No Negotiations With Nyusi, Says Nhongo

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No Negotiations With Nyusi, Says Nhongo

7:24 CAT | 15 Jan 2020

Mariano Nhongo leader of the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta” (VOA)

The leader of the self-styled “Renamo Military Junta”, Mariano Nhongo, has said the Junta will not negotiate with Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi “because we are fighting”, according to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.

Addressing one of his frequent telephone press conferences in Beira, and answering questions as to whether he is willing to talk with the President, Nhongo said that Nyusi “is attacking me, and I am also attacking. That’s how it is”.

Nhongo has now dropped the pretence that the Junta has nothing to do with the ambushes against vehicles on the main roads through the central provinces of Manica and Sofala. His recent interviews have been peppered with threats of further attacks. He was particularly incensed that the Renamo mainstream ignored his warnings and that all Renamo deputies took their seats in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Monday.

Nhongo said he had no reason to talk to Nyusi because the President had not replied to the Military Junta’s demand to accommodate its claims. “I have nothing to speak to Nyusi about, because I wanted a government in which both parts (the Renamo residual forces and the government’s defence and security forces) join together”, he declared. “I’m not a brute. I just didn’t go to school. They may be used to deceiving (Afonso) Dhlakama (the late leader of Renamo), but I’m Mariano Nhongo”.

Nhongo claimed that the ruling Frelimo Party “manipulated everything” that had been agreed with Dhlakama (who died of diabetes in May 2018). “Nyusi is not the President of Mozambique in 2020. This is a violation of the will of the majority of Mozambicans”.

Asked what solution he proposed to the military instability in Manica and Sofala, Nhongo fell back on a biblical comparison. “We shall study a solution”, he said. “When the children of Israel left Egypt, they found the Red Sea was full, but God opened the path. God will open a path for us, as the Military Junta”.

Nhongo added that he does not recognise the 60 Renamo parliamentarians because “they left the soldiers suffering in the bush. This means they are people who approach Renamo in order to exploit it and send the owners of the party into poverty while they enrich themselves”.

He threatened to murder the Renamo deputies. “We want to liquidate these men”, declared Nhongo. “Anyone who took their seats is an enemy of the Military Junta”.

Source: AIM