Why ethno-political violence has become absent in Mozambique?

Mozambique has, in her historical records, instances of mobilization and instrumentalization of ethnicity that resorted into ethno-political violence. This bloody reality was predominant during the struggle for independence from Portuguese colonial regime and was clearly perceived as a threat to the national liberation. As a result, the nationalist movement led by FRELIMO, which then became the ruling government, in the post-independence era, implemented policies at political and cultural domains to "demobilize ethnicity" in order to prevent the continuation of the ethno-political bloodshed. It became an imperative, first, to achieve the independence and then to preserve the survival of the state, which soon after independence was threatened by a protracted war. The political and cultural measures contributed significantly for vanishing of ethno-political violence, but, so far, this fact has been academically overlooked. Thus, differently from studies which explain why ethno-political violence occurred, this is the first qualitative research that focuses on the reasons for the absence of ethno-political violence in Mozambique.

Autorentext

Calton Cadeado ist Forschungsstipendiat an der Jindal Global University. Er hat einen MA in Koexistenz und Konflikt von der Brandeis University und einen BA in Internationalen Beziehungen und Diplomatie vom Instituto Superior de Relações Internacionais (ISRI). Seit 2003 arbeitet er als Dozent und Forscher im Bereich Frieden und Konflikt am ISRI in Mosambik.