Mozambique: Transparency needed in government talks with Military Junta – NGO

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Mozambique: Transparency needed in government talks with Military Junta – NGO

3:10 CAT | 28 Oct 2020

File photo: Lusa

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a Mozambican NGO, today called for openness and transparency in the negotiation process between the Mozambican government and the Renamo Military Junta, a group of dissident opposition guerrillas.

“The process must be open, transparent and inclusive in order to avoid the appearance of future dissidents and waves of political-military instability in the central region of the country,” the CDD says regarding the truce declared on Saturday by the Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi.

In contrast with the negotiation process that culminated in the signing of the 2019 peace agreement, “this time the negotiations must involve more relevant players from society, including sovereign bodies of a representative nature, as is the case of the Assembly of the Republic”, it adds.

According to the CDD, “the discussion of State matters that concern all Mozambican citizens cannot continue to be a privilege of those who hold power and those who pose a challenge”.

In this case, CDD points out, the Military Junta, more than a problem of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), “has become a problem of the State, from the moment it started to launch armed attacks against civilians in the provinces of Manica and Sofala, especially on National Roads No. 1 and No. 6”.

Although the Military Junta officially demands the resignation of Ossufo Momade from the Renamo leadership, the splinter group basically calls for “special treatment for the high ranks of the former guerrillas who feel excluded from the benefits resulting from the signing of the peace agreement”, the CDD notes.

The Military Junta, the CDD understands, gives even more importance to that aspect of the benefits because “unlike Afonso Dhlakama, former Renamo president who abdicated the rights and benefits of the Opposition Leader Statute, Ossufo Momade accepted them”.

If, on the one hand, the political framework of the Renamo leader in the structure of the state “is positive in the sense that it allowed the resumption of the demilitarization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) process”, while on the other, “the acceptance of the Leader of the Opposition Statute can convey the idea of Momade’s accommodation or even co-option, which would be negative for the future of Mozambican democracy”.

That is, the openness and transparency of the negotiation process take on even greater relevance.

The Renamo Military Junta is a movement of dissident guerrillas from Mozambique’s main opposition party that challenges the leader elected at the 2019 congress.

The group emerged in June 2019 and threatened to take up arms if their demands were not acknowledged. It is, since then, the main suspect in the deaths of about 30 people in attacks against buses, villages and members of the Defence and Security Forces in the centre of the country.

At the same time, the group has rejected several calls for dialogue, including those sponsored by the United Nations and the European Union, among others.

Mariano Nhongo told Lusa on Monday that he was willing to start a dialogue.

The violence in the centre of the country takes place against the backdrop of a humanitarian crisis in Cabo Delgado, where a three-year armed insurgency has already claimed between 1,000 and 2,000 lives and caused the displacement of 300,000 residents.

Source: Lusa