Mozambique: PM promises to boost capacity of Defence Forces

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Mozambique: PM promises to boost capacity of Defence Forces

4:37 CAT | 29 Oct 2020

File photo: Folha e Maputo

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario on Thursday pledged that the government “will continue to strengthen the operational capacity of the defence and security forces”.

He was speaking in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, at the end of a two day session at which the government responded to demands for information from the parliamentary groups. The two opposition parties, Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), wanted information about the security situation, both in the northern province of Cab Delgado, where the government’s forces are fighting Islamic terrorists, and in the centre of the country, where dissidents who call themselves the “Renamo Military Junta”, are continuing to ambush vehicles on the main roads.

Since terrorism is a global phenomenon, “preventing it, and fighting it effectively, requires strengthened international cooperation”, said Rosario. “That is why we have been boosting cooperation mechanisms internationally, particularly with the countries of SADC (Southern African Development Community)”.

The activities of terrorist groups, he added, “are, throughout the world, a clear rejection of the normal functioning of States and an assault upon the territorial integrity and sovereignty of countries”.

In Mozambique the terrorists, who are linked to the “Islamic State Central Africa Province” (ISCAP), behave “in a barbaric and heinous manner, burning homes, raping women and girls, kidnapping youths and provoking massive displacement of the population”.

This was not the time to try and take political advantage from the situation in Cabo Delgado, Rosario urged. “We are facing a situation that demands from all of us greater union and cohesion in defence of a supreme good, which is the defence of the Mozambican population and of our territorial integrity”.

As for the hundreds of thousands of people, whom the terrorists have displaced from their homes, the Prime Minister pledged “that the government will always be present on the ground providing assistance in food aid and non-food aid to our fellow countrymen”.

“We shall continue to resettle the displaced population”, he said, “and help them normalise their lives so as gradually to reduce their dependence on food aid”.

As for the Renamo Military Junta, Rosario urged it to accept dialogue as a mechanism to solve its concerns, to accept the truce offered by President Filipe Nyusi last Saturday, and to join the demobilisation of the Renamo militia.

During the parliamentary debate, Renamo deputies accepted no responsibility for the Military Junta’s actions. Indeed some of them, such as Abiba Aba, floated a conspiracy theory under which the Junta “is controlled by the government”. Her evidence for this was the ease with which Junta leader Mariano Nhongo appears in the Mozambican press.

Caifadine Manasse, of the ruling Frelimo Party, thought this argument absurd. “How often did your late leader Afonso Dhlakama speak to the press from the Renamo base at Satunjira?”, he asked. “The journalists are just doing their jobs!”

“Why are you afraid of peace and dialogue?”, Manasse asked the Renamo benches. “Why are you afraid of talking to Nhongo?”

He noted that Nhongo has demanded a new Renamo Congress. “So why don’t you speak with him and see whether a Congress is possible?”, Manasse suggested.

Frelimo deputies repeatedly pointed out that the Junta had arisen as a split within Renamo. Furthermore, in 2019, senior Renamo parliamentarians had gone on record as describing the split as a quarrel “which should be solved within the family”.

Some on the Frelimo benches thought there was no genuine difference between the Junta and the Renamo mainstream, and dismissed them all as “Renamo armed men” and “armed bandits”.

Source: AIM