Porta-voz dos desmobilizados da Renamo, Edgar Silva, fala em conferência de imprensa, em Maputo.
Maputo, 24 Jun (AIM) – Men claiming to be demobilised fighters of Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo on Monday promised to end their occupations of Renamo delegations across the country.
The former guerrillas have occupied the Renamo offices (including the national headquarters in Maputo), in pursuit of their demand for the resignation of the party’s leader, Ossufo Momade.
The spokesperson for the demobilised fighters, Edgar Silva, told a Maputo press conference that they are suspending their occupations for 20 days, in order to allow preparations for a meeting of the Renamo National Council. No date has yet been fixed for this meeting, which is a prelude to a Renamo Congress,
The occupation of the offices has disrupted Renamo’s operations. It is not known how many former guerrillas were involved, or how much support they enjoy within the party.
Silva justified the occupations on the grounds that Momade is a weak leader. “He is not in line with the directives of the party”, Silva claimed, “and so he is not the person best indicated to guarantee its operations”.
Silva wanted the meeting of the Renamo National Council to be thrown open to the former guerrillas and to other members of the party. He warned that, if the Renamo leadership does not organise a meeting of the National Council, the demobilised men will once again seize control of the Renamo offices.
A Renamo spokesperson told AIM that the party’s national headquarters has been operational for the past three weeks – that is, since the police, at the request of the Renamo leadership, evicted the former guerrillas from the HQ. The spokesperson said that the occupiers had vandalised some of the provincial and district delegations they had seized.
The Renamo dissidents blame Momade for the party’s poor results in the October general elections, when it lost its position as runner-up and slipped to third place. But Momade enjoys a degree of democratic legitimacy – he was elected president of Renamo at the party’s last two congresses, in 2019 and 2024.
(AIM)
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