How oddly fortuitous that one should read about the death of Renamo leader, 65-year-old Afonso Dhlakama, a few hours after finishing a book on the sanctions-busting dirty tricks of the apartheid government.
Starring, among others, rebel movements like Renamo and Unita of Mozambique and Angola, respectively, Hennie van Vuuren’s book opens old wounds.
It lists Renamo among the beneficiaries of weapons bought and laundered by South Africa in the 1980s in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 418, the arms embargo.
Unpretentiously titled Apartheid Guns and Money, the book is a “tale of profit”.
It profiles the profiteers of the racist apartheid regime’s ploy to stay in power at all costs as well as those who propped it up, wittingly and unwittingly.
Human beings do not generally speak ill of the departed, so let restraint prevail in skimming the resumé of Renamo’s commander-in-chief since 1979, when founding leader André Matsangaissa was killed.
Dhlakama’s death happens when Mozambique is in the throes of economic and political recovery, with his role still crucial.
Renamo fought Frelimo since independence in 1975 until the 1992 peace accord saw it disarmed, temporarily.
Subsequently, it morphed into a political party and some of its rebels were integrated into the Mozambican army. Dhlakama never won at the polls.
He managed 47.7% of the presidential vote in 1999 - to Joachim Chissano’s 52.3% - and 31.7% in 2004, when Armando Guebuza amassed 63.7 % .
Even as his burial is being planned, the country awaits the resolution of a constitutional amendment impasse that could solidify the progression of the country to a lasting peace solution.
A report by Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique on April 3 quoted the chairman of Constitutional and Legal Affairs Commission, Edson Macuacua, as saying that the fate of the constitutional amendments before the country’s national assembly lay in the hands of two men: President Filipe Nyusi and Dhlakama.
After the political instability between 2012 and 2014, the leaders of both parties presided over an agreement to decentralise power. From 2024, the elections of municipal, provincial and district assemblies will take place on what is called “head of the list” format.
This is much like what happens in South Africa.
The head of the list of the winning party becomes the mayor, provincial governor or district administrator.
However, unlike in South Africa where the battle is within the party as to who gets where on the list, Mozambique has different issues, especially regarding the transitional period to 2024.
Renamo, which is going to have to learn to negotiate without its Nampula talisman, wants the governor of each province to appoint the administrators.
Opponents of this view it as a way of wresting the power from the district voters.
Of course, Renamo prefers this transitional arrangement because it assumes that it would win most of the governorshipsnext year.
The resolution of this stalemate is what stands between the current Mozambique, whose debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 126% at the end of 2016, and the return to being the darling of investors it was 10 years ago.
Until the crisis created by, among others, the uncovering of undisclosed $1.4 billion debt of the Armando Guebuza administration worth 10% of the GDP, the 40% devaluation of the currency, metical, to the US dollar and a 10-fold hike in inflation to 19.8%, Mozambique was flying high.
It was attracting investors into its mining and resources sectors and showing all the signs of being a winning regional economy.
The construction of an international airport and the upgrade of a deep-sea port near Nacala and the booming resource economy of its Moatize region punctuated its financial appeal.
Still, the African Development Bank Group believes the GDP growth will reach 4.7% in 2017 and 5.3% in 2018, as coal exports and agricultural production regain some lustre.
Here is to Dhlakama’s successor hopefully seeing the negotiation process over the finish line with Nyusi.
The region could use a stable Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
* Kgomoeswana is the author of Africa is Open for Business, a media commentator and public speaker on African business affairs and a columnist for Destiny Man.
@VictorAfrica