PGR files civil lawsuit against Venâncio Mondlane and Podemos

Maputo, 19 Nov (AIM) – The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) has filed a civil lawsuit against the presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, and the party which supports him, Podemos (Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique), represented by its president, Albino Forquilha.

The lawsuit is demanding compensation of 32.3 billion meticais (about 505 million dollars at the current exchange rate) as a result of the “damage caused to the State by demonstrations.”

According to a PGR statement, the civil lawsuit has been filed with the Maputo City Law Court and “despite warnings and summonses issued by the PGR, the co-defendants have continued to call for mass participation by citizens in the protests, inciting them to fury and paralyzing all activities in the country.”

For this reason, according to the document, “there can be no doubt about the civil liability of the defendants, as instigators, insofar as their pronouncements were decisive, especially for damage to state property.”

Furthermore, the statement adds, “the co-defendants, despite observing the social disorder and the destruction of public and private property, continued to instigate protest movements and announced more severe acts against the Mozambican state.”

“The civil liability of the perpetrators, instigators and helpers is covered by Article 490 of the Civil Code, which states that if there are several perpetrators, instigators or helpers of the illegal act, all of them are liable for the damage they have caused”, reads the note.

Civil liability, according to the document, is based not only on the general principle of preventing and repressing unlawful behavior, but essentially on a restorative function, in order to protect the property and non-pecuniary interests of the injured parties.

“This means that the damages can be borne in full by any of the co-defendants, with liability being assumed jointly and severally”, says the note.

The PGR also revealed that one of Mondlane’s allies, Vitano Singano, the leader of the tiny “Democratic Revolution” (RD) party, has been arrested for plotting a coup d’etat. This case is being handled by the Central Office for the Fight against Organised and Transnational Crime (GCCCOT).

Since the start of the protests against electoral fraud, the term “coup d’etat” has been thrown about loosely and without much evidence. But this time the accusation is much more serious, for Singano has a military background.

He was once a senior figure in the former rebel movement Renamo, and boasted that he was close to the late Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama. He broke with Dhlakama’s successor, Ossufo Momade, whom he accused of betraying Renamo’s demobilised fighters.

Singano set up the RD, which stood candidates in all 11 provincial constituencies in the 9 October parliamentary elections. RD did very badly in the elections, scoring less than one per cent of the vote. But the elections brought Singano close to Venancio Mondlane, and RD declared its support for Mondlane’s presidential bid.

The PGR said that Singano had intended to storm the “Ponta Vermelha” presidential palace during the “March on Maputo” announced by Mondlane for 7 November.

Singano may have made the mistake of believing Mondlane when he said that four million people would attend the march. In fact, nowhere near that number attended and there was never any serious chance that the presidential palace would fall into the marchers’ hands.

The charge sheet against Singano claims that he was acting “in coordination with a group of individuals now on the run, including some members of the defence and security forces, and of political parties to mobilise and recruit more members of the FDS and other individuals with military experience”.

They would “assault some military and police units, and use Molotov cocktails and other explosives to destroy the main road north (EN1)”.

None of this happened. Three RD leaders were arrested, of whom two were released on bail, while Singano remains in preventive detention. They face charges of conspiracy to commit crimes against state security, and to alter violently the rule of law.

The same charges are also being brought against Venancio Mondlane, although his whereabouts are currently unknown.
(AIM)
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