‘It Will Be Our Time To Eat’: Former Renamo Combatants and Big-Man Dynamics in Central Mozambique

This article aims to contribute to the debate about the recent remobilisation of Resistência Nacional Moçambicano (Renamo), by presenting an analysis of its low- and mid-ranked veterans' post-war relationships with fellow veterans and with the Renamo leadership. It argues that former Renamo combatants' participation in post-war Renamo networks has been central for their re-integration into Mozambican politics but, at the same time, may be regarded as a source of frustration and political discontent. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Maringue, central Mozambique, the article shows that, in scholarship on armed groups, these relationships are characterised by dependency, loyalty and expectations, often referred to as ‘big-man dynamics’. The article engages critically with this concept, showing how Renamo veterans' position vis-à-vis the Renamo leadership is largely characterised by ‘waiting’. It demonstrates that Renamo veterans regard the Renamo party and the state as ‘exclusive caretakers’, which are expected to take care of the ex-combatants. However, Renamo's leaders have largely failed to meet their followers' expectations, resulting in frustration, several (though rare) cases of ‘defection’ to other political parties, but more generally a status of ‘waithood’. This analysis provides a critical exploration of the post-war dynamics of former armed groups, and sheds some light on Renamo's recent remobilisation from the perspective of the former Renamo combatants.