68
questioned offered comments regarding JFS. In fact, smallholders observed that JFS assisted
local farmers, whereas LOMACO would not even give them a greeting. 129
Chibuto District, located across the Limpopo River from Chokwe District, was attacked
regularly during the years before the cease-fire in 1992. Local residents reported that from
1989 to 1992, one area or another in Chibuto was attacked weekly. RENAMO troops
occupied or moved about freely in many areas of the district. Displaced smallholders from
Chibuto were interviewed before the peace accord in Chilembene. They said that most people
in Chibuto, particularly those along the river, were forced to flee to more secure zones.
Security in nearby areas was also unreliable. People who fled from Chibuto were not immune
to attacks elsewhere, but suffered less frequently from hostilities than those few who chose
to remain. At the same time, others moved into the communal villages in Chibuto District
from areas that they perceived to be less secure.
A large percentage of the people who fled Chibuto District during the war moved across
the river to Chilembene (Chokwe District). The movement occurred over a period of three
to five years, but intensified in the last two years of the war as attacks increased and the
drought continued. It appears that political relations were transplanted from Chaimite to
Chilembene. Displaced farmers reported that lineage groupings moved together from
Chaimite and apparently attempted to reproduce their spatial relationships, including the
location of their temporary homes vis-à-vis their neighbors and lineage elders. Lineage heads
had access to better land in the areas to which they were displaced. In addition, customary
political leaders tried to maintain their political roles with their communities by negotiating
on behalf of their people for access to land and other resources as well as to humanitarian
food assistance. At the same time that people were fleeing from Chaimite, other people
moved north into Chilembene from less secure zones to the south and east. The new
population of displaced f1a3omilies intensified land shortages, ecological degradation, and social
conflict in Chilembene.
During the war, few displaced people gained access to land on the state farms in Chokwe
District. Those who got land did so on a temporary basis, usually as tenants. Displaced
families who arrived earlier were apparently more likely to gain access to land anywhere in
the district than those who arrived later. Individuals in the latter group were forced to survive
in other ways, that is, as farm or urban labor or as traders. Many depended on food aid,
acquired either through formal donor assistance or through customary relationships. In
129. Myers, West, and Eliseu (1993). See Weiss and Myers (1994); and Myers and Weiss (1994).
130. There was not enough land available in these areas to accommodate "local" families, let alone all the
newly displaced. Those who were fortunate enough to acquire temporary land rights were usually people who
had close kinship ties in Chilembene. According to field interviews, most of the displaced families gained access
to less than 0.5 hectare of land. This land was used continually through the last few years of the war and
suffered serious ecological degradation as a result. The fact that there were so many displaced people living on
the fringes of the cities in Chokwe District—and using available dry-land farms—meant that smallholders who
had access to land in the irrigation scheme were also forced to overexploit their holdings, either because they
lost access to dry-land farms or because they feared their land in the scheme would be considered abandoned
and therefore confiscated by government authorities (see Tanner, Myers, and Oad 1993; and Myers and Tanner
1992).