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localized and minimal. These areas of conflict cover a large part of the nation; as noted, they
are occurring on the country's most economically valuable and politically strategic land."'
Reported conflicts occur in at least eleven different configurations. These include:
1. conflicts between the state and smallholders (and in some cases larger commercial
interests) due to expropriation of lands by the state;
2. conflicts between the state and smallholders over state farm land that smallholders have
occupied as squatters, laborers, or former owners;
3. conflicts between the state and commercial producers over land alienated more than once
by the state (e.g., by different ministries, by provincial and central government, or by
the same ministry or province to more than one person);
4. conflicts between the state and commercial producers over state farm lands;
5. conflicts among private commercial producers;
6. conflicts between the state and commercial producers over short-term leases;
7. conflicts between new commercial producers and returning Portuguese interests or
between new commercial interests (both foreign and domestic) and Mozambican capital
from the colonial period;
8. conflicts between joint-venture enterprises and private commercial interests and between
joint-venture enterprises and smallholders;
9. conflicts between commercial interests and smallholders;
10. conflicts among smallholders, particularly between displaced or reintegrating and local
smallholder populations; and
11. conflicts between the government and RENAMO (or other political parties) over the
distribution of land concessions outside the scope of the law in their respective zones of
influence.
This last and newest category may be one of the most problematic. It is also the one that we
know the least about.
Land disputes occurring among smallholders or between smallholders and commercial
interests are supposed to be resolved through the formal structure, beginning with locality
officials or officials at the community level, that is, enquadradores, secretarios de aldea,
lideres de comunidade, or others who are appointed by or brought into cooperation with the
formal government at the local level. These persons often include lineage heads or other
customary authorities. If these people are unable to resolve the differences, the conflict is
passed up to the district level. Resolution of land disputes involving commercial farmers
normally begins at the district level. In reality, the procedures followed by smallholders and
larger commercial interests to resolve conflicts often do not conform to official rules or
guidelines.
Most smallholders interviewed said that if they had a conflict with another smallholder,
they would discuss the issue with the "old ones"—the senior elders or lineage heads in the
111. See Myers, West, and Eliseu (1993); Tanner, Myers, and Oad (1993); Rose et al. (1992); Roth,
Boucher, and Francisco (1994); Roth et al. (1994); Boucher et al. (1994); and Garvey (1994). See also Weiss
and Myers (1994).