Mozambique’s Minister of the Interior, Jaime Monteiro, on Wednesday told the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, that the government is determined to disarm the former rebel movement Renamo, either voluntarily or by coercion.He was responding to a question from the Renamo parliamentary group, which accused the government of attempting to murder Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, and asked “does the government think it is legally, morally and politically justified to resort to the defence and security forces for actions which seek to assassinate the Renamo leader, while at the same time expressing a will to hold a dialogue with Renamo?”
Monteiro categorically denied that the government intended to murder Dhlakama, but stressed that the defence forces will continue to collect weapons held illegally, including by Renamo.The government, he said, “does not envisage, even as a tenuous hypothesis, the use of the defence and security forces to assassinate the Renamo leader or anyone else”. The prime mission of the government’s forces, he added, “is to ensure the defence of public order so as to guarantee peace, the right to life, free circulation of people and goods, and the exercise of the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution”.The repeated use of firearms by Renamo against civilians, Monteiro said, was among the reasons that “justify the need for completely removing threats to the security of the people and of the state, driving the defence and security forces to strengthen the collection of firearms that are in illegitimate hands”.He promised that the collection of weapons will continue “until the last firearm in unauthorized hands is collected coercively or handed over voluntarily” to the defence and security forces, since “the possession and use of weapons of war is the exclusive prerogative of the State”.
Renamo has always justified the existence of its militia by citing a clause in the 1992 peace agreement signed between Renamo and the government, and this excuse was repeated in Renamo’s parliamentary question. The clause in question states: “Renamo shall be responsible for the immediate personal security of its topmost leaders. The Mozambican government shall grant police status to the Renamo members charged with guaranteeing that security”.The clause is correctly quoted, but has long since ceased to have any validity. Monteiro pointed out that the clause is time bound. The agreement lists it as one of the “specific guarantees for the period between the ceasefire and the holding of elections”. The first multi-party general elections took place in October 1994, and since that date the Renamo militia has been illegal.
By failing to mention this fact, Renamo was “manipulating public opinion”, the Minister accused.
Renamo also claimed that the government had violated the spirit of the agreement of 5 September 2014 on a cessation of hostilities “which envisages the integration of the Renamo residual force into the police and defence forces”.Monteiro retorted that the government has repeatedly asked Renamo to hand over its militiamen so that they can be trained and acquire the status of members of the police or the army. But Renamo never delivered any list of the people it wanted to see recruited into the defence and security forces.“The responsibility for the failure to grant military and police status to Renamo members is due solely to the lack of political will of the Renamo leaders, resting on goals that are contrary to national interests “, he said.Frelimo deputy Antonio Hama Thai, who is a former chief of staff of the armed forces, backed up Monteiro, and said it was Renamo, not the government, which had violated the 1992 peace agreement, by failing to demobilize all its forces.
The current coercive disarmament of Renamo, he argued, had been precipitated by Dhlakama’s repeated talk of seizing control of provinces by force, and of setting up new military barracks. Not only had Dhlakama refused to demobilise his militia, but there had been clandestine recruitment of new members since 2013, Hama Thai accused. In the debate Renamo continued to misquote the peace accord, claiming that it gave them the right to go on bearing arms, whereas in reality it makes clear that this right ended in 1994. The Renamo deputies insisted there had been attempts to assassinate Dhlakama by ambushing his motorcade twice in September. Two of them even claimed that Dhlakama had only been saved by divine intervention.
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