Analysis: Mediators arrive Monday – Joseph Hanlon

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Analysis: Mediators arrive Monday – Joseph Hanlon

9:47 CAT | 11 Jul 2016

Lusa (file photo)

Mediators could arrive on Monday (11 July) but no date has been set for the resumption of talks, Renamo head Afonso Dhlakama told O Pais (7 July) in a telephone interview. Invitation letters to name mediators were delivered to the European Union and Apostolic Nunciature in Maputo on Friday 1 July, to be forwarded to Brussels and the Vatican City in Rome. (Lusa 6 July)

Dhlakama also confirmed that the enlarged teams (6 people on each side) which had originally been set up only to organise the meeting between Dhlakama and President Filipe Nyusi would now become full negotiating teams.

Dhlakama says Frelimo is not serious about negotiating. And each side says the other should stop military action. Nyusi in Nampula said Renamo should stop attacking civilians. Dhlakama replied: “Who has sent armoured cars 1500 km to shell my centre here? We in Renamo have not gone 1500 km to shell the palaces of Frelimo.” And he said again that Frelimo’s plan was to kill him.

The war continues and recent reports show that Renamo has guerrillas in quite diverse parts of the country. Fifteen armed Renamo men stole medicines from a health centre in Banga, Tsangano, Tete on 6 July and also vandalised the office of the local Frelimo secretary, according to the police. AIM (En 8 July, Pt 7 July) says fighting continues In Tsangano and Moatize districts in Tete. Renamo attacked the house of the head of Mepinha locality, Morrumbala, Zambezia on 2 July; he fled and was not hurt. Diario da Zambezia reports that the road between Mepinha and Morrumbala town has already come under attack. Schools are also closed in Morrumbala; of 10,030 children expected to start school this year in Morrumbala, only 2,711 new pupils registered. In Manica, 61 schools are closed due to the war, 19 in Barue and 42 in Mossurize. (AIM En 5 July) Traditional healers in Gaza are having difficulty acquiring herbal medicine due to the presence of armed Renamo men in the forests where they usually collect their ingredients. (Rádio Moçambique)

On Tuesday (5 July) gunmen killed two people in Namacurra, Zambézia. One was the brother of a Renamo member of the Zambézia provincial assembly and district political delegate for Namacurra. Family sources told Diario da Zambézia that the victim was probably mistaken for the delegate, who was not at home at the time, and that they were killed by a government death squad.

Autopsies will be carried out on 11 bodies found in an advanced state of decomposition under a road bridge on the N1 in Macossa, Manica. The bodies were found after reports circulated of a mass grave in nearby Gorongosa, Sofala. The police buried the bodies in situ on 7 May rather than removing them immediately for further examination. The bodies were exhumed on 23 June and taken to the morgue at Beira Central Hospital for autopsies by the public prosecutor’s office (Diario de Mocambique)

By: Joseph Hanlon

Source: News reports & clippings