No Reason To Celebrate, Claims RENAMO

No Reason To Celebrate, Claims RENAMO

Maputo, 27 Dec (AIM) – Mozambicans have no reason to celebrate during this festive season, declared Ossufo Momade, leader of the country’s main opposition party, Renamo, on Monday.

After a weekend when his whereabouts were unknown, giving rise to rumours that he had been kidnapped by a group of dissident Renamo guerrillas, Momade surfaced in the northern city of Nampula on Monday morning, where he attacked the government for its alleged failure to comply with promises made under the DDR (“Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration”) programme.

According to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, Momade also accused the government of political intolerance, lack of national reconciliation, a decay in fundamental freedoms, and bad governance rooted in corruption.

Once again, Momade complained that pensions are not being paid to Renamo fighters who have already been demobilized – although President Filipe Nyusi claimed last week that pensions were not covered by the peace agreement he had signed with Momade in August 2019. Since that agreement has never been made public, it is hard to conclude where the truth lies.

Another recurrent complaint by Momade is that Renamo officers have not been integrated into the leaderships of the armed forces and the police. Nyusi, however, had blamed Renamo for submitting lists of names that it later withdrew. It is suspected that some of the names on the Renamo lists were never Renamo guerrillas.

Momade claimed that the failure to integrate Renamo officers, and the pensions issue were the reasons why the DDR has not yet been completed – although the final Renamo military base, in Gorongosa district, in the central province of Sofala, should have been closed a week ago.

He hoped that this would not prove the prelude to yet another peace agreement that will not be implemented. He made the familiar, but entirely untrue, claim that the government had never implemented the original peace agreement signed in October 1992.

That agreement was indeed violated – but by Renamo which refused to demobilize all its forces, holding some back who became the militia which are now, 30 years later, being disarmed.

“Despite this sombre scenario”, said Momade, as he concluded his Christmas message, “we have the duty to express our solidarity with all social actors, and encourage them to have hope, so that together we continue to build this country, which belongs to all of us”.
(AIM)
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