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Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Wednesday announced to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, that he will meet with Ossufo Momade, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, on Thursday to sign a definitive agreement on the cessation of hostilities between the government forces and Renamo.
The agreement, he said, will be signed in the central district of Gorongosa, where Renamo has its military headquarters.
Nyusi made this announcement at the end of his annual State of the Nation address, the last he will give in this five year term of office as President of the Republic.
The agreement, he said, will bind both sides “to refrain from all hostile or military acts against forces and positions or property, and against the population”. He gave no details about any other provisions of the agreement.
“This historic moment reaffirms our hope for a bright future and precedes the signing of the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation which will take place here in Maputo within a matter of days”, Nyusi added.
The President also revealed that the list of ten officers submitted by Renamo to join the general command of the Mozambican police has been accepted. The ten officers should arrive in Maputo on Wednesday night.
This follows the start of the demilitarisation of Renamo on Monday, when 50 members of the Renamo militia were registered for demobilisation (although only six handed in any weapons).
Nyusi thanked the parliamentary deputies for passing unanimously on Monday the bill he had submitted granting amnesty for all those accused of crimes against state security or military crimes in the context of the military hostilities between the government and Renamo.
He had sent the amnesty bill to parliament, he explained, in the spirit of “tolerance and real reconciliation, as a way of making flexible the peace process under way”.
“Without peace there is no development”, stressed Nyusi. Right from the day he took office as President in January 2015, he had worked to achieve a definitive and lasting peace, and to do all in his power “to stop Mozambicans from killing each other”. That goal now seemed to be within reach.
“Mozambique has changed and will never be the same again”, he declared. At the start of his term of office, Nyusi said, he would have been told his ambitions were too high if he had promised that his government would beat inflation, establish peace, bring electricity to all district capitals, and approve a far-reaching package of decentralisation.
Yet all this had been achieved despite such adversities as a lengthy drought in the south of the country and floods and cyclones in the centre and north. When cyclones Idai and Kenneth struck the country in March and April, the government “had to adopt exceptional measures to save lives and restore damaged infrastructures”.
The government had sounded the alert about the approaching cyclones in good time, said the President, it had placed rescue teams on the ground, and had provided humanitarian aid and the resettling of the victims in safe areas.
The government had fought and resisted, Nyusi declared. “The adversities put to the test our capacity to transform obstacles into opportunities”, he said.
Turning to the acts of terrorism in parts of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, he said the defence and security forces had guaranteed protection of the population and had prevented the spread of the insurgency.
“The criminals don’t show their faces, and don’t say what motivates them”, Nyusi added. He hoped that current trials of captured insurgents in Cabo Delgado would throw light on the motives behind the insurgency.
The agreement scheduled for Thursday is the third peace deal that Renamo has signed. The first was the General Peace Agreement signed in Rome on 4 October 1992, by the then Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama and President Joaquim Chissano. The second was the agreement on a cessation of hostilities signed by Dhlakama and Chissano’s successor, Armando Guebuza, on 5 September 2014.
Renamo violated the earlier agreements by refusing to disarm and demobilise all its forces. Since Renamo disarmament has now begun, this time the outcome may be different.
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