By Faridah N Kulumba
Africa-Press-Tanzania The leaders of Mozambique and Tanzania met on 28 Friday to discuss the Islamist insurgency that Maputo has called in regional forces to help suppress.
Cooperation
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi explained that Tanzania has always been on their side, has always offered to help Mozambique within the scope of a Mission to Mozambique (SAMIM ). The fighting in northern Mozambique has occasionally spilled across the border with Tanzania, which has deployed troops in the country under the umbrella of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Counterparts meeting
In August last year. President Nyusi met with Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan in the northern town of Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado, which SADC and Rwandan forces helped Mozambique reclaim from the insurgents.
Meeting notes
Neither leader revealed much of the substance of their talks, but Nyusi signaled that he wanted continued support from the region. He added that both countries wanted to study how their forces can deal with the enemy. On the other hand, President Hassan said that she went met with Nyusi to reaffirm Tanzania’s commitment to Mozambique.
Earlier meeting
In 2020, Tanzania’s police chief Simon Nyakoro Sirro met with his Mozambican counterpart Bernadino Rafael in the southern town of Mtwara (a region bordering Tanzania and Mozambique) to discuss a wide range of security issues, but with a focus on the growing jihadist insurgency in Northern Mozambique and in Southern Tanzania. Sirro and Rafael announced that they were planning to conduct a joint operation including exchanging information to find perpetrators.
Roots of the Islamist uprising
A decade before the violence, there existed a religious sect, Al-Shabaab (not related to al-Shabaab in Somalia), which was active in a few districts of Cabo Delgado. As a religious group, it sought the practice of radical Islam and Sharia law and opposed all forms of collaboration with the government.
But over time, it began to expand, including military cells along with a tougher discourse as of late 2015, until its members started fighting in 2017; or more specifically on 5 October 2017 when a group of insurgents occupied the district town and port of Mocimboa da Praia for two days. The town is just 60 kilometers south of the major gas development base at Palma and the port was important to supply the gas project. The insurgents were recognized as local men.
How local Islamic group became a terror
Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province has been held hostage by insurgents for nearly 17 months. Armed attacks, decapitations, and the destruction of property have become common. One of the biggest problems is that nobody really knows who the insurgents are. They don’t make public statements, so their motives are unclear.
Speculation and conspiracy theories abound. Many, including state officials and the president of the Renamo opposition party, believe the insurgency is part of a struggle within the national elite for the control of Cabo Delgado’s oil, gas and mineral riches.
The government offers few – and contradictory – explanations. It has been said both that the violence is committed by local unemployed criminals, and that the attacks are the result of global jihadism trying to move into Mozambique.
Agitations
The unrest erupted in 2017, leaving at least 3,500 dead and around 820,000 homeless. The insurgents’ brutal tactics including beheadings, mass abductions, and the torching of homes rattled the region.
Consequences
International energy companies stopped their multi-billion-dollar natural gas projects in Cabo Delgado and evacuated their staff. Cabo Delgado is home to the largest-ever foreign investment in Africa: a $20-billion development by France’s Total.
Benefits
Tanzanians mostly in the Muslim province have yet to see many tangible benefits from the investments, which they feel the flow to the government of the largely Christian country. Ms. Hassan is trying to jump-start Tanzania’s own natural gas project, estimated at $30 billion. As in Mozambique, the scheme would involve building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal near vast offshore gas deposits.
Growing insurgency
Northern Mozambique is known for its oil-rich land and also its growing fight against Islamist extremism. The French oil giant Total recently noted that the insurgency will continue to wreak havoc on its planned liquified natural gas project in the province.
Leader of armed group arrest
Mozambique military forces last month revealed that they seized the leader of an armed group, a Tanzanian citizen known as Ali 39 years, in Nangade district in the northern Cabo Delgado province, whose task was to recruit fighters and direct attacks.
