, 14 de Maio de 1993.



Report S/25518, 2 April 1993, in UNDP, United Nations and Mozambique 1992-1995, Maputo, 1996.



Ajello, op. cit., p. 127.



Cabaço, op. cit., p. 99.0



For more details, see E Berman, Managing Arms in Peace Processes, UNIDIR, New York, 1996, pp. 57-58.



Gaspar, op. cit., p. 22.



Ibid., p. 5.



There were 1,5 to 2 million Mozambican refugees in neighbouring countries, 3 to 4 million internally displaced people and, in addition, there were about 100 000 soldiers to be demobilised. See Mazula, op. cit.



Gaspar, op. cit., p. 40.



There were reports that the commanders of the concentration centres were the preferred targets of those mutineers; ibid.



For a discussion on the concept of a ‘peace constituency’, see V Jabri, Agency Structure and the Question of Power in Conflict Resolution, The Kent Journal of International Relations, 9(2), 1995, pp. 53-70.



Taimo noted the emergence and strengthening of national NGOs as a result of this diversion of international aid resources from the government which was increasingly accused of corruption. J U Taimo, Papel das ONG’s para o Desenvolvimento no Processo de Democratizacao, paper read at the Seminar on Political Transition, Maputo, 19-21 April 1995.



See the report of the Secretary-General, S/25518, 2 April 1993, for an explanation of the way all donor agencies and NGOs were brought under the ONUMOZ umbrella.



There were reports that individual members of ONUMOZ were accused of prostitution, bribery, and smuggling.



UN Secretary-General, as quoted in Berman, op. cit., p.34.



Ajello, op. cit., p. 128.



Berman, op. cit., p. 42.



V Gamba (ed.), Society under Siege: Crime, Violence and Illegal Weapons, Institute for Security Studies, Halfway House, 1997, p. xvi.



J Potgieter, The Price of War and Peace: A Critical Assessment of the Disarmament Component of United nations Operations in Southern Africa, in Gamba, ibid., pp. 148-149.



Berman, op. cit., p. 69.



Former officer of the government army interviewed by M Chachiua, Maputo, March 1997.



More details on arms related-crimes are provided in M Chachiua, Status of Arms Flows in Mozambique, ISS Monograph Series, forthcoming.



Berman, op. cit., p. 82.



For a detailed account of the pertinent lessons learned from ONUMOZ, see D C Jett, Lessons Unlearned — Or Why Mozambique’s Successful Peacekeeping Operation might not be Replicated Elsewhere, Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 5 December 1995, <www-jha.sps.cam.ac.uk/ freps/FR002.Htm>