SUMMARY
Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO) - also known in the early days of the conflict as MNR, the English acronym for Mozambique National Resistance - was an organisation who fought to overthrow the government of Mozambique between the years 1977-1992. Upon the signing of the 1992 Rome peace agreement, RENAMO transformed into a legitimate political party and has participated in several multi-party elections. They were the principal opposition party in Mozambique until at least 2024, when Venâncio Mondlane, at the time of the PODEMOS party, came second in the presidential elections. They kept parts of their military force active and have occasionally returned to violence, most notably in 2013 and 2016 (see Mozambique: Government for more information). A new peace agreement was signed in August 2019, resulting in their full disarmament in 2023. Following the 2023 parliamentary elections, violent clashes between government forces and the now disarmed RENAMO supporters erupted.
RENAMO announced its arrival as a Mozambican resistance movement via radio broadcasts in 1976, transmitted from Rhodesia. The group behind the announcement consisted of former Portuguese military officers from the Mozambican liberation war (1964-1974) and Mozambicans who fled to Rhodesia after independence in 1975 due to their discontent with the Marxist-Leninist party in power (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, FRELIMO). The Rhodesian government sponsored the broadcasts and the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation soon approached the group to offer financial and logistical support to make the movement viable. At this juncture in the late 1970s, the Rhodesian apartheid regime was in the midst of its own intra-state conflict against rebel movements which in turn were supported by Mozambique. Hence, the Rhodesian rationale for invigorating RENAMO as a clandestine commando-unit was twofold: to provide intelligence on the Zimbabwean anti-apartheid movements which operated out of Mozambique and to destabilize the Mozambican regime through economic sabotage against institutions and infrastructure.
When the white Rhodesian regime fell in 1980, RENAMO came under the patronage of South Africa, which saw an opportunity to counterweight the FRELIMO-government’s support for the South African organisation African National Congress (ANC) and to pursue an economic destabilisation policy in the region to increase dependence on South Africa. Under South Africa’s wings, the RENAMO developed its political profile and went from a movement which did not have an ideology beyond its hostility towards FRELIMO to one intent on capturing political power. An external political wing was created to that effect and in 1981 an anti-Marxist political programme was conceptualised - but the real power of the organisation rested with the military leadership. With the South African patronage in the 1980s, the military organisation became more sophisticated and efficient and its activities spread from the central parts of Mozambique to the northern and southern provinces. During this period the movement also grew in terms of members by employing forced recruitment and by exploiting regional, religious and ethnic grievances in the central and northern provinces against an essentially, southern-based political elite.
Apart from the direct Rhodesian and South African involvement, RENAMO also allegedly received secondary non-warring support from Kenya and Malawi in the form of shelter and unofficial moral support, as well as economic aid from international networks of right-wing political and religious groups (primarily organised from those countries with large Mozambican Diasporas like in Portugal and South Africa, but also the USA).
The first leader of RENAMO was André Matsangaissa. Upon Matsangaissa death in 1979, his deputy Afonso Dhlakama took over and remained the leader until his death in May 2018. Prior to joining RENAMO, both central figures had served in the FRELIMO army and had been dismissed and subsequently sent to re-education camps. After Dhlakama died, Ossufo Momade was elected to be the new leader. The election of Momade was contested by parts of Renamo's military wing, led by General Mariano Nhongo, who announced their splinter from Renamo as the Renamo Military Junta on 12 June 2019. The splinter resumed hostilities with the government through small-scale skirmishes in late July 2019.
RENAMO has been involved in the intra-state, non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organised violence. For information on the conflict, see Mozambique: Government.
