24 December 2008
Maputo — All the deputies from the opposition Renamo-Electoral Union coalition boycotted the State of the Nation address given by President Armando Guebuza to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday.
Initially it seemed as if Renamo would behave like a normal political party. The Renamo deputies sat through about half of the speech, but then, in a move that had clearly been coordinated beforehand, they all stood up and trooped noisily out of the chamber. Deputies of the majority Frelimo Party gave them an ironic round of applause as they left.
One of Renamo's most prominent deputies, Antonio Muchanga, told AIM they had "heard enough", and regarded Guebuza's speech as "empty".
Muchanga said the Renamo deputies felt "offended" because Guebuza had not dealt with the matters that they regarded as priorities. In particular, he complained that Guebuza had spoken about crime in a mere five paragraphs, and had not mentioned the alarming development of this month, including the murder of police officers, and the escape, on 7 December, of three assassins from the cells of the Maputo City Police Command.
Muchanga said the Renamo deputies had wanted to hear from Guebuza what measures the government was taking to cope with the upsurge in crime. He concluded that, far from Guebuza's confident assertion that "the state of the nation is good", it was in reality "not at all good".
What Guebuza had really said in his address about the fight against crime was that it constituted "one of the pillars of our governance, seeking to provide an environment of order and security for people and property".
He stressed that the training of police was key to winning this battle and admitted to "fragilities that still occur inside the police particularly in compliance with the norms by the agents of law and order, and in security in prisons and police units".
He did not mention any specific cases, but reaffirmed "our commitment to combat corruption and crime, and their vain pretension to become alternative mechanisms for the accumulation of wealth".
Guebuza insisted that the maintenance of order could not be left solely in the hands of the police. "The maintenance or order, security and public tranquility must continue to be participatory", he stressed. "It must involve each and every one of us, in our homes, in the public highway, and in our workplaces".
On the administration of justice, Guebuza said that Legal Aid Institute (IPAJ), which can provide legal services for citizens unable to hire a lawyer, now has delegations in all provinces and guarantees coverage of 57 of Mozambique's 128 districts.
Guebuza could also claim a major success in the prison system, in that the majority of people incarcerated in Mozambican prisons have been convicted and are serving sentences. That was not the case a few years ago when most of those in jail were detainees awaiting trial.
Guebuza said that 53 per cent of all prison inmates in 2005 were pre-trial detainees, but this figure dropped to 42 per cent in 2006 and to 39 per cent in 2007.
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