Mozambique elections: Former Renamo guerrilla leader accuses party president of inaction

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Mozambique elections: Former Renamo guerrilla leader accuses party president of inaction

7:36 CAT | 21 Dec 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

Former Renamo guerrilla leader Timosse Maquinze on Tuesday again demanded the resignation of party president Ossufo Momade, accusing him of inaction in the face of alleged irregularities in favour of the party in power in the Mozambican local elections.

“The party leadership and the president of Renamo are not saying anything [in the face of irregularities in the elections]. It looks to me like he was bought. There are municipalities that were stolen from us and it seems like they are tied up. Regarding the problems with demobilisation of the military, he also doesn’t say anything,” said Timosse Maquinze, who acted as Renamo’s chief of the general staff of the armed wing of the party until its demilitarisation.

Maquinze understands that the main opposition party in Mozambique has options for the leadership of Renamo, stressing that Renamo Ossufo must quit the leadership at the next congress (in 2024). “We need a new president to lead the party (…) Whether in the military wing or in the political wing, we have people who know how to work and can lead the party,” he added.

The former guerrilla says that returning to war is not an option. However, Timosse Maquinze complains about the conditions in which the former Renamo guerrillas, who must be reintegrated within the scope of the peace agreements, have been living since last June, the date on which the last Renamo base (Vunduzi, in Gorongosa district), closed more than 30 years after the end of the Mozambican civil war.

“The demobilised guerrillas are having a bad time. I don’t see anything about pensions – I myself am without one,” the former guerrilla leader declared, stressing, however, that the former Renamo guerrillas want peace.

“If we wanted trouble, we would have done it a long time ago. We want peace now, but the Government is not complying with what was signed,” he added.

A total of 5,221 Renamo guerrillas remained in bases in remote areas in the centre of the country for years, and only began handing in their weapons in 2019, after the signing on August 6, 2019 of the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement between the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, and the leader of Renamo, Ossufo Momade.

READ: Mozambique: Former Renamo fighters denounce Renamo leader – AIM | Watch

The understanding was the third reached between the government of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) and Renamo, with all three agreements signed following cycles of armed violence between the two parties.

Disarmament and demobilisation of personnel is supposed to be followed by reintegration, including the payment of pensions.

For 16 years, Mozambique experienced a civil war, which pitted the government army against Renamo, ending with the signing of the General Peace Agreement, in Rome, in 1992, between then President Joaquim Chissano and Afonso Dhlakama, historic leader of Renamo, who died in May 2018.

In 2013, there were other clashes between the parties, which lasted 17 months and only stopped with the signing, on September 5, 2014, of the Agreement on the Cessation of Military Hostilities, between Afonso Dhlakama and the former head of state Armando Guebuza.

Source: Lusa