ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the obstacles to the establishment of democratic armed forces, outlines the essential features of armed forces in a democracy, and explains why it is important that an informed public debate in Mozambique on the future of the military should take place. The political regime in Mozambique and the effects of South Africa's destabilization have seriously hindered the processes of democratization and of nation-building in the country. The conflict in Mozambique had its origins in the national liberation struggle against Portuguese rule. The leadership of the new defence force views military integration as a profoundly unsettling exercise and is mainly concerned with immediate personal job security rather than with the future of the military institution. A number of mechanisms are commonly used to establish and develop a democratic civil-military interaction. Mozambique is characterized by poverty, underdevelopment and inefficient administration, and the armed forces are the only state agency capable of undermining or opposing the ongoing political transformation.
