Mozambique: President minimally stabilised country, structural problems remain - analysts
Mozambique: Police disperse Mondlane supporters with gunfire, tear gas in Maputo
12:50 CAT | 09 Jan 2025
Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/ Lusa
Police dispersed a crowd of supporters listening to presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane in the centre of Maputo on Thursday, using gunfire and tear gas, an hour after he returned to Mozambique.
Speaking in the Mercado Estrela area at around 10:00 a.m., Mondlane again reaffirmed his victory in the 9 October general elections, saying that he would go to any lengths to “restore electoral truth”.
After a few minutes speaking to supporters from top of a sound truck, where he symbolically swore an oath of office, several shots were fired and tear gas was thrown into the surrounding area by the police.
After gunshots were heard, Mondlane ordered the crowd to disperse. A police charge then caused a general stampede.
“When we got here, the police came in with bursts of fire. They killed one, two, three. The bullet is here,” said one outraged supporter, Nélson Fumo, still at Estrela.
Chaos followed, with more bursts of gunfire and tear gas thrown, after a procession of thousands of people accompanied Venâncio Mondlane’s car from the airport to the centre of Maputo.
“Let them kill us all but our president,” said Nélson Abrenjare, another supporter, immediately after the police charge, adding the objective: “So that we reinstate true freedom; this has nothing to do with freedom.”
In the same vein, protester Oliveira Chingone pledged, to the sound of gunshots, that: “We will fight in the name of our country. Frelimo will not govern.”
Supporters fled through the surrounding streets, with the police continuing to fire shots and launch tear gas.
Since the police charge, the whereabouts of Venâncio Mondlane have been unknown.
The presidential candidate arrived in Maputo today at around 8:20 a.m. local time, after two and a half months outside the country, and then headed to the centre of the Mozambican capital with his entourage surrounded by thousands of supporters.
In statements to journalists at the airport, Mondlane accused the Mozambican authorities of “a kind of silent genocide” in the repression of the contestation of the results of the general elections of October 9, but he said he was open to dialogue and negotiation.
The candidate justified his return by saying that he could not remain outside the country while his supporters were “being massacred”.
Clashes between the police and the protesters contesting the results of last year’s October 9 elections have already caused almost 300 deaths, with more than 500 people suffering gun-shot wounds, according to civil society organizations monitoring events.
Mozambique’s Supreme Court has confirmed that there is no arrest warrant issued for Venâncio Mondlane, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings against him as the mastermind of the demonstrations, alleging losses in the public sector totalling more than €2 million in Maputo city and province alone.
On 23 December of last year, the CC declared ruling party Frelimo’s candidate Daniel Chapo the winner of the election for President of the Republic, with 65.17% of the vote, succeeding Filipe Nyusi in office, as well as confirming Frelimo’s success in maintaining its parliamentary majority in the general elections of 9 October.
Muitas balas reais e gás lacrimogéneo disparado para dispersar seguidores do Venâncio Mondlane na manhã de hoje na cidade de #Maputo. Há óbitos e feridos. Desconhecida localização exacta do Mondlane. #Moçambique pic.twitter.com/XBB8orHNHU
— Alexandre Nhampossa (@AllexandreMZ) January 9, 2025
Source: Lusa
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