Mozambique: Government dodges questions on private security companies – Watch

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Mozambique: Government dodges questions on private security companies – Watch

8:10 CAT | 22 Apr 2021

Photo: TVM

“The parliamentary bench of the MDM questioned the government on the amount it is spending with the payment to private military companies which fight terrorism in Cabo Delgado,” TVM reports.in the video below.

The Mozambican government declined in parliament on Wednesday to confirm the involvement of private security companies in the fight against armed groups in the province of Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, justifying its position with the “sensitive” and “military” nature of the matter.

“The treatment of this type of sensitive material is generally reserved for the Defence and Security Forces (FDS),” Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosário told parliament in answer to opposition questions about the presence and the cost of “mercenaries” fighting alongside Mozambican forces in Cabo Delgado.

Without uttering the word “mercenaries”, as the parliamentary opposition did, the prime minister pointed out that, in the fight against terrorism, the executive relies on international cooperation, namely from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), but that details on military matters could not be given.

“One cannot lose sight of the fact that some of these areas of support and assistance in combating terrorism are of a military nature,” he emphasised.

The two parliamentary opposition benches criticised the lack of information about the presence of private military companies in Cabo Delgado, while the ruling party, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), supported the executive’s position, arguing that details of the FDS’ operational strategy should not be disclosed.

“The people want security, but what they receive from this ungrateful government is a heavy bill for unscrupulous mercenaries and violators of human rights, who act outside the laws that this Assembly of the Republic has established,” said Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) Deputy Silvério Ronguane on the presence of mercenaries in Cabo Delgado.

For the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, the action of armed groups in the province of Cabo Delgado is related to the natural gas projects in the area, another manifestation that natural resources were a curse for the country.

“The joy over natural gas gives way to the nightmare,” said Fernando Lavieque, a Renamo deputy, the “El Dorado” of natural gas bringing slaughter, chaos and confusion to the northern region.

For its part, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) accused the opposition of endangering the defence of the country by demanding it disclose the strategy of the war against terrorism.

“That is exactly what military strategy is. It is strategy, and the government cannot disclose details about operations on the ground,” Frelimo deputy Lucinda Malendza expostulated.

The details of combating terrorism, she continued, cannot be discussed “in the public square”..

Lionel Dyck, leader of the South African private military group Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), announced in late March that he would stop giving air support to the Mozambican Armed Forces after a one-year contract.

The human rights organisation Amnesty International (AI) last month demanded an investigation into possible human rights violations by forces in Cabo Delgado, including private forces, maintaining a concern that it has expressed several times regarding the fate of the civilian population in conflict zones.

Armed groups have terrorised Cabo Delgado since 2017, with some attacks claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State, in a wave of violence that has already caused more than 2,500 deaths, according to the ACLED conflict registration project, and 714,000 people displaced, according to the Mozambican government.

The most recent attack, on March 24, was carried out against the town of Palma, causing dozens of deaths and injuries in numbers yet to be ascertained.

Mozambican authorities regained control of the town, but the attack led oil company Total to indefinitely abandon the main construction site of the gas project scheduled to start production in 2024 and on which many of Mozambique’s expectations for economic growth in the next decade are based.