I'm a journalist, Vine Africa vivirla, viajarla and count for more than two and a half. I have rarely found a better story than this. It was published in my newspaper, The World, on Sunday. Unnoticed between cars and votes. Now I'm trying to negotiate this reality go meet in person. In Maputo I met with people to take me to one of these camps. Now is dangerous, she turns to talk of war in this country. As, X, a friend, one of the few people in the world who knows this reality, tells me this fabulous story. I think it deserves to be read in this place, in my magazine.
Javier Brandoli. Maputo
"I am the shadows, ghosts ". La frase la dice X, one of the few men who have had direct contact with an army of forgotten that wanders the jungle Mozambique waiting for someone to fulfill a promise. There are no metaphors in the phrase, no reality. They await, await no identity, without papers proving that not even his name. They have one, but perhaps not yours. They were kidnapped long ago, recruited for war as children, even when they did not have enough memory. They are nothing. There are no. Expect.
An army of forgotten that wanders the jungle Mozambique waiting for someone to fulfill a promise
Ago 35 years Mozambique was embroiled in a civil war that lasted 15 years and reaped nearly one million lives and caused an exodus of more than five million civilians. The troops of Renamo and Frelimo bled a country that could be of horror and misery. He Peace of Rome, in 1992, and a paper signed by all said he reached the end of conflict. Then, UN also became the guarantor of a peace process which was the poorest place in the world. The Renamo and Frelimo troops, political parties now, came in 1994, year of the first democratic elections, to large hotels Maputo to initial arrival of new times. “You saw soldiers in the famous Cardoso and Rovuma hotels washing clothes in the immaculate pools, without knowing how to use a toilet or a covered ", account X, that security can not reveal his name. United Nations had to pay all those destructions that occurred in those hotels designed for other customers. Those were the "lucky", the vast majority much poverty could scrub a marble shelf.
Other, however, were in the jungle. The commander of the troops of Renamo, Alfonso Dhlakama, decided to retain some of its military structure hidden in anticipation that breach agreed Frelimo. He left a few hundred men scattered through the jungle. "They are men and women who for the most part have no papers, not know her real age nor the names their parents gave them ", X explains. Some were then abducted to fight force with their abuser. "They, meanwhile, sex slaves were a troop of soldiers needed females they meet their primary needs. Today there are families, have children and live in appalling conditions ".
They, meanwhile, sex slaves were a troop of soldiers needed females they meet their primary needs
What do they do here?, X asked in his encounter with the "ghosts". "We're gonna keep this", answered a ragged men who have a single occupancy, survive the high intakes of alcohol taking in the endless jungle. They keep secret weapons hidden in dens and wait. "They promised they would all have a concrete house, a car and a job ". The promise not actually ever be finished (now the problem is stirring the embers of a new war and Renamo has returned to mobilize its troops in the Sierra de Gorongosa). "As I spoke with me that the covenant has to do with witchcraft. They gave no hypothesis is not met, as if supernaturally seal ", X explains.
"They live in 150 MZN (less than five euros) that each month delivers them Renamo delegate in the area. Never go to hospitals, or down to the city. There is only one representative of the unsung troop down to the nearest town and collect subsistence ", account X. It's not easy to get to them, many of the roads leading to their camps are still mined. You have to know the way to survive at the foot. The time shadows also made them afraid of a "civilization" that is hostile. Do not mix, not leave their jungle. There are children who have never seen a white man and flee when they see X baffled by skin color unknown. The fear is mutual on the other hand, other, the remainder: "People from nearby villages know there are soldiers living there and we are approaching, I dread ".
There are children who have never seen a white man and flee when they see X baffled by skin color unknown
Another night falls. More dark in the dark. A commander rename, one of the few that comes out of that den of leaves and knows the afterlife, approaches X and say a last sentence that sums it all: "Animal Sounds, are afraid of people ". Sound fantasmas.
