The British authorities this Sunday warned their citizens in Mozambique about the strike and protest demonstrations against the electoral process, called for this Monday by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, urging caution.
Information sent to travellers by the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), responsible for protecting British interests and citizens abroad, recalls that ‘there is a protest march’ scheduled for 21 October in Maputo, and that ‘there is a possibility of some disruption to services and transport’ in the city.
‘In Mozambique, demonstrations and protests can be unpredictable, occur in a short space of time and can become violent,’ reads the same warning, consulted by the Lusa news agency, which recommends that national citizens take care to stay “away from crowds and monitor local media”.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for peaceful marches in Mozambique on Monday, repudiating the murder of two supporters on Friday and blaming the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) for the crime.
‘Monday will be the first peaceful stage, in which we will paralyse all public and private activity. We’re going to take to the streets with our placards, we’re going to express our repudiation,’ he announced on Saturday, during a vigil with dozens of people at the site of the murder of the two supporters in Maputo.
Vicente Mondlane guaranteed that the strike in the public and private sectors, which he had called for on Monday in protest at the preliminary results of the general elections on 9 October, would continue, but would now take to the streets. ‘Don’t exempt yourselves. It was your forces (…), you committed a great crime again,’ accused Venâncio Mondlane, guaranteeing that he had proof of the accusation against the FDS, which includes the police.
In Maputo, the march is scheduled to leave at 10am local time (one hour less in Lisbon), from the spot where the two supporters were murdered on Friday, in the centre of the capital. ‘If you want to use violence [police], you can use it, but know that after your violence there will come something extraordinarily stronger than all of you and you will regret it,’ he accused.
The Mozambican police confirmed to Lusa on Saturday that the car in which Elvino Dias, a lawyer for presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, and Paulo Guambe, a member of Podemos, the party that supports him, were travelling and where they were shot dead, had been ‘ambushed’.
The crime took place at around 11.20pm local time (one hour less in Lisbon) on Friday, on Avenida Joaquim Chissano, in the centre of the capital, and according to the police another occupant, a woman who was in the back seat of the car, was also shot and taken to hospital.
Mia Couto appeals to Mozambican leaders to understand that violence is not the solution
Writer Mia Couto argued this Sunday that the tension in Mozambique calls for a leadership that understands that violence is not a solution and that tranquillity will not be achieved with riots or police repression.
The Mozambican writer told the Lusa news agency that ‘situations of tension like this call for a leadership that understands that violence is not the solution’, maintaining that ‘the quality of a true leader is revealed precisely in the way they are able to overcome the crisis for the good of all and in the interests of the country they intend to govern’.
Mia Couto also said he hoped that the police forces ‘will be able to prove their efficiency, above all, their impartiality and their credibility as a force at the service of public order that is not the property of any party’. For this to happen, he added, ‘irrefutable evidence must be presented from a swift and independent police investigation’. The writer also believes that ‘the same process of clarification with evidence and facts’ is needed in relation to the electoral process.
‘Perceptions are no longer enough, proclamations from either side are no longer enough. We need concrete facts that are incontestable,’ he said, considering that “we can’t simply repeat the same processes that have already been contaminated by the generalised suspicion of fraud” and that it is necessary, “as the Bar Association has suggested, to make the minutes and notices public so that the truth of the results can be revealed”.
In Mia Couto’s opinion, ‘the tranquillity and reconciliation’ that the country needs now ‘will not be achieved by riots or police repression’, and he called for ‘guarantees to be announced without further delay that this whole process will be conducted in such a way that trust and credibility are regained and that the use of fear and the threat of force is ruled out on all sides’.
On Saturday, speaking to Lusa, the writer had already argued that it was not in the interests of any of the candidates ‘to inherit a nation torn apart by hatred and resentment’ and that the president who is elected ‘will have to be the president of all Mozambicans’.
Observador
