Angry, disaffected youth taking to the path of rebellion as gas wealth bypasses local people

Source: Financial Mail

14 November 2024 – 05:00

by PAUL ASH

Mozambique: Protest against Frelimo

A woman displays used tear gas canisters during protests in Maputo, Mozambique. Picture: REUTERS/SIPHIWE SIBEKO

On a hot night in Nampula, northern Mozambique, in 1973, a reporter named Kerry Swift was tucking into a lobster at the Baghdad Restaurant when a Fiat G.91 jet fighter screamed overhead.

The pilot was Gen Manuel Diogo Neto, commander of the Portuguese Air Force in Mozambique. In between flying combat missions, Neto was running the air war against Frelimo guerrillas from his flat in Nampula, maps stuck on the wall and a radio set in the living room.

Swift’s account captures the absurdity of Portugal’s attempt to quell a distant rebellion in the East African colony it had ruled for nearly 500 years.

Fifty years later, another insurgency is roiling through Mozambique’s northern provinces and Frelimo, the self-declared winner of the recent election, seems to have forgotten its own history.

If the people of the north didn’t already feel forgotten by the government in the faraway capital (plus ça change), the discovery of vast gas fields off the coast near Pemba poured petrol on a smoking campfire of grievances. The find led to a land grab and jobs for pals, benefiting mostly the southern ruling class, many of whom may never have been north of the Save River.

There were few jobs for local people because they didn’t have the skills. Much of the food for the project workers came from South Africa because it could not be sourced locally. The government, in its shiny edifice 2,500km away, did nothing to fix that.

Enter al-Shabaab (the youth), who have the money, training and radicalisation offered by Islamic State. They shut down the $60bn gas project while government soldiers, aided first by Russian mercenaries, South African troops and now by the Rwandan army, tried to dislodge them.

The gas project rolls on…and resentment bubbles. Frelimo might need reminding of the old saw: guerrillas may never win wars, but they never lose them either.