Mozambique: Renamo criticizes President for suggesting reflection on the General Peace Agreement – Watch

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Mozambique: Renamo criticizes President for suggesting reflection on the General Peace Agreement – Watch

2:28 CAT | 30 Jul 2025

Photo: Integrity

The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) party on Tuesday criticized the President of the Republic for calling for reflection on the General Peace Agreement, accusing him of promoting “intolerance and governmental arrogance”.

“[The party] repudiates the hate speech and intolerance that the President of the Republic has been delivering on his working trips, as they undermine the democratic rule of law, national reconciliation, economic stability, and promote arrogance as a method of governance,” Renamo spokesperson Marcial Macome told a press conference in Maputo.

At issue is a request from the Mozambican head of state on July 17th to members of the Defence and Security Forces to rethink compliance with and the validity – including subsequent understandings – of the General Peace Agreement (GPA), signed in 1992 in Rome between the government and Renamo.

Government accused of non-compliance

For Renamo, now the country’s second-largest opposition party, it is up to civil society and to the Mozambican parliament to assess the implementation status of the agreement. The party accuses successive Frelimo governments of non-compliance, including in regard to the formation of a joint army and the appointment of its former guerrillas to leadership positions.

“There should be equal numbers of command and leadership positions in the Defence Forces, but in a clear violation of the Rome Accords, officers and generals have been relegated to the background through compulsory reserve,” Macome said.

For the Renamo spokesperson, the head of state has been promoting speeches which fuel divisions and “revive one-party practices”.

“We must stop using peace as a rhetoric, exclusion as a practice. One does not build peace with embellished speeches,” said the Renamo spokesperson, subsequently accusing the government of lack of interest in the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process, which only progressed in 2018 under the terms of a new peace agreement.

“The Frelimo [Mozambique Liberation Front, the ruling party] government, currently led by Chapo, must admit that it failed to guarantee the pillars of the agreement, transforming the peace instrument into a cynical monument of national propaganda […]. I would like to remind the president that rethinking the General Peace Agreement without acknowledging [the government’s] failure to comply is symbolic violence against those who bled for it, and it is imperative that you, Sir, publicly acknowledge the errors in implementing the agreement,” Macome added.