Mozambique: Carlos Cardoso remembered 20 years later – AIM report

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Mozambique: Carlos Cardoso remembered 20 years later – AIM report

4:00 CAT | 23 Nov 2020

Photo: Twitter / @BayanoValy

Despite the assassination 20 years ago of Mozambique’s foremost investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, the country’s journalism has proved vibrant and continues to play its role in denouncing corruption and promoting transparency, declared Ernesto Nhanale, the Executive Director of the Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body, MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa).

He was speaking on Sunday evening at a press conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the murder, on 22 November 1980, when Cardoso was gunned down as he was driving home from the independent paper “Metical”, which he owned and edited.

Nhanale said the seed had been sown for the exercise of press freedom, but “there are still sectors of society who do not understand that the work of a journalist must be undertaken in a climate of independence. There is still this tendency for pressure and for reducing the space for press freedom”.

“There are still journalists and papers that are harassed by the enemies of truth and of the freedom to inform and to be informed”, declared Nhanale.

Cardoso’s younger brother, Nuno Cardoso, lamented that nobody has picked up the mantle of Carlos. He had the impression that the ideas of his brother are not being followed and repeated today.

“Carlos Cardoso was an example of investigative journalism, an example of truth, an example of anti-corruption, an example of kindness”, said Nuno. “And in the 20 years that have passed, when we note the general state of the country today, we see that his example has not been duplicated”.

He urged the young journalists of today to follow the example set by his brother “and begin to base our own success on the success of others and not on the failure of others, and base our activities on the principles and values that Carlos Cardoso always represented”.

Also read: NGO marks 20 years since the murder of Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso

After the press conference the participants marched to the site of the assassination, where the wall carried a banner with Cardoso’s best known slogan: “it is forbidden to put words in handcuffs”.

Cardoso was director of AIM between 1980 and 1989. In the 1990s, he was one of the founders of the first independent media organisation, Mediacoop, and the first editor of its daily newssheet “Mediafax”. A split in Mediacoop led to Cardoso setting up his own daily paper “Metical”.

In the closing years of his life he relentlessly pursued the largest bank fraud in Mozambican history, in which the equivalent of 14 million US dollars was drained from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM) on the eve of its privatisation.

The mafia figures who organised the fraud, and who were named in “Metical”, ordered the assassination and hired the hit squad who carried it out. But the outcry against the murder was so loud, in Mozambique and abroad, that they were arrested and sentenced to jail terms of between 23 and 28 years.

In a first for Mozambique, the murder trial was broadcast live, from beginning to end. This annoyed conservative sectors of the judiciary so much, that parliament changed the law to make such an open trial impossible in the future.

Five of the assassins were released after serving half their sentences. The exception was the leader of the death squad, and driver of its car, Anibal dos Santos Junior (“Anibalzinho”), who escaped from prison twice, was recaptured, and had his sentence increased to an effective 30 years.

Two of those who organised the BCM theft will never enjoy what they stole. Vicente Ramaya was gunned down by unknown assailants in Maputo in February 2014. Five months later, Ayoob Abdul Satar was assassinated in Pakistan.

Although he was out on parole, and should normally have stayed in the country, Ayoob’s brother, Momad Assife Abdul Satar (“Nini”), was allowed to travel abroad, supposedly for medical treatment. He did not return, thus opting to become a fugitive.

Suspected of involvement in other crimes, notably the wave of kidnappings of businessmen in Mozambican cities, an international warrant was issued for his arrest, and he was picked up in Thailand in July 2018. He is now back in Maputo, serving the rest of his sentence for the Cardoso murder.

Today we remembered a fallen comrade. #CarlosCardoso was assassinated 20 years ago today at this spot, some 200 metres from his newsroom.

At the time of his death, he was investigating one of the major bank scandals in Mozambique’s history.#BayeteCombatentedaVerdade pic.twitter.com/e5MlXlqT9R

— Bayano Valy 🇲🇿 (@BayanoValy) November 22, 2020