Mozambique: Pensions for former guerrillas condition for peace, says Renamo - AIM
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Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi was among the mourners who paid their final homage on Wednesday to Jeremias Pondeca, a senior official of Renamo, who was assassinated on Saturday.
Since Pondeca was a member of the Council of State, a consultative body that advises the President of the Republic, his body lay in state on Wednesday morning in Maputo City Hall.
In addition to Nyusi, who chairs the Council of State, other Council members who paid their respects included former President Armando Guebuza and the Mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango, who is also leader of the second largest opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
One of Pondeca’s eight children, Mercidio Munguambe, in a message from the family, said that Pondeca’s death had created “unimaginable sadness”.
“You have gone”, he said, “but your work prevails. In us, you have laid strong foundations. We shall continue to defend your ideals in this country where thinking differently may cost us our lives”.
The secretary of the Council of State, Amine Miquidade, hoped that the murderers would be speedily identified and brought to justice. “We must raise our voices against violence”, he declared, “We want to live in a country where we can move around without any fear”.
Manuel Pereira, a Renamo member of parliament, said “we shall follow the ideals for which you fought until your barbaric and untimely death. We shall not give up”.
Pondeca was a member of the Renamo delegation in the current talks between the government and Renamo, and the coordinator of the international mediating team in the talks, the Italian Mario Raffaelli, told the ceremony that the best way of honouring Pondeca’s memory “is to continue the negotiations in search of peace”.
Outside the ceremony, Daviz Simango told reporters that, because of the politico-military instability in the country, the first thing that occurred to citizens when they heard of Pondeca’s murder was that it must have political motivations.
“We can have various interpretations, various points of view”, he said. “But if the country is living through a situation of brutal, armed violence, obviously at first sight we will all say it’s a political attack, until proof to the contrary”.
The 55 year old Pondeca was gunned down by unknown assailants when he was going for his habitual early morning run at Maputo’s Costa do Sol beach. According to the police, four men were seen attacking Pondeca, and they later fled the scene in a Toyota Runx.
Interior Minister Basilio Monteiro told reporters that the police have been instructed to treat the matter as top priority, and to use “all their efforts” to track down the killers.
Pondeca’s body has now been taken to his home village in Chidenguele, in the southern province of Gaza, where he will be buried on Thursday.
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