Mozambique: Another 326 ex-Renamo guerillas to be demobbed by November

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Mozambique: Another 326 ex-Renamo guerillas to be demobbed by November

3:45 CAT | 13 Oct 2020

File photo: Lusa

Another 326 former guerrillas of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) in Gorongosa will hand over their weapons by November, as part of the process of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR).

“They will be demobilised, which means they are leaving the armed part aside and will be integrated into civilian life. They will be able to do their activities in the community and with the hope that the people in the community will receive them properly,” André Magibire, Renamo’s secretary general, said, speaking on the sidelines of the start of registrations to obtain personal documents from the group of 326 former Renamo guerrillas in Gorongosa, in central Mozambique’s Sofala province.

This is the fourth phase of the DDR process, in the framework of the understandings reached with the peace agreement signed in August 2019 by the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, and the president of Renamo, Ossufo Momade.

After a symbolic start last year, DDR was at a standstill for several months and resumed on 4 June.

Of a total of 5,000 Renamo guerillas expected to hand over their weapons, according to official figures, 1,075 former guerrillas have already been covered by DDR.

Despite progress in the process, a dissident group from Renamo (self-proclaimed as the Military Junta) is challenging the party’s leadership and the peace agreement and is accused of leading attacks targeting security forces and civilians in villages and on some sections of roads in the central region of the country.

The self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta is led by Mariano Nhongo, a former guerrilla leader, who demands better conditions for reintegration and the resignation of the current president of the party, Ossufo Momade, accusing him of having diverted the negotiation process from the ideals of his predecessor, Afonso Dhlakama, a historical leader who died in May 2018.

The armed attacks in central Mozambique have affected the provinces of Manica and Sofala and have already caused the deaths of at least 30 people since August last year, on roads and in local villages.

Source: Lusa