Today we are going to be visited by Carrie L. Manning, author of The Politics of Peace in Mozambique. I must say that I am being spoiled, having the opportunity to meet with not one but two leading experts on Mozambican politics who happen to be the authors of our main texts in the course thus far. It is not just another “meet the author” day, but a time to see the text we have read come to life as the writers themselves present key points. It also gives us the unique oppertunity to raise questions that came up along the way while reading.

I think Manning does an excellent job of clearly answering the question: why Mozambique. What is the significance of this country over many of the other African nations. She states many times that Mozambique has “provided the United Nations with its only real success story in Africa” being free of armed conflict since its independence in 1975. And this I think is important to recall as we move forward reading all sorts of literature-that our main purpose for examining Mozambique is to learn from the “war-to-peace process of democratization” that was simultaneously carried out with structural reform of Mozambique's economy.

I found the section on Renamo as a political party quite interesting as I have been trying to understand the ways in which Renamo came about for some time now. Anne Pitcher also gave some perspective as to the development of Renamo, but I feel to have a better and clearer idea after reading Manning's The Politics of Peace in Mozambique. It gives an idea as to why Renamo made certain demands, and how coming “from the battlefield”, it was necessary to gain certain loyalties. Both Pitcher and Manning point out the significance of Renamo as a poilitcal party, and the fact that it cannot just be dismissed from consideration since it does have a significant number of supporters. Manning also refers to one of the challenges of Renamo being its srtuggle to establish itself as a formal political party. The image of Renamo being no more than a group of “South African-run “armed bandits”' was truly a problem that was still around during the negotiations. And this image is what created problems when it came time to raise funds for the party. I found it particularly interesting to hear that at the core of Renamo's transformation was money “to be able to create conditions to funciton.” It really shows how far money can go. Money was needed to bribe those with appropriate skills and buy off those who were not needed. Manning does state however, that possibly Renamo did not spend time thinking about attracting voluntary followers due to its military background.

Manning also mentions the the financial aid provided by outside nations, and at one point mentions the interactions of the political actors and the institutions they are building being dependent upon the constraints created by donor dependency. I would like to hear from her further in class about this donor dependency, and overall I am interested in knowing what Carrie Manning has to say about the upcoming elections.