By JANE PERLEZ,
Published: October 15, 1992
Published: October 15, 1992
Laurencio Macome sat poolside at a fashionable sports club in this tropical capital, wearing a crisp white shirt, an appointment book on the table.
The 33-year-old former secondary school teacher, far removed from the ugly bush war that has wrecked this southern African nation, is the acceptable face of the Mozambique National Resistance Movement, or Renamo, considered one of the world's more brutal guerrilla groups.
With a treaty signed earlier this month between President Joaquim Chissano and the Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, to end a 16-year conflict, the guerrillas are busy trying to transform themselves from a military operation into a political party. Mr. Macome has already appealed to foreign diplomats for funds and appeared on television, and one of his Renamo colleagues addressed the local Rotary Club. Battlefield to Politics
This leap from combat to campaign has been tried by a variety of rebels in Africa recently, most notably in Angola, where the guerrilla group Unita is contesting the results of a national election. But rarely has a change seemed as improbable as in the case of Renamo, an organization imbued with little discernible ideology and sustained by South Africa for the purpose of subverting Mozambique.
By most accounts, Renamo lacks Unita's MONEY
, political expertise or even the ability to provide basic social services. But Mr. Macome said that Renamo has won what it was fighting for.
, political expertise or even the ability to provide basic social services. But Mr. Macome said that Renamo has won what it was fighting for.
"Before, the Government was not accepting democracy. Now it is accepting democracy," he said, referring to the decision in 1990 by Mr. Chissano to allow political parties and to drop his commitment to Marxism. "These are the things we got. When you have food but you are not free, it is not good."
In the mid-1970's white Rhodesians organized Renamo in an effort to stop the guerrillas who were fighting for black majority rule in Rhodesia from using sanctuaries in Mozambique. In the early 1980's, South Africa took over Renamo with the intention of denying the African National Congress bases in Mozambique and weakening the black Government in Maputo.
When pressed, the Rhodesians and the South Africans said their support of Renamo was in the name of democracy and anti-Communism. In private, however, the South African military officers who ran Renamo made it clear it was never their intention for Renamo to actually take over Mozambique.
But Mr. Macome, and apparently his boss, Mr. Dhlakama, now believe that they can contest, and even win, the national elections, scheduled according to the peace agreement in 12 months' time.
"I think everyone will like President Dhlakama," Mr. Macome said.
But in the eyes of many Mozambicans, especially in the capital, Renamo is a dirty word, one that inspires fear and anger. A poll taken by a local institute here last week showed that Mr. Chissano's Government would win legislative elections with 59.3 percent and that Renamo trailed behind the feeble opposition parties that have formed in the last year.
Mr. Macome denied that Renamo kidnapped youths to fight for it, or practiced torture. The State Department, in a lengthy report based on interviews with survivors of Renamo attacks, said in 1988 that Renamo was responsible for killing 100,000 civilians. But Mr. Macome said this was all "propaganda by the Government." Leader Coming to Capital
Mr. Dhlakama, a former soldier who was dismissed from the Government army, will come to Maputo but not until security can be guaranteed for him, Mr. Macome said.
How Renamo is going to approach the details of forming a political party remains unclear.
"The Government has to help us with buildings for our offices," said Mr. Macome. Some Mozambicans say wealthy Portuguese who fled the country at independence in 1975, many of whom live in South Africa and dream of returning, are likely to contribute to the Renamo political party just as they did to the group's military wing.
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