Government denies operating “death squads” – Mozambique

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Government denies operating “death squads” – Mozambique

8:27 CAT | 27 Oct 2016

Noticias / Minister of Justice Isaque chmade addressing Parliament on Wednesday, October 27, 2016

Mozambican Justice Minister Isaque Chande on Wednesday categorically denied that the government has set up “death squads”.

He was speaking in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, in response to a question from the main opposition party, the rebel movement Renamo, which claimed that the ruling Frelimo Party “has adopted the method of kidnapping members and supporters of Renamo, resulting invariably in tortures and murders, and their bodies are found abandoned in places far from where they were kidnapped”.

“Harassment and summary executions of Renamo members occur throughout the country”, claimed Renamo, before asking “why has the government created death squads to eliminate the opposition, particularly Renamo?”

Chande simply listed the forces under the Interior Ministry and pointed out that they do not include death squads. The Mozambican police, he said, does not harass political opponents, but pursues “groups of criminals”.

Frelimo deputies reacted much more vigorously. They declared that there are indeed death squads in Mozambique – they were set up by the racist Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith in the 1970s, and go by the name Renamo. “The real death squads were created in Rhodesia, and some of them are sitting here now”, Costa Chale accused. “They are the ones who kidnap, murder and destroy”.

Renamo found that it was on extremely weak ground. When a Renamo deputy listed Renamo members supposedly killed by government death squads, a Frelimo deputy would immediately retort with the names of Frelimo members murdered by the Renamo militia.

One Renamo deputy, Alfredo Magumisse, retreated to the Bible, and cited the well-known phrase from Matthew’s Gospel “those who live by the sword shall died by the sword”. But Frelimo also knows the Bible, and immediately accused Magumisse of “taking the name of the Lord in vain”.

Lucilia Nota Hama, a member of the Frelimo Political Committee, declared that it was Frelimo that had implanted democracy in Mozambique, and “would never dare hinder democracy”. On the contrary, “the ones who violate democracy in Mozambique are those who attack and kill defenceless citizens; those who attack and vandalise hospitals and buildings of the public administration; those who kill local Frelimo leaders”.

“Those who carry out these evil acts”, she added, “are politically intolerant and are the murderers of democracy”.

Some Frelimo deputies want to take more drastic measures than the party’s leadership has suggested. Thus Agostinho Vuma urged the Public Prosecutor’s Office to outlaw Renamo, and declare it a banned organization.

The second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), asked what directives the government has given to the police and to local authorities to ensure that the Constitution and the freedoms it enshrines are respected throughout the country. It cited cases in which MDM members have been harassed, tortured and prevented from undertaking political activity.

Chande admitted that at least one of the cases mentioned by the MDM had happened – this was an attack on an MDM member’s house in Muidumbe district, in Cabo Delgado province, in which an MDM flag was torn down. He said the due legal procedures were being followed against those responsible.

But he denied that MDM members had been arrested simply for displaying their party’s flag in Nampula on 4 October during the celebrations of the anniversary of the 1992 peace agreement. He said that in reality two MDM members on a motorbike, and waving their flag, had driven through a security perimeter at the celebrations. When the police ordered them to stop, they refused. When the police caught them, they were arrested. A Nampula court subsequently acquitted one of them, and sentenced the other to six months imprisonment converted to a fine.

The MDM also claimed that five houses belonging to its members were burnt down on 8 October in Mossurize district in Manica province. Chande said this claim had been investigated and found to be untrue (this contradicted Frelimo deputy Costa Chale, who said the houses had indeed been burnt down, but by Renamo).

The MDM also claimed that its district delegate in Mabalane, in Gaza province, had been tortured and threatened with death on 14 September. Chande replied with a case involving an attack and theft on that date which seemed completely unrelated.

MDM deputy Silverio Ronguane gave the names of the individuals who had supposedly tortured the MDM delegate and asked what is being done to punish them.

“When the government watches crimes passively, it becomes an accomplice”, he said.

Source: AIM