Frelimo and Renamo consider demobilisation of opposition armed wing in Mozambique urgent

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Frelimo and Renamo consider demobilisation of opposition armed wing in Mozambique urgent

12:40 CAT | 24 May 2018

File photo / Frelimo's chief whip Margarida Talapa said the "peace is a coin, with decentralisation and demilitarisation as its two sides"

Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique, considers the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Renamo’s armed wing a crucial and urgent matter.

The head of the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) party in parliament, Margarida Talapa, said on Wednesday in the Assembly of the Republic that it was crucial to move forward the process of reintegrating the Mozambican National Resistance’s residual forces into civilian life and the Defence Forces of Mozambique (FADM).

“There is no coin in the world that has only one face. Peace is a coin, with decentralisation and demilitarisation as its two sides,” Talapa said, speaking after the approval of the proposal to speedily revise the Constitution on decentralisation.

Frelimo now hopes that the dialogue about the demobilisation of Renamo’s armed wing will continue with the new leadership of the party, after being started with Afonso Dhlakama, who died May 3 from health complications.

Renamo’s chief whip, Ivone Soares, said she considered the outcome of the issue involving the Renamo guerrillas urgent. “We urgently want to move forward with military issues,” she said. Renamo, she continued, advocated the appointment of officers of the armed wing of the party to command posts in the Defence and Security Forces.

The issue of demobilisation remains pending in the dialogue on peace between the government and the main opposition party, after the Assembly of the Republic approved on Wednesday the amendment to the Constitution of the Republic aimed at decentralisation.

Source: Lusa