Mozambique’s Renamo Says Cease-Fire Over as 20 Military Killed
Mozambique’s opposition Renamo said the country’s Muxungue region was a “conflict zone” after it ambushed soldiers trying to kill its leader Afonso Dhlakama.
At least 20 military died on May 31 and June 1, following “provocative attacks” by government forces, Antonio Muchanga, a spokesman for the Mozambique National Resistance party, told reporters today in Maputo, the capital. Renamo didn’t suffer any casualties, he said.
“We were aware that the government was planning a large attack in the Gorongosa hills to chase and kill our leader,” Muchanga said. “We prepared our men and ambushed them.”
If the military wanted to kill Dhlakama, it would have done so sometime ago, said Gabriel Muthisse, head of the government’s delegation for talks with Renamo. Muthisse said he was unaware of any deaths. President Armando Guebuza said yesterday that Renamo attacks wouldn’t disrupt elections in October.
Renamo, once backed by the white-minority governments of Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, and South Africa, fought a 17-year civil war against the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, until signing a peace agreement in Rome in 1992. Renamo said in October that the peace agreement had ended after security forces attacked the party’s headquarters.
Clashes last year between Renamo and government security forces disrupted public transportation in Sofala province and the movement of coal by rail to the coast from mines owned by Rio Tinto Plc and Vale SA.