RENAMO TRIES TO REOPEN DEBATE ON HONOURS SYSTEM

Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, on Wednesday attempted to reopen debate in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on a government bill amending the country’s honours system. The bill passed its first reading last Thursday, and then went into the Committee stage for amendment. Inside the Assembly’s Social Affairs Commission, just as in the plenary last week, Renamo insisted that honours and medals be created that recognise figures and places in Renamo’s own history.The bill maintains the existing “Eduardo Mondlane Order”, named after the founder of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), and adds a “Samora Machel Order”, named after the man who led the country to independence and was its first President.Renamo demanded orders named after its first commander Andre Matsangaissa, and his successor Afonso Dhlakama. Matsangaissa was the man chosen, in 1977, by the Rhodesian racist regime of Ian Smith to head Renamo, when it was an irregular unit in the Rhodesian armed forces. The Rhodesians put Dhlakama in charge, after Matsangaissa was killed in an ill-judged attack on the town of Gorongosa in November 1979.Renamo also wanted medals named after Gorongosa and Maringue, the two central Mozambican districts which housed the Renamo headquarters in different stages of the war of destabilisation.The Frelimo group on the Social Affairs Commission declared that Matsangaissa and Dhlakama “were distinguished in the destruction of social and economic undertakings, including factories, railways, schools and hospitals”.“You cannot compare the architect of national unity and founder of Frelimo, Eduardo Mondlane, or the first President of the Republic, Samora Machel, with people who were used as instruments to destroy the sovereignty, integrity, independence and peace of Mozambicans”, Frelimo added.Defeated on the commission by 11 votes to three with one abstention, Renamo tried to bring the matter back to the plenary. This involved some adroit rewriting of history. Moving the motion to re-open the debate, Renamo deputy Armindo Milaco claimed that at the peace talks in Rome in 1990-1992, “Frelimo agreed with the objectives of Renamo” – though no Frelimo leader has ever said anything of the sort.He claimed it was inconsistent to have a “4th October Order” (named after the date in 1992 when the peace accord between the government and Renamo was signed), without decorations to recognise “the places where the struggle for democracy flourished, Maringue and Gorongosa”.The Assembly declined to reopen the debate, with the 180 Frelimo deputies present voting against the motion. The 45 Renamo deputies and the seven present from the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) voted in favour.In explaining, the MDM’s position, Gerlado de Carvalho said his party favours an honour named after Matsangaissa, but not one named after Dhlakama, because the latter is still alive.Giving Frelimo’s “declaration of vote”, Francisco Mucanheia said the Mozambican people had “sad memories” of the acts committed by Matsangaissa and Dhlakama. Their names were linked to “massacres and destruction”.