Assembly investigating mass grave claims – Mozambique

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Assembly investigating mass grave claims – Mozambique

8:22 CAT | 26 May 2016

VOA / Frelimo MP and head of the Commission on Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Mozambican parliament Edson Macuácua

Members of the Commission on Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, are visiting the central provinces of Manica and Sofala to investigate claims of mass graves, even though the governments of both provinces have denied these claims.

Speaking to reporters in Maputo on Tuesday, the chairperson of the Commission, Edson Macuacua, said that the commission members will interact with the local population, the provincial governments and the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) to ascertain the truth.

“We shall work in Sofala and Manica with the local governments and local authorities in order to understand what really happened”, he said.

The claims of a mass grave in the Canda area of Gorongosa district, in Sofala, first surfaced in late April. The Gorongosa district administrator, Manuel Jamaca, issued a statement saying the authorities had investigated but found nothing. He dismissed the claim as “disinformation”.

Mhoje_stabbatmatermoz_photo_jpg — Lusa / One of the shocking photos of bodies scattered in the Gorongosa bush

But journalists continued investigating, and just over the provincial boundary, in the Manica district of Macossa, they found bodies dumped in the bush. The independent television station STV filmed the bodies, and counted 13 of them. Nine of the bodies were lying under a bridge over the Piro river. The other four bodies were a few metres from the bridge, near a field. Later, the Attorney-General’s Office, carrying out its own investigation, said there were 11 bodies, rather than 13.

Shortly after the discovery, the police buried the bodies with no attempt to identify them. The police justified the hasty burial on the grounds that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition.

The country’s top forensic doctor, Antonio Zacarias, criticised the police for failing to seal off a crime scene, and for making immediate autopsies impossible.

Macuacua said that the parliamentary commission has a deadline of 15 days, counted as from next Monday, to present a report on its findings to the Assembly’s governing board, its Standing Commission.

“In any case, even before any investigation, our position is that we strongly condemn all acts that violate human rights, regardless of who carried them out”, he said.

Predictably, the main opposition party, the rebel movement Renamo, is boycotting the work of the commission, claiming that the investigation should be carried out by a Commission of Inquiry and not by one of the Assembly’s working commissions.

Source: AIM