19 November 2008
Beira — Groups of armed men, loyal to Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo, who were never demobilized at the end of the war of destabilisation, 16 years ago, have reappeared on the streets of Maringue, in the central province of Sofala.
Renamo's illegal security force, often referred to as its "Presidential Guard", consists of a couple of hundred former fighters living in old military bases in Maringue and Cheringoma districts. Over the past decade and a half these men have sporadically caused panic when they have appeared, fully armed, in Maringue town or in Inhaminga, the capital of Cheringoma district.
For some months nothing much has been heard of the "Presidential Guard", but on Monday they were back in action causing panic in Maringue. According to reports reaching Beira, they were confiscating voter cards from citizens which had allegedly been issued in Beira.
Contacted by AIM, the Sofala Provincial Police Commander, Zacarias Cossa, confirmed that the movement of the Renamo armed groups had begun on Monday, but was "under control" by Tuesday afternoon.
"They came out of their bases in Monday and placed themselves on the streets of Maringue, carrying weapons and in uniform", he said. "Whenever they appear on the streets, everybody panics".
The authorities were put on a state of alert, said Cossa, but the police in Sofala are not authorized to use force to disperse the "Presidential Guard". Instead, the police talked to them, and on Tuesday they left the town.
"Although we know we have a duty to get them out of there, we have opted or persuasion", said Cossa. "It wasn't easy to convince them to leave, but eventually they did leave. We followed them, but we didn't want to push anyone out. We merely insisted that they should leave".
The discussions took "many hours", said Cossa, but eventually "they were convinced and on Tuesday afternoon they withdrew. We are still watching the place, so that our visibility may inspire confidence and trust among the local people".
Cossa pointed out that, even if Renamo had detected some irregularity in voter cards, they had no right to inspect citizens and their property
"If there's some problem with the cards, why don't they denounce it to the relevant authorities?", he asked. "This is just another argument to support abuses and serious violations of public order".
He had no idea what the problem about the Maringue voter cards was. The police, he added, "haven't seen any of these cards". He regarded the reappearance of armed Renamo supporters as simply an attempt to spread panic and disturb the municipal elections to be held on Wednesday.
Renamo's basic claim, made months ago, is that the ruling Frelimo Party has illicitly registered people living in other Sofala districts (such as Maringue) as voters in Beira. They were supposedly brought into Beira during the update of the voter registration earlier this year, to transfer their registration from the districts to the city. Renamo claimed that on voting day these phony Beira residents will be ferried into the city to vote for the Frelimo candidate.
However, such an operation, apart from being logistically complex and very expensive, would show up on the voter registration records as an abnormally large number of people transferring their registration to Beira. In fact, when the figures were published they showed nothing abnormal about the number of transfers in Beira, which were similar to those in other central Mozambican cities and towns.
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