Crisis in Mozambique: A mix bag of political economy and radical Islam

Iwas part of the official delegation that visited Mozambique under the ambit of Vice President, Slumber Tsogwane, to get an appraisal on the SADC Regional Coordination Mechanism.

The SADC mission has been deployed to combat, degrade and neutralise the terrorist ( Ahlu Sunnah wal` Jamma) mission in Cabo Delgado.

I have since found it proper to share a holistic brief perspective of Mozambique’s predicament.

Let me hasten to express my gratitude to the Botswana Defence Force deployed in Cabo Delgado and assigned to execute a very strenuous and difficult task of peacekeeping in the Cabo Delgado Province, Mocambique.

The Regional Coordination Mechanism which is led by Botswana apprised the entourage of the Vice President that terrorists in Cabo Delgado have been dislodged and that economic and social life is getting back to normal as schools, and businesses are gradually beginning to operate.

However, the entourage was informed that the situation in Cabo Delgado still remains volatile and unpredictable as the SADC troops recently experienced a terrorist attack on the 08th May 2022.

So, in essence there are still high risk areas in Cabo Delgado like Mueda village – one of the areas allocated to Botswana Defence Force to dominate terrorists actions.

The Regional Coordination Mechanism gave a comprehensive report which in a nutshell pointed to a call for more support from SADC in terms of logistics for public security, law enforcement in Cabo Delgado, improvement of health facilities for troops, military intelligence appraisal and more stakeholders involvement to enable SAMMI to inevitably move from peace enforcement to peace keeping.

Albeit the background given by the RCM which I so much concur with and support the recommendations that come with it, I nevertheless find it fit to review the Mozambique crisis situation from the perspective of political economy because the question of peace cannot be considered in isolation from the current ( and historical) politicoeconomic features of the structure of the Mozambican polity.

In my political opinion, the crisis in Mozambique can be attributed to sharp increases in social and economic inequalities as well as the growth of terrorism, coupled with corruption and the underdevelopment of the northern part of Mozambique.

Cabo Delgado’s history points systematic neglect by the central government. Cabo Delgado is the poorest province in Mozambique despite its wealth of natural resources. Cabo Delgado suffers from rates of illiteracy and child poverty - only 0.3 percent of the children receive high school education.

The government of Mozambique has been neglecting and ignoring Cabo Delgado - socially and economically - for decades. In terms of accountability, the Mozambique government failed miserably in Cabo Delgado.

It did not protect, develop, promote, guarantee or realise the social and economic rights of the Cabo Delgado residents. It invested very little in education, healthcare, water and sanitation systems, infrastructure, public transportation and communications.

As a result, among Mozambique’s 10 provinces Cabo Delgado is ranked at the bottom of all human development indices.

FRELIMO has failed to ensure a proper government investment and administrative transparency, develop the energy industry in the province and immensely improve the quality of life of the residents.

Those who enjoy the fruits of this wealth are the ruling elite that reside in Maputo. Once the natural resources were discovered in Cabo Delgado, the Mozambique government aggressively started to show its presence in the province.

Rather than coming up with plans for public infrastructure developments, building hospitals, schools, communication etc., it chose to split the wealth with western conglomerates and acted violently and arbitrarily against the local population that protested the above division of wealth.

An example of the governments’ disparagement of the local population may be observed in its decision to grant a mining license to international conglomerates in the Montepuez district while disowning entire agricultural communities rendering them unable to grow their own food.

The manifestation of the trouble in Cabo Delgado is by the central government and other interested parties’ takeover of the newly- discovered resources, discriminatory and unequal distribution of said resources and totally ignoring those who are not in the inner circle.

This “party” is being attended not by the governments but also by western multinational conglomerates. The discovery of massive marine natural gas reservoirs ( among the largest in the world) in the past decade has caused energy giants ( such as Statoil, Petrobras, Exxon Mobile, Total, Shell, ENI7) to enter the space, collaborate with the ruling elite and deepen the societal gap in the province and among others.

It has also caused the uprooting of thousands of people from their homes, all of which the sense of deprivation, alienation and anger among the locals vis- a- vis the central government and the energy giants.

It can be said that FRELIMO has apparently not learned the lesson, after the “decade of victory over underdevelopment” and has allowed Mozambique to be held hostage to corruption, nepotism and inefficiency so much that it has driven the country into a socio - economic crisis.

FRELIMO have basically functioned to reinforce the grip on power of the already powerful. This has created a governmental vacuum that manifested itself by lack of governability and inability to enforce law.

This void has been filled by organised crime elements that traffic drugs, run guns, trade in diamonds, metals, ivory, prostitution, human trafficking and more, all under the watchful eye of the rulers and in cooperation with corrupt politicians.

Much like the state of affairs in the rest of Africa, the lack of central government governability and the locals’ alienation from the ruling elite that exploits the region’s resources for their benefit with total disregard to the poor provinces and their residents, is very much evident in Cabo Delgado.

Since the province is poor and less developed than the rest of the country ASWJ fuels the anger and resentment of the local population towards the central government.

ASWJ ( Ahlu Sunnah Wal) is a jihadi Islamic organisation affiliated with the local al- Shabab which has been carrying out multiple terror attacks on villages, towns, military installations and soldiers, tourism sites and tourists and gas production installations since 2017.

ASWJ Members are reported to be in close links with the Tanzanian, Kenyan and Somali Salafi circles and are believed to be between 350- 1,500 strong, organised in dozens of cells along northern Mozambique’s coast and in Cabo Delgado.

ASWJ has built training camps and mosques to Wahhabi fundamentalism that radically interprets Islam and is for the strict implementation of Sharia law in the province.

ASWJ funds itself through the illegal trade and smuggling of products such as timber, ivory, rubber and coal. Together with criminal partners from Tanzania and the Lake Victoria region, ASWJ traffics heroin. It also conducts a terrorising campaign against local populations that includes attacks on local public structures.

The attacks are being executed systematically and include looting and torching villages, abductions, and slaughter/ beheadings. Indiscriminate attacks are directed at civilians, government officials, law enforcement and of course the military.

In the long term, if ASWJ will indeed put down strong roots in the province and in light of its strengthening ties with other regional terrorist organisations and armed criminal gangs in the border zones, it is not out of the realm of possibility that ASWJ will expand its influence and set out to take over the entire Mozambique territory to make it an Islamic law state.

Should that happen it will enable ISIS to widen its expansion strategy in central and eastern Africa, way beyond the Sahel.

African leaders need to acknowledge the increasing threat of terrorism to their countries. The faster they internalise the severity of the threat the faster they will understand that they are required to establish and formalise cross- border military, diplomatic and economic cooperation, all to effectively battle the spread of radical Islam in their countries.