ABSTRACT
William Finnegan offers a superb analysis of the domestic and international forces that have precipitated and exacerbated the savage war waged by the Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) against the once-Marxist government of the Frente de Libertacao de Mocambique (FRELIMO). The rise of RENAMO and the devastation it wrought would have been impossible without the strong military support of South Africa. However brutal and repressive its tactics may have been, RENAMO had nevertheless acquired a social base in Mozambican society. In addition, RENAMO fully exploited the pervasive popular attachment to indigenous religion that FRELIMO had attempted to sever. RENAMO, in spite of any clear ideological vision, was rooting its struggle in the revival of what FRELIMO condemned as "obscurantist traditions." In the process, FRELIMO started negotiating with RENAMO, thus abandoning its longstanding policy of refusing to talk to "bandits." Ending the war had become the single most vital issue confronting FRELIMO.
