Mozambique Elections: Renamo holds victory march in Maputo - AIM | Watch
Photo: Folha de Maputo
A group of gunmen of the former Mozambican rebel movement, Renamo, in the southern province of Inhambane, have demanded the immediate removal of Ossufo Momade as leader of Renamo.
The former guerrillas are based in Funhalouro district, in the arid Inhambane interior. Their spokesperson, Joao Machava, cited by Radio Mozambique, warned that they will not agree to demobilisation and disarmament until Momade has resigned.
“He’s a tribalist, he’s a regionalist, he’s arrogant and he’s ignorant”, accused Machava. He claimed that Momade had removed from senior positions those who did not support him in the election of President of Renamo at the party’s congress in January.
Machava claimed there are 280 armed men under his command in Funhalouro. The number is certainly exaggerated since there was little sign of any Renamo activity in Inhambane during the last flare-up of the Renamo insurgency in 2015-16.
Machava’s threats follow those made by Renamo dissidents in the central province of Sofala last month. Then, Maj-Gen Mariano Nhongo threatened that, unless Momade resigned by mid-July, the dissidents would kill him.
The Renamo leadership has dismissed the dissidents as “deserters”. Their credibility took a knock when last month Renamo showed the press that Brig Josefa de Sousa, whom Nhongo said had been executed on Momade’s orders, was alive and well.
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