Maputo — Members of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR - the Mozambican equivalent of the Riot Police) shot dead two mourners at the funeral on Saturday afternoon of the popular blogger, known by his stage name "Mano Shottas', at Ressano Garcia, on the border between Mozambique and South Africa.
The blogger was broadcasting live about the violence on the border on Thursday when the UIR shot him dead.
According to a report in the electronic daily "The Mozambique Times', hundreds of people attended the funeral, which started peacefully at the family home.
When the mourners started the walk towards the nearby cemetery, located alongside the main road between Ressano Garcia and the South African border, six young men were carrying the coffin draped with a white sheet and the Mozambican flag. Leading the procession were women dressed in T-shirts expressing their support for presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and the party which supported him, PODEMOS. Almost everyone in the crowd raised three fingers, symbolising Mondlane's position on the ballot in last October's presidential elections.
Along the road, the UIR had set up three positions, manned by heavily armed officers wearing black masks, leaving only their eyes and mouths visible.
At the road, the angry crowds blocked it in both directions. They seized two trucks, one driven by a Zimbabwean citizen, and forced the drivers to position them at right angles to the road, blocking passage.
The police attempted to force the lorry drivers to unblock the road, but the crowd had taken the keys to the vehicles. According to eye-witnesses cited by "Mozambique Times', the UIR commander "said 'by order' and the police began shooting at the Zimbabwean truck driver. Afterwards, a group of six young men, with their hands raised as a sign of surrender, approached, asking to leave the cemetery peacefully. Once again, we heard 'by order', and the police shot at them, killing one of the young men".
Officers of the ordinary police (known as the "Protection Police', or PP), tried to assist those shot by the UIR.
The road was only reopened to traffic at about 17.00.
On Sunday morning, reporters from the independent television station "TV Successo', stationed at the toll gate between Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola, found that traffic was flowing freely in both directions.
But the gates were open, and nobody was paying the tolls, regardless of the type of vehicle they were driving.
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One of the instructions given last week by Venancio Mondlane to his followers was that nobody should pay any tolls. But this places the Mozambican government in an awkward position, since it has an agreement with the South African company TRAC, which operates the motorway between Maputo and the South African city of Witbank.
The tolls are agreed between the government and TRAC and are regularly updated. Nobody has yet suggested what should be done to make up for the current losses.
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