Aluta continua: Fifty years after Independence the struggle for freedom continues in strife-torn Mozambique

Posted: 31 December, 2024 | Category: Uncategorized

Fifty years ago, tens of thousands of Mozambicans took to the streets to  mark and celebrate the end of Portuguese rule. Now, large numbers of people who say they are dis-enfranchised rally to end the rule of an out-of-touch and largely corrupt ruling party, FRELIMO.

 

Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975  following a bloody liberation war that lasted over 11 years. But independence did not mean the end of conflict.  The dominant liberation movement, Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO)  has been in power ever since either ignoring or crushing rival parties, the latest election giving fresh credence to a remark attributed to Joseph Stalin  -“It’s not the vote that counts. It’s who counts the votes.”

ANDREW FIELD reports –

 

Harare, Zimbabwe (January 1, 2025)  – – – MOZAMBIQUE  has been rocked by violent protest following its controversial October 2024 general elections, supposedly won by Daniel Chapo, of ruling party FRELIMO (still using the original revolutionary acronym for Frente de Libertação de Moçambique or Mozambique translated, Mozambique Liberation Front).

FRELIMO is the liberation party that has been in power since the 1975 independence take-over from the colonial Portuguese.

Chapo, the presidential candidate for the ruling party, is a politician, lawyer and jurist who served as the governor of Inhambane Province up until now, and was FRELIMO Secretary General.

Daniel Chapo –

FRELIMO’S latest champion

Opposition politician, and presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, a graduate of the Eduardo Mondlane[1] University, once a FRELIMO party faithful, has contested the election, alongside a few international and religious organisation observers.

They allege irregularities and alterations of election results (a modus operandi not too dissimilar to that alleged in recent and past Zimbabwe elections).

Similarly, the Mozambican electoral commission declined demands made by observers to publish the results from individual polling stations, a sure signal that there was gross mischief at play.

Some even go so far as to suggest that there is now election complicity between the two nations.

It all turned rather messy on 18 October, when Elvino Dias, a lawyer representing Partido Otimista pelo Desenvolvimento de Moçambique (PODEMOS translated, Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique) was murdered.

Dias had been preparing a challenge in the constitutional court contesting the election results when he was shot dead in his car; along with the party’s spokesperson, Paulo Guambe, by unidentified attackers in Maputo.

Mondlane was tear gassed a few days later while he was giving out interviews at the site of Dias and Guambe’s murder.

Venancio Mondlane –

FRELIMO accused him of planning a coup d’etat.

 

Simultaneous riots broke out in Beira, Gaza Province, Maputo, and Nampula.

PODEMOS nevertheless filed its formal appeal with the Constitutional Council on 27 October challenging the results and, the following day, Mondlane called for the formation of a rival “Government of National Unity” consisting of all opposition parties to form a united front against FRELIMO.

This seems to have gained traction and all opposition parties joined his coalition. This follows on from weeks of denial by the ruling party and then the sudden call by incumbent President, Filipe Nyusi, to draw all parties into negotiation.

In Mid-November, Mondlane, then apparently in hiding following alleged death threats and a supposed assassination attempt in South Africa, called for a three-day nationwide protest at the border posts, sea ports and in the provincial capitals.

FRELIMO responded saying Mondlane was attempting to stage a coup and later filed a lawsuit against him for damages incurred during the protests.

By early December, Mondlane called on the people to continue protest for months to bring the nation to its knees as the death toll rose to 70 people (Monitoring group Plateforma Decide estimates that over 250 had been killed in the violence since October).

Mozambique’s election was properly contested in the Constitutional Council, which, on 23 December, upheld the controversial election results, confirming the FRELIMO party’s victory.

Interestingly, the Constitutional Council’s seven judge bench had reduced Chapo’s earlier victory of 71% of vote to 65%; one might suggest that being a confirmation there were irregularities and fraud! The difference was awarded to Mondlane got 24%, further confirming electoral irregularity.

This ruling now raises serious concerns about Mozambique’s democratic integrity and perhaps judicial capture, a scenario with which we are familiar.  It clearly stretches further afield when political observers look to similar, nearby hegemonic regimes.

Mondlane refused to recognise the ruling and said that he would proceed to hold his inauguration as president of Mozambique on 15 January 2025, which may perhaps sound his death knell by all accounts.

 

During the last few days, Mozambique has experienced further rioting and unrest, wide spread mass looting, burning and destruction.

The protests were met with equally violent state security forces.

Wholesale, retail businesses and fast – food chains have been cleaned out, in some cases assisted by element of Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique (FADM), the ruling party loyal, national armed forces. Intelligence suggests elements of the army are alienating themselves over pay delays. Maputo, Nampula and Zambesia Provinces have been worst affected.

Even farms, many occupied by South Africans, who have since fled, have been looted of their livestock and crops in a mass frenzy of general insurrection.

Many white Portuguese who had been resident in Mozambique and who became refugees returning to their home lands at independence in 1975, and who since have returned to Mozambique due to a downturn in their fortunes in Portugal, are packing their bags for the second time. Flights leaving the capital are packed with panicking expatriates.

The flag of South Africa next to that of  Mozambique

High-flying now but will it last?

 

There were four large prison escapes during ‘prison riots’, some say staged and organised by FRELIMO, because they were so well co-ordinated, but blamed on opposition rioters.

There are calls for investigations into alleged extra-judicial killings of opposition supporters at the Maximum Security Prison in Maputo and Mabalane, in Gaza Province.

The prison riots appear to have backfired on FRELIMO because many escapees became indulgent looters and rioters.

Secret police are also accused of cold-blooded killings; young men shot in the back of the head while posing no evident threat. There is a case in which a police unit, Unidade de Intervenção Rápida (UIR – Rapid Intervention Unit), shot and killed Albino Sibia who was filming protests in Ressano Garcia. Police also opened fire on mourners after his funeral.

Africa Confidential reports “The government has lost control over key parts of the country, with activists proclaiming a popular uprising. Civic groups say the latest death toll is over 130, with more than 2,000 injured and 3,500 detained. Hospitals are overwhelmed with gunshot victims and are running out of space.”

And now the dichotomy; for the contesting party, PODEMOS whether or not to take up their seats in Parliament.

Albino Forquilha, leader of the party, convened a press conference at which he rejected the results of the elections. Yet, he is still pushing for the 43 elected Members of Parliament, who were confirmed by the Constitutional Council, to take their seats in Parliament. Some feel this is a betrayal while other see it as a historic foot-holding opportunity for the party which was formed only in 2019.

The response of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been slow, perhaps not surprisingly, with brotherhood comrade Zimbabwe in the Chair.

Not to mention of course, as some say, the ZANU-PF cabal having previous form for alleged vote-rigging and count alteration by a partisan election commission.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe

He gets by with a little help from his friends

 

Perhaps President Mnangagwa compromised his true bias or loyalties to FRELIMO by congratulating the ‘winner’ before the results were actually announced. One can certainly leave this all open to conjecture.

The sluggish SADC response is more so surprising because Mozambique provides three essential economic corridors that link its ports to neighbouring countries: Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe; the impact on them being enormous, especially the landlocked nations. SADC is already committed to the deadly jihadist insurrection in the Cabo Delgado Province. Five thousand Rwandan troops have been committed to the insurgency.

Zimbabwe, back in November 1982, realising the significant importance of the corridor, committed troops to protect the Beira Corridor from Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO – translated Mozambican National Resistance) insurgents. This was seen as a strong unrelenting solidarity move by Robert Mugabe. By August 1985 Zimbabwe had 10,000 troops in Mozambique.

We should remember of course that Mozambique was host to ZANU/ZANLA during its liberation struggle and FRELIMO and then then Forças Populares de Libertação de Moçambique (FPLM, translated People’s Forces for the Liberation of Mozambique), the military wing, were brothers in arms.

South African President, Cyril Ramaposa seems to have usurped Zimbabwe’s SADC role by announcing the need to calm the issue in Mozambique and despatching envoys.

Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa  . . . 

. . .  Mozambique’s latest best friend

South Africa has a real concern for the potential influx of refugees into the xenophobic nation.

Malawi is already reporting issues with refugees escaping from bordering Zambesia and Niassa Provinces.

One might shudder to think how many prison escapees (the numbers being several thousand) are crossing into crime-ridden South Africa already.

The potential loss of a critical seaboard port, Maputo and its Matola Bulk Terminal, if there is further escalation of the crisis, will significantly impact on South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The port handles 31 million tonnes (2023) of both import and exports railed and trucked to and from annually and that should have South Africans very worried. There has been much foreign direct investment by South Africa in Mozambique. Foreign corporates, including South African firms in petrochemicals and mining have been forced to close down.

One cannot help but draw a number of parallels between ZANU-PF and FRELIMO’s hegemony on power since coming to power.

Zimbabweans may well be looking over their shoulders right now, although the fractured Zimbabwe opposition is acutely, perhaps pathetically, passive by comparison.

But moods are changing.

People are now weary of their ‘liberators’ taking them from the chains of colonialism only to be thrown into the dungeons of elitist oppression.

The elites, many of whom never fought in liberation wars, have gained favour only through patronage and their unctuous antics.

Janet Mondlane, American wife of Eduardo Mondale with Ed Hawley and (on right of picture) Uria Simango, Mondlane’s number two in FRELIMO befor the ruling party put him on trial, branded him a traitor and had him executed. Among the FRELIMO hierarchy, Simango is damned as a non-person. But young Mozambicans want the truth about the past  and how it led them to where they are now. (Picture: Trevor Grundy Archives).

Smiles before an execution: Uria Simango with close colleagues Samora and Josina Machel after their wedding in 1969.

Watched by Marcelino dos Santos, FRELIMO’s deputy president from 1969-1977 and Samora Machel, who replaced the assassinated Eduardo Mondlane,  Paulo Gumane and Uria Simango are silent and still as they await their fate – an effective death sentence for criticising the ruling party’s leadership in a pamphlet written by Simango called The Gloomy Situation in FRELIMO  which was published in October 1969.

 

They get richer while poverty explodes.

Africa is not blessed exactly with great or enduring true democracies.  Change in governance is often a product of coup or insurrection, but intimidation, electoral violence and vote rigging are generally the normal.

It takes just a very tiny catalyst to spoil the calm, and Mozambique is setting perhaps a very ugly precedent in Southern Africa; which region should perhaps be heeding the warnings.

Is Mozambique heading for its next civil war?

This observer does not think so, but who knows?

The insurrection may all fizzle out in several days, or a week or two, but the germane lessons of the Mozambique crisis should, with great hope, get intransigent regimes to smell the salts. African states really do need to reform their electoral systems and accept the diversity of political change.

 

The British journalist David  Martin wrote a moving tribute to Eduardo Mondlane after his assassination in Dar es Salaam in 1969.  A few hours after Mondlane’s death, Martin told the world through The Observer Foreign News Service that it had been carried out by PIDE agents in Tanzania.

 

[1] No relationship is known between Venâncio and Eduardo, the founder of FRELIMO, and predecessor of Samora Machel.  Mondlane was assassinated, allegedly by the CIA, but more likely from within his own ranks. He was eliminated by means of a parcel bomb in Dar es Salaam on 3 February 1969, in circumstances that have never been completely explained. The presumption is that he was killed by the Portuguese Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE translated International and State Defense Police) or Direcção-Geral de Segurança (DGS – General Security Directorate) as it was renamed in 1969, but it happened at a time when the liberation movement was still split by internecine battles from within.

 

Andrew Field (above) is based in Harare, Zimbabwe where he writes about economic, social and political events that affect the lives of tens of millions of people. He is also a well-respected wildlife photographer who is concerned about the  horrendous impact of climate change and the spread of poaching, not only in Africa but throughout the world.