Small war: Are civilians official targets in Mozambique? – Hanlon

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Small war: Are civilians official targets in Mozambique? – Hanlon

5:15 CAT | 25 Apr 2016

On Sunday 17 April Renamo dug a trench across the main N7 road in Barue and set fire to three vehicles that stopped. On Monday 18 April, Renamo official António Sautane Chulo, the second deputy chair of the Inhambane Provincial Assembly, was shot and seriously injured outside his house. From his hospital bed, Chulo said that he had earlier come under pressure to order Renamo gunmen in the Inhambane districts of Funhalouro and Mabote to disarm, which he said he could not do because he had no control over them. Also on Monday two Renamo party offices in Chimoio, Manica, were burned and money and IT equipment stolen. And on Thursday 21 April Renamo killed a child in an attack on a district administration car near the town of Canda, Sofala.

In recent weeks Renamo has been shooting at civilian buses and other road traffic, while two senior Renamo officials were shot in Beira. President Filipe Nyusi declared in Brussels on Friday that democracy is not compatible with the existence of armed political parties.

Has the government decided that as Renamo is waging war as an armed party, its party officials can no longer be treated as non-combatants? As Renamo guerrillas escalate the war, do civilian party officials increasingly become legitimate targets?

Source: Joseph Hanlon News