Mozambique: Renamo leader concerned about pension payments to former guerrillas

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Mozambique: Renamo leader concerned about pension payments to former guerrillas

8:42 CAT | 17 Aug 2021

Photo: Ossufo Momade on Facebook

The leader of Renamo, the main opposition party in Mozambique, on Monday expressed concern over the lack of pension payments to the party’s former guerrillas, calling on the government and international partners to resolve the situation.

“It worries us because when the guerrillas were in their bases, they were made promises and we would like to see them materialised,” Renamo leader, Ossufo Momade said.

He said the silence of the government and international partners on the issue was worrying, noting that guarantees of payment of pensions and financing of income-generating projects for former guerrillas had been given, under the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) process.

Last week, Renamo Secretary General André Majibire said that about 1,000 former guerrillas who joined the DDR have not received pensions for six months.

Majibire said that they should receive a survivor’s pension paid by the United Nations, through the Mozambican government, for one year, under the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement.

After that period, the former guerrillas will start receiving a lifetime pension from the Mozambican state.

The understanding, signed in August 2019, was the third between the Frelimo government and Renamo, with all three having been signed following cycles of armed violence between the two parties.

Under the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, just over half of the approximately 5,000 Renamo guerrillas were covered by the DDR, and some were incorporated into the Mozambican defence and security forces.

The deal is contested by a splinter group, the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta, to which attacks on civilian and state targets in the centre of the country are attributed, with at least 30 dead, since August 2019.

The group, led by Mariano Nhongo, a Renamo guerrilla general, accuses the current party leadership of having betrayed the ideals of the organisation’s late president, Afonso Dhlakama, in the commitments it made to the Frelimo executive.

Source: Lusa