Chronology: A year of political violence in Mozambique

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Chronology: A year of political violence in Mozambique

3:59 CAT | 24 May 2016

The kidnapping and shooting of Mozambican analyst José Jaime Macuane yesterday morning on the outskirts of Maputo is just the latest case in more than a year of politically motivated and largely unsolved violence in the country.

Since the murder in March last year of Franco-Mozambican constitutional lawyer Gilles Cistac by still unknown individuals, political leaders, judges, academics and journalists have been targeted.

The murders and assaults on individuals in Mozambique over the last year have been committed in parallel with a worsening of the country’s political and military situation, and in an atmosphere of general lawlessness characterized by the almost complete absence of findings by investigating authorities.

These recent cases compound other high profile murders in the past which took the lives of journalist Carlos Cardoso in 2000, economist Siba Siba Macuácua in 2001, and judge Dinis Silica in 2014.

2015

March 3 – The Franco-Mozambican constitutional lawyer Gilles Cistac is shot dead in broad daylight by unknown individuals when leaving a cafe in the centre of Maputo. The academic had received threats through Facebook in the days before his murder after publicly defending the disputed constitutionality of Renamo’s petition to create autonomous provincial authorities as a solution to the political crisis in the country following the general elections of October 2014.

August 8 – A former agent of State Intelligence and Security Services (SISE) is found shot dead on the outskirts of Maputo. Mussá Inlamo was known to be about to give interviews denouncing the allegedly illegal activities of Mozambique’s secret services.

September 25 – The Renamo leader’s convoy engages in a gunfight with Defence and Security Forces in Manica, with heavy casualties among his guard. It was the second incident in less than two weeks, and was followed by accusations by Dhlakama that the government and Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front) had made him the target of attempted murder.

October 9 – Dhlakama’s home in Beira is surrounded and invaded by the police, allegedly to collect illegal weapons. Men of the Renamo president’s guard are held for a few hours, the incident only ending with the voluntary surrender of weapons and the intervention of peace process mediators and religious leaders.

2016

16 Jan – The secretary general of Renamo, Manuel Bissopo, is shot in the centre of Beira by unknown individuals, but escapes with life. His bodyguard dies on the scene.

April 9 – José Manuel, Renamo member of the National Council for Defence and Security and member of the main opposition party’s military wing, is shot dead by unknown individuals outside the Beira international airport.

11 April – Maputo prosecutor f Marcelino Vilakulos is shot dead as he is driving home on the outskirts of the capital.

18 May – Two local administration officers in Samoa, Tete province, are killed in an attack attributed by the authorities to Renamo, subject of the many mutual accusations of kidnapping, murder and intimidation of members of the main parties in the centre from the country.

May 20 – João Massango, leader of the Ecology Party, one of the extra-parliamentary formations trying to organise a protest march in Maputo against Mozambique’s undisclosed debts and ongoing political and military crisis, reports that he was the target of an attempted kidnapping and assault by armed men in the outskirts of the capital.

May 23 – Political commentator and university professor Jaime Macuane is kidnapped in central Maputo and taken to the outskirts of the city where his attackers leave him with multiple gunshot wounds in his legs.

Source: Lusa