Paper short abstract:

An exploration of the role of ideology in narratives of ex-RENAMO combatants in Mozambique in relation to the combatants’ uncertainty in the continuing search for legitimacy of atrocities.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Maringue, central Mozambique, more than 15 years after the civil war ended, this paper explores the often contradictory and "messy" narratives of ex-RENAMO combatants and the process of making sense of the war and their own role in this violent conflict. RENAMO has been characterized as a brutal rebel movement with a non-existing ideology. Indeed, most ex-RENAMO combatants presented in this paper were forced to join RENAMO, often at a young age. Ideology was not a motivational force for entering the war, neither for fighting it. How then must we understand that these ex-RENAMO combatants framed the causes of the war and their personal experiences often in ideological terms? This can be situated in the uncertainty of combatants in relation to the legitimacy of violent action and the continuing search for meaning of atrocities witnessed, experienced and perpetrated, even after the war is over. Drawing on the contradicting narratives of former combatants, this paper explores the role of RENAMO ideology as a (post-war) discourse to legitimate participation in the war. Defying the persistent image of RENAMO as a group of "armed bandits", the ex-combatants present their armed struggle as a just war "for democracy", which makes them "good soldiers", at least to a certain (political) audience, but also to themselves. This paper underlines the importance of legitimacy to violent action for (ex-)combatants, even in retrospect, and suggests a more complex understanding of the ideology of armed movements and its impact on its combatants.