Mozambique: Rumours of forced recruitment spread panic – AIM report

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Mozambique: Rumours of forced recruitment spread panic – AIM report

6:00 CAT | 07 Feb 2020

Screen shot: Social Media video

Rumours that young people are being press-ganged to fight against the islamist insurgency in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado spread panic through parts of Maputo on Friday.

According to the independent television station STV, there were scenes of near-chaos in the Zimpeto wholesale market on the outskirts of the city, as supposed recruitment gangs, dressed in plain clothes, tried to seize young men, and opened fire.

Amateur videos showed panic-stricken people running through the market car park. Clients and vendors alike fled, and banks and other establishments within the market closed. All business thus came to a standstill. Public transport from Zimpeto to other parts of the capital was also temporarily halted.

The Ministry of Defence insists that, if there is any forced recruitment going on, it is not responsible. The head of the Recruitment Centre in the Ministry, Custodio Massingue, interviewed by STV, said that young people are currently being recruited into the armed forces by the normal channels.

All people who turn 18 this year are obliged to register for military service in the period running from the beginning of January to the end of February. Registration does not imply immediately joining the army: the army decides who it wishes to recruit, and their names appear on official notices. There is no question of just picking young men off the streets.

Furthermore, the armed forces (FADM) are not short of soldiers, Massingue said. He claimed there are more than enough Mozambicans who want to join the FADM. In addition to conscription, people who want to make a career out of the army can volunteer, and Massingue said there are more volunteers than the FADM can possibly absorb.

He believed that rumours of forced or clandestine recruitment are being deliberately spread “by individuals of bad faith”.

If there were real press-gangs at work, he added, they had nothing to do with the Defence Ministry, and people who knew of such illegal practices should denounce them to the authorities.

Source: AIM