The head of the parliamentary group of Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party, Manuel Tome, said in Maputo on Thursday that, although the former rebel movement Renamo is threatening to return to war, if it loses the December general elections, in reality there is no possibility that the country will slide back into generalised violence.
At a press conference given in his capacity as head of the Frelimo election press office, Tome noted that Renamo has been intimidating voters in parts of the country. It has been demanding their voter cards, and telling them that it will put their names and card numbers into computers, and this will enable Renamo to know which way they have voted "If they don't vote for Renamo, that will be known and they will suffer reprisals", said Tome. "Furthermore, if Renamo loses, it will go back to war".
Tome thought such threats were empty, and that "Renamo does not want to wage war because it knows that this would be political suicide".
The conditions that made war possible in the past no longer existed, Tome stressed. The founders and sponsors of Renamo, namely Ian Smith's Rhodesia and the apartheid regime in South Africa, have gone for ever, as has the dictatorial regime of Hastings Banda in Malawi, which used to provide Renamo with bases and clandestine support.
Even those who were once Renamo guerrillas would not support a return to war, said Tome, since "they are now living at peace, with their families, and their children are at school".
"What Renamo can do now, and has been doing, is stir up criminal acts and public disorder", said Tome. This was what had happened last week in the clashes between Renamo's illegal "Presidential Guard", and the riot police in the central town of Inhaminga.
"They are accusing Frelimo of preparing to murder their leader (Afonso Dhlakama)", he said. "They don't prove anything.
They don't give arguments for anything".
"This is an interesting situation", he added. "Renamo assaults Frelimo members, they attack police stations, and afterwards they present themselves as the victims".
He noted that one Renamo parliamentary deputy, Ossufo Momade, had even publicly accused two prominent Frelimo members, Tomas Mandlate (governor of Tete province), and Sergio Vieira (director of the Zambezi Valley Planning Office) of organising "death squads". Tome warned that this would land him in court, facing a defamation suit.
Tome listed a series of illegalities committed in recent weeks by Renamo deputies. Thus, Ossufo Quitine, head of the Renamo parliamentary group, is accused of a physical attack on a citizen and breaking the window of his vehicle on Mozambique Island, off the coast of Nampula province.
Deputy Cristovao Sucane was caught registering himself and his son as voters twice - first in his home district of Cuamba, in the northern province of Niassa, and again in the district of Marrupa.
A deputy whom Tome named as Jawado, was among a group that attacked the wife of the Frelimo first secretary in the Niassa town of Chimbonila, putting her in hospital with serious injuries.
Manuel Henriques is accused of illegal possession of a firearm, and of involvement in the attack last week against the police station in Inhaminga. (Henriques claims that he is innocent, and that the police planted a gun in his garage).
Tome said that all these cases have been handed to the judicial authorities for prosecution.
He noted that with such attitudes, the Renamo deputies show that they are mistaking parliamentary immunity with impunity, because as deputies they believe that they will not be prosecuted.
Tome also announced that in recent months Frelimo has recruited 37,992 new members. He said the party's total membership now stands at about 1.5 million, of whom 49 per cent are described as "young" (that is, between the ages of 18 and 35).
Fonte: AIM
