Mozambique: Security fundamental to attract investment to country - president
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Analysts interviewed by Lusa yesterday said that the agreement on the demilitarisation of Renamo could mark a new era in Mozambique, but warn of the need for a structure that guarantees its execution to prevent the country from returning to military crisis.
“Any memorandum, as long as basic and structural conditions are not created, will be void. We have to create a structure that truly guarantees democracy,” said Mozambican academic Alberto Ferreira.
On Monday, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the government and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) on the demilitarisation and integration of the main opposition party’s forces.
For Ferreira, although the instrument is positive, the Mozambican political problem is “deeper”, and demands that the current model, the basis of which comes from the country’s communist period, be rethought.
“They can make the memorandums, but the entire memorandum will be void if the structure of a partisan state with absolute power for those who rule prevails,” the director of the Faculty of Philosophy of Eduardo Mondlane University noted.
Although he congratulates Filipe Nyusi on the “goodwill” he showed in resolving the political crisis, Ferreira believes that the powers of the president must be reduced, offering by way of example that the head of state appoints the presidents of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Council.
“These are situations that generate conflicts. Whoever is in power has absolute power,” warned the author of “Totalitarianism and Democracy: Why Did Marx’s Libertarian Project Fail?”
Mozambican journalist and commentator Fernando Lima also notes that the memorandum between the government and Renamo is positive, but considers that the fear of the country making the same mistakes again is great among Mozambicans.
“We know the story, and the parties also know what happened, and I am sure they will try to ensure that the mistakes are not repeated so that disarmament really happens,” Lima said.
While considering that the integration of Renamo’s armed wing into the armed forces and the police is possible, Lima foresees difficulties in the same process taking place in the State Intelligence and Security Services (SISE).
The Mozambican journalist also notes that Renamo will acquire a new status with demilitarisation, becoming, for the first time, a party without a military arm.
“The military agreement is a basic step for Mozambique to enter a new phase of its democracy, that is, to have all parties, at least theoretically, on an equal footing,” Lima concludes.
In his statement to the nation on Monday, the Mozambican president said that the next steps in the process would be announced within days, without giving further details.
The current negotiating process between the Mozambican government and Renamo started a year ago when Filipe Nyusi travelled to Gorongosa in central Mozambique for talks with the then Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama on August 6 2017, in a meeting that was marked by a handshake.
In addition to the disarmament and integration of men from the armed wing of the largest opposition party into the armed forces and the police, the negotiating agenda between the two sides also involved decentralisation of power, a development made possible by an amendment to the constitution in July.
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