Africa-Press – Mozambique. The former Renamo number two and current advisor of State, Raul Domingos, on Wednesday expressed his openness to bring to dialogue the Renamo dissident leader, responsible for the armed attacks in the centre of the country.
“I have already said and today I reiterate that I am available for any peace mission, with all the risks that this mission may represent for my life,” said Raul Domingos, the politician who led the Renamo delegation in the peace negotiations that culminated in the signing of the historic General Peace Agreement in 1992 in Rome.
For the politician, who was expelled from Renamo following disagreements with the late party leader Afonso Dhlakama, Mariano Nhongo needs a figure he can trust, guaranteeing his exit from the bush to join the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) process under the understandings reached with the Government in August 2019.
“I did not know him personally and I think he was very young at the time. In 1980 [when Raul Domingos was in Renamo], he must have been 14 years old and I have no idea about him. But I believe that he knows me,” said Raul Domingos.
After his expulsion from Renamo, Domingos founded the Party for Peace, Democracy and Development (PDD), running in general elections, but never managed to get his new organisation elected to Parliament.
The group of Mariano Nhongo, a former Renamo guerrilla leader, disagrees with the terms of the DDR process arising from the peace agreement signed in August 2019 between the Mozambican President and the current Renamo leader, Ossufo Momade.
The former guerrillas, now dissidents of the largest opposition party, have since been attributed with the authorship of several armed attacks against civilian targets and the Defence and Security Forces, killing around 30 people.
Under DDR stemming from the August 2019 peace agreement, 2,307 former Renamo fighters have already been demobbed, out of a target of about 5,000 former guerrillas.
