On May 18th parliament passed a law granting additional benefits to veterans of the country's anti-colonial liberation struggle, which ended in 1975, as well as to belligerents of the post-independence civil war, which ended with the successful holding of the country's first democratic elections in 1994. Veterans from the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) party's anti-colonial struggle already enjoyed certain privileges. However, the current legislation also extends assistance-on less generous terms-to combatants on both sides of the 16-year post-independence civil conflict, including those who were in the ranks of the former rebels, Resistência Nacional de Moçambique (Renamo), which is now the country's main opposition party. Veterans of both sides will be entitled to a "re-insertion bonus", provided that they can prove at least three years of service.

Parliamentary debates between Frelimo and Renamo members about the legislation were bitter, as the measure reopened old grievances over events of the civil war. Renamo deputies condemned the legislation as "discriminatory" for granting less generous benefits to combatants in the civil conflict than those offered to veterans of the war for independence. Frelimo officials, for their part, judged that the former group could not be put "on the same pedestal as those who ... dedicated their lives to national liberation struggle". Renamo deputies in turn condemned Frelimo's liberation struggle for resulting in "totalitarianism" and a "one-party state".

Although the passage of this bill has stirred up powerful sentiments, it is a positive step in the ongoing process of national reconciliation. Given Frelimo's dominance of the polity, the fact that it was willing to grant any privileges to its erstwhile enemies is encouraging. Moreover, the strength of feeling about the civil conflict expressed by parliamentarians of both sides is probably not shared by the majority of Mozambicans. According to the World Bank, in 2009 average life expectancy was just 48 years, while nearly half of the population was under the age of 14. Thus, the number of people with memories of the civil conflict has already waned considerably in the 17 years of peace since it ended. These demographic changes are also happening, albeit more slowly, in the two main parties, whose old guard of war veterans is gradually being eclipsed by a younger generation of meritocrats.