Justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the civil war in Gorongosa, Mozambique Central

Edited book (chapter)


Igreja Victor. 2009. "Justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the civil war in Gorongosa, Mozambique Central." Ambos, Kai, Large, Judith and Wierda, Marieke (ed.) Building a Future on Peace and Justice: Studies on Transitional Justice, Peace and Development The Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice. Germany. Springer. pp. 423-437
Chapter Title

Justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of the civil war in Gorongosa, Mozambique Central

Book Chapter CategoryEdited book (chapter)
ERA Publisher ID3337
Book TitleBuilding a Future on Peace and Justice: Studies on Transitional Justice, Peace and Development The Nuremberg Declaration on Peace and Justice
AuthorsIgreja Victor
EditorsAmbos, Kai, Large, Judith and Wierda, Marieke
Page Range423-437
Number of Pages15
Year2009
PublisherSpringer
Place of PublicationGermany
ISBN9783540857532
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85754-9_16
Web Address (URL)https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-85754-9_16
Abstract

In the aftermath of the protracted Mozambican civil war (1976-1992), the national political authorities opted for an unconditional amnesty law for wartime crimes. Neither the cadres from the Frelimo-led government, nor the Renamo leadership offered public explanations as to why no politico-legal initiatives were to be forthcoming in the post-civil war period to actively address issues of accountability for the wartime crimes. The representatives of Christian religious groups and the members of the international community, who played a key role in brokering the Mozambican peace agreement, also remained silenced vis-à-vis issues of accountability in post-civil war period. War survivors were simply advised to forget what had happened, to forgive and to reconcile with one another. The only reference to justice was the emphasis placed on you shall not take revenge upon your fellow man. Robert Cover had insightfully observed that in a society each group must accommodate in its own normative world the objective reality of the other. There may or may not be synchronization or convergence in their respective understandings about the normative boundary and what it implies (quoted in Minow et al. 1995, p. 125). Following this perspective of multiple normative sources and boundaries, in a society, the Mozambican state officials failed to consider the implications that their enacted unconditional amnesty law would have in the communities that had been severely affected by the civil war violence. In some of these communities, the normative world or ethics of reciprocity demands accountability over serious past wrongs. In the former war zones of the Gorongosa district, one of the features of the ethics of reciprocity is that micero ai vundi, i.e., a conflict does not get rotten unless when there is an active resolution by the legitimate institutions. Based on the rule that implies the rejection of silence as a mechanism to cease a conflict, this paper analyses the enactment of the local ethics of reciprocity through the intervention of a civil-war-related spirit named gamba (magamba in plural) in the former epicentres of the civil war in Gorongosa district, in the centre of Mozambique. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

KeywordsTransitional Justice; Embodied Accountability; Peace; Social Justice; Reconciliation; Indigenous Justice; Africa; Mozambique; Post-civil war; Political violence; Historical injustices
Contains Sensitive ContentDoes not contain sensitive content
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020440204. Crime and social justice
441005. Social theory
440107. Social and cultural anthropology
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Byline AffiliationsUniversity of Queensland
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