force, UNOMOZ, oversaw the two-year transition to democracy and the last of its contingents departed in early 1995. From War to Peace: Cessation of Hostilities 95. As indicated earlier, Mozambique’s long and devastating war came to an end in 1992, following the signing of the GPA between the FRELIMO government and RENAMO, on 4 October 1992 in Rome. 96. The GPA was reached due to the warring parties’ recognition that the civil war in Mozambique could not be won by military means. Aware of the need to end the war and secure legitimacy from the Mozambican people, both FRELIMO and RENAMO sought to conclude peace negotiations. In August 1989, RENAMO distributed a 16-point document to this end to the media in Nairobi and Washington DC after its first congress, held in Gorongosa from 5–9 June of that year. There were also internal pressures on both sides, especially from Roman Catholic bishops through their 1987 Pastoral Letter, to seek peace and end the war. 97. At the regional level, Mozambique’s neighbours – especially Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – were undergoing democratic changes. In South Africa, apartheid laws were being dismantled and the country was adopting democratic changes that led to the first multiracial democratic elections in 1994. 98. At the international level, donors put pressure on the warring parties to seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict, even going so far as to provide financial support to RENAMO to assist it in making the transition from a rebel movement to a legitimate political party. Apart from these shifts, good governance and democratisation had gained currency internationally. For these reasons, both FRELIMO and RENAMO embarked on peace negotiations, knowing that the civil war in Mozambique was no longer sustainable. 99. The factors that led to the cessation of hostilities in Mozambique suggest that the war had no winner or loser, because neither FRELIMO nor RENAMO had suffered a military defeat. The Mozambican people, including former soldiers of both the FRELIMO and RENAMO armies, were the winners, as they had suffered most from the civil war. Hence, the solution was to introduce fundamental economic and political reforms in order to reconcile and accommodate the interests of both FRELIMO and RENAMO within the Mozambican political system, and then to implement “zero-generation” reforms aimed at placating the majority of people who had suffered most from the war. This argument helps to explain the durable cessation of violent conflict in Mozambique. 100. Another contributing factor to the lasting cessation of violent conflict was the astute mediation of members of the Roman Catholic community of Sant’Egidio, the 64 A P R M COU N T RY R EV IEW R EP ORT NO. 11