Catholic church interested in mediating, Dhlakama claims

Afonso Dhlakama

Dhlakama chose to make this announcement at a press conference by telephone, in which the journalists were in Beira, but he was in a bush hideout in the Satunjira area of Gorongosa district.

Last August Dhlakama unilaterally broke off the dialogue between Renamo and the government which had been under way since April 2013. He has also repeatedly rejected the invitations from President Filipe Nyusi to a face to face meeting between the two men in Maputo.

Despite this, Dhlakama has called for renewed talks to be mediated by the Catholic Church and by South African President Jacob Zuma. Renamo spokesperson Antonio Muchanga first announced this in late December, and now Dhlakama claimed that he personally, and Renamo as an organization, have written letters to Zuma asking him to mediate.

The Catholic Church had responded promptly to the Renamo request, he said, though he did not say which person or body inside the church had replied. He said there were signs that Zuma had also accepted his invitation.

But Renamo has sent these invitations unilaterally, although it must be fully aware that the government does not believe that any further mediators are necessary, particularly foreign ones. When the government agreed, in 2013, to Renamo’s request for a dialogue, it did not see why anybody else should be sitting at the table.

When Renamo insisted, five Mozambican mediators were appointed – prominent academic Lourenco do Rosario, Anglican bishop Dinis Sengulane, catholic priest Filipe Couto, Methodist pastor Anastacio Chembeze and moslem cleric Sheikh Saide Abibo.

Renamo wants to sack these mediators and appoint new ones. But it has no power to do so on its own.

On 21 December, Muchanga insulted the mediators, calling them “apprentices” and blaming them for the supposed failure of the dialogue. He wanted them replaced by Zuma and the Catholic church.

Speaking for all the mediators, Rosario replied that they could not be sacked at a press conference. They had received no formal notice in writing that their services were no longer required.

Explaining why Renamo had decided to approach Zuma, Dhlakama said Zuma “knows Mozambique, he lived here at the time when there was a revolution in South Africa, and I believe the pacification of our country could interest him”.

As for the Mozambican mediators, he claimed they had not behaved in an impartial manner. “They were not mediators, they were just facilitators”, Dhlakama said (although for two years they were repeatedly referred to as mediators).

He admitted, however, that any mediator must be acceptable to both sides. “In these matters of mediation, both sides must be willing”, Dhlakama said, “and the government, Frelimo, must demonstrate this good will”.

Dhlakama also repeated his threat to take over, as from March, six northern and central provinces where he claims that Renamo won the October 2015 general elections. He claimed that he would stage this coup peacefully, but he promised to respond to what he called “provocation”.

“We shall govern in the provinces where we won”, he boasted. “We shall not promote war. We shall merely respond in the event of provocation”.

The dialogue with the government, which Dhlakama had so abruptly terminated in August, had been going nowhere largely because Renamo refused to disarm and disband its illegal militia, as it was obliged to do under the agreement on a cessation of military hostilities signed on 5 September 2014. The government offered positions in the armed forces (FADM) and the police to members of the Renamo militia, and asked Renamo to provide a list of the men it wished to see recruited into the defence and security forces. That list was never forthcoming, and Renamo has not shown the slightest interest in disarming.