Mozambique: DDR is moving north next week

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Mozambique: DDR is moving north next week

9:55 CAT | 12 Nov 2021

FILE PHOTO - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

About 560 Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) guerrillas in Nampula province will be covered by the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration process in what will be the first cycle of the peace process in northern Mozambique.

“We expect about 560 combatants from the Renamo base in Namaita, Murrupula district, Nampula province, to be registered as demobilised, over three weeks of work,” Mirko Manzoni, the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy and leader of the contact group for peace in Mozambique, said at a press conference in Maputo on Thursday.

These guerrillas covered by the process that begins on Monday bring the total of Renamo fighters who have given up their weapons to 3,270 out of a total of 5,000 expected to be reached under the understandings of the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, signed between the government and the main opposition party in the country.

“This is the 11th Renamo base to be closed since June 2020, and the remaining five bases will be demobilised next year,” Mirko Manzoni stressed.

The personal envoy of the United Nations (UN) secretary-general took the opportunity to clear up “misconceptions” about complaints of delays in the subsidy of Renamo guerrillas. The main opposition party recurrently raises this problem.

“We have an agreement that provides that the combatants who come out of the bush will receive for one year the reintegration allowance, and after that, they will be reintegrated into the Mozambican pension system,” Mirko Manzoni said, adding that the government and international partners are making efforts to resolve the issue of the missing pensions.

The Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement was signed on 6 August 2019 between President Filipe Nyusi and Renamo leader Ossufo Momade.

The understanding was the third between the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) government and Renamo, with all three having been signed following cycles of armed violence between the two sides.

Under the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, more than half of the nearly 5,000 Renamo guerrillas have already been covered by disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR). Some have been incorporated into the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces.

Source: Lusa