Mozambique: Renamo secretary in Vilankulo murdered – DW

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Renamo secretary in Vilankulo murdered – DW

3:59 CAT | 10 Oct 2019

Renamo headquarters in Inhambane. [Image: DW]

A member of the community police [‘policia comunitaria’] is being hunted on suspicion of murdering a Renamo member in the Mozambican province of Inhambane.

Moisés Pedro Muabsa, a 33-year-old young man and a member of the Mozambican National Resistance Party (Renamo), was murdered in the village of Pambara, Vilankulo district, Inhambane province, on Monday, October 7.

Antonio Chulu, one of the witnesses at the crime scene, told DW Africa that Muabsa was stabbed in the middle of the night by a community police officer who is now on the run.

“It was a member of community policing who stabbed him. He ran away as soon as he did it … disappeared. I think he already had instructions to flee,” Chulu said.

Threats by strangers

Mosambik Maputo | Renamo-Partei | José Manteigas, Sprecher (DW/R. da Silva) — *José Manteigas*

Renamo national spokesman José Manteigas revealed that, two days before his murder, Muabsa was threatened by strangers who demanded that he join the ruling party (Frelimo) and remove the Renamo flag from his residence.

“Because before there was a precedent of people who went to the house of the deceased and forced him to remove the [Renamo] flag from his house, a reprehensible act whichever way you look at it. Muabsa was the target of multiple threats for working for Renamo, and two days later he was murdered,” Manteigas said.

With just days to go to the end of election campaigning in Mozambique, there is a growing wave of intimidation, vandalisation of homes and deaths.

Climate of fear

Spokesman José Manteigas added that there is now a climate of fear in society, accusing the perpetrators of these crimes of trying to destroy Mozambique’s democratic system.

“We are seeing the murder of innocent people for no reason. This worries us, and we wish to repudiate these acts, especially when it comes to members of our party. [Muabsa] was murdered purely because he had a flag at his house and was an active Renamo party member. There is a notable lack of political tolerance on the part of the regime.”

Inhambane provincial police command spokesman Juma Aly Dauto told DW that the alleged perpetrator had no ties to the corporation, and that the police were working to ensure he was neutralised and brought to justice.

“He has no ties to the police of the Republic of Mozambique. The police are currently working with the family to locate this individual, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, and we sense that we will catch him soon and will then be able to hold him accountable for the crime of qualified voluntary murder,” Dauto said.

Source: Deutsche Welle