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Mozambique: From Symbolic Socialism to Symbolic Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Marina Ottaway
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Extract

In the four years since the signing of the Nkomati accord in March 1984, Mozambique has undergone a quiet but far-reaching process of policy reform. Faced with a major crisis caused by the Renamo insurgency and by economic mismanagement, the Government has apparently abandoned its ambitious programme of socialist transformation through the creation of state farms and the launching of large projects, adopting instead a package of market-oriented economic reforms. Having joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in late 1984, Mozambique has been devaluing its currency, increasing the prices of agricultural produce, allowing peasants to sell commodities to private traders, and channelling some aid to the private sector, in keeping with the policies favoured by those organisations, The U.S. Agency for International Development, which has also become a donor since 1984, has likewise exerted pressure for policy reform, in particular for aid to the private commercial farms. While the socialist economic sector has not been dismantled, the Government is now stressing the importance of peasant and private agriculture, and the necessity of providing more support for both.1

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 211 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

Page 211 note 1 The Mozambican Government makes a distinction between the peasant or family sector, producing mostly for personal consumption and only secondarily for the market, and the private sector, which consists of commercial farms.

Page 212 note 1 During a visit to Washington in August 1987, Chissano stated that the Soviet Union was not raising any objections to the reforms, and that it has stopped putting pressure on the Mozambican Government to follow an orthodox socialist approach to development.

Page 212 note 2 Sergio Vieira, ‘The New Man is a Process’, Second Conference of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Maputo, December 1977.

Page 212 note 3 For a detailed discussion of this attempt at socialist transformation, see David, and Ottaway, Marina, Afrocommunism (New York, 1981), especially ch. 4.Google Scholar For an analysis from a leftist point of view, see Hanlon, Joseph, Mozambique: the revolution under fire (London, 1984),Google Scholar and Egerö, Bertil, Mozambique: a dream undone (Uppsala, 1987).Google Scholar

Page 213 note 1 An account of this change is found in Serapiao, Luis and El-Khavas, Mohammed, Mozambique in the Twentieth Century (Washington, D.C., 1979), pp. 117–33.Google Scholar

Page 214 note 1 An example is found in Johansson, Anders, Struggle in Mozambique (New Delhi, n.d.), a pamphlet based on a visit to the ‘liberated zones’ of northern Mozambique in 1968.Google Scholar

Page 214 note 2 For an account of the problems encountered in transforming Frelimo into a vanguard party, see Egerö, op. cit. pp. 112ff.

Page 215 note 1 The number of political bureau members was increased to 11 at the 1983 congress by the addition of Oscar Monteiro, who had been closely involved in party work as a minister in the Presidency, having written some of Frelimo's ideological papers.

Page 215 note 2 This was particularly true in 1980, when two political bureau members who also held ministerial posts were transferred to full-time party work. Marcelino Dos Santos and Jorge Rebelo were rumoured at that time to have been demoted and to be ‘on their way out’, but both remain in the political bureau to this day.

Page 216 note 1 Hanlon, op. cit. pp. 100 and 267–9.

Page 216 note 2 Ibid. p. 122.

Page 216 note 3 Isaacman, Allen and Isaacman, Barbara, Mozambique: from colonialism to revolution, 1900–82 (Boulder, 1983), p. 155.Google Scholar

Page 216 note 4 Hanlon, op. cit. p. 103.

Page 216 note 5 Isaacman and Isaacman, op. cit. p. 155.

Page 216 note 6 Figures provided by the National Planning Commission of Mozambique, cited in Quarterly Economic Review of Tanzania and Mozambique (London), I, 1986.Google Scholar

Page 218 note 1 Hanlon, op. cit. ch. 12; and Egerö, op. cit. pp. 92–8.

Page 218 note 2 Isaacman and Isaacman, op. cit. p. 152.

Page 218 note 3 The two major supporters of the large-project approach within the political bureau were Marcelino Dos Santos and Mario Machungo. After the 1983 congress, they were assigned, respectively, as Governor of Sofala and of Zambezia Provinces. Machungo became Prime Minister after the death of Machel, belying the speculation that the large-project supporters were being eased out.

Page 219 note 1 Hanlon, op. cit. p. 100.

Page 219 note 2 A summary of the reforms was published in Mozambique Update (Mozambique Embassy, Washington, D.C.), 10, 7 01 1988.Google Scholar

Page 219 note 3 Ibid. p. 5.

Page 220 note 1 An example of this reversibility is offered by neighbouring Zambia. In May 1987 President Kenneth Kaunda, who appeared to have embraced whole-heartedly the I.M.F.-imposed reforms, suddenly revoked many of the measures, without any reaction from within the country. The same thing could conceivably happen in Mozambique.

Page 222 note 1 Myrdal, Gunnar, Asian Drama: an inquiry into the poverty of nations (New York, abridged edn. 1971), p. 182.Google Scholar

Page 222 note 2 Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., ‘Sovereignty and Underdevelopment: juridical statehood in the African crisis’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 24, 1, March 1986, pp. 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 222 note 3 Hyden, Goran, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: development and the uncaptured peasantry (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980).Google Scholar

Page 223 note 1 This estimate, provided by the United Nations, is based on lost revenue from transit rail and port taffic.

Page 225 note 1 See, for example, ‘President Afonso Dhlakama's Message to the United States’, Mozambique Information Office, Washington, D.C., 28 November 1986.

Page 225 note 2 U.S. Committee for Refugees, ‘Shattered Land, Fragile Asylum’, Washington, D.C., November 1986, pp. 4 and 14.