17 demonstrations on Thursday, say police

Maputo, 6 Dec (AIM) – There were 17 anti-government demonstrations across Mozambique on Thursday, according to the spokesperson for the General Command of the Mozambican police (PRM), Orlando Mudumane.

On Thursday evening, he told reporters that the unrest had led to the detention of 14 individuals who were erecting barricades on the public highway.

During the demonstrations, he added, two police posts were burnt down, and a prison was vandalised, allowing the escape of 11 prisoners. Mudumane gave no details about these incidents.

He blamed the violence on members and supporters of the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), the main party that had supported the campaign of fugitive presidential candidate, Venancio Mondlane, and claimed that Podemos had deliberately singled out police officers for attack during the unrest.

Mudumane said large numbers of children had been involved in Thursday’s rioting, and urged parents to keep their children away from demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the President of the Supreme Court, Adelino Muchanga, has compared the demonstrators with the Islamist terrorists who have brought chaos to parts of the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

On Wednesday, pro-Mondlane demonstrators had burnt down the court in Morrumbala district, in the central province of Zambezia.

Speaking in Nhamatanda district, where President Filipe Nyusi had just inaugurated a new courtroom, Muchanga said that attacking a court “is extremely serious” – and was exactly what the jihadists had done when they began their raids into Cabo Delgado in October 2017.

“We saw the same scenario in the first terrorist attack against the town of Mocimboa da Praia”, he recalled. “When the terrorists invaded the town, they burnt down the local court, they burnt all the case files, and they killed the security guard. Then they invaded the local prison and freed all the inmates they found there”.

Muchanga said attacks against organs of sovereignty, such as courts, “are not only illegal, but are self-sabotage of a people who, instead of demanding justice, are voluntarily surrendering to chaos. Although indignation may very well be valid, justice can never be built on the ashes of destruction”.

Thursday was the second of eight days of demonstrations called by Mondlane, with the explicit purpose of bringing the country to a standstill.

Mondlane’s instructions, it seems, now have the force of law. He had ordered all cars, buses and other vehicles off the Maputo roads between 08.00 and 15.30 – and the motorists obeyed.

Anyone with business in central Maputo offices, needed to get there before Mondlane’s shutdown began at 08.00. From that time on, the streets were eerily deserted, apart from pedestrians.

Although Mondlane had declared that people were not obliged to obey him, and were free to go about their business, few believed him. The presence of gangs of young men on street corners was sufficient to dissuade most drivers from taking their vehicles onto the streets.

Promises by the authorities that they would protect citizens from mob justice proved empty. The police made no attempt to clear the streets, and so the Interior Minister’s promise of “zero tolerance” for demonstrations proved no more than hot air.

For the first time, the demonstrations affected Maputo International Airport – not because rioters could reach the runway, but because passengers had to reach the airport before 08.00, and then wait many hours for their flights.
(AIM)
Pf/ (549)