Mozambique: Nhongo calls a ceasefire – months too late | AIM report

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Mozambique: Nhongo calls a ceasefire – months too late | AIM report

8:41 CAT | 28 Dec 2020

File photo: DW

The leader of the dissident “Renamo Military Junta”, Mariano Nhongo, has announced a ceasefire – after he had spurned the ceasefire offered by the Mozambican government in late October.

Interviewed over the telephone by the German agency DW Africa, Nhongo claimed that his men have “silenced their guns” in the central provinces of Manica and Sofala.

“I am the President of the Military Junta and I have stopped my men so that they do not undertake any further action”, said Nhongo.”I am appealing to the entire Mozambican people and also to the government so that they don’t think that the force of guns will bring Mozambique to peace”.

Until recently Nhongo had refused to talk to the government, but now he says he has chosen five members of the Junta to sit at the negotiating table with the government in Maputo.

“For me, the war is finished”, said Nhongo. “I am going to send my men as from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday”. But he would only send this delegation “if the government gives me guarantees”.

Also read: Mozambique: Renamo Junta leader denounces kidnapping of family members – Watch

These apparently conciliatory words have come very late in the day. In late October, President Filipe Nyusi offered a seven day truce to the Junta and instructed the defence and security forces not to pursue Junta units during this period. But Nhongo spurned the offer, and the attacks continued. Last week, during his State of the Nation address, given to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Nyusi warned that Nhongo’s behavior meant “There is nothing we can do but launch vigorous operations against this enemy”.

At a ceremony on Tuesday, Nyusi gave details of the recent military operations against the Junta. He said that, as from 25 November, the defence and security forces had stepped up operations along the Pungue river, in the Cundze area of Gorongosa district, in Sofala. Combat actions along the river had struck at the areas of Chimbe and Ndombe, and the Pinhananga base, regarded as one of the Junta’s main military bases, and had progressed towards the Chimanimani National Park, in Manica.

On 11 December, the Junta had attacked a vehicle belonging to the National Statistics Institute (INE). In response, the defence forces, Nyusi said, went in pursuit of this Junta unit, and captured three of its members in the Mafambisse area of Sofala, including an aide-de-camp of Nhongo himself.

Nyusi added that the defence forces are now hunting down Junta forces in the Manguerre area and in the Galinha administrative post in the Sofala district of Muanza.

Furthermore, Nhongo recently lost the man who used to be his spokesperson, Joao Machava. He abandoned the Junta earlier this month, and joined the programme to demobilize and disarm the remnants of the Renamo militia.

On Tuesday Nyusi urged Nhongo, not to negotiate, but to demobilise. The government does not see what there is to negotiate about, since it has already signed a peace agreement with Renamo. That was in August 2019, and the man who signed for Renamo was Ossufo Momade, elected as President of Renamo at a Congress in January of that year.

If Nhongo regards Momade as “a traitor”, that is a problem inside Renamo, and Nyusi has suggested it is the warring factions inside Renamo that need to talk to each other.

Source: AIM