Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi and Ossufo Momade, leader of the country’s largest opposition party, Renamo, on Thursday jointly led the ceremony at which the last Renamo military base was closed.
Symbolising the closure, Momade gave Nyusi a rifle, which he said was the last of Renamo’s firearms.
347 Renamo officers were demobilized at the base, located at Vanduzi, in Gorongosa district, in the central province of Sofala. This brought the total number of former Renamo fighters demobilized since 2019 to 5,221.
Under the DDR (Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration) programme, 16 Renamo bases were dismantled.
Nyusi and Momade both called for tolerance and mutual understanding in order to secure peace. Mozambicans should advance hand in hand, declared Nyusi, “since the prevalence of definitive peace depends on all of us”.
“Our effective weapon is, and should always be dialogue”, added Nyusi. “We must not allow violence and blackmail to destroy the bridges of understanding which we are building together”.
Momade called on the demobilized fighters to remain faithful to Renamo, and to the memory of his predecessors as Renamo leader, Andre Matsangaissa and Afonso Dhlakama.
The Vanduzi base should have closed in December – but the closure was repeatedly postponed, mainly because of Renamo’s demand that pensions should be paid to all its former guerrillas. Only after Nyusi had promised pensions, did Momade agree to shutting down the base, and demobilizing the last of what is euphemistically referred to as Renamo’s “residual force”.
The end of the Renamo bases does not solve all of Nyusi’s military headaches. The demobilization of Renamo does not affect the situation in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, where islamist terrorists continue to wage war against the Mozambican state and its allies from Rwanda and from SADC (Southern African Development Community).
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