24 August 2008
Maringue — Thousands of residents of the district of Maringue, in the central Mozambican province of Sofala, on Saturday asked President Armando Guebuza to persuade Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, to remove the armed Renamo members who are still stationed in Maringue, 16 years after the end of the war of destabilization.
Maringue housed the headquarters of Renamo in the closing years of the war, and is often regarded as a Renamo stronghold. Despite the clauses in the 1992 peace agreement on demobilization, Renamo did not demobilize all its forces, but left an armed force, supposedly its "Presidential Guard", numbering perhaps a couple of hundred, at old Renamo bases in Maringue and the neighbouring district of Cheringoma.
When the government offered to incorporate these men into the police force, Dhlakama refused. So the Renamo men are simply left to grow old in the bush, since the government has clearly decided it is not worth launching a police or military operation to round them all up.
But the population of Maringue told Guebuza they are tired of living alongside this perpetual reminder of the war. At the rally addressed by Guebuza, several residents said that, if necessary, Guebuza should negotiate with Dhlakama to end the presence of armed men in the district.
Most of those who spoke at Guebuza's rally said that the Renamo force has not left them in peace, and has committed abuses, including rape, against the civilian population.
"Here in Maringue we have still not experienced the total peace that the rest of the country has known since the 1992 peace agreement was signed in Rome", declared a man named Ezequiel Fainda.
Those who spoke at the rally, and those interviewed by AIM, told of violence committed by the Renamo men. They said that every now and then they leave their bases in the bush and demand that Maringue residents give them food, assaulting anyone who refuses.
Even worse, they do not allow the development of agriculture. "They have occupied fertile areas where we ought to be planting", some farmers said. "They don't let us clear the bush. But they do whatever they like, even in our houses".
In his speech to the rally, Guebuza did not promise any measures to deal with the bodyguards, but he stressed that the secret for any victory, including in the struggle against poverty, lies in national unity, just as was the case in the war to overthrow Portuguese colonial rule.
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