Africa-Press – Mozambique. 57 members of Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo went on Friday to the Maputo City Law Court, expecting to be questioned about their seizure earlier in the week of the Renamo national headquarters – but the court administration told reporters it knew nothing about any such case.
Men claiming to be former Renamo guerrillas had camped at the headquarters for two weeks, but on Wednesday members of the riot police used tear gas and rubber bullets to drive them out. Some of the former guerrillas claimed that the police had also fired live ammunition, wounding at least one of their number in the leg.
57 of the demobilised guerrillas were detained and held at a Maputo police station. They were told they would be questioned on Friday morning at the City Court.
But when they appeared at the court, nobody was expecting them. A court administrator told a crew from the independent television station “TV Sucesso” that no documentation on the case from the police had yet arrived.
It is not clear what will happen to the 57 now. They told reporters they have no money, and their possessions such as cell phones and computers have disappeared. Reports, as yet unconfirmed, are circulating that the police intend to send the former guerrillas back to their home provinces.
It is still not clear whether the Renamo leadership asked the police to disperse the demobilised men from the headquarters or acted on their own initiative.
Some of the demobilised told TV Sucesso that the police had promised them a meeting with Renamo President Ossufo Momade, but this did not happen. The main demand of the former guerrillas is that Momade should resign, since they blame him for Renamo’s poor showing in last year’s general elections.
The police also removed dissidents from the nearby office used by Momade. TV Sucesso reported that there is now a heavy police presence along Ho Chi Minh Avenue, to discourage any future attempt to occupy the Renamo premises.
Former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane, speaking on Thursday in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, in a live broadcast over his Facebook page, described the police seizure of the Renamo headquarters as “a disgrace”.
He claimed that Renamo had submitted itself to “humiliation”, and denounced those members of Renamo who had remained in the party “seeking positions”. He called them “vultures, hyenas and parasites”.
He accused Momade’s leadership of cooperating with the police and of “murdering the values” of Renamo. He claimed that the riot police (UIR) “is now the worst symbol of national repression”, and that the Renamo leadership “resorted to Frelimo to authorise the UIR to massacre its own members”. (In fact, there are no reports of anyone being killed, let alone “massacred”, in the police occupation of the Renamo headquarters).
He claimed that young members of Renamo “have lost the revolutionary spirit that once characterised the movement and nowadays prefer to dream of positions and parliamentary seats”.
Mondlane claimed that Renamo “is being thrown into the trash can by those cowards who have their tail between their legs”.
But Mondlane is hardly an impartial observer. He had once been a prominent member of Renamo and even an adviser to Momade. His attempt in 2024 to challenge Momade for the leadership and become the Renamo presidential candidate came to grief. He then resigned from Renamo and launched his campaign as an independent candidate, coming second in the presidential election in October.
Mondlane has founded his own political party, Anamalala (National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique), but it has not yet been recognised by the Ministry of Justice, the body that must register political parties before they can run in elections.
Mondlane said the Ministry has notified him to correct supposed “irregularities” in the Anamalala paperwork. He did not seem particularly concerned and said that the corrections demanded by the Ministry will be made.
But regardless of what the Ministry might say, his political project was not going to stop. “We are not obsessed”, said Mondlane. “If Anamalala is approved, very well. But we are not going to make our political project conditional on the existence or not of a party”.
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