Nyusi calls for collaboration between Justice and Defence organs in fight against Cabo Delgado armed groups

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Nyusi calls for collaboration between Justice and Defence organs in fight against Cabo Delgado armed groups

12:54 CAT | 06 Nov 2018

"This is [action] against our people and against the development of Mozambique," said the head of state. Photo: Presidente Filipe Nyusi Facebook

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi yesterday urged collaboration between law enforcement agencies and defence and security forces in the fight against the perpetrators of attacks on remote villages in Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique.

“We are asking for collaboration between the defence and security forces in order to hold accountable the perpetrators of these macabre acts,” the Mozambican head of state said during a meeting with justice administration bodies in Mozambique on the occasion of Legality Day on Monday.

For Nyusi, the judicial organs would play a fundamental role in actions to clarify the cases of attacks on remote villages in Cabo Delgado.

“This is [action] against our people and against the development of Mozambique,” the Mozambican head of state said.

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After nearly a month of violence and clashes in part of Mozambique two thousand kilometres north of the capital Maputo and close to Tanzania, an armed group looted and burned down a remote village in the northern district of Macomia on Sunday, without causing any casualties, local authorities told Lusa.

The violence grew after an attack on the village of Mocímboa da Praia in October 2017 by a group based on a local mosque that preached insurgency against the state and whose habits had been the source of friction with residents for at least two years.

The same type of conflict and recruitment, promoted with the support of foreign Muslims, was reported in other mosques in the region during the same period.

Analysts interviewed by Lusa are divided as to the justification for these attacks between those who say there are foreign links to organised crime heroin, ruby and ivory trafficking routes that pass through Cabo Delgado, and those analysts who believe that the attacks are domestic terrorism or perhaps have other causes.

Among the other causes, these researchers point to a possible popular revolt against poverty, old territorial disputes between ethnic groups or even political manipulation aimed at destabilising Mozambique, at a time when oil companies are investing in natural gas in Cabo Delgado.

The attacks, which have already caused nearly 100 deaths, have always occurred far from the asphalt roads (with the exception of the initial attack on Mocímboa da Praia) and outside the deployment zone of the future liquefied gas plant and other infrastructure installed by the oil companies on the Afungi peninsula in Palma district.

Since the end of 2017, the Mozambican and Tanzanian authorities have announced the arrest of suspects in connection with this wave of violence, and a trial involving 200 defendants is being held in Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado.

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Source: Lusa