Mozambique: Nyusi and Momade reaffirm commitment to peace

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Mozambique: Nyusi and Momade reaffirm commitment to peace

4:48 CAT | 07 Aug 2020

Photo: Presidency of the Republic

Both Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, and Ossufo Momade, leader of the main opposition party, Renamo, on Thursday reaffirmed their commitment to the peace agreement they had signed a year ago, on 6 August 2019.

Under that agreement the Renamo militia is to be demobilised and disarmed and its members reintegrated into Mozambican society.

In a message to mark the date, Nyusi said the agreement was the culmination of a lengthy dialogue between the government and Renamo. “A year ago, we Mozambicans chose definitively to bury armed confrontation and violence, because we know how damaging are the horrors of war for present and future generations”, he said.

“With a spirit of resilience and trust in victory”, Nyusi continued, “we are determined to implement government decentralisation and the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of Renamo’s residual forces”.

He noted that, to date, more than 500 former Renamo guerrillas have laid down their guns and gone back to their families. They had expressed satisfaction at rejoining Mozambican society, and now “they want to embrace new forms of life and to live peacefully with their neighbours”.

Nyusi praised Renamo for remaining committed to the peace agreement, and urged the dissidents who have formed the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta” to abandon armed violence.

“You have seen the fruits of the new Mozambique and you have heard the stories of your former colleagues who have already gone home”, Nyusi told the Junta. “I encourage you to turn another page in the history of dialogue in Mozambique, and sit at the table to discuss and to leave the past behind, benefiting from this opportunity to bring a new image to our country”.

The peace process, Nyusi added, “has given us the tools to solve our problems through dialogue. It has taught us the value of assessing the main causes of conflict in order to identify effective solutions. It has taught us that by pooling our efforts we can gain more than we would achieve were we to remain at loggerheads”.

Ossufo Momade gave a press conference in Maputo on Thursday where he too stressed a commitment to peace. “Only by living peacefully will we build a country resting on the democratic rule of law”, he declared.

Ossufom.renamo — *Photo: Renamo Moçambique /Facebook*

He invited the Military Junta to come out of the bush and join the demobilisation of the Renamo forces and the reintegration of their members. He called on the Junta to refrain from violence against civilians and from the destruction of public and private property.

Momade insisted that he wanted “a decent and humanised reintegration into society of Renamo ex-guerrillas, and stressed that Renamo had collaborated with the government in the identification of the movement’s “residual forces” and their bases.

But Momade disagreed with Nyusi’s declaration, on Wednesday, of a second state of emergency. He believed that the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic would have been better served by using the legislation on natural disasters to declare a “State of Public Calamity” (an option which the government had considered, but rejected, on the grounds that the current legislation does not effectively deal with pandemics).

Mirko Manzoni, the personal envoy to Mozambique of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, also issued a message to mark the anniversary. Although he too made a positive assessment of the peace agreement, he expressed serious concern at the attacks waged by the Military Junta in the central provinces of Manica and Sofala.

Manzoni, who is also chairperson of the International Contact Group, that has been facilitating dialogue between Renamo and the government, stressed that, if problems exist, they can never be solved through violence. He urged the Military Junta to abandon armed attacks “and use dialogue as its only means of expression”.

Despite the Junta’s attacks, and despite islamist terrorism in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, Manzoni remained optimistic that Mozambique “remains on the path of peace”.

Source: AIM