Mozambique: Renamo dissidents warn of ‘consequences’ of dialogue with leadership – Watch

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Mozambique: Renamo dissidents warn of ‘consequences’ of dialogue with leadership – Watch

11:41 CAT | 24 Jul 2019

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A group of dissident fighters within Renamo, Mozambique main opposition party, warned on Wednesday of possible consequences for the country’s people if the government continues dialogue with the Renamo leadership.

“We want to appeal to the government, in the person of the Mozambican president [Filipe Nyusi], to break off the dialogue with Ossufo Momade,” Renamo’s leader, the group says in a statement read out at a news conference held in Gorongosa, in central Mozambique.

If the government insists on continuing the talks, the statement goes on, “the consequences may be felt by the Mozambican people, poor people who have nothing to do with politics.

“We call upon these people to respect us because we are Renamo,” the group concludes.

The group, which is led by a Renamo major-general, Mariano Nhungue, the self-styled Renamo Military Junta, sees Momade as no longer the party’s leader, accusing him of “abducting and isolating” Renamo officials who always stood alongside the party’s late president, Afonso Dhlakama, who died on 3 May last year.

“We call on the Mozambican public and the international community contact group in the negotiations to remain calm, because the Renamo Military Junta will briefly announce viable measures that make possible the smooth progress of the political peace process,” the statement runs.

Nhungue’s group has been demanding the dismissal of Momade since early June, accusing him of destroying the party and threatening him with death.

In his first appearance after the dissident movement emerged, on 24 June, Momade described its members as “diabolical forces” who are trying to stain the “good name” of the party, and that the guerrillas who are calling for his resignation are being used.

Mozambique’s government and Renamo continue to negotiate a definitive peace in the country, with the parties envisaging that an agreement will be signed by August, before the general elections on 15 October.

One of the most complex points of the negotiations has been the issue of disarmament, the demobilisation of Renamo guerillas and their integration into Mozambique’s armed forces.

Renamo has demanded that it have a presence in the State Information and Security Service (SISE) and in military academies, but the government has not responded to this demand.

Source: Lusa