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Mozambique: Filipe Nyusi urges Renamo to be ‘more flexible’ in disarmament agreement
3:50 CAT | 09 Apr 2019
File photo: DW
The Mozambican president has urged the new Renamo leadership to be “more flexible” in order to “avoid growing frustration” among guerrillas awaiting reintegration.
Mozambique’s Filipe Nyusi on Sunday urged the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the country’s main opposition party) to be more flexible regarding the agreement on the disarmament of its remaining guerrillas.
“We appeal to Renamo’s new leadership to be more flexible, in the same spirit that culminated in the approval of the decentralisation package,” with the former leader, Afonso Dhlakama, who died in May 2018, he said.
A new peace agreement is based on two dossiers, the decentralisation of power and the demilitarisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) of the Renamo guerrillas.
On the latter, a memorandum signed in August 2018 by Filipe Nyusi and Ossufo Momade, the new leader of the opposition party, is that which the head of state is calling for greater flexibility on, “in order to avoid the growing frustration of the guerrillas who are waiting for the restoration of their lives,” he said.
The guerrillas “place total hope in this process,” said Nyusi, adding that it represents “the will of the entire Mozambican people”.
“The government has already taken the agreed steps” under the military affairs memorandum, he maintained.
Filipe Nyusi said there was interference in the negotiation process from third parties and called on the countries concerned to intervene “through the contact group and not in isolation” because, “sometimes acting in this way, they retard the peace process in Mozambique”.
Disarmament completed before the election campaign?
President Nyusi called for “coordinated effort”. “Many divergent interventions or even the emergence of many internal counsellors, who sometimes intend to accommodate individual wishes, are not helping to implement the consensus embodied in the memorandum of understanding within the established deadlines,” he said.
Mozambique’s interior minister said on Thursday that the government would do everything possible to complete the disarmament before campaigning for the October 15 general election started on August 31.
Since the signing of the August memorandum of understanding, the government has installed a total of 14 Renamo officers in senior armed forces command positions, and ten officers are to be appointed to senior police posts, as provided for in the document.
The main opposition party also hopes that the Mozambican government will accept the integration of Renamo officials in the State Security and Information Services (SISE), the Mozambican secret services.
Security Forces take insurgents base
Speaking in Maputo at Mozambican Women’s Day celebrations, the head of state saluted the operation carried out by special forces on Saturday, when they reportedly struck an insurgent base in Macomia district, Cabo Delgado.
State forces took the base “after two assaults”, capturing members of the groups and recovering assets, the president said, without giving further details.
The president’s announcement came after two Mozambican soldiers were killed in an attack by armed groups at a military base in Maculo, Mocímboa da Praia district, in the same province of Cabo Delgado.
The attack lasted nearly 15 minutes and took place on Tuesday night, local sources quoted by the online newspaper Carta de Moçambique said. In addition to killing the two soldiers, the group stole a “significant amount” of war material, as well as food and military uniforms.
Attacks by unidentified armed groups believed to have originated in mosques in Cabo Delgado have caused at least 150 deaths since October 2017.
Source: Deutsche Welle
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