The war in postcolonial Mozambique enjoys dubious fame among the political conflicts of the late twentieth century. Up to one million persons died-some directly of warfare and others of war-related disease and famine -one-and-half million fled to neighbouring countries, and some three million were displaced within Mozambique. It was not like the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a sudden carnage that stunned the world mass media for a few terrible, passing moments. Waged from the late 1970s until1992,

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... e war in Mozambique had its atrocities spread over several years, often in remote rural areas. Only occasional media coverage publicised the war outside Mozambique, and humanitarian interventions consisted mainly in relief aid to refugees who had crossed international borders. And yet, many of these refugees were able to relate stories which insisted, in haunting detail, that all evil had taken over Mozambique. Renamo rebels, fighting the Frelimo government, often gave a face to this evil. Consider one common story from northern Mozambique, recounted by refugees in Malawi and Zambia. Machanga, as Renamo was locally known, came to a village, looking for loot and food. The guerrillas found a woman, carrying an infant on her back, alone at her house. They ordered her to prepare food. She replied, in anguish, that there was no relish in the house. The guerrillas had become used to having meat at every meal and could not accept the woman's excuses. They seized her baby, killed it with a machete, and roasted it outside the house. According to one version of the story, the mother was forced to taste her baby's flesh. According to another version, she was herself killed when the machete slashed in one terrible stroke both the baby and the mother carrying it.