Renamo: “We have nothing to negotiate with the Military Junta”

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Renamo: “We have nothing to negotiate with the Military Junta”

3:40 CAT | 30 Oct 2020

Photo: Renamo Moçambique

Renamo has announced that it “has nothing to negotiate” with the self-proclaimed Military Junta, outside of its national peace and reconciliation agenda. The Mozambican government says the party has a duty to bring dissidents to peace.

This is the first public statement by the country’s largest opposition party since the declaration of a unilateral truce by the government on Sunday (25-10). The truce is intended to allow dialogue with the Military Junta, a Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) splinter group carrying out attacks in the centre of the country.

Renamo considers the government’s unilateral truce another opportunity to create an environment of understanding and call the members of the dissident group to reason. However, it points out that some voices, characterised as spokesmen for the Military Junta, want to push Renamo into a situation which is not part of the party’s political agenda or that of its president, Ossufo Momade.

“We are for peace and reconciliation, and say here and now that, outside of that agenda, we have nothing to negotiate with the self-proclaimed Military Junta,” Renamo spokesman José Manteigas told reporters on Thursday (29-10).

The Military Junta, led by Mariano Nhongo, a former Renamo general, does not recognise the party’s current leader, Ossufo Momade, nor the peace agreement Renamo signed with the government.

On Wednesday, head of state Filipe Nyusi called on Renamo not to distance itself from the ongoing efforts to reach an understanding with the Military Junta, since the arguments presented by the group refer directly to Renamo.

An affair of State

Asked if Renamo would participate in contacts with the Military Junta, José Manteigas said the matter was an affair of state. “What is at stake is the sovereignty of the state, it is the physical integrity of the citizens, it is the life of Mozambicans, and the government has a duty to protect these legal assets,” Manteigas said.

Manteigas said Nhongo had always refused to sit down with Renamo and spell out the reasons that led him to embark on his course of violence.

“Renamo is not closed, but we feel that if Mr Mariano Nhongo puts himself in an adverse position vis-à-vis Renamo. It would be very unlikely that Renamo and its president would get involved,” Manteigas added, noting that Nhongo had previously threatened to kill Momade and other party cadres.

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Amade Miquidade said that Renamo had a “patriotic duty” in the interest of peace to provide all available information related to the Military Junta, namely the bases, men, location and hiding places.

“Considering that the weapons, ammunition and uniform used by the Military Junta are Renamo’s and that there is an umbilical connection to Renamo, it has a patriotic duty, in the interest of peace, to provide [the Government] with all information [it possesses] regarding the Junta,” Miquidade said in the Assembly of the Republic.

Government “sponsored” Military Junta

José Manteigas accused the government of having “sponsored” the Military Junta in the past, unlike Renamo, which, he reiterated, took no part in the creation of this group.

“The minister cannot attribute the incapacity and ineffectiveness of the Defence and Security Forces to Renamo,” he stressed.

The government’s unilateral truce comes at a time when the process of disarmament and reintegration of Renamo’s residual forces, which is not accepted by the Military Junta, is underway. The Renamo spokesman reiterated that his party would continue to cooperate in this process with all due rigour.

At the same press conference, José Manteigas demanded that those involved in the current wave of kidnappings and selective killing of civilian be held accountable, and urged the government to respond to the demands of the medical profession regarding Covid-19.

Source: Deutsche Welle