Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
28 July 2006
Maputo — Mozambican Prime Minister Luisa Diogo has urged the National Prison Service to strive for visible change in the short and medium terms to reverse the current situation, described delicately as "far from desirable", reports Friday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".
She was speaking in Maputo on Thursday during a ceremony to swear into office the new National Director of Prisons, Joao Zandamela.
Zandamela takes over a service that is clearly in crisis.
The country's prisons date from the colonial era, and are mostly in poor physical condition. They are understaffed, underfunded and overcrowded.
Most inmates of the prisons have not been found guilty of anything, and are thus, in terms of the Mozambican constitution, innocent. They are simply in a long queue of cases awaiting trial - despite repeated recommendations from the Attorney-General's Office that people accused of minor offences should be given conditional freedom and wait at home for their trial.
Health and diet conditions in the prisons are poor. There have also been a series of spectacular escapes from the country's jails, often with the collaboration of prison guards. The worst of these were the two escapes of Mozambique's most notorious assassin, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man who recruited the death squad that murdered investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000.
Anibalzinho was illicitly released from the Maputo top security prison in September 2002 and again in May 2004. So far there has been no explanation of how this was possible, and who was responsible.
At the Thursday ceremony, Diogo stressed that the prison services are an integral part of the criminal justice system and have a major impact on the rights and freedoms of citizens.
"It is the task of the prison services, apart from keeping prisoners in custody, to encourage social activity and apply the law properly", she said. "This task demands a leadership with a coherent, efficient and operational strategy, that regards justice, respect for human rights, equality before the law, honesty and integrity as its central values'.
"Managing prisons consists essentially of managing people - prison staff, the prisoners and the relatives who visit them", Diogo added. "The nature of the relationship between these groups is important for the success of the rehabilitation policy that must be imposed".
The prison population was not homogenous, she pointed out.
Some came from marginalised groups in society, while others were dangerous and aggressive criminals, who would always attempt to escape.
"That is why it is crucial to develop a system of professional careers that will help the prison services, providing them with good quality professionals who are people of integrity, who can guarantee permanent motivation for the challenges of social rehabilitation", Diogo stressed.
For his part, Zandamela said that his priorities are to modernize prison services, fight against idleness among the staff, solve the problem of overcrowding and strengthen security.
He said that one important challenge is to professionalise the work of prison guards in order to check the wave of escapes, particularly from top security prisons.
"It is clear that there are problems in this sector, hence the ongoing activities include the improvement of security, and the professionalization of the guards', he told reporters.
Zandamela, 48, holds the rank of general in the police force. and was formerly head of the personnel department in the Ministry of the Interior.
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