Powerful, instructive, and full of humanity, this book challenges the current understanding of the war that has turned Mozambique--a naturally rich country--into the world's poorest nation. Before going to Mozambique, William Finnegan saw the war, like so many foreign observers, through a South African lens, viewing the conflict as apartheid's "forward defense." This lens was shattered by what he witnessed and what he heard from Mozambicans, especially those who had lived with the bandidos armado, the "armed bandits" otherwise known as the Renamo rebels. The shifting, wrenching, ground-level stories that people told combine to form an account of the war more local and nuanced, more complex, more African--than anything that has been politically convenient to describe.A Complicated War combines frontline reporting, personal narrative, political analysis, and comparative scholarship to present a picture of a Mozambique harrowed by profound local conflicts--ethnic, religious, political and personal. Finnegan writes that South Africa's domination and destabilization are basic elements of Mozambique's plight, but he offers a subtle description and analysis that will allow us to see the post-apartheid region from a new, more realistic, if less comfortable, point of view.

Apartheid’s Contras provides a nuanced analysis of the complex causes of the wars in Angola and Mozambique between independence from Portugal in 1975 and the fall of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. It examines the roles of internal divisions, South Africa’s regional assault on its neighbors, and of the Cold War. Based on extensive secondary research as well as on on-the-ground interviews, it has won praise for being “remarkably lucid, dispassionate yet committed” (Shula Marks, School of Oriental and African Studies” and “an indispensable contribution” (Basil Davidson).

Dennis Jett examines why peacekeeping operations fail by comparing the unsuccessful attempt at peacekeeping in Angola with the successful effort in Mozambique alongside a wide range of other peacekeeping experiences. The book argues that while the causes of past peacekeeping failures can be identified, the chances for success will be difficult to improve because of the way such operations are initiated and conducted and the way the United Nations operates as an organization. Jett reviews the history of peacekeeping and the evolution in the number, size, scope, and cost of peacekeeping missions.

Portugal was both the first and the last of the great European colonial powers. For 500 years Portugal had colonies in Africa. In 1960, as liberation movements swept across colonial Africa, the Portuguese flag still flew over vast expanses of territory across the continent. The spread of decolonization and the establishment of independent states whose governments were sympathetic to the cause of African nationalism led, in the early 1960s, to a series of wars in Angola (1961–1975), Guiné (1998) and Mozambique (1977). This book details each of these liberation movements, focusing on the equipment, uniforms and organization of the Portuguese forces.

This glossy coffee-table book puts the emphasis on visual impact. Providing a visual introduction to Southern Africa, it contains five chapters based on geographical regions. The photographs are accompanied by extended captions on the major nations of Southern Africa - South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

A Different Kind of War Story takes us to the frontlines of one of the most brutal wars in recent history. The setting is Mozambique during the fifteen-year war of terror that took a million lives—mostly civilian—and completely destroyed homes, crops, hospitals, schools, and even access to water. The characters are the soldiers who fought it, the thieves and opportunists who profited from it, and the ordinary people whose lives were shattered by it and from whose ranks emerged the heroes and healers who created peace. Combining contemporary theory and innovative methodology, Nordstrom explores the nature and culture of terror warfare and raises thought-provoking questions about state power, civilian resistance, and the politics of identity. She compares the conflict in Mozambique with similar conflicts and offers a new way of looking at political violence, showing that just as violence is learned, it can be unlearned.

September 6, 1979 a lone Puma helicopter flies northward, leaving behind the desolation of the battle for Mapai, in Mozambique's Gaza Province. Huddled in the cabin, two weary soldiers sit silently immersed in their own thoughts, contemplating their difficult duties ahead. WOII Graham Enslin, CSM, Support Commando, is struggling to come to terms with the death in action that morning of his younger brother Brian. The other, Lt Rick van Malsen BCR, 2IC, 1 Commando, works through the list of names in his hand, names of the 16 men who died with Trooper Brian Enslin when a South African Air Force Puma was shot out of the sky during the assault on the Frelimo and ZANLA stronghold at Mapai. It will be his job to send out the official death notices and to advise the next of kin that the bodies of the three South African airmen and 14 Rhodesian soldiers were not recovered. Both men vow that night - each for reasons of their own - to one day return to the scene of the crash to pay proper tribute to the fallen men.And so it was, almost 30 years later, that Rick van Malsen returns to the scene of that horrendous battle, to search for the crash site of the downed Puma, in an effort to achieve closure for the relatives of the dead. This is a story of courage and devotion to duty but, above all, it is a story of comradeship and loyalty undimmed by the passage of time, of a band of brothers bonded together in war, united still in peace.

Coming out of civil war, Mozambique had an enormous education deficit. In 1997, five years after the peace treaty, 80 percent of the labor force reported to have no education at all, and school enrollment outside the large cities was miserable. Since then, Mozambique has come a long way in improving access to lower and upper primary through sustained investments in education infrastructure and introduction of important reforms. The primary education reform programs implemented in 2004, combined with a continuing program of school construction and teacher training, resulted in a 70% increase in enrollment in EP1 over 4 years with the highest gains for the poorest and most vulnerable children. Yet there was only a slight increase in student/teacher ratios. How did Mozambique do this, and what are the lessons going foward? The most important part of the reform appears to be the removal of the national school fee for primary level and the provision of free textbooks. These reforms provided the boost that poorer households needed to get their children in school. Continued investments in school construction helped as well. However, despite these efforts, there is still an education deficit. In 2008, over 1 million children who should be attending primary school were not. Over half of the children who began grade 1 in 2000 did not complete grade 7 by 2008. One reason is that school costs remain high, especially for grades 6 and above (EP2+). And quality is still not adequate in many schools. As a result, the transformation of the labor force is slow, as over half of the females who entered the labor force in the decade since 1997 did not even complete EP1. Analysis of employment and livelihood opportunities indicates that the transition out of subsistence agriculture requires primary education. This means that to achieve inclusive growth, the key strategic objective of the education system needs to be ensuring that as many children as possible start and finish primary school with competency in the basic subjects, as well as the skills to allow them to find productive economic activities and make these activities pay This book is aimed at policy makers in the education field. .

On the Mueda plateau in northern Mozambique, sorcerers are said to feed on their victims, sometimes "making" lions or transforming into lions to literally devour their flesh. When the ruling FRELIMO party subscribed to socialism, it condemned sorcery beliefs and counter-sorcery practices as false consciousness, but since undertaking neoliberal reform, the party—still in power after three electoral cycles—has "tolerated tradition," leaving villagers to interpret and engage with events in the idiom of sorcery. Now, when the lions prowl plateau villages ,suspected sorcerers are often lynched.In this historical ethnography of sorcery, Harry G. West draws on a decade of fieldwork and combines the perspectives of anthropology and political science to reveal how Muedans expect responsible authorities to monitor the invisible realm of sorcery and to overturn or, as Muedans call it, "kupilikula" sorcerers' destructive attacks by practicing a constructive form of counter-sorcery themselves. Kupilikula argues that, where neoliberal policies have fostered social division rather than security and prosperity, Muedans have, in fact, used sorcery discourse to assess and sometimes overturn reforms, advancing alternative visions of a world transformed. (20050328)