Mozambique to have final peace agreement within two months

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique to have final peace agreement within two months

1:10 CAT | 03 Jun 2019

Photo: AIM Moçambique

“A definitive peace agreement should be concluded by the beginning of August,” President of Mozambique Filipe Nyusi said at the end of a meeting with Renamo leader Ossufo Momade in Chimoio on Sunday.

Mozambique will have a definitive peace agreement by the first week of August, according to its current president.

“The final ceasefire [agreement] or the definitive peace agreement should be concluded by the beginning of August at the latest. If so, until the elections [scheduled for October 15] the population will know that the definitive peace has been celebrated and it will be a great moment. It was a fraternal meeting,” Nyusi said at the end of his meeting with the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, Ossufo Momade.

ALSO READ: Unabridged: U.S. embassy statement on the peace process in Mozambique

Mozambique holds general elections on October 15, when Mozambicans will elect members of Parliament, the president – with Filipe Nyusi and Ossufo Momade both standing as candidates – and, for the first time, provincial governors, who are no longer to be appointed by the central government.

Like the Mozambican president, the opposition leader also wants to seal the final peace even before the vote. “We would like to have a ceasefire agreement by August,” Momade said, so the meeting in Chimoio was “very important for the country and for the world”.

“We will hold elections without Renamo’s forces still in the bush. Let’s demobilise, with some going into the Police of the Republic of Mozambique,” the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) president added.

DDR: Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration

Since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in August last year, the government has placed a total of 14 Renamo officers in Armed Forces command posts, with a further ten officers to be integrated into the police.

In May, Frelimo and Renamo members of parliament once again exchanged accusations over the delay in the DDR process, with Renamo again demanding a presence in the state Information and Security Service and military academies, a condition not yet formally answered by the executive.

Despite differences, Filipe Nyusi stressed on Sunday that June would see the starting date of the Renamo guerrillas’ disarmament and reintegration process. For the definitive peace agreement in the country to be signed, all weapons must have been handed in.

But the Mozambican head of state admits some aspects for the execution of these plans are yet to be agreed. “There are, of course, some legal aspects that have to guide this. For example, one of the issues we have to look at is the amnesty law,” he said, “so that those who surrender their weapons can be sure that they will not be persecuted here or there”.

New consultation meeting

The head of state said that, either this month or next, there would be a new consultation meeting, and that he and Momade had also discussed the for a donor conference to support the costs of reintegrating the Renamo guerrillas.

The position of Ossufo Momade after peace is signed also remained to be discussed, President Nysui said. The head of state said the Renamo leader could not continue to live “in in the bush in Gorongosa all his life: he has to leave”.

The meeting in Chimoio this Sunday (02.06) comes after meetings between the two leaders in the capital, Maputo, on February 27 and March 7.