APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 68 68 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL Rhodesian- and South African–sponsored Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO) lasted from 1976 to 1992 and resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million people.38 The conflict was initially over the FRELIMO government’s backing of the Zimbabwean African National Liberation Army, which was fighting against white minority rule in Rhodesia. Later, South Africa began supporting RENAMO, hoping a RENAMO-led Mozambique would prevent the guerrillas from basing themselves there. As in many other conflicts, most of the population suffered various atrocities committed during the sixteen-year war. The conflict in Mozambique was fueled by pro-apartheid forces that carried out a form of terror warfare that destroyed much of the nation’s infrastructure and society itself. The population of Mozambique adapted a unique method of handling the violence and conflict that began to permeate their culture. Unlike the more systemic examples of employing traditional conflict management mechanisms discussed above, in Mozambique local communities and individuals themselves began to actively engage in a culture of peace, using traditional forms of conflict resolution.39 This is not to say that in other countries, including Rwanda and Uganda, similar examples cannot be found. In Mozambique, however, these grass-root approaches played a major part in resolving and transforming the conflict and its culture. The communities of Gorongosa district dealt with the war’s aftermath through the magamba spirit. It is believed that anyone with a history of violence might have been possessed by such a spirit. While the spirit’s presence has negative health and mental side effects, it also creates an opportunity for healing. In recognizing the presence of magamba, a healer can help identify the reason for the possession and suggest ways of healing by asking it what it wants while the person involved in the violence is under a trance. Often the spirit requires a correction of some past wrongdoing, either on the part of the person possessed or his or her family members.40 Furthermore, according to Carolyn Nordstrom, during the war the majority of communities in Mozambique had at least one African doctor, a curandeiro or curandeira, who specialized in the art of healing emotional, societal, and physical wounds resulting from war.41 Through their efforts they also healed the community and the war itself. It is believed that those exposed to war carry violence within them, so the doctors remove or cure the violence, for example, from a newly arrived refugee. Those treated also receive help reintegrating into the community and family life. The process depends on an abrupt break from the past, with the events in the person’s past no longer discussed or acknowledged in the way a court or a truth and reconciliation commission would operate.42 This type of African medicine had far-reaching effects and helped countless survivors to return to a semblance of normal life. As with other examples, many of the rituals used by curandeiros depend on symbolic acts and community involvement 38. Carolyn Nordstrom, ‘Terror warfare and the medicine of peace’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 12:1 (1998), 103–121. 39. Ibid. 40. Victor Igreja and Beatrice Dias-Lambranca, ‘Restorative justice and the role of the magamba spirit in post-civil war Gorongosa, central Mozambique’ in Huyse and Salter, Traditional Justice and Reconciliation after Violent Conflict. 41. Nordstrom, ‘Terror warfare’. 42. Graybill, ‘Pardon, punishment, and amnesia’.