From Enslavement to Environmentalism: Politics on a Southern African Frontier

Chapter 5: Expatriate Loggers and Mapmakers in Gogoi

5 EXPATRIATE LOGGERS AND MAPMAKERS IN GOGOI IN THE MID-199QS. THE lOCUS OF POLITICAL CONTESTATION IN GOGOI began to shift from labor to land. Chief Gogoi and his headmen started to "territorialize" their rule (see Introduction), In many ways, this transformation resembles the onset of cadastral politics a hundred years earlier in nearbyVhimba. There, white settlersseizedlandin the1890S.Subsequently, tlte colonialadministration andopportunitiesfor migrantlaborundermined patriarchs' methods ofaccumulatingwealth in people. In response to tltese two developments, headmen took control of the allocation of land and used tltis power to regain as much alienated territory as possible. This scenario could easily have transpired in Gogoi. In tlte 1890S the Portuguese administration recruited some of tlte same South African whites to cross the border from Rhodesia to northern Mossurize. Yet, few came and fewer stayed. In tlte ensuingdecades,whitecoloniststried repeatedlytoclaim and transformtltislandscape. Everytime, investors-mostrecentlytimberfirms in the 1970s-failed to draw reliable profits. Thus, as chapter 1recounts, the administration perfected forced labor as a means of extraction based on wealth in people rather than wealth in land Gogoi entered the 1990S in the grip of ambulatory enslavement and witltout a single notation in the national cadastre. It could not have differed more from contemporary Vhimba. The "hard" Zimbabwe-Mozambique border stood between two worlds ofpoliticalculture. What changedto make Gogoi more likeVhimba? In part, white land-grabbers came again-crossing the border-and, this time, seemly ready to transform tlte landscape at last. In fact, four distinct political and social movements in the aftermath of 122 EXPATRIATE LOGGERS AND MAPMAKERS IN GOGOI Mozambique's civil warl brought land to the forefront in Gogoi. First, the 1992ceasefireterminated the militarycorveespracticedbyRenamo. Second, refugees and displaced people returned to Gogoi or entered it for the first time. These in-migrations gave new prominence to the issue of land allocation . Third, afterthe1994elections,SouthAfrican and Zimbabwean timber industries scouted Mossurize District. In 1996, one company laid claim to Gogoi itself. Fourth, and largely in reaction to these logging operations, NGOS joinedwith the provincial government to map chieftaincies and protecttheirlands from expropriation. In1997, ateam offieldworkers (includingmyself ) assistedChiefGogoito maphis nyika-hiscountry. This chapter discusses each of the four factors in turn, with particular emphasis on the last two, the loggers and mappers. The loggers and the field staffofthose NGO projects were Zimbabwean, less frequently South African, or, at the veryleast, had lived and worked for some time in Zimbabwe. Why should these Zimbabwe-influenced people (as I shall call them), rather than Mozambicans, have politicized territory? As grabbers and demarcators ofland, Mozambican organizations and individuals were handicapped in relation to their Zimbabwean counterparts in a number of ways. On the practical level, poor roads between Gogoi and theprovincial capital (Chimoio), ashortageofqualifiedprovincialstaffcompetent in the Ndau language, and Gogoi's history as a Renamo stronghold kept government personnel at arm's length.2 In addition, and more important for the purposes ofthisstudy, Mozambican civil servantshadlittle experience in land alienation, rural boundary disputes, and squatting. By contrast , Zimbabweans and South Africans were steeped in cadastral culture. Conscious of colonial history, they recognized Gogoi;s potential as a hinterland for land-grabbing and land conversion. LQggers wished to realize that potential. Mappers wished to prevent the same from happening. Both groups ofbordercrossers helpedpushthe territorializingprocess along: the timberfirm revealedits intentionto plantexotic trees, and mappers (includingmyself ) helped ChiefGogoito identifyhis "territory." Bymid-1997, the major components ofland-grabbingand cadastralresistance were in place. The hinterland had started to close. A CHIEFTAINCY AT THE CROSSROADS In the early19905, at the onset ofpeace, Gogoi's chieftaincy reached a turning point unprecedented in its written record. The demobilization of Renamo's rebel armyleft it free offorced labor. The precolonial Gaza Nguni 123 PART 2. THE BORDER state and, from the1890Sonward, Portuguese colonials had employed chiefs to extract labor in various unfree ways.3 Onlythe interlude ofFrelinlO's rule between independence in 1975 and the start of the war in 1979 later broke that chain. Frelimo had, however, replaced forced labor with other com~ pulsions related to villagization and then reinstituted forced labor for military purposes. When Renamo conquered Gogoi in 1987, it sinillarlypressed menintoservicefor porterage. Now, noonefrom outsideGogoiwasattemptingtoexercisecontroloverthe peopleofGogoi. ChiefGogoihimself, atlast, was unencumbered by external demands for field hands and labor quotas. Ofcourse, his role in Portuguese colonialism and Renamo's corvees had so conditioned his form of rule as to become inseparable from the concept of chieftaincy itself. Now, the sudden end offorced labor detached Gogoi and the meaning ofhis office...