Rethinking terrorism in Mozambique: A critical analysis of the use of the terrorism term to describe the political violence in Cabo Delgado.

Abstract

This research critically examines the use of the term “terrorism” to describe political violence in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, following the discovery of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), with a focus on its historical use to play a functional role on both the African continent and globally. I question the terrorism framing of the conflict by investigating the confluence of factors that made such a framing possible, what responses to the conflict this framing legitimises, in whose interest, and to whose detriment. The study does not accept the terrorism framing as neutral, commonsensical, or automatic. Labelling political violence as terrorism changes the way it is viewed, and unconventional measures are adopted to mitigate the perceived security threat, a process that securitises violence.This study employs the Constructivist approach and securitisation theory, which uses constructivism to understand how perceptions and threats are created, thereby securitising violence. Securitisation refers to the process by which agents transform political issues into security matters, thereby facilitating the adoption of extraordinary measures to address the problem. The Copenhagen School of Security Studies formulated the concept as an analytical framework to describe elite/state-centred securitisation of issues. The study provides a historical overview of the use of the term “terrorism” in Africa. It posits that the concept of terrorism has been applied differently by stakeholders and governments to serve specific purposes. This has been a common trend in the African context where the continent has experienced different phases and forms of political violence since the colonial experience, from liberation struggles for independence to Cold War proxy wars and the violence currently framed as ‘terrorism’, a framing activated mainly by the Global War on Terror (GWoT) following the 9/11 attack on the United States in September 2001. In the case of Mozambique, the study found that the terrorism label used to designate the violence perpetrated by Ansar Al-Sunna Wal Jammah (ASWJ) functioned as a securitisation speech act. The securitisation of violence, at times, has serious consequences. In the case of Cabo Delgado, these consequences include obscuring the root causes of the conflict, militarised responses, the internationalisation of the conflict, obscuring or delaying peace processes, and the violation of human rights.This is a qualitative study that relies on primary and secondary resources obtained through desktop research and semi-structured interviews.