The Mozambican rebel movement Renamo on Wednesday submitted
new proposals for laws on decentralisation to the Joint Commission set up
between the government and Renamo.
Reading out a statement to reporters on Wednesday night,
after five hours of discussion behind closed doors, Mario Raffaelli, the
Italian coordinator of the international mediating team, gave no details of the
Renamo proposals, other than that they covered the seven points mentioned in
the document agreed by the two sides on 17 August. That document was written as
a response to the Renamo demand that it be allowed to appoint governors in the
six central and northern provinces (Sofala, Manica, Tete, Zambezia, Nampula and
Niassa) where it claims to have won the 2014 general elections. It put forward
a package of seven points to be included in future constitutional amendments and
new or amended legislation.The most important of these points is the
constitutional amendment necessary to change the way in which provincial
governors (and other local state bodies) are appointed or elected. There will
also be amendments to the Law on Local State Bodies and its regulations, the
Law on Provincial Assemblies, and the Law on the Organisation and Functioning
of the Public Administration. New laws are to be drafted on the bodies of the
provincial governments, and on provincial finances.Finally, the 1994 law on “municipal districts” will be
“re-examined”. This law would have made each and every district a municipality.
It was never implemented, but was replaced by a gradual approach to
municipalisation. Thus initially only the 23 urban areas with city status, plus
ten towns (one in each province) were granted municipal status, with directly
elected mayors and municipal assemblies. Subsequently, 20 more towns have
become municipalities, raising the total number of towns and cities where
municipal elections were held in 2013 to 53.
According to Raffaelli, in the
space of less than a month, Renamo has managed to draft proposals on all of
these complex issues. He added that a government document delivered to the
mediators promised that the government side will analyse the Renamo proposals.
But there was no advance whatever on the key issue of
halting Renamo’s armed attacks, and dismantling the Renamo militia. The
government is ready for an immediate suspension of hostilities, but Renamo is
refusing to put down its weapons until the government withdraws its forces from
the Gorongosa mountain range, near the bush camp where Renamo leader Afonso
Dhlakama is currently living.The government refuses to make such a unilateral
withdrawal of forces, arguing that it has a responsibility to defend the people
of the region against Renamo attacks.Renamo is even making the withdrawal of
government forces from their positions a pre-condition for a meeting between
Dhlakama and the mediators. Since Dhlakama refuses to travel to Maputo, the
mediators propose to meet him in the bush – but Renamo is refusing to establish
a demilitarized corridor to allow this to happen.The Renamo proposals on
decentralization are now with the technical sub-commission set up in August,
which will meet on Thursday to consider them.The full Joint Commission is due
to meet again on Monday. It is nowhere near achieving the purpose for which it
was set up – namely to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Dhlakama and
President Filipe Nyusi.
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