Mozambique Police Promise Commission of Inquiry as Renamo Evacuates Wounded Secretary-General to South Africa

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Mozambique Police Promise Commission of Inquiry as Renamo Evacuates Wounded Secretary-General to South Africa

9:46 CAT | 25 Jan 2016

File / Jorge Khalau, the General Commander of the Mozambican police.

The General Commander of the Mozambican police, Jorge Khalau, on Friday announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry into Wednesday’s attack in Beira, which seriously injured Manuel Bissopo, general secretary of the Renamo party, and killed his bodyguard.

Cited by the independent television station STV, Khalau described the attack on Bissopo as “macabre”, and said a commission was being sent from Maputo to assist the Beira police in investigating the crime.

The Beira police admitted on Thursday that the only evidence they were able to recover from the crime scene were three spent cartridges from an AK-47 assault rifle.

Khalau also warned that the defence and security forces will not tolerate any attempt by Renamo to seize control of parts of northern and central Mozambique. Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has repeatedly threatened to install his own government in the six provinces of Manica, Sofala, Tete, Zambezia, Nampula and Niassa.

But Khalau insisted that the police will not allow anyone to “govern by force”.

DHLAKAMA’S FIRST REACTION OF BISSOPO’S SHOOTING

Dhlakama’s first reactions to the shooting of Bissopo came in a telephone interview with the Portuguese news agency Lusa, in which he accused “the Frelimo regime” of responsibility for the attack. Frelimo “has become a terrorist party, in a terrorist state”, he claimed.

Dhlakama said the shooting could worsen the current political tensions, but once again he promised not to return to war. “I can believe that the situation may deteriorate, but there is no war”. Thus Dhlakama promises on the one hand to seize power in six provinces, but on the other claims this will be done without resorting to war.

There are other theories as to the cause of the attack against Bissopo. Frelimo militant and former security minister Mariano Matsinhe told STV he believed the shooting was the work of other people within Renamo. Given the long history of internecine battles inside Renamo this is not altogether implausible – but neither Matsinhe nor Dhlakama offered any evidence for their conflicting theories.

BISSOPO IN SOUTH AFRICAN PRIVATE HOSPITAL

On Friday, Bissopo was flown to South Africa in a plane chartered by Renamo. The private clinic that cared for him in Beira was unable to remove a bullet lodged in Bissopo’s body, and Renamo refused to transfer their general secretary to the one place in Beira that could handle such a delicate procedure, the state-run Beira Central Hospital. So Bissopo is now in the hands of a private South African facility.

Source: AIM