Police intervention causes former Mozambican officers to flee in protest

Police intervention led to the “disbandment” on Tuesday evening of hundreds of former Defense and Security Forces officers who had set up a protest camp outside the United Nations building in Maputo, a group leader said.

“I cannot confirm whether any arrests were made. About 200 people were forced to flee in a stampede. The police used force, seven vans full of heavily armed police of all types arrived,” Adolfo Samuel, port – Voice of Protest, former high-ranking officer state security.

“Now we are disorganized, we all had to flee. We still don’t know what we will do,” he added, adding that the police intervention happened around 8 pm local time (an hour less in Lisbon).

The protest in question began on May 28, when hundreds of former Mozambique Defense and Security Forces officers camped outside the United Nations building to demand supposed compensation under the General Peace Agreement that ended the country’s civil war. .

“We represent the United Nations here because our disengagement was part of the General Peace Agreement (1992) signed in Rome between the government and Renamo. [principal força de oposição]under the auspices of the UN. They disconnected us with the promise of compensation, but since then there has been no water flow, no water has arrived,” Adolfo Samuel told Luse on May 28.

In total, according to Adolfo Samuel, at least 1,856 former Mozambican Defense and Security Forces officers from different units, mostly attached to the Mozambican secret service, are in the same situation.

“We contacted government institutions several times, including the Presidency of the Republic, but everyone ignored us. the debt that the government and the United Nations owe to us,” the group leader added.

Lusa contacted the United Nations, which chose not to comment on the case, deferring any position to the Mozambican leadership.

“Since the President’s mandate [Armando] Guebuza has been promised to us to this day, but we have no answers. We are asking for compensation here. Even the pensions we receive are undervalued and we don’t know why,” Paulo Momade, a former member of the Defense and Security Forces and one of the protesters, told Luse last week.

The applicants also include widows of former Mozambican Defense and Security Forces officers.

“I represent here my husband, who was a military man. He died fighting for this money, but could not. I am also here, getting old, already tired, but I cannot solve this problem,” she said. Filomena Mikas, the wife of a former combatant who also took part in the protest that began last week.

The General Peace Agreement ended a 16-year war in which the government army, of which the applicants were part, confronted the guerrillas of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), which had already disarmed and reintegrated its guerrillas who had fought in that war. war.

The conflict, which killed thousands of people, ended with the signing of an agreement in Rome on October 4, 1992, between then-President Joaquim Chissano and historical Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who died in May 2018.

The overall peace agreement collapsed in 2013 following armed clashes between the two sides over disagreements over the general elections.

In 2014, the two sides signed another cessation of hostilities agreement, which was also broken again until a third agreement, in August 2019, the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, which led to the disarmament of the armed wing of the main opposition party in Mozambique.