Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

RENAMO • 583and political deprivation, rather than purely economic deprivation, mayfacilitate political unrest, but terrorism proper requires the mobilizingforces of ideology, leadership, and organization to transform inchoatedisaffection into organized political violence.RENAMO. The Resistência Nacional Moçambicana, or MozambiqueNational Resistance (MNR), was a Mozambican insurgent groupformerly sponsored by Rhodesia, when it was under the Ian Smithregime, and later by South Africa. RENAMO eventually became anordinary political party in 1994. Members of this group are largelyanti-Marxist Mozambicans, including both native Africans and Portuguesecolonials, as well as disaffected former FRELIMO (MozambicanLiberation Front) members seeking to change the regime. TheSouth African sponsors of RENAMO viewed it primarily as a meansof pressuring Mozambique to stop giving sanctuary and state sponsorshipto the Umkhonto we Sizwe guerrillas fighting South Africa,who were associated with the African National Congress (ANC).When Mozambique was granted independence by Portugal on 25June 1975, the new Marxist government began giving aid and sanctuaryto Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) guerrillas fightingthe Ian Smith regime. Rhodesia countered by sponsoring the creationof the MNR in 1976, which recruited both native African and Portuguesecolonial Mozambicans to attack the anti-Rhodesian guerrillas intheir bases within Mozambique. Beginning in 1978 the MNR beganattacking the economic infrastructure of Mozambique as well as seekingto destabilize the FRELIMO regime. After the transition of powerin 1980 that created the new state of Zimbabwe from the former colonyof Rhodesia, the MNR found a new sponsor in South Africa, whichalso wished to pressure Mozambique to stop supporting the ANCbackedguerrillas. In 1982 the MNR changed its name to RENAMOand spread its area of operations into Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia.From having started with a few thousand members in 1976, RENAMOexpanded to more than 20,000 guerrillas by the end of the 1980s.South Africa extended safe haven and logistical support to RENAMO.Neighboring states, such as Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, counteredby stationing some of their troops within Mozambique.The RENAMO campaign was marked by calculated, consistent,and extreme brutality directed toward noncombatants. An analysis of47 noteworthy incidents from 1979 to 1987 showed that 51 percent