The re-education camps are the ultimate expression of FRELIMO’s messianic spirit. They are used to convert the different social expressions in the country to FRELIMO’s ideological cause. The Re-education Camps must be understood beyond their material and extrajudicial meaning of forcibly removing people from their family and social environment, imprisoning them in remote locations in the middle of the forest with no conditions for survival, subjecting them to forced labour, and even executing them without trial. More than that, they represent FRELIMO’s most organized and open denial of the idea of social diversity in Mozambique’s political, social and economic environment. They are the practical affirmation of its claim to be the only one to define who can exist in the public space in Mozambique.
