Peace mediator in Mozambique admits he tried to meet with the leader of Renamo

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Peace mediator in Mozambique admits he tried to meet with the leader of Renamo

10:40 CAT | 29 Oct 2016

File photo / Mario Raffaelli

The coordinator of the international mediation team in the ongoing peace talks in Mozambique, Mario Raffaeli, admitted yesterday that he travelled on Saturday to Gorongosa in central Mozambique, to try to talk with the leader of Renamo Afonso Dhlakama.

“A meeting with the leader of Renamo [Mozambique National Resistance, the largest opposition party] was planned and, in fact, I was in Gorongosa,” Mario Raffaeli told journalists on Friday, saying that the meeting did not take place, but denying information according to which he would have suffered an attempted attack.

In the negotiation round on Tuesday (October 25), journalists confronted Mario Raffaeli about the alleged attempt to meet with Dhlakama, which was circulating on social networks, but the coordinator of the mediation team denied.

“It’s rumours, you are hearing rumours,” was all he told the press.

During yesterday’s conversation with journalists, Raffaeli admitted, however, that he tried to meet with Dhlakama and said that, on the way to the meeting point, he received a call from the leader of Renamo, asking him to return to Maputo because government troops were moving.

“I did not hear shots and neither did I see [military] movements . I got the call [Dhlakama’s] before getting to Gorongosa village,” said the European Union-appointed mediator, noting that the leader of Renamo and the Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi had knowledge of the preparations for the meeting.

In an interview with weekly newspaper Canal de Moçambique released on Wednesday, Afonso Dhlakama accused the army of having tried to attack on Saturday the place where he would meet with a delegation of mediators of the negotiations, preventing the secret meeting.

“There was a strong exchange of fire. They took a beating. I started to hear the explosions from here and it was 8 AM. I called [Mario] Raffaelli and said that the Defence and Security Forces had come to make an ambush, “said Dhlakama, cited in the newspaper.

According to Dhlakama, Mario Raffaeli was travelling with Jonathan Powell, representative of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the peace negotiations.

Mario Raffaeli coordinates the team of international mediators in the peace talks in Mozambique to end the current conflict between the government and Renamo.

The largest opposition party in Mozambique demands to rule in six provinces where it claims election victory as a condition to the end of political and military crisis in Mozambique.

The central and northern regions of Mozambique have been the scene of clashes between the armed wing of the main opposition party and the Defence and Security Forces and mutual allegations of abductions and assassinations of political leaders of both parties.

Source: Lusa