On the death of Mozambican journalist João Chamusse – Carta de Moçambique

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On the death of Mozambican journalist João Chamusse – Carta de Moçambique

10:15 CAT | 15 Dec 2023

Image: Carta De Moçambique

João Chamusse, Mozambican journalist, editor of the electronic daily ‘Ponto por Ponto’ and commentator on TV Sucesso, was found dead at his home in the Ka-Elisa neighbourhood in KaTembe in the early hours of this Thursday morning.

Neighbours and a family source confirmed the incident. His body was found sprawled on the ground in his backyard, with blood on the side of his head and signs of blows. It is suspected that he was murdered. During a fact-finding mission this Thursday morning, we learned that the police were on their way to the scene.

The incident occurred after the journalist left a gathering with friends not far from his home. He left around 1:00 a.m., saying he was going home to sleep. He was found dead just hours later.

READ: Mozambique: Journalist murdered in Katembe – AIM | Watch

CPJ calls for a thorough investigation into killing of Mozambican journalist João Chamusse – Unabridged

Chamusse was a commentator on TV Sucesso. He used simple language to express his criticism, with a record of exposing the inconsistencies and excesses of the governance of the day. He had harboured an intense resentment of the regime for many years.

Before becoming a journalist, Chamusse studied at the School of Civil Aeronautics and trained as a commercial pilot in Lisbon, returning to Mozambique in 1985 . He had a position in LAM. But instead of going into the cockpit, he was shown a chair in the Mavalane Airport Control Tower.

He got angry, suspecting that the reason for this “marginalization” was the colour of his skin. In 1986, when the presidential Tupolev 134 carrying President Samora Machel back to Maputo crashed in Mbuzini, South Africa, attracted by a false VOR signal , Chamusse was in the Mavalane control tower.

Even though the South African conspiracy theory to bring down the plane soon came to fruition, the pilot who controlled the planes was brutalised by the secret police (SNASP, the then National Public Security Service), which deepened his discontent.

In 1997, when Carlos Cardoso left the editing of mediaFax (and Mediacoop) to found ‘Metical’, Chamusse joined the editors of the diary, which was edited by Fernando Veloso. The newspaper would radically change its editorial line, becoming markedly anti-government.
Later, Veloso and Chamusse, together with journalist Luís Nhachote, founded the weekly newspaper ‘Canal de Moçambique’, through a company called Imprel.

In recent years, Chamusse, whose wife, Conceição Vitorino (now deceased), was also a journalist, lived in KaTembe, and became a well-known face on social media due to his jocular comments on TV Sucesso.

Even if the suspicion that he was murdered turns out to be correct, Chamusse remained oblivious to the possibility that this could happen to him. He used to praise Katembe for being an almost crime-free urban district.

For example, he would tell his friends that there were rarely any guards patrolling the streets, or officers on duty at the police station not 200 metres from his house. Officers stationed there would post their cell phone numbers on the walls in case anyone wanted to contact them, in an almost cinematographic vision at which he would laugh.

By Marcelo Mosse

Source: Carta de Moçambique