Mozambique: “No longer any ‘Military Junta’ members in the woods” – Renamo reacting to ‘new leader’ announcement

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Mozambique: “No longer any ‘Military Junta’ members in the woods” – Renamo reacting to ‘new leader’ announcement

8:05 CAT | 28 Feb 2022

Photo: O País

The secretary general of Renamo, André Magibire, doubts there is a new leader of the Renamo Military Junta, as announced last Saturday by the head of operations of the Defence and Security Forces (FDS), Chongo Vidigal, and believes it is a “creation of the ruling party itself, to [enable it] continue talking about the Military Junta”.

Speaking to STV, Mangibire said that, with the country is approaching a new electoral cycle, Frelimo intends this information, which he believes to be false, to trigger the operation of ‘death squads’. “With the problems that the ruling party has, at the moment, this is yet another attempt to divert the attention of the Mozambican people to something that does not exist,” he maintains.

According to the Renamo secretary general, there is no new leader, not least because there are no longer any members of the Military Junta in the woods, them having all joined the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process.

“We even demobilised many, if not all, combatants from the Military Junta, without any agreement being reached. All those in the Junta were demobilised so that we can have a sustainable and lasting peace,” Mangibire explained.

Read: Mozambique: ‘Renamo Military Junta’ has new leader – AIM

More than 90 combatants were demobilised – the exact number that the group’s database claimed, he said.

In fact, Mangibire pledges that no demobilised Renamo or Military Junta soldiers have returned to the woods, even though they have not yet received any pension payments since the beginning of the DDR in June, 2020.

“Our fighters, I want to assure you, are disciplined and will not join that process, so much so that they are already rebuilding their lives in the communities. We do not believe that they have joined this so-called Military Junta, because, as I said, we believe that it is a Frelimo fabrication,” he said.

Thus, Renamo’s number two questions iI the information is true, who will be this leader and who will be the members. For Mangibire, it was to be expected that the SFDS had done their homework and brought out all the details about the supposed new leadership.

“When you are asked who this person was, you say you don’t know, if you don’t know why did you provide the information?” he questioned, and then added that the State’s obligation is to collect all the information and, when it is mature, to disclose it.

By Julieta Zucula

Source: O País