Mozambique: “Innovative response and renewed hope” – Nyusi

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Mozambique: “Innovative response and renewed hope” – Nyusi

5:39 CAT | 16 Dec 2020

Photo: O País

The state of the nation is one of “innovative response and renewed hope”, declared Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday.

Giving his annual State of the Nation address to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Nyusi pointedly refused to declare that “the state of the nation is good”, something which his predecessor, Armando Guebuza, had proclaimed on several occasions. Mozambicans “would feel betrayed, if I said that the state of the nation is good”, Nyusi added.

Nyusi said the situation facing Mozambique was unprecedented. “We had never before lived through adversities on the scale of terrorism, the attacks in the centre of the country (by the Renamo Military Junta), the Covid-19 pandemic, and managing cyclones such as Idai (which devastated the central provinces in March 2019)”, he declared.

But the response to these challenges “has been innovative, and renews our hope”. The government, Nyusi stressed “has never lost its focus on defending the interests of its people”.

Nyusi said that the wave of jihadist terrorism in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, although it first burst into the open with attacks on police premises in Mocimboa da Praia district in October 2017, in fact dates back to 2012.

That was when a group of extremists, led by a Tanzanian citizen, incited disobedience to the Mozambican constitution, and told its followers to take their children out of state schools and send them to madrassas (Koranic schools) instead. They also broke with orthodox Islam, by telling their members to enter mosques wearing shoes and shorts, and carrying weapons.

“Any moslem knows that you can’t enter mosques with these objects, since it is contrary to Islam”, said Nyusi.

Among the terrorists killed or captured in combat, he continued, are Tanzanians, Congolese, Ugandans, Somalis and Kenyans. The Mozambican jihadists are recruited not only in Cabo Delgado, but also in Nampula, Zambezia and Niassa provinces.

The terrorist leadership is mostly foreign, he said, citing the names of several who have died at the hands of the defence and security forces. The sources of funding he added, apart from looting, include electronic money transfers by collaborators, and the proceeds of organised crime.

Nyusi said the government is committed to boosting the training of the defence forces and re-equipping them. “Although our enemies are opposed to this, we are not going to back down”, he promised.

He added that Mozambique is also stepping up international cooperation to combat terrorism, but always while preserving national interests. “This is fundamental”, Nyusi declared. “We Mozambicans need to develop our own skills. We will be on the front line of defending the country. Nobody will do it for us”.

“We are not going to talk publicly about the strategies the country should adopt”, he said – but he confirmed that many countries from across the globe, including Mozambique’s partners in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), are promising assistance.

“We need to know how to manage this support otherwise we risk creating a salad of interventions in Mozambique”, he warned.

He confirmed that veterans of the Mozambican liberation war are working with the defence forces on the Cabo Delgado front, and had been involved in “cleaning up” the Awasse area in Mocimboa da Praia.

Nyusi has clearly lost patience with the country’s other enemy, the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta”, which has continued its murderous ambushes on the main roads in Manica and Sofala provinces, spurning the offer of a truce the government made in late October. “There is nothing we can do but launch vigorous operations against this enemy”, he said.

“That’s what’s happening right now”, he told the Assembly. He pointed out that Renamo has disowned the Military Junta, and he praised the current Renamo leader, Ossufo Momade, with whom he signed a peace agreement in August 2019.

He said the dialogue he had begun with the late leader of Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama, and continued with Momade “does not give anybody room to use guns to claim they need this or that”.

“We reaffirm that our sovereignty shall never be negotiated or mortgaged”, declared the President. “We shall continue investing in the combat capacity of the defence and security forces, so that they can protect the entire country”.

Nyusi also had words of praise for the Mayor of Beira and the leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), Daviz Simango, for showing a “sense of State”.

However, the MDM parliamentary group boycotted Nyusi’s speech, claiming “injustice” in Tuesday’s election by the Assembly of members of a new National Elections Commission (CNE).

Source: AIM