POLICE INVESTIGATING USE OF FIREARMS AGAINST TETE RIOT

The Mozambican police are investigating the use of live ammunition against rioting workers at a tobacco processing factory in the western city of Tete last Friday, according to a report in the Beira daily paper “Diario de Mocambique”.Over 500 workers were involved in the protest at the factory owned by the company Mozambique Leaf Tobacco (MLT), claiming that the company management was swindling them out of almost half their wages.The spokesperson for the Tete provincial police command, Luis Nudia, told reporters that the private security company hired by MLT was unable to quell the riot, and so the police were called in. When a normal police unit also failed to restore order, the authorities resorted to the riot police (FIR). The FIR unit opened fire on the unarmed protesters, using live ammunition. One MLT worker was seriously injured, but after treatment at Tete provincial hospital, he is now out of danger.Nudai said the police are investigating why the FIR unit believed it necessary to resort to lethal force. He pointed out that the riot police are trained to deal with disturbances by non-lethal means, including tear gas and rubber bullets.Furthermore, if the police do use firearms to control a disturbance, they should always fire into the air, and not directly into the crowd “as seems to have been the case”.Nudia said a unit is now investigating exactly where the bullets came from that struck the MLT workers.