MDM says that Afonso Dhlakama’s remains must be placed in the crypt of the Heroes of Mozambique

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

MDM says that Afonso Dhlakama’s remains must be placed in the crypt of the Heroes of Mozambique

12:55 CAT | 08 May 2018

File photo: Lusa

Mozambique’s Democratic Movement says that the remains of Afonso Dhlakama must be “deposited in the crypt” in the Mozambican capital where Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel also lie.

The president of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), Daviz Simango, said on Monday that the remains of Afonso Dhlakama should to be deposited in National Heroes Square in Maputo.

“For me it is important that the remains are put in the crypt” in the Mozambican capital where the independence fighter Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel, the first Mozambican president, are buried.

For Simango, leader of the third-largest political party, “if there is a Heroes Square and there are personalities there linked to a political lineage, a group, a clan, it is necessary to show that Mozambicans want reconciliation and take this opportunity to place there the leader of opposition to the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo), in power since independence in 1975”.

“It would be very good in this way to strengthen the national unity that we proclaim so loudly,” he said. Without doing so, “the [Frelimo] government will have missed a great opportunity” to reconcile “with itself” and “to create conditions for the state to reconcile with its citizens”.

“He should be laid to rest in Heroes’ Square, and should be given a state funeral ceremony more than anything else,” Simango concludes, the man who is also mayor of the Beira municipality, where public obsequies for the Renamo president will take place on Wednesday.

A government delegation joined Dhlakama’s family in the city on Monday to determine whether the ceremonies would take place at the Beira Ferrovário sports stadium, as announced by Renamo and Dhlakama’s relatives on Saturday, or on Railway Station Square.

The former Mozambique guerrilla and opposition leader will be buried by his family at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday in his hometown of Mangunde, 300 kilometres southwest of Beira in Sofala province. Dhlakama died on Thursday in the Gorongosa mountains from health complications.

Source: Lusa