Government urges citizens to avoid “illegal demonstrations”

Maputo, 23 Oct (AIM) – The Mozambican government on Tuesday urged citizens not to attend the demonstrations called by the independent presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane.

Speaking at a press briefing after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet),the government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, described the strikes and protests called by Mondlane as “illegal”.

Mondlane called a “national general strike” on Monday, which he claimed had shut down 95 per cent of the economy (although nobody knows how he reached that figure).

On Tuesday he announced that the next stage in his protest would be a two day general strike on Thursday and Friday.

Suaze retorted that, far from shutting the economy down, all Mozambicans should strive to keep all public and private institutions functioning. He stressed that only trade unions, or groups of workers, have the right to call strikes. A strike called by anybody else would be illegal.

“A strike is not a political expedient”, he said. “It is usually an expedient used by trade unions to claim higher wages or better working conditions”.

Suaze warned that production is determinant for workers in private companies to earn their wages. But if, instead of working they went on a demonstration, that would reduce the capacity of their employers to pay their wages.

Suaze defended the use of force by the police to disperse demonstrators in central Maputo on Monday, and even claimed that the police had not opened fire against journalists.

However, the footage of Monday’s events clearly show that the police attacked a press conference being addressed by Venancio Mondlane. Inevitably, attacking a press conference will lead to injuries to journalists. One of those hit was a camera operator for the independent television station. STV, who later showed reporters the injury to his left leg, where he had been struck by a tear gas canister.

Suaze suggested that any injuries to journalists were accidental. “There were shots against demonstrators”. He said, “and the journalists were positioned in a place where there were also demonstrators. So they were also affected by the tear gas and had to disperse”.

He promised that there would be a more detailed analysis of the attack against the journalists at an unspecified date in the future. There would also be an investigation into whether the police had used excessive force to disperse the protestors, and whether they had used live ammunition”.

Suaze suggested that those shots might have been fired, not by the police, but by “other people to provoke chaos”.
(AIM)
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