| Country: | Mozambique |
| Details of Formation: | The traditional healer Manuel António formed the militia as a local force in the province of Nampula in late 1988. In 1989, the group extended its operations to Zambezia province. The Frelimo government cooperated with and at times actively supported the group. |
| Details of Termination: | The police started to collect the weapons of the group in 1994. |
| Purpose: | The government aligned with the militia to support the regular armed forces in their war against the rebel Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo). The militia’s stated goal was to protect and defend the population. The group captured Renamo combatants and collaborators and helped displaced people to return to their homes. |
| Organisation: | Manuel António was the founder and the spiritual leader of the militia and was worshipped by many of the group’s members as a liberator. The group was not unified but evolved independently in different regions of Mozambique. Further initiators and leaders of Naparama were Manuel Sabonete, Ambrósio Albino, Nampila Mupa, and Silva Taitosse Mirasse. |
| Weapons and Training: | One source claims that the militia's strict rules prohibited modern weapons, so the group was equipped with hunting spears, bows and arrows, machetes or clubs. However, another source reports that the group mainly possessed rifles. |
| Size: | The militia had 9,000 members in 1994. |
| Reason for Membership: | The group members strongly believed in the spiritual powers of the militia’s leaders. Some joined the group to receive a ‘vaccine’ which promised to make them invulnerable to bullets. Members of existing community defence forces joined the group to defend their villages from rebel attacks. The militia enjoyed much support among former refugees and displaced people and the militia especially targeted young, displaced men for recruitment. |
| Treatment of Civilians: | Group members were supported by villagers who brought them food and money. It is unclear whether the residents were coerced to do so or whether they supported Naparama. The militia enabled around 100,000 people who had been held or kidnapped by the rebel group Renamo to return to their homes safely. People supporting the rebels were punished and their property was plundered by the group. |
| Other Information: | In 1991, Manuel António, Naparama’s spiritual leader died. The militiamen believed in a spiritual power which was supposed to make them invulnerable to spears and injuries. One source claims that Naparama still exists, not as a militia, but as a spiritual orientation in some regions in Mozambique. Other names of the militia were Naprama, Nacrama, Parama, Napharama and Barama. |
| References: |
Information was taken from news sources listed in the PGMD and from the following papers: Bertelsen, Bjørn Enge and Knut Rio. 2019. “1968 and its other worlds: Global events and (anti-)state dynamics in France, Mozambique and Vanuatu.” History and Anthropology 30(5): 622–643. Jentzsch, Corinna. 2018. “Spiritual Power and the Dynamics of War in the Provinces of Nampula and Zambézia in Mozambique.” In The War Within. New Perspectives on the Civil War in Mozambique, 1976 – 1992, edited by Michel Cahen, Eric Morier-Genoud, and Domingos Do Rosário, 75–99. Suffolk: James Currey. Kleibl, Tanja. 2017. “‘Sociedade civil? Somos todos nós!’: Civil Society, Development and Social Transformation in Mozambique.” PhD Thesis, Dublin City University. |