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REEDUCATION CAMPS, AUSTERITY, AND THE CARCERAL REGIME IN SOCIALIST MOZAMBIQUE (1974–79)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2019

BENEDITO MACHAVA
BENEDITO MACHAVA*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Abstract

Throughout the socialist experiment between 1974 and 1992, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) ran a network of internment camps officially known as reeducation centers. Established in remote rural sites to mentally decolonize wayward members of urban society and putative enemies of the socialist revolution, the camps became a dumping ground for unwanted citizens accused of all kinds of wrongdoing. Although the Frelimo leaders envisioned a pedagogical institution that would undo the damage of colonialism by transforming reeducatees into new social beings, the gap between the idea of rehabilitation and the reality of detention was abysmally wide. Austerity – the order of the day throughout the fifteen years of socialist experiment in Mozambique – conditioned and defined the organic functioning of reeducation camps. Unlike internment camps elsewhere, Mozambique's camps were not strictly regimented. The carceral regime that emerged not only set Mozambique's reeducation centers apart from camps elsewhere, they were also far from the technocratic moralism and panoptic ambitions of the ruling party.

Keywords

MozambiqueFrelimoreeducationcampsinternmentausterity
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , November 2019 , pp. 429 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

The author is grateful for research funding assistance from the Social Science Research Council, the Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the University of Michigan's Rackham Graduate School and Institute for the Humanities, and the Society of Fellows at Princeton University. This article benefitted from contributions by Anne Pitcher, Derek Peterson, David Morton, Euclides Gonçalves, Eric Allina, the anonymous JAH reviewers, and the participants of the conference ‘Intellectual and Cultural Life under Conditions of Austerity’, Maputo, June 2018. Author's email: bmachava@princeton.edu

References

1 Arquivo do Jornal Notícias (AJN) – ‘Centro de Reeducação de Msauíze: transformar pelo trabalho marginais da sociedade colonial’, Notícias, 18 Aug. 1976.

2 After more than a decade battling armed struggles for independence in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique, a bloodless military coup in Lisbon brought down the Portuguese dictatorial regime on 25 April 1974. Led by junior army officers, who included left-wing radicals, the coup began the process of negotiations to end the liberation wars which had begun in the early 1960s. The transitional government was formed on 20 September 1974, tasked with preparing the country for the declaration of national independence, scheduled for 25 June 1975. For details, see MacQueen, N., The Decolonization of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire (London, 1997)Google Scholar. See Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (AHM) – ‘Recuperação de Marginais em Inhambane’, Notícias, 30 Oct. 1974; Mozambique History Net (MHN) – ‘FRELIMO cria Campos de Reeducação’, A Capital, 20 Nov. 1974.

3 See, for example, MHN – M. Duncan, ‘Mozambique: Machel reeducation camps teach a tough lesson’, To the Point, 3 June 1977; MHN – J. Ramalho, ‘Alarm spreads as executions continue’, To the Point, 1 June 1979.

4 AJN – ‘Centro de Reeducação de Msauíze.’ Author's translation.

5 Unlike the Russian Gulag or other similar internment camps – which remained terra incognita for the wider public and for scholars until former detainees produced memoirs, or the so-called literature of survival – Mozambique's camps were open to outside visitors, given appropriate approval from the authorities. From the very beginning of the reeducation program, diplomats, domestic and international journalists, filmmakers, and academics with close ties to Frelimo visited the camps, the only exception being the camp at M'telela which housed political detainees. See ‘Centros de reeducação em Moçambique’, Tempo, 26 Mar. 1976; and A. Gomes, ‘O que hoje somos: dois factos’, Tempo, 454, 24 June 1979.

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13 Writing for The Washington Post in 1980, American international correspondent Jay Ross estimated that there were 10,000 detainees in Mozambique's reeducation camps in that year, of which 3,000 were thought to be political prisoners (MHN – J. Ross, ‘Mozambican reeducation camps raise rights questions’, The Washington Post, 7 May 1980). I estimate that approximately 100,000 people passed through the pipeline until its demise in 1992. This figure includes the victims of the anti-urban clean-up campaign codenamed Operação Produção (Operation Production, 1983–8), which are estimated at 50,000. Like Omar Ribeiro Thomaz, I do not draw a sharp distinction between Operation Production and reeducation camps. See Thomaz, O. R., ‘Escravos sem dono: A experiência social dos campos de trabalho em Moçambique no período socialista’, Revista de Antropologia, 51:1 (2008), 187Google Scholar. On the campaign, see Quembo, C., Poder do Poder: Operação Produção e a Inveção dos ‘Improdutivos’ Urbanos no Moçambique Socialista (1983–1988) (Maputo, 2017)Google Scholar. On the Chinese Laogai, see Smith, A., Thought Reform and China's Dangerous Classes: Reeducation, Resistance, and the People (New York, 2013)Google Scholar. For other similar carceral regimes, see Vu, T. T., Lost Years: My 1,632 Days in Vietnamese Reeducation Camps (Berkeley, 1988)Google Scholar.

14 Arquivo do Gabinete do Governador da Província do Niassa – Direcção Provincial dos Serviços de Reeducação do Niassa (AGGPN – DPSRN)/MINT – 7a Sessão Ordinária do Conselho de Ministros de 9 de Julho de 1976. Síntese XI-Parte – Centros de Reeducação. Maputo, 9 July 1976, 4.

15 AGGPM – MINT. Circular 6/GMI/976. Assunto: Objectivos dos Centros de Reeducação. 5 Jan. 1976.

16 On the influence of China and Chinese military instructors on Machel, see Martins, H., ‘Samora na Luta Armada (1965–1968)’, in Sopa, A. (ed.), Samora Homem do Povo (Maputo, 2001), 111Google Scholar.

17 AGGPN – DPSRN 262/SR/76. Relatório do Mês de Abril de 1976. Lichinga, 28 May 1976.

18 Interview with Simeão Mazuze, Matola, 20 Nov. 2014; Interview with Felizardo Chaguala, Matola, 4 Dec. 2014. Interviewees whose full names are provided in this paper expressed their willingness to be identified in this way. Those who did not have had their identities concealed.

19 MHN – Ross, ‘Mozambican reeducation camps raise rights questions’.

20 Interview with João Carlos Trindade, Maputo, 10 Sept. 2014; Interview with Benedito Marrime, Maputo, 9 Dec. 2015.

21 AGGPN – MINT/Boletim Informativo no 5. Maputo, 31 May 1980.

22 The first seminar on reeducation camps held in Maputo in November 1976 determined that in order to successfully implement the political program in the camps, detainees had to be ‘organized according to a composition similar to a military structure’. AGGPN – DPSRN/MINT – 1o Seminário Nacional de Reeducação. Documento de Apoio no. 2 – Projecto de Programa para os Centros de Reeducação, Nov. 1976.

23 Interview with Ché Mafuiane, Maputo, 4 Dec. 2014.

24 Interview with Simeão Mazuze; Interview with Felizardo Chaguala; Interview with Che Mafuiane; Interview with Beto Tembe, Maputo, 18 Jan. 2015.

25 Araujo, M., ‘As aldeias comunais e o seu papel na distribuição territorial da população rural na RPM’, Finisterra, 28:36 (1983), 365–77Google Scholar; A. Y. Casal, ‘Le processus de socialization au Mozambique: les villages comunaux’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Paris, IEDS, 1987); Casal, A. Y., Antropologia e Desenvolvimento: As Aldeias Comunais de Moçambique (Lisboa, 1996)Google Scholar.

26 A French term that means assembly or gathering. It was brought into Frelimo's vocabulary by the first group of guerrillas trained in Algeria in 1963.

27 West, Kupilikula, 176.

28 Junod, H. A., The Life of a South African Tribe. vol 1: The Social Life (Neuchatel, 1913), 324Google Scholar.

29 For further discussion on European missionary architecture in southern Africa, see J. and Comaroff, J., Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier (Chicago, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Interview with Simeão Mazuze; Interview with Felizardo Chaguala; Interview with Che Mafuiane; Interview with Beto Tembe.

31 AGGPN – DPSRN/SR/78. Relatório referente ao mês de Fereveiro, Março, e Abril de 1977. Lichinga, 30 Apr. 1977.

32 As Barry Munslow noted, the term responsável (literally translated as responsible) has no ‘adequate translation’ and it ‘bears the connotation of leadership as a responsibility rather than as a privilege, service rather than the power of officership’. See Munslow, B., Mozambique: The Revolution and its Origins (London, 1983), 151Google Scholar.

33 AGGPN – DPSRN/MINT – 1o Seminário Nacional de Reeducação. Documento de Apio no. 2 – Projecto de Programa para os Centros de Reeducação, Nov. 1976.

34 AGGPN – DPSRN/MINT – 7a Sessão Ordinária do Conselho de Ministros de 9 de Julho de 1976. Síntese XI-Parte – Centros de Reeducação. Maputo, 9 July 1976, p. 3.

35 AGGPN – DPSRN/MINT – 1o Seminário Nacional de Reeducação. Documento de Apio no. 2 – Projecto de Programa para os Centros de Reeducação, Nov. 1976.

36 See Newitt, M., ‘Mozambique’, in Chabal, P. et al. (eds.), A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa (Bloomington, 2002), 207Google Scholar.

37 The situation did not improve very much in the first years of independence, despite the herculean efforts by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Judith Marshall estimated that in 1984, in a total population of 13 million, seven people out of ten were still illiterate. Marshall, J., ‘Making education revolutionary’, in Saul, J. (ed.), A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique (New York, 1985), 157Google Scholar.

38 Two episodes of violence in the capital city marked the transition to independence. The first episode was the settler's rebellion on 7 September 1974, the day Frelimo and the new Portuguese government signed the peace agreement in Lusaka. Most settlers felt betrayed by the agreement, which recognized Frelimo as the only legitimate political force in Mozambique. The bloodier events of 21 October were in some way a continuation of the crisis of 7 September, with disoriented Portuguese soldiers clashing with Frelimo guerrillas. See Mittleman, J., ‘State power in Mozambique’, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 8:1 (1978), 4–11Google Scholar; Harvey, A. D., ‘Counter-coup in Lourenço Marques: September 1974’, International Journal of African Studies, 39:3 (2006), 487–98Google Scholar; Machava, B., ‘Galo amanheceu em Lourenço Marques: O 7 de Setembro e o verso da descolonização em Moçambique’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 106 (2015), 53–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 On South Africa's invasion of Angola and the fears of invasion of Mozambique, see Martin, D. and Johnson, P. (eds.), Destructive Engagement: South Africa at War (Harare, 1986)Google Scholar; Meneses, M. P., Rosa, C., and Martins, B. S., ‘Colonial wars, colonial alliances: the Alcora Exercise in the context of Southern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43:2 (2017), 397–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 See Coelho, J. P. B. and Macaringue, P., ‘Da paz negativa à paz positiva: Uma perspectiva histórica sobre o papel das Forças Armadas Moçambicanas num contexto de segurança em transformação’, Estudos Moçambicanos, 20 (2002), 41–90Google Scholar.

41 MHN – Ross, ‘Mozambican reeducation camps raise rights questions’.

42 AGGPN – DPSRN/Efectivo dos Campos de Reeducação – Relação dos responsáveis e pessoal em seriço nos campos de reeducação. Lichinga, sd.

43 The name derives from the red arm band that the Gatos Vermelhos wore. Interview with Felizardo Chaguala.

44 Interview with Felizardo Chaguala; J. Pinto de Sá, ‘A História inédita dos “centros de reeducação” em Moçambique: os campos da vergonha’, Público Magazine, 277, 25 June 1995, 28. The Red Cats were detainees trusted with keeping watch on their fellow inmates, and they seem to have only existed in selected camps, such as Sacudzo, Chaimite, and Bilibiza.

45 On lions in northern Mozambique, see Israel, P., ‘The war on lions: Witch-hunts, occult idioms and post-socialism in Northern Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35:1 (2009), 155–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Interview with Ana Maria, Matola-Kongoloti, 23 Dec. 2014. For example, a walk from M'sawize to the nearest village of the same name in Mavago took two and a half hours, and only if the walker was using the road opened by detainees. Escapees avoided open paths and ventured through the thick bush that covers much of Niassa. Under such circumstances, it took half a day to reach Mavago. Escaping to Lichinga on foot could take three to five exhausting days, during which the escapee would need water, food, and sometimes shelter.

47 AGGPN – DPSRN/Mensagem No 346/SR/76, do Administrador de Majune ao GPN, Lichinga, 22 July 1976.

48 Interview with André Macovo (Picuane), Maputo, 22 Dec. 2014.

49 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 200.

50 Interview with Pedro Comissário, Maputo, 6 July 2019.

51 AGGPN – MINT/Boletim Informativo no 5. Maputo, 31 May 1980.

52 For comparative analysis of similar labor camps, used as a model by Frelimo authorities, and the role of production, see Applebaum, Gulag; Viola, The Unknown Gulag; Ros, La UMAP; and Smith, Thought Reform.

53 AJN – ‘Centro de Reeducação de Msauíze.’

54 AGGPN – DPSRN, No 262/SR/76. Relatório do Mês de Abril de 1976. Lichinga, 28 May 1976.

55 AJN – ‘Centro de Reeducação de Msauíse.’

56 Pinto de Sá, ‘A história inédita’; Interview with Ché Mafuiane.

57 Interview with Ché Mafuiane; Interview with Ana Maria, Matola-Kongoloti, 12 Dec. 2014.

58 Interview with Carlos Fumo, Matola, 4 Dec. 2014.

59 Interview with Felizardo Chaguala.

60 Coelho, J. P. B., Campo de Trânsito (Maputo, 2010), 46–9Google Scholar.

61 Group Interview with Simeão Mazuze (aka Salimo Mohamed), Ché Mafuiane, and Felizardo Cuaguala, Matola, 8 Dec. 2014.

62 Interview with Carlos Fumo.

63 Interview with Ché Mafuiane, Maputo, 4 Dec. 2014; Interview with Felizardo Chaguala.

64 Pinto de Sá, ‘A história inédita’, 28; Interview with Simeão Mazuze (aka Salimo Mohamed).

65 AGGPN – DPSRN/SR/78. Relatório referente ao mês de Fereveiro, Março, e Abril de 1977. Lichinga, 30 Apr. 1977.

66 AGGPN –MINT/1o Seminário sobre Reeducação. Documento de Apoio no. 2: Projecto de Programa para os Centros de Reeducação. Nov. 1976, 3.

67 Ibid., 3–4.

68 See Egero, B., Mozambique, a Dream Undone: The Political Economy of Democracy, 1975–1984 (Uppsala, 1987)Google Scholar.

69 AGGPN – DPSRN/SR/78. Relatório referente ao mês de Fereveiro, Março, e Abril de 1977. Lichinga, 30 Apr. 1977.

70 Ibid.

71 AJN – ‘Centro de Reeducação de Msauíse.’

72 Interview with Ana Maria.

73 Interview with Felizardo Chaguala.

74 ‘Trabalho da reeducação foi positivo – Constata II Seminário efectuado em Maputo’, Tempo, 27 Jan. 1980, 2.

75 Interview with Ana Maria.

76 On alcohol in colonial Mozambique, see Capela, J., O Álcool na Colonização do Sul do Save, 1860–1920 (Maputo, 1995)Google Scholar.

77 Interview with Felizardo Chaguala.

78 Group Interview with Simeão Mazuze, Felizardo Chaguala, and Ché Mafuiane.

79 Interview with Ana Maria.

80 Interview with Silva Santana, Maputo, 18 Jan 2015. It is therefore unsurprising that the military neighborhood in Maputo, near the headquarters of Frelimo, was for many years the center of illicit trade in drugs. To this day the area is known by its well-fitting nickname, Colombia.

81 MHN – ‘Machel's speech on unjust detentions in reeducation camps’, Summary of World Broadcasts, London. 6.10.1981. Part 4, The Middle East and Africa: B. Africa, page ME/6846/B/1.

82 AGGPN – DPSRN/SR/76. Relatório Referente ao Mês de Maio de 1976. Lichinga, 26 June 1976; AGGPN – DPSRN/No 322/Sr/76/Relação das camaradas em estado de gravidez, campo de Reeducação de M'sawize, Lichinga, 13 July 1976.

83 AGGPN – DPSRN/No 514/SR/77. Lichinga, 16 Aug. 1977.

84 Interview with Ana Maria. I discuss elsewhere in detail the implications of the unchecked sexual life of reeducation camps, particularly for female detainees in Ilumba and M'sawize. Given the lack of medical assistance and constant crisis of hunger, pregnancy was in some cases a death sentence for women, and in many an ill-omened condition, often ending in miscarriage or stillbirth. B. Machava, ‘Narratives of wretchedness: everyday life in Mozambique's reeducation camps’, forthcoming.

85 AGGPN – DPSRN/No 458/SR/976, Lichinga, 22 Sept. 1976.

86 AGGPN – DPSRN/No 262/SR/76. Relatório do Mês de Abril de 1976. Lichinga, 28 May 1976.

87 AGGPN – DPSRN/No 458/SR/976, Lichinga, 22 Sept. 1976.

88 AGGPN – GPN/No 986/SC/78. Requerimento de Mário Francisco. Lichinga, 9 June 1976.

89 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 201.