Mozambique: Violence against garimpeiros in Namanhumbir ruby mines

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Mozambique: Violence against garimpeiros in Namanhumbir ruby mines

11:42 CAT | 20 Jul 2017

Miramar (Screen grab) / Parts of the video have been broadcast by TV Miramar Notícias, the footage shown contains graphic violence

Videos circulating on social networks show Mozambican police assaulting garimpeiros (artisanal miners or prospectors) at the rubies mines in Namanhumbir, Montepuez, Cabo Delgado in what could be a case of human rights violations.

The images show the garimpeiros being subjected to severe abuse, once again tarnishing Mozambique’s human rights image.

Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Custódio Duma, says the images are shocking, irrespective of whatever irregularities the garimpeiros might have committed.

“Behaviour like this is unacceptable in this day and age,” he says. The police should have acted differently. “Regardless of what happened on site, this is not treatment that should be meted out to citizens.”

The case is another hot potato for the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Duma says he has no doubt that the police were not ordered to act as they did. “On the one hand, they themselves broke the disciplinary code and on the other, what is happening there is torture,” he says, and adds that because it is a crime, “the command will have to apply disciplinary measures”.

Human rights are a challenge in Mozambique

The incident reveals that Mozambique still faces many challenges from the point of view of human rights, Duma says. “What we have to do is prevent these situations from happening. When they happen, they create more occasion for criticism, putting the country in a not very favourable light,” he warns.

The chair of the Human Rights League, Alice Mabote said that, although she had not yet seen the images, she was not surprised because the police had always resorted to excessive use of force, with which she disagrees. “This worries us. They think they own the land and the best way to get people off is to use weapons excessively. It’s complicated,” she says.

Laws oblige reduction of excessive repression

Demonstration gegen Entführungen und Krieg in Maputo (DW/Leonel Matias) — Alice Mabote

Mabote says, ironically, that the country likes to be stained internationally with regard to human rights. She believes that “one of the best things one can do is question the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, since periodic reviews of legislation recommend certain measures to reduce excessive use of force,” she suggests.

This incident comes at a time when the Mozambican parliament’s Commission on Human Rights and Legality has begun a debate on the revision of criminal legislation aimed at inserting concern for human dignity and respect for human rights into the Mozambique legal code.

Source: Deutsche Welle