Give us back our guns, says Renamo

Cited on Friday by the Portuguese news agency Lusa, Renamo national spokesperson Fernando Mazanga said the party was going through the legal procedures to send a letter to the UN to ask for its guns back,

In 1993-94, the government army, the FAM-FPLM, and the Renamo forces, were gathered in assembly points supervised by the UN. They were disarmed and the vast majority of the fighters were demobilized. A minority (less than 12,000) volunteered to join the new, unified army, the FADM.

Operational weapons went to the FADM, while the rest were destroyed.

Mazanga now claims that these guns are being used by the government against Renamo – presumably referring to such incidents as the clashes between Renamo and the police in the central town of Muxungue on 4 April in which Renamo murdered four members of the riot police. AK-47 rifles all look much the same – Mazanga did not explain how he knew that the ones used by the police once belonged to Renamo.

“The Renamo guns were delivered to the United Nations”, he said. “The United Nations delivered these guns to Frelimo and it is these weapons they are using to fight against us. Since we are being fought against with guns that once belonged to us, we are demanding that the United Nations give us back our guns so that we can defend ourselves”.

Mazanga also described the disarming of 15 former Renamo guerrillas last Thursday as “a gross provocation against the stability of the country”. The former guerrillas are members of Renamo’s illegal security force, known as its “Presidential Guard”, and they were accompanying Renamo General Secretary Manuel Bissopo on a visit to the central city of Chimoio.

The Manica provincial police commander, Francisco Almeida, said that, under the terms of the 1992 peace agreement, the guards are for the “exclusive protection” of Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama and nobody else.

Mazanga retorted that Protocol Five of the Peace Agreement states that Renamo “will be responsible for the immediate personal security of the highest leaders of the party” – not just Dhlakama.

Mazanga was indulging in selective quotation. The existence of a Renamo security force is indeed envisaged in the peace agreement, but it is strictly limited in time. The provision that Renamo will look after the security of its own leaders, with a force that will enjoy police status is one of the “Specific Guarantees for the Period between the Ceasefire and the Holding of the Elections”.

In other words, once the 1994 elections were held, the Renamo “Presidential Guard” should have been disbanded. There is absolutely nothing in the peace agreement which gives Renamo the right to maintain a private militia, to protect Dhlakama, Bissopo or anybody else, almost two decades after those first multi-party elections.

Meanwhile, 67 Renamo members in Maputo city, led by Tomas Jose Felix, former Renamo head of mobilization in the city, on Friday announced their resignation from the party, because they disagree with its policy of boycotting the municipal elections scheduled for 20 November, and next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.

According to a report in Saturday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, Felix told a press conference that his group is not in favour of any boycott, much less the declared intention of preventing citizens from registering as voters,

Felix said the group agreed with Renamo’s demand for “parity” in the National Elections commission (CNE), but did not see why the absence of such parity should prevent Renamo from winning the elections, if it is properly organized. He pointed out that a new political party (the Mozambique Democratic Movement, MDM) won the mayoral election in the central city of Quelimane, in December 2011, although it had no representation whatsoever on the electoral bodies.

“This shows that the problem lies in the organization of those who wish to contest elections”, he added.

Felix believed that many members of Renamo want to register and to vote. He added “there are Renamo parliamentary deputies whom we know very well, who want to be re-elected. There are people in Renamo who want to rise to power, but there are others who don’t”.

He urged the Renamo leadership to abandon its intention to sabotage the voter registration and elections, and to drop the boycott policy.