Description
Book SynopsisThis volume has been written at a time when Mozambique is coming to the end of its second decade of independence and there are signs that the debilitating South African-backed rural insurgency may at last be on the wane. The bulk of the literature on the country has been concerned to promote causes rather than face realities. However, the much greater openness of Mozambican society and the Mozambican government in recent years, as well as the appearance of new research, makes it possible to attempt a reinterpretation of events. This analysis of the post-independence period sets out to challenge much of the conventional wisdom. In particular, it suggests that the significance of the "liberated zones" was greatly exaggerated by Frelimo and its sympathizers in order to give the regime ideological respectability.
Table of ContentsThe end of Portuguese rule; Frelimo and Marxism; the new state and development strategy to 1983; regional and international relations; Renamo - origins and development of the conflict, 1980-84; Mozambique at war with itself - Frelimo and Renamo; Frelimo - the turn from Marxism; the building of a nation state - the case of Mozambique.
