Moçambique: Mondlane wants three-day national mourning for dead protesters, traffic halt – Watch

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Moçambique: Mondlane wants three-day national mourning for dead protesters, traffic halt – Watch

3:48 CAT | 19 Nov 2024

Screen grab: Venâncio Mondlane /YouTube

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane on Tuesday called on Mozambicans to observe three days of national mourning for the “50 fatalities” in the post-election demonstrations, starting on Wednesday, including a 15-minute halt to traffic and honking of car horns.

“We’re going to stop all vehicles and honk our horns in honour of our heroes (…) those who don’t have vehicles, from 12:00 to 12:15, raise posters, for the restoration of electoral truth, at traffic lights, in the middle of the streets, as if you were traffic wardens,” Venâncio Mondlane appealed, in a live broadcast on his official Facebook account, announcing a new phase of protest against the announced results of the general elections on 9 October.

The action for 20, 21 and 22 November, across the country, is to mourn the victims, demonstrators who took part in previous protest actions, he said, “shot by the authorities who were supposed to protect them”.

“We’re decreeing national mourning for the martyrs of the pot and pan revolution. Three days of national mourning (…) It’s not like 50 people die and society remains unmoved and serene,” said Mondlane.

During this period, he also appealed to the public to maintain the noisy night-time protests of recent days, banging pots and pans and other instruments, but “without marches”, keeping to the doorstep or the block, in view of the “infiltrators” and “vandals” in these protests.

“Our demonstration will be in black, banging pots and raising placards. We’re not going to pick up any sticks, machetes or blunt objects,” he said, insisting that vehicles, “wherever they are”, should stop for 15 minutes from 12:00.

“This is the tribute we want to pay to those who died,” he said, adding: “Apparently we are lowering our intensity, but we are in mourning.”

He said that the 50 victims of police action at demonstrations since 21 October “died like heroes, like martyrs of a revolution”.

Prior to this announcement, Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi said he would be making a “communication to the nation” this afternoon on the “situation of the country in the post-election period”.

The head of state’s communication is scheduled for 5pm local time (3pm in Lisbon), from the office of the Presidency in Maputo, Nyusi announced on his official Facebook account.

“A President of the Republic would have called Venâncio,” the candidate retorted.

During his speech, referring to the previous demonstrations, which involved clashes with the police, who stopped them, Venâncio Mondlane said that the protests are “profoundly peaceful”, that they want change based on “democratic and peaceful means” and “legal instruments”.

He even said that he had previously rejected “declarations of allegiance” from military personnel and former guerrillas for change in Mozambique by “armed means”.

“All violence, physical attacks on people, destruction of private or public property, vehicles, robberies, whatever kind of violence, we strongly repudiate,” he said, guaranteeing: “We will never, ever use violent means to achieve any purpose. This must be made clear to everyone.’

The leaders of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), Ossufo Momade, and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), Lutero Simango, the two largest opposition parties and both also candidates for the post of president in the October vote, have in recent days called for the elections to be cancelled and repeated, alleging various irregularities in the process.

“Forget it. We want electoral truth. Whoever won, won. Votes can’t be negotiated,” Venâncio Mondlane said of these positions.

Venâncio Mondlane disputes the attribution of victory to Daniel Chapo, the candidate supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power), with 70.67% of the votes, according to the results announced on 24 October by the CNE and which have yet to be validated by the Constitutional Council.