Mozambique: Government, opposition divided on situation in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: Government, opposition divided on situation in Cabo Delgado

5:01 CAT | 27 May 2024

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

Frelimo, Mozambique’s ruling party, said on Friday that security is returning to Cabo Delgado, while the main opposition parties, Renamo and MDM, accused the government of failing to combat the rebels.

The Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power), the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third largest parliamentary force, made their assessment of the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, in their speeches at the close of the ninth ordinary session of parliament.

“The advances made by the Defence and Security Forces in Cabo Delgado province are unmistakable signs of the intensification of efforts to combat terrorism,” said the head of the Frelimo caucus, Sérgio Pantie.

Pantie said that the government forces are committed to pursuing and dismantling armed groups that are carrying out violence in that part of the country.

The joint action of the Defence and Security Forces, Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – whose personnel are withdrawing because they have completed their mission – is reducing insecurity, continued the leader of the ruling party’s parliamentary caucus.

Sérgio Pantie asked parliament for a round of applause for the European Union’s (EU) decision to extend the European Union Training Mission in Mozambique (EUTM-MOZ) for Mozambican special forces in the fight against terrorist groups in Cabo Delgado until 2026.

Renamo accused the government of negligence in the fight against insurgency, maintaining that the actions of armed groups continue to cause deaths and destruction of property.

The continuation of violence in Cabo Delgado “is the result of negligence, with the contours of business”, said the head of the main opposition party’s caucus, Viana Magalhães.

Magalhães criticised the disregard with which the authorities first reacted to the rebels’ first attacks in October 2017, pointing out that the Frelimo government called the armed groups malfeasants and only later acknowledged that they were “terrorists”.

“The government refused support in the name of sovereignty” and later accepted international aid as the violence worsened, he emphasised.

The MDM bench defended the need to know the true motivations behind the war in Cabo Delgado, calling for the possibility of dialogue with the armed groups not to be ruled out.

“The intelligence services must be directed to find out the motivations behind this war and the window for dialogue must be opened,” said Lutero Simango, head of the third largest party’s caucus.

Simango stressed that the causes of the conflict in Cabo Delgado must also be removed through economic and social responses in favour of the communities in the province.

“We remain convinced that the fight against terrorism must be associated with economic and social measures in order to mitigate suffering,” he emphasised.

On Thursday, people from the district of Macomia, in Cabo Delgado, told Lusa of intense gunfire and fear in the forests of the Mucojo administrative post, 40 kilometres from the district headquarters, which was attacked a fortnight ago.

The situation mainly affects farmers in the production areas of Nambine and Namigure, just over 10 kilometres from Mucojo, who, since the invasion by around a hundred insurgents of the town of Macomia, have been following daily shootings in those forests.

The attack by insurgent groups on the town of Macomia, one of the biggest in recent months in northern Mozambique, the scene of an armed insurgency, caused almost 1,500 displaced people between 10 and 14 May, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), as well as reports from the population of looting and pillaging of shops and other NGOs.

Cabo Delgado has been facing an armed rebellion since October 2017, with attacks claimed by movements associated with the extremist group Islamic State.

Source: Lusa