Watch: Mozambique must not become “a failed state” – Nyusi swears in Intelligence Director General and Deputy

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Watch: Mozambique must not become “a failed state” – Nyusi swears in Intelligence Director General and Deputy

7:21 CAT | 01 Feb 2017

The President of the Republic, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, today swore-in Lagos Henriques Lidimo (L) as Director General of the State Intelligence Service (SISE) and Nathú Cabá (R) as his Deputy. [File photo: Folha de Maputo ]

Mozambique must not become “a failed and pariah state”, President Filipe Nyusi declared on Wednesday, as he swore into office Gen Lagos Lidimo as the new General Director of the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE).

“As a priority, the defence of peace must remain the beacon that we erect in order to bring prosperity and tranquillity to our country”, he said. “This requires a strong and flexible State Intelligence and Security Service, using modern methods, a service that is more open, and whose way of operating does not close in upon itself”.

The task of SISE, said Nyusi, is “to ensure respect for the Constitution and the Law, and to produce information necessary for safeguarding national independence. This service guarantees national security, and the functioning of the sovereign bodies and other institutions, in the framework of constitutional normality, and it protects the vital interests of society”.

SISE performs its mission, he added, “through the collection, research, production, analysis and assessment of intelligence useful to state security”.

Nyusi said that SISE must also “prevent attacks against the Constitution, and combat espionage, sabotage and terrorism”.

He warned against the threats posed by cross-border crime, including trafficking in drugs, arms, people and wildlife. Other issues that could weaken the country, Nyusi continued, were “corruption, threats to human rights, the lack of social justice and inclusion, ecological threats and the frenzied exploitation of natural resources”.

“All these threats demand of SISE a better permanent exchange of information with counterpart institutions, and a greater mastery of international threats”, said the President.

SISE officers, Nyusi insisted, must be loyal to the nation, the constitution and the law, and must defend Mozambican sovereignty and the interests of the state. They must also be non-partisan, and must “refrain from taking positions or participating in actions which endanger their internal cohesion and national unity”.

In brief remarks to reporters, Lidimo said he would do all in his power to defend the Mozambican state in the face of emerging threats. He said he intended to comply with the instructions given by Nyusi to the best of his ability.

The 67 year old Lidimo has been a soldier for most of his life. Born in 1950, in Mueda district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, he joined the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) at the age of 16, and became a prominent guerrilla commander in the war for independence from Portuguese colonial rule.

After independence, he became commander of the frontier guard and head of military intelligence in the Mozambican armed forces (FAM-FPLM), during the wars waged against Mozambique by the white minority regimes of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and of apartheid South Africa.

When volunteers from the FAM-FPLM and from the rebel movement Renamo were recruited to form a new national defence force, the FADM, in 1994, Lidimo was appointed chief of staff, a position he held until his retirement from the armed forces in 2008.

Nyusi also swore into office the deputy director of SISE, Sergio Nathu Caba, who was formerly an assistant lecturer at the history department in Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University, and is the author of a book on “The War in Zambezia Province and the role of Malawi 1975-1988”.