AfricaPress-mozambique: The Renamo leader on Sunday (13 June) expressed concern about failures of President Filipe Nyusi as regards the main opposition party’s armed wing disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) process.
Speaking to journalists at Quelimane airport, Ossufo Momade said that the party was worried because “months have passed without there being any sign of the integration of demobilized Renamo soldiers”.
“Renamo is complying with the demobilisation of our fighters. On the 21st [of June] we will demobilise the base in Tete,” the leader of the country’s biggest opposition party announced as he arrived in Zambézia to chair the youth conference and the election of the new leader of the Renamo Youth League.
The Renamo leader said the party had been waiting for a long time for its demobilised men to be integrated, as agreed with the government, but that so far there had been little response.
“I don’t know what is happening to prevent the project being carried through. But it is a concern. I am delivering this message so that society can help in this regard. Our focus is peace and reconciliation,” he appealed.
Integrate them in the commands and not the police stations
Momade said that reconciliation could not be thought of while the other party “does not attempt to integrate the Renamo members who are being demobilised” in the police forces. “It is what was agreed. We are not making it up,” he affirmed.
“We have the case of those ten [ex-guerrillas] who have been there for three years. We expected that, after their training, they would be in the General Police Command, which is what we agreed upon at the negotiating table, but what we are see is that they were all placed in ordinary police stations,” Momade said.
Momade urged the Frelimo government to press ahead with integrating the 262 Renamo officials so as to guarantee peace and reconciliation. He also demanded that 36 officers be included in the VIP protection squad.
Momade told journalists that Mozambican civil society and the international community had to pressure the government to comply with the agreement.
Filipe Nyusi and Ossufo Momade signed a Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in August 2019, an understanding that provides, among other things, for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of around 5,000 members of Renamo’s armed wing.
Although there is some progress in the process, with almost half of the guerrillas already demobilised, Mariano Nhongo’s group remains a challenge for the parties and all attempts to approach a dialogue with the splinter group have failed.
