Former President Chissano warns against misinterpretation of peace accords in Mozambique

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Former President Chissano warns against misinterpretation of peace accords in Mozambique

1:50 CAT | 29 May 2019

Photo: O País

Former Mozambican head of state Joaquim Chissano warned yesterday of a misinterpretation of the peace agreements between the government and Renamo, adding that it makes no sense to include reservists in the lists of Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) officers for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process.

“We are faced with a situation of varied interpretations and these interpretations keep on coming, late,” Joaquim Chissano was quoted as saying on STV on Tuesday. “Whenever we think that everything is going well, there comes a different interpretation of what the understandings were.”

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi recently announced that he had received the list of Renamo officers to be integrated into the police, as provided for in the peace agreement, but said that the Government could not accept officers who were in the reserve.

“We in the government do not have the morale to include men already in the reserve and others in retirement or demobilised to the detriment of those still in the ranks of Renamo, those who the dialogue with the late Afonso Dhlakama aimed to encompass,” President Nyusi said.

While believing that the parties would find a compromise, Chissano said it did not make sense for the list to include Renamo members in the reserve or already demobilised.

“The discussion is ongoing and I believe that the parties will reach an agreement. But integrating people who are in the reserve makes no sense,” said the former Mozambican head of state, who signed the first peace agreement with Afonso Dhlakama, the late leader of the main opposition party, on October 4, 1992.

Negotiations between the government and Renamo are at a standstill over the issue of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of Renamo’s armed men.

The main opposition party demands its staff be installed in the State Information and Security Service (SISE) and in military academies, a matter on which the Mozambican executive has yet to satisfy it.

In addition to the disarmament and integration of the men of the armed wing of the largest opposition party in the armed forces, the negotiating agenda between the two sides involved decentralisation of power, a matter accomplished by the amendment to the constitution approved in July last year.

Source: Lusa