Maputo, 8 Feb (AIM) – The Mozambican police killed seven members of the peasant militia, known as the Naparamas, on Thursday, in the Aube administrative post, in the northern province of Nampula, according to a report by the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.
The clash took place at around midday at the entrance to Aube. In the exchange of fire, seven alleged Naparamas were shot dead, and one member of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR- the Mozambican riot police) was injured in the arm. He is now out of danger.
After the clash, the UIR unit retreated to the town of Angoche.
The declared aim of the Naparamas in Aube, and earlier in the neighbouring district of Larde, was to force reductions in the price of foodstuffs.
The police told reporters that the Naparamas, armed with spears, machetes and similar weapons, also intended to kill officials in Aube. The police alleged they were following instructions from former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane.
Although Mondlane also calls for lower food prices, there is no evidence that he controls the Naparamas.
The Naparamas first came to prominence in the late 1980s, during the war of destabilisation, when they were defending peasant communities in Nampula and the neighbouring province of Zambezia against the then rebel movement Renamo. At that time, they were in an informal alliance with the Mozambican armed forces (FAM/FPLM).
After the 1992 peace agreement between the government and Renamo, little more was heard of the Naparamas until recently. But they have suddenly reappeared, and are posing a real threat to Mozambican state bodies.
The Naparamas use magical rituals, which they claim make them invulnerable to bullets (even though their first leader, Manuel Antonio, died in a hail of Renamo bullets in 1990).
(AIM)
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