Mozambique: Three of the criminals shot in Matola identified - AIM report
Screen grab: STV
Mozambican academic and mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araújo, has pointed out similarities between the attack suffered on Saturday by the Chairperson of the Confederation of Economic Associations, Agostinho Vuma, and the murder of academic Gilles Cistac in Maputo in March 2015.
“A few days earlier, an attempt was made to malign the victim’s character, in an attempt to legitimise what would happen. If we look back a little bit, the same scenario happened with Professor Dr Cistac, in which some notorious members of the G40 assaulted the victim’s character in anticipation of what they had already planned. There is a certain parallelism in the modus operandi of these two attacks,” de Araújo said.
The academic advances three possible motivation behind the attack on the CTA president’s life.
“We could say that this attack has more to do with political issues related to business, either because of the control of resources coming from the gas business or from the COVID-19 business, where we know that there were several tranches released to support our business community, so there may be groups that are not satisfied with the way these resources are being distributed,” de Araújo said this Monday on the ‘Noite Informativa’ programme, while conceding that it was too early to draw conclusions.
Journalist Fernando Lima, speaking on the same program, said he believed it was premature to make a connection between the attack and the gas business or the channelling of support to the private sector related to COVID-19.
“There is no connecting line, at this moment, which could suggest a situation of this nature, but a good part of Manuel de Araújo’s intervention is nevertheless valid,” he said.
Lima believes that the lack of clarification about the attacks and the impunity of their masterminds gives rise to new ones.
“We see how kidnappings are organised. The abductors leave the crime scene without even running, or and hiding the registration plates of their vehicles and without even hiding their faces. There is a great sense of impunity in relation to the commission of these crimes,” he said.
The journalist delivered a strong criticism of the national justice apparatus, which had not been able to solve several murder cases in the country, with only the material perpetrators punished, leaving those responsible for the crimes unscathed.
By Ornélio Luís
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