One million artifacts of war, given up by locals

Mozambique’s civil war killed a million people over 16 years and armed the population until 1992. Since then it has been 18 years of peace, and the African nation that shares borders with Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia and Tanzania shows that religion can guide a practical process of change to build peace. Mozambique’s voluntary disarmament campaign took 1,000,000 artifacts of war out of circulation over the past 15 years (including ammunition) by offering in exchange for guns, ploughshares. The Campaign Transform Guns in Ploughshares was born out of a project led by the Council of Protestant Churches, 22 religious denominations and two bible organizations.

Titos Macie, from the Mozambique’s Cristian Council of Churches, in Brazil to take part in an international meeting on disarmament, described a two way process, in which faith in a new life leads people to give up guns held at home, rewarded with materials that will help them being a new life. Firearms are given up voluntarily in exchange for sewing machines, tin roofs, bicycles.

“The campaign was born of an idea raised by a woman in the city of Nampula in the 90s. And it is to this day being supported above all by women, they are the ones who come to us after hearing about our campaigns, and tell us about their husbands and brothers’ guns; it is they who show us where the weapons are and provide us with its papers,” said Macie. Religion also appeals to those who have committed violence in the past giving them the opportunity to give up weapons, no questions asked. Often the members of a church are led through days walking into the bush to hidden gun caches, buried by former fighters. Guns given in, according to Macie, are eliminated promptly, exploded with dynamite inside their hiding places, or sawed.

In this exclusive interview for Comunidad Segura, Titos Macie talks about the experience in a nation that encourages, with its feet planted firmly on the ground, a conversion and the building of peace.

How did the Voluntary Gun Hand in Campaign begin?

The TAE project turned 15 last month, since been launched on the 20th of October 1995, exactly a year after the first multiparty elections in the nation. The campaign is based on the verse of Isiah: “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”

Is the campaign permanent or renewed every year?

Ours is a permanent campaign, it is clear that there are high and low points according to the availability of resources. When we have enough resources, we recover many weapons, but in others times our turn out can be quite low.

How is it different from other disarmament initiatives like the DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) led by the United Nation, for example?

Contrary to the DDR attempts, the TAE is there for the long run. The DDR has a political component and is limited to disarming soldiers, and it is also connected to the peace agreements. The TAE is ecumenical, and because it belongs to the churches and to the communities it is open to all, it also helps to empower communities. Which does not mean, of course, that it cant complement the DDR.

How does the TAE reach the population?

It is still a challenge to inform the population of the campaign. Regretfully, we need to pay for radio and television ads. It is hard to get the media on our side. Although they charge us less for their services, they say they must charge nevertheless since there are production costs involved.

What happens to the firearms that are given in?

All weapons are destroyed. There are cases in which we destroy guns on wherever they are with dynamite. Especially when we find dangerous hidden caches and are not certain that the surrounding area is secure.

In other cases, we bring all we recover to a location where they are sawed. This work is done by us, not by the police. Gun parts and remainders are used later to make works of art.

The key of the process then, is personal choice?

Our volunteer hand in campaign depends on raising awareness. We show people we have something to offer if the people are willing to give up their guns. But we also offer people who may have used guns in crime in the past to give up their weapons without being identified, and without risking culpability. We offer them the opportunity to start a new life.

Many people come to us saying: “During many years of my life I had to make a living with this gun. But you have saved me and given me a new opportunity in life. I give up this gun, do whatever you want with it, but I want a new life, help me”. So we work with these people, we give them the support of the church and whatever materials we have available to support them.

An important part of the project is to transform weapons into works of art...

Artists who belong to our Art Center have created hundreds of art works with pieces of deactivated guns. The works of art are scattered the world over, they are present, for example at the headquarters of the United Nations. But we have not been able to melt guns yet, as has been done in Bogotá, Colombia, which we would like to learn more about.

Who responds to the campaign more readily?

In my experience it is the women who join the campaign more readily. They come to us and tell us that their husbands or brothers have guns at home. They show us where the weapons are and give us the weapons’ papers. Men come too, some tell us about their past and how they got them, others don’t.

You mentioned the story of an officer...

I like to tell the story of a man who I believe must have been a high ranking official in the army, who had three guns. He had three different posts in the armed forces and he accumulated guns according to his duties and for self defense. They were not taken back when he changed his posts. After having left the army and fully integrated into civilian life he still had the three guns at home.

When he saw one of our campaigns on tv he decided to talk to our bishop, saying that he had never given it any thought, but that he had come to think that the guns were no longer of any use to him. He wanted to give away his weapons then and there. The bishop then told him to take his guns back home and that a team would go to his house to pick up the firearms. But the man insisted he could bear the burden no longer, a burden that had weighed on him all this time without his being aware of it. He only realized it after looking at our campaign.

Does the fact the war is still a recent memory help people give up their weapons?

It is a fact that a great quantity of the guns we collect were originally from the war. They stayed with the population because, on the one hand, there was little confidence among the different parties and on the other, there was also a certain lack of control. We had no information about who received the guns. For example, in the past the country was peppered with mines and no one knew where they were, there were no maps. There was a time when former fighters came to the conclusion that they would no longer need those guns and they came to us to show us where they were.

Is the relationship based on trust?

Yes it is based on depositing faith in a new state with its foundations on peace. They take us days into the bush to find, identify and collect hidden guns that are generally buried. Most of the guns we find are still in good condition.

Did the campaign start from a reconciliation process?

It all began with a question raised by a woman from Nampula, a town in the north of Mozambique. She asked the bishop what was going to happen to the guns in the community. She made that question in 1993. The TAE was born two years later. The women were aware that guns are endangering the community stupidly, and the sooner you can be free of them the better. And they began to turn the weapons in. 

What are the main challenges to the campaign today?

The availability of materials to give in exchange for guns in a timely manner, the campaign’s sustainability, and a system to record the artifacts handed in so as to make it easier to track weapons from receiving them to their destruction.