Mozambique: Simango says Renamo ‘dissident’ guerrillas case caused by lack of transparency

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Simango says Renamo ‘dissident’ guerrillas case caused by lack of transparency

2:12 CAT | 06 Aug 2019

Picture: DW

Asked to comment on the end of military hostilities in the country, the MDM leader warns of the need for inclusion so as not to “open a door to future insurgency” which could undermine the agreement.

Leader of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), Daviz Simango, has suggested in an interview with Lusa that lack of transparency is at the heart of the opposition of a splinter group in Renamo, Mozambique’s largest opposition party, to the party leadership and to the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Social Reintegration (DDR) process which started last week.

The leader of Mozambique’s third-largest political party drew attention to the need to promote inclusion, so as to not “open a door to future insurgency” undermining the agreement to cease military hostilities.

“It is not enough for us to sign for the sake of signing, to convey the image that in Mozambique elections are [held] in peace,” Daviz Simango said about the agreement to end hostilities signed in Gorongosa on 1 August.

Friedensvertrag Mosambik (DW/A. SebastiÃ£o) — *Filipe Nyusi (left) and Ossufo Momade (right) signed the peace agreement in Gorongosa.*

To the MDM leader’s mind, “One needs to talk to people, bring them together, listen to them and solve problems, and one needs to understand what the expectation is … because expectation assumes that people believed in their involvement. They believed they would have something later,” he said of the split in Renamo’s military wing.

In question are the challenges posed by a splinter group led by Renamo Major General Mariano Nhungue, which calls itself the Renamo Military Junta. The group demands the resignation of party leader Ossufo Momade, accusing him of “kidnapping and isolating” Renamo officials close to former party president Afonso Dhlakama, who died on May 3 last year.

Mosambik: Ossufo Momade, Chef der grÃ¶Ãten Oppositionspartei RENAMO (Getty Images/A. Barbier) — *Ossufo Momade, Renamo leader*

“We are well aware that some of the people who have fulfilled the mission of creating and developing democracy itself remain unintegrated. But they are useful people, important people in our society; they are our brothers, they are kind people,” Simango said, calling for the publication of the list of guerrillas being integrated, for the sake of assuring DDR process transparency.

“People want peace; they all want integration. The only problem here is communication. It’s a problem of listening and understanding aspirations,” he said, adding: “Mozambicans have no interest in spending their modest financial resources in election after election managing conflicts provoked by political intolerance.”

Renamo’s self-proclaimed military junta threatened military action on Wednesday (31-07) if the Mozambican government insisted on negotiating with the party president, saying that the dialogue process violated the spirit of peace accords concluded by the party’s historic leader, Afonso Dhlakama.

Today, a broader peace agreement, providing for the integration of Renamo’s armed wing into the country’s security services, will be signed in Maputo.

Source: Deutsche Welle