Mozambique Elections: Police fire live rounds in protests to ‘save’ nation – Mondlane

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Mozambique Elections: Police fire live rounds in protests to ‘save’ nation – Mondlane

9:07 CAT | 22 Oct 2024

Screen grab: Venâncio Mondlane /Facebook

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane on Monday accused police forces of firing “real bullets” at demonstrators during the marches he had called and said that Mozambicans had come together to “save the country”.

“The police did an outrageous thing, which was to use real bullets, we have videos that show heavy weapons projectiles, videos in which young people from the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) are used to shoot on the public highway, during the day. What a disgrace, this is a terrorist government,” accused Venâncio Mondlane, in a public statement made on his social network Facebook.

“This is true terrorism against your people, genocide against your own people, shooting at defenceless, unarmed young people who have no ability to react, without creating any disturbance,” added Mondlane, in a statement in which he accused the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) of losing out in the “debate of ideas”.

The Mozambican capital was the scene of clashes between demonstrators, who threw stones and set fire to tyres in the streets near Avenida Joaquim Chissano, and the police, who are dispersing the people using tear gas and shots in the air.

Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the optimistic People for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos) party, once again accused the defence and security forces of being ‘real terrorists’, who used ‘their equipment to repress a defenceless people’.

“Unarmed people who just want to demonstrate their fundamental rights. The police even used helicopters to repress the youth (…) When I was giving an interview, the police went so far as to shoot at us, I was hit with a tear gas shell,” he said.

“The police fired at national and international journalists,” he added, accusing the Frelimo party, which he described as “a wounded buffalo”.

Despite the incidents involving the demonstrators and the police, Venâncio Mondlane said that Mozambicans had “done something historic”, saying that the objective of paralysing the country had been achieved.

“A candidate from a party that is still extra-parliamentary managed, very successfully, to announce a national strike and in fact the country was paralysed, 95% of labour activity, private and public, at a national level, was paralysed,” he said, noting that the act represents unity “for one goal”.

“I say congratulations because awareness is changing. I’ve seen images (…), Mozambicans have come together to save the country,” he concluded.

At around 10am local time ( 9am in Lisbon), the police dispersed the demonstration in the centre of Maputo called by Mondlane to repudiate the murder of two supporters, charging at dozens of people who had gathered there, who responded by throwing stones and launching pyrotechnic devices.

The clashes between the police and the demonstrators began at around 7.30am, with the police dispersing the groups that had begun to gather to take part in the peaceful marches.

The police also used dogs and a helicopter has been flying low over the areas where people are trying to demonstrate.

The Mozambican police confirmed to Lusa on Saturday that the car in which Elvino Dias, Venâncio Mondlane’s lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, a member of Podemos, the party that supports Mondlane, had been shot dead, had been “ambushed”.

The crime took place on Avenida Joaquim Chissano, in the centre of the capital, and according to the police, a woman in the back seat of the car was also shot and taken to hospital.

The general elections on 9 October included the seventh presidential elections at the same time as legislative elections and elections for provincial assemblies and governors.

The National Electoral Commission (CNE) has 15 days to announce the official results, a date that falls on 24 October, after which the Constitutional Council will proclaim the results, after also concluding the analysis of any appeals, but with no deadline set for this.

Source: Lusa