Mozambique: Former Renamo guerrilla leader demands resignation of party president

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Mozambique: Former Renamo guerrilla leader demands resignation of party president

9:36 CAT | 17 Apr 2023

FILE - Ossufo Momade. president of the Renamo party. [File photo: Lusa]

Timosse Maquinze, former guerrilla leader of the armed wing of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition force, demanded the resignation of the party’s president, Ossufo Momade, accusing him of “ proven inability” to lead the party.

“On behalf of the fighters present and not present […] we demand that Ossufo Momade resign as president of Renamo”, declared Timosse Maquinze, at a press conference on Saturday in the city of Beira, in central Mozambique.

According to Timosse Maquinze, the president of the largest Mozambican opposition party has “systematically” violated Renamo statutes and, therefore, it is necessary to call an extraordinary congress to appoint a new leader, in a peaceful way.

“Once President Ossufo Momade’s inability to lead Renamo has been proven, we demand that the president of the national council urgently convene an extraordinary congress so that, in a peaceful way, Renamo finds a leadership that corresponds to the wishes of the party members”, he said. Timose Maquinze.

Maquinze also accuses Ossufo Momade of creating a group to persecute and expel members without plausible reasons at the central base of the party’s armed wing in the Gorongosa mountain range (centre of the country), as well as of cutting the subsidies of many members and officials.

“Ossufo Momade created the death squad group to instil fear in members within the party”, said the guerrilla leader, who promises to appeal to the international community if Ossufo Momade refuses to relinquish leadership, as a way of ensuring that the process takes place. in a peaceful way.

“We are going to ask the international community for help to advise him to leave power, because we are not for war, but for peace”, he stressed.

Renamo spokesman José Manteigas said that the party was surprised by the former guerrilla leader’s statements, noting that Maquinze was one of the “notable presences” at the congress that elected Ossufo Momade.

“General Maquinze’s statement surprises us because he is one of the figures we have in our midst and whose voice is always heard,” said Manteigas, quoted on Sunday by Rádio Moçambique.

These positionings on Timosse Maquinze occur when there is only one base of the former Renamo guerrilla to close, within the scope of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process provided for in the peace agreement signed with the Government of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) , the third understanding between the parties, all signed following cycles of violence.

This is the second time that an influential member of the armed wing of the largest opposition party in central Mozambique has called for Ossufo Momade’s ouster since his election in 2019 following the death in 2018 of historic leader Afonso Dhlakama.

Months after Ossufo Momade’s election, Mariano Nhongo, also another influential leader of the party’s guerrillas, created the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta, a splinter group from the main political opposition force that demanded the ouster of Ossufo Momade.

Mariano Nhongo would later be shot down in a forest in the district of Cheringoma, Sofala province, in the center of the country, during an exchange of fire with a police patrol, after months of offensives by government forces aimed at stopping the armed attacks of his group, responsible for the death. of more than 30 people on roads and villages in the provinces of Manica and Sofala, according to the authorities.

Source: Lusa