Funding cuts put lives at stake in Mozambique - OCHA
Watch: Police disperse student demonstration in central Maputo – Lusa report
7:57 CAT | 12 May 2021
Photo: Sala da Paz
Thirty students responded this Tuesday to a call on social media for a demonstration in central Maputo against the new Statute for Parliamentary Officials and Agents.
Due to the current crisis in the country, the perks and subsidies provided for in the statute have been the subject of criticism since they were approved by the Assembly of the Republic last week, with a debate scheduled for Wednesday.
“No legalised theft!”, “Gangsters, in fact!” were among the slogans chanted and painted on banners, while another suggested, “How about more perks for Cabo Delgado?” where more than 2,500 people have died and 714,000 been displaced in a humanitarian crisis caused by armed clashes with rebels.
“It is not forbidden to demonstrate. Ask for authorisation and you will be authorised,” a policeman trying to stop the march said, but “as long as you don’t have it [authorisation]” the group should not demonstrate.
The meeting started at 8:30 a.m. on Rua da Rádio, next to Praça da Independência and the large statue of President Samora Machel in front of the Maputo Municipal Council building.
“It is a right” to protest, another police officer said, but “there are rules. Have you followed them?” he asked, with the group replying that it tried to obtain a permit, but without getting it in time.
Polícia impede manifestação pacífica de estudantes#manifestacao #estudantesmocambicanos #prm #opaisonline #opais #gruposoicohttps://t.co/KkGXaYpRKI pic.twitter.com/UN7mMTI6Ah
— O País Online (@opaisonline) May 11, 2021
The policemen wielding weapons in the square outnumbered the demonstrators who, after a couple of conversations with the authorities, took down their banners and proceeded to circulate anyway, still followed by police agents.
At a certain point, while walking along Avenida Josina Machel, the young people and students came to be surrounded by police dogs, which generated still more friction.
“What kind of police are these?” one of the members of the group demanded to know, before a new discussion with them, after which the protesters ended their protest.
“We are going to disperse. We are going to walk and take down our posters, too,” said Viriato Matine, 31, holder of a degree in Philosophy from Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), and a member of the group who called for calm and a peaceful protest.
Standing next to him, 27-year-old Duarte Amaral, another UEM philosophy graduate, offered a point of order: “Our fight is for the police officers, too!”
“This fight is for Mozambique, it is for the police as well,” he said. Benefits are approved in parliament, “but an increase on the minimum salary has been denied for two years”, he notes.
In its call for the demonstration, which circulated on social networks on Monday, the UEM Community of Students specified a “peaceful demonstration against the extravagant perks approved by the AR”.
“We hope that, seeing this demonstration, deputies will vote with their consciences” and reverse the approval of the law, said Alberto Matola, 25, a political science student at Eduardo Mondlane University.
The students and others regretted the police action. “This is a public space, but we are being censored. They say that people cannot stand still, and that if they want to stay here, they have to walk around. We are being censored very early. This is more to discourage young people [than anything], but we will not stop,” Matola said.
“We want to get off social media and onto the streets” in the face of a parliament that approves laws with which “youth do not identify”. “We are going to start today, but if there is no immediate result, we promise to do something again. We will not stop until the law fails,” he said.
The generally approved statute is contested for providing benefits in times of crisis and restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic in one of the poorest countries in the world, which still faces an armed insurgency in the north, a conflict that led to the suspension of the natural gas project on which many of the hopes for an economic recovery rested.
Among the more egregious perks is a “dress allowance” [subsídio de atavio] for officials and parliamentary agents for the clothes and props necessary for ceremonies in which they must participate.
Minister of Finance Adriano Maleiane, quoted by the newspaper O País, has estimated that the perks will cost the state the equivalent of about €1.5 million, although its application will be conditional on budgetary availability.
A Polícia da República de #Moçambique dispersou uma manifestação convocada por estudantes universitários em protesto contra o novo Estatuto do Funcionário e Agente Parlamentar, que prevê a atribuição de regalias muito aquém da realidade do país. pic.twitter.com/NE2znbgt9D
— VOAPortuguês (@VOAPortugues) May 12, 2021
A Polícia da República de Moçambique disse ter interrompido a manifestação pelo facto de não ter sido autorizada #manifestacao #estudantesmocambicanos #prm #opaisonline #opais #gruposoicohttps://t.co/SxPZkBEMLc pic.twitter.com/GwUXwSmqWO
— O País Online (@opaisonline) May 11, 2021
Source: Lusa / STV
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