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authorities (Tanner, Myers, and Oad 1993). But further investigation after the peace accord
determined that this process was very uneven. In several areas visited, smallholders reported
that they continued to consult lineage heads when they experienced family problems
(including land disputes within the family), but that they relied on locality-level government
officials (especially rural agricultural extension agents) when they had a land problem that
was between families or between smallholders and larger commercial interests. One older
farmer interviewed in Chokwe District scoffed at the idea of consulting regulos, calling them
colonial creations and things of the past. This uneven process may indicate the existence or
reemergence of local struggles between families, a topic that merits further exploration.
Peasant fanners who attempted to return to their old homesteads and lands after 1977
were forced back into the communal villages by the Mozambican government. In some cases,
government authorities destroyed their old farms. This second wave of displacement in the
period after independence angered local smallholders—and in many ways undermined the
legitimacy and popularity of the new government.'"
Many local Mozambicans refused to work for the state farms, preferring to farm
elsewhere across the river or in the highlands. In some cases local farmers worked as laborers
while their wives maintained farms in the communal villages or elsewhere in the region.
Some farmers became tenants elsewhere, acquiring land rights through the customary tenure
system by asking the head of a local family for land-use rights. The government was able to
hire enough labor but could not successfully manage the irrigation scheme. 121
Some smallholders who were displaced by the irrigation scheme were successful in
maintaining access to land, much of which, suitable for limited dryland agriculture, was
located in the highlands. Some farmers were able to care for homesteads northwest of the
city, in the area west of the road and rail line. Some smallholders north of the river were also
able to preserve land rights.
The relocation/villagization policy led to land shortages in the less fertile highlands as the
newcomers and communal villages competed with local residents for land. The villagization
program initially provided some benefits, including education, health care, and other social
services. But these benefits may have been outweighed by the disadvantages of forced
villagization. The advantages were wiped out at any rate as war progressed in the area.
120. Joao Carrilho, former director of Ad Hoc Land Commission, Ministry ofAgriculture, Maputo,
personal communication, 1993; see also Myers, West, and Eliseu (1993); and Tanner, Myers, and Oad (1993).
121. Sr. Joao Mosca, former head of CAIL, personal communication, May 1992; Margarida Martins,
formerly with the Department of Agrarian Economics, Ministry of Agriculture, personal communication, April
1992. See also Tanner, Myers, and Oad (1993).
This point is highly debated, of course. Many officials at the central and provincial levels of government
maintain that the centralized irrigation scheme was indeed a success or had the potential to become a success
if the war and other external factors had not adversely affected it. Sr. Fagilde, former manager of plant and
equipment, CAIL, personal communication, May 1993; Sr. Nhocumbe, Director, Conhane State Farm, personal
communication, May 1993; Sr. Taelane, Director, Chilembene State Farm, personal communication, May 1993.