NGO demands publication of dispatch over revoking promotions – AIM report

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NGO demands publication of dispatch over revoking promotions – AIM report

8:21 CAT | 05 Feb 2020

Picture: rfi

A prominent Mozambican NGO, the Centre for Development and Democracy (CDD), has called on the police to produce the dispatches revoking the promotion of three members of the death squad who assassinated civil society and election observation activist Anastacio Matavel in the southern city of Xai-Xai on 7 October.

Matavel was gunned down in broad daylight by a death squad of five men, all of whom turned out to be members of the Special Operations Group (GOE) of the Mozambican police, namely Euclidio Mapulasse, Edson Silica, Agapito Matavele, Nobrega Chauque and Martins Wiliamo.

The five assassins might have evaded justice, if their getaway car had not been involved in a major traffic accident. As the car sped away from the scene of the murder, it hit three other vehicles and overturned.

Nobrega Chauque and Martins Wiliamo died in the crash. Silica was injured, arrested and taken to the Xai-Xai provincial hospital. Mapulasse managed to flee from the crash, with a gun and headed for the Gaza command of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR – the Mozambique riot police). Agapito Matavele also fled, taking two guns with him. Mapulasse was arrested later, but Agapito Matavele is still on the run, and is believed to be in South Africa.

Despite their involvement in cold blooded murder, the police General Command promoted Silica, Mapulasse and Agapito Matavele. Silica’s name was included in a dispatch of 27 December which promoted a number of officers to the rank of police sub-inspector. Mapulasse and Agapito were promoted to sergeant in a separate dispatch on the same day.

For five days after the independent weekly paper “Savana” published this shocking news, the police general command neither confirmed nor denied the promotions.

But last week the spokesperson for the General Command, Orlando Mudumane, claims the promotions were “a mistake” which has been corrected.

“As soon as the mistake was detected, the promotions were revoked”, Mudumane claimed. He did not say whether they were revoked before or after “Savana” alerted the public to the promotions.

Mudumane said the proposal to promote the three men was sent to the General Commander of the police, Bernadino Rafael, before the assassination, along with hundreds of other proposals from all 11 provinces.

“The proposals to promote the police agents charged with this murder received a favourable dispatch in error”, he insisted, “but the situation has been corrected”.

For CDD, this is not good enough. It pointed out that so far the Police General Command has not produced the order revoking the promotions. When journalists pressed him, Mudumane refused to show them the dispatch, on the grounds that “Institutional documents cannot be shown in public”.

CDD rejects this claim as unjustified “since promotions in the police are acts within the public domain, and the ceremonies at which the promoted officers receive their new ranks are public events witnessed by the media”.

To make matters worse, Mudumane has now given three contradictory accounts as to when the promotions were revoked. He told “Savana” they were revoked three or four hours after the initial dispatch had been published (i.e. on 27 December). Later he put the cancellation of the promotion three or four days after the first dispatch (i.e. on 30 or 31 December). He then told the weekly “Canal de Mocambique”, that the promotions were cancelled less than 24 hours after the initial dispatch (i.e. on 27 or 28 December).

The press has seen one dispatch cancelling promotions, dated 31 December 2019, and signed by the then Interior Minister Basilio Monteiro. This revoked the promotions of 11 police officers who did not meet the requirements for promotion. It did not mention the names of any of the men who murdered Anastacio Matavel.

CDD argues that “for the sake of transparency and institutional credibility, the General Police Command should publicise the supposed orders that revoke the promotions of Edson Silica, Euclídio Mapulasse and Agapito Matavele. In fact, the publication of the revocation orders is the only way that the General Police Command has to prove that it has backed down on its decision to promote officers accused of committing a heinous crime”.

Unless the revocation orders are published, CDD warns, “the idea remains that they do not exist; that the General Police Command maintains the promotion of the officers involved in the murder of activist Anastácio Matavele and it is only buying time”.

The CDD is also angered at the silence of the Mozambican judiciary “in the face of acts that undermine the Rule of Law”. It believes that the assassination of Anastácio Matavel “is a matter that must be brought to international mechanisms for the defence of human rights so that the Mozambican State is held responsible for the acts of its officers. To this end, CDD is working with the Southern Africa Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDAN) to consolidate the initiative of submitting the Anastácio Matavele case to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights”.

The new Minister of the Interior, Amade Miquidade, has promised to investigate the dispatches promoting the three assassins. Asked by reporters about the matter on Monday, Miquidade said he had not yet seen documents on the promotions, and only became aware of the matter through the media. But he said he would now look into the dispatches.

Police General Commander Bernadino Rafael, who signed the promotion dispatches, seemed irritated that the promotions had found their way into the press. Cited by the independent daily “O Pais”, he declared that “administrative acts are not dealt with in the newspapers”.

Publication in the press “went beyond the reality of administrative acts”, he said, and refused to comment further on this cryptic remark.

Source: AIM