Go Tell the Crocodiles

by Rowan Moore Gerety

  Gideon Yago convinced me that writing a book was easier than it seemed. As grateful as I am that I believed him, let the record show that he was wrong. My agent, Valerie Borchardt, lent her talent and support to an early vision for this project when I had only begun to piece it together. Marc Favreau’s quick reading and deft touch made revising the manuscript far easier than writing it; Emily Albarillo and the whole team at The New Press pitched in with enthusiasm and expertise to turn it into something that can be pulled down off the shelf.

  Portions of this manuscript benefited from early readings by Laura Silver, Lis Harris, and Bill Finnegan, and from tidbits of wisdom on publishing, besides, from Mark Krotov, Edward Orloff, Carole Sargent, and my aunt Honor Moore.

  No writer could ask for better friends and sounding boards than Will Benét, Gabriel Louis, and Oliver Munday—I hear his book covers are pretty good, too.

  Lastly, I have a deep well of affection for my family, who kept me focused and upbeat throughout. My parents, Tom and Adelia, were some of my earliest readers, as was my brother Carrick, who gave me a place to lay my head when I started writing. Most of all, I am grateful for my wife, Lena Jackson, who read, and lived with, more versions of this manuscript than anyone should have to, and without whose support I might never have finished it.

  Notes

  All translations from Portuguese-language sources are the author’s unless otherwise indicated. Most interviews were conducted in Portuguese.

  Introduction: It All Happens on the Margins

  1. “‘Quinhões da riqueza’ de Moçambique disputados entre governo e RENAMO,” interview with Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco, AfricaMonitor Intelligence, March 7, 2017, www.africamonitor.net/pt/politica/castelbranco-ec017.

  2. William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 94.

  3. Joe Brock, “Mozambique’s Tuna Fleet Rusts as an African Success Story Fades,” Reuters, May 7, 2016.

  4. “Frelimo reunida na Matola,” RFI Português, February 5, 2016.

  5. Henry Stanley, The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and His Viceroyalty: From the Lendas da India of Gaspar Correa. Accompanied by Original Documents (New York: Hakluyt Society / Burt Franklin, 1869).

  6. Ibid., 81.

  7. See Allen F. Isaacman, Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution: The Zambesi Prazos, 1750–1902 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972).

  8. Simon Katzenellenbogen, South Africa and Southern Mozambique: Labour, Railways, and Trade in the Making of a Relationship (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1982).

  9. David Morton, “Age of Concrete: Housing and the Imagination in Mozambique’s Capital, c. 1950 to Recent Times” (doctoral diss., University of Minnesota, 2015), 61–62.

  10. John Saul, “Inside from the Outside? Mozambique’s Un/Civil War,” in Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution, ed. Taisier M. Ali and Robert O. Matthews (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 1999), 131.

  11. Caroline A. Gross, “War-Stopping and Peacemaking in Mozambique,” in Stopping Wars and Making Peace: Studies in International Intervention, ed. Kristen E. Eichensehr and W. Michael Reisman (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009), 185–212.

  12. Joseph Hanlon, “Success Story? Bretton Woods Backlash in Mozambique,” Southern Africa Report 13, no. 1 (November 1997).

  13. Robert Naiman and Neil Watkins, A Survey of the Impacts of IMF Structural Adjustment in Africa: Growth, Social Spending, and Debt Relief (Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 1999).

  14. Mozambique Rising: Building a New Tomorrow (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, African Department, 2014), 8.

  15. Paul Biya, Cameroon; Teodoro Obiang, Equatorial Guinea; José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola; Yoweri Museveni, Uganda; Omar al-Bashir, Sudan; Idriss Déby, Chad; Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea; Paul Kagame, Rwanda; Blaise Compaoré, Burkina Faso; Hosni Mubarak, Egypt; Omar Bongo, Gabon; Lansana Conté, Guinea; Yahya Jammeh, Gambia; Muammar Gadhafi, Libya; Maauya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, Mauritania; Gnassingbé Eyadéma, Togo; Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia; Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria; Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, Djibouti; and Joseph Kabila, Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example.

  16. European Union Election Observation Mission, Mozambique—Final Report: General Elections, 15 October 2014, eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/eueom_mozambique_2014_finalreport_en.pdf.

  17. Jeremy Weinstein, “Mozambique: A Fading UN Success Story,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (January 2002).

  18. International Monetary Fund, World Economic and Financial Surveys—Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa: Keeping the Pace (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 2013), 45.

  19. Hanlon, “Success Story?”

  20. Weinstein, “Mozambique.”

  21. Joseph Hanlon, “Following the Donor-Designed Path to Mozambique’s $2.2 Billion Secret Debt Deal,” Third World Quarterly 38, no. 3 (October 2016), www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/Hanlon-Mozambique-3WQ-Final-Accepted.pdf.

  22. “About Mozambique,” USAID, www.usaid.gov/mozambique.

  23. Antoinette Sayeh, “Africa’s Success: More Than a Resource Story,” October 31, 2013, blogs.imf.org/2013/10/31/africas-success-more-than-a-resource-story.

  24. Mark Tran, “Mozambique Smelting Profits Should Not Fill Foreign Coffers, Say Campaigners,” The Guardian, January 8, 2013, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jan/08/mozambique-smelting-profits-foreign-coffers.

  25. E.g., Spokesperson on the General Elections in Mozambique, “Statement,” European Union Brussels, October 17, 2014, eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/statements/docs/2014/141017_03_en.pdf.

  26. “Prosecutors Close Investigation into the Murder of Judge Silica,” Club of Mozambique, February 10, 2017, clubofmozambique.com/news/prosecutors-close-investigation-murder-judge-silica; “Mozambique: Suspect in Murder of Prosecutor Escapes,” AllAfrica.com, November 2, 2016, allafrica.com/stories/201611030143.html.

  27. Joseph Hanlon, ed., Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, no. 342, October 24, 2016, www.bit.ly/mozamb; Joseph Hanlon, ed., Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, no. 345, November 5, 2016, www.bit.ly/mozamb.

  28. In August 2017, President Filipe Nyusi finally agreed to meet Dhlakama on his terms, traveling to Gorongosa to talk with him in the bush. “Mozambique: Nyusi Meets with Dhlakama in Gorongosa,” AllAfrica.com via Agência de Informação de Moçambique, August 6, 2017, allafrica.com/stories/201708070627.html.

  29. Paul Fauvet and Marcelo Mosse, Carlos Cardoso: Telling the Truth in Mozambique (Cape Town, South Africa: 2002), 296–300; Luis Nhachote, “Mozambique’s ‘Mr Guebusiness,’” Mail & Guardian, January 6, 2012, mg.co.za/article/2012-01-06-mozambiques-mr-guebusiness; Rachel L. Swarns, “‘Trial of the Century’ Enthralls Mozambique,” New York Times, January 8, 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/01/08/world/trial-of-the-century-enthralls-mozambique.html.

  30. “O cabrito come onde está amarrado.” See, for instance, Danúbio Mondlane, “Polícia da Guarda Fronteira ainda vive de cabritismo,” A Verdade, January 25, 2011, www.verdade.co.mz/nacional/16973-policia-da-guarda-fronteira-ainda-vive-de-cabritismo; Gabriel Mithá Ribeiro, “Chissano contra Machel e o colono: representações sociais do estado em Moçambique,” Cadernos de estudos africanos, nos. 13–14 (2007), cea.revues.org/484.

  31. Hanlon, “Following the Donor-Designed Path.”

  32. Ibid.

  33. “‘Quinhões da riqueza’ de Moçambique.”

  34. Ibid.

  35. Jeffrey Barbee, “‘Who Knows What We’ll Find Next?’ Journey to the Heart of Mozambique’s Hidden Forest,” The Guardian, March 25, 2017, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/25/journey-mozambique-mabu-forest-julian-bayliss-google-earth.

  1. Small-Town Hustle—Zambezia

  1. Mozambican dancer, as told to João Feijó. Cited in “Eles fingem que nos págan, e nós fingimos que trabalhamos—resistência e adaptação de trabalhado
res Moçambicanos em Maputo,” Estudos moçambicanos 22, no. 1 (December, 2011): 122.

  2. Recording Industry Association of America, U.S. Sales Database. Data available at: riaa.com/u-s-sales-database.

  3. Alan Murphy, Kate Armstrong, James Bainbridge, Matthew D. Firestone, Mary Fitzpatrick, Nana Luckham, and Nicola Simmonds, Lonely Planet Southern Africa (Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2010), 259.

  4. Sam Cowie, “Few Jobs Despite Booming Mozambique Economy,” Al Jazeera, December 2, 2014.

  5. “Unemployment, Youth Total (% of Total Labor Force Ages 15–24),” International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT Database, data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS.

  6. Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” Journal of Modern African Studies 11, no. 1 (March 1973): 61–89.

  7. James Heintz, “Informality, Inclusiveness, and Economic Growth: An Overview of Key Issues” (SIG working paper 2012/2, International Development Research Centre, 2012), 8; Ravi Kanbur, “Conceptualising Informality: Regulation and Enforcement,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 52, no. 1 (January 2009): 5.

  8. To the extent that “formal” and “informal” are defined by a relationship to regulation, much depends on how well the government enforces its own rules (Kanbur, “Conceptualising Informality”). Is it still formal work if low wages or months-long pay interruptions prompt workers to earn their keep through biscatos and boladas—“side hustles” and “scams”? The government’s zeal and capacity for enforcement can vary dramatically over time and from place to place. Organized corruption among formal businesses—bribes paid to avoid fishing inspections, say—may upend the rule of law far more efficiently than workers in informal businesses, like small-scale fishermen who use illegal nets.

  9. Firms that start out as informal almost never become formal: according to one estimate, 91 percent of registered firms start out that way. See Rafael La Porta and Andrei Shleifer, “Informality and Development,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 109–26.

  10. Sam Jones and Finn Tarp, “Jobs and Welfare in Mozambique” (WIDER working paper 2013/045, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, 2013). The paper is based on three successive Household Budget Surveys (Inquérito ao Orçamento Familiar) carried out by INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística). Any concept of the informal also captures unpaid work or businesses whose finances are indistinguishable from those of the families who run them, like the members of a household who help bring in the harvest, or the mothers who sell rice by the cupful outside their homes each time they can afford a new sack. How many hours of labor are required to call this employment? And how can you sort profits from losses? Roughly 80 percent of the workforce is in small-scale agriculture.

  11. Ibid.

  12. The Mozambican government defines part-time work as anything less than forty hours a week (Jones and Tarp, “Jobs and Welfare in Mozambique”).

  13. Ibid.

  14. Michael Lipton, “Family, Fungibility and Formality: Rural Advantages of Informal Non-Farm Enterprise versus the Urban-Formal State,” in Human Resources, Employment and Development, vol. 5, Developing Countries, ed., International Economic Association series (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1984), 198–201, as quoted in Kanbur, “Conceptualising Informality.”

  15. W.A. Lewis, “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” Manchester School 22 (1954): 141, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9957.1954.tb00021.x.

  16. Sam Jones, “Growth Is Not Enough for Mozambique’s Informal Workers,” Jobs: Jobs and Development Blog, World Bank, May 24, 2016.

  17. António Cabral, Dicionário de nomes geográficos de Moçambique—sua origem (Lourenço Marques: Empresa Moderna, 1975), www.malhanga.com/flipbook/dicionario.nomes/index.html?pageNumber=1pp101-102.

  18. Nelson Belarmino and Agência de Informação de Moçambique, “Mussa Bin Bique encerra duas faculdades na Zambézia,” O País, June 16, 2011, opais.sapo.mz/index.php/sociedade/45-sociedade/14652-mussa-bin-bique-encerra-duas-faculdades-na-zambezia.html.

  19. “Mozambique—Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Digital Media—Statistics and Analyses,” BuddeComm, October 10, 2016, www.budde.com.au/Research/Mozambique-Telecoms-Mobile-Broadband-and-Digital-Media-Statistics-and-Analyses.

  20. Ibid.

  2. What Can You Do with an Aging Warlord?—Zambezia

  1. Joseph Hanlon, ed., 2014 National Elections: Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, NE-37, CIP, Centro de Integridade Pública and AWEPA, European Parliamentarians for Africa, September 2, 2014, www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/National_Elections_37-2September2014-Campaign_starts-EU_to_observe(1).pdf.

  2. Joseph Hanlon, ed., 2014 National Elections: Mozambique Political Process Bulletin, NE-72, CIP, Centro de Integridade Pública and AWEPA, European Parliamentarians for Africa, October 24, 2014, www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/National_Elections_72-24october2014_turnout_and_ballot-box_stuffing.pdf.

  3. “Dhlakama threatens bloodshed in Mozambique,” IOL, November 13, 2012. www.iol.co.za/news/africa/dhlakama-threatens-bloodshed-in-mozambique-1422015.

  4. Joseph Hanlon, ed., Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, no. 329, June 26, 2016, www.bit.ly/mozamb.

  5. Joseph Hanlon, ed., Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, no. 330, July 11, 2016, www.bit.ly/mozamb.

  6. Joseph Hanlon, Mozambique News Reports & Clippings, no. 334, August 1, 2016, www.bit.ly/mozamb.

  7. Tom Bowker, Simon Kamm, and Aurelio Sambo, “Mozambique’s Invisible Civil War,” Foreign Policy, May 6, 2016, foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/06/mozambiques-invisible-civil-war-renamo-frelimo-dhlakama-nyusi.

  8. “Dhlakama Shouldn’t Evoke Memories of Past Atrocities?” The Herald, October 30, 2012, www.herald.co.zw/dhlakama-shouldnt-evoke-memories-of-past-atrocities; “Dhlakama Threatens to Destroy the Country,” Agencia de Informação via Club of Mozambique, November 15, 2012.

  9. Joseph Hanlon, “Mozambique,” in Africa Yearbook, vol. 11, Politics, Economy and Society South of the Sahara in 2014, ed. Andreas Mehler, Henning Melber, and Klaas van Walraven (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2015), excerpt available at www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/Africa%20yearbook%202014%20Mozambique%20final.pdf; “Renamo quer declaração de cessarfogo antes de aperto de mão,” Savana, August 15, 2014, 2–3, www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/Documentos_do_acordo_Renamo-governo_Savana-1075_augusto-2014.pdf.

  10. Deloitte, Mozambique’s Economic Outlook: Governance Challenges Holding Back Economic Potential, Deloitte, December 2016, 23.

  11. Gustavo Mavie, “Renamo exige mais dinheiro como condição para se manter como partido,” Sapo Notícias, April 29, 2013, noticias.sapo.mz/aim/artigo/764629042013191455.html.

  12. De Brito is the director of research at the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Econômicos (IESE), a prominent Maputo think tank.

  13. Simon Allison, “Think Again: Renamo’s Renaissance, and Civil War as Election Strategy,” Institute for Security Studies, October 21, 2014, issafrica.org/iss-today/think-again-renamos-renaissance-and-civil-war-as-election-strategy.

  14. Sam Jones and Finn Tarp, “Jobs and Welfare in Mozambique” (WIDER working paper 2013/045, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki, 2013).

  15. “Dhlakama Threatens Bloodshed in Mozambique,” Agence France Presse, November 13, 2012.

  16. See, for example, Antoinette Lazaruz, “Mozambique Elections ‘Peaceful, Free and Fair’: SADC,” SABC News, October 17, 2014. Observers from the United States and Europe have stopped short of using the term “free and fair” but have nevertheless tended to couch their critiques of Mozambican elections in terms of continued progress and have never recommended that an electoral result be invalidated. As the Carter Center wrote, summarizing its report on the 2014 elections, “The elections were overall more competitive, peaceful, and transparent than previous elections The Carter Center has obs
erved in Mozambique.” (Summary of “Final Report: 2014 Presidential, Legislative, and Provincial Assembly Elections in Mozambique,” available at https://www.cartercenter.org/news/publications/election_reports.html.)

  17. William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 54.

  18. Ibid., 15.

  19. Ibid., 67.

  20. “Mozambique: Assembly Passes Statute of Veterans.” All Africa, May 18, 2011. http://allafrica.com/stories/201105190241.html. See also Nerea Atieno Thigo, “The Impact of Disarmament and Demobilization of Child Soldiers on Peace Agreement: A Case Study of Mozambique” (master’s diss., University of Nairobi, November 2011), 81.

  21. “Afonso Dhlakama, o intocável guerrilheiro da Renamo,” Publico, December 1, 2004, macua.blogs.com/moambique_para_todos/2004/12/afonso_dhlakama.html.

  22. Stephen A. Emerson, The Battle for Mozambique: The Frelimo–Renamo Struggle, 1977–1992 (Solihull, UK: Helion and Company, 2014), 49.

  23. Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front.

  24. Mozambique National Resistance.

  25. www.clubofmozambique.com/pt/print_current.php?secao=news&id=19889.

  26. He was sixty-four at the time of this writing.

  27. Nelson Bellarmino and José Belmiro, “Aires Ali diz que o país está estável e não precisa da cesta básica,” O País, June 16, 2011.

  28. Joseph Hanlon, “Mozambique: A Masque of Success,” in Postconflict Development, ed. Gerd Junne and Willemijn Verkoren (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004).