Listen: Analyst rules out eventual Renamo support in the fight against Cabo Delgado insurgents

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Listen: Analyst rules out eventual Renamo support in the fight against Cabo Delgado insurgents

4:10 CAT | 20 Apr 2020

File photo: Voa Portugues

The president of Mozambique and the leader of Renamo talked last week about the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, but an analyst rules out the possibility that Nyusi asked the opposition for support.

“I do not want to believe that the President of the Republic may have asked for any military support from Renamo, because. taking into account the Constitution itself, that would be the state demoting itself to [the level of] a party,” analyst Egídio Plácido commented.

Plácido says that, while it is “true that Renamo has some men with some experience in war, there needs to be another type of investment in the defence and security forces, that is, another type of strategy to get out of this”.

In a communication released on Thursday, April 16, the Presidency gave no details about the two politicians’ conversation, but limited itself to announcing that they spoke about Covid-19, the instability in the centre of the country, the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) process and the implementation of the administrative decentralisation process.

Negotiate with Nhongo

The instability in the centre of the country results from attacks claimed by the self-styled Renamo Military junta, led by Mariano Nhongo, an influential figure in the party’s armed wing, who publicly rejects Ossufo Momade’s leadership.

Regarding these, Plácido says that the solution is for the Mozambican state to enter into contacts with Mariano Nhongo.

For Placido, responsibility does not lie solely with Ossufo Momade. It is for the state also to try to “understand what is actually happening. (…) In the same way that it sat with the party, there has to be some platform to sit with this Renamo wing”.

Another analyst, Simão Nhambi says that “it is important to note that, when talking about compliance with the DDR, one must revisit the issue of the residual forces led by Mariano Nhongo, as regards the search for peace and stability in Mozambique”.

Source: Voa Portugues