When Mozambique and South Africa ended their internal conflicts in the early 1990s, they enacted widescale amnesties, and in both countries the rule of law quickly improved. In each of them, political leaders opted to move past the violence and injustices of the past and to focus on the tasks of social and political reconstruction. As part of that reconstruction, each country became a multiparty democracy in which the accountability of leaders and other key norms of the rule of law could finally take root. The restoration of public security, meanwhile, allowed the provision of basic services. And though their criminal-justice systems remained woefully underfunded, both were finally able to start providing citizens with basic protections. While the legal, social and political improvements in South Africa between 1994 and 2004 were impressive, in poorer Mozambique, the improvement was smaller but still marked.