Mozambique: Jose Pacheco Named SISE Head, With Brief to Deal With Cabo Delgado

Jose Pacheco was named head of intelligence services on 17 June and was specifically told by President Daniel Chapo to deal with the Cabo Delgado insurgency. (O Pais 18 June) He is trusted and powerful in Frelimo. SISE is the State Information and Security Service (Serviço de Informação e Segurança do Estado).

He was governor of Cabo Delgado (1998–2005), Minister of Interior (2005–09) and then both Minister of Agriculture (2010–17) and head of the Frelimo Verification Commission, the Frelimo disciplinary body (2012–17). He is from Sofala and thus is not part of any of the main regional factions. His role was shown in February this year when he was sent to sort out a bitter dispute in Frelimo in Zambezia where the party's then national spokesperson Caifadine Manasse publicly accused five parliamentary deputies of organising drug smuggling via Macuse port in Zambezia. This should have been kept an internal party issue. Calm was restored by Pacheco and Manasse was made Minister of Youth and Sport.

Pacheco clearly has contact with everyone who is important in Cabo Delgado, and will be able to talk with the top oligarchs and well as insurgent leaders. And he has the power to negotiate a deal. The insurgency was started by young people with no jobs and no future challenging the Frelimo elite who controlled the resource wealth. Any deal will involve land, jobs and money, and concessions by the oligarchs.

SISE was at the centre of the secret debt scandal and Director General Gregório Leao and Economic Intelligence head António Carlos do Rosario were sentenced to 12 years in jail. In June they were released on parole. But SISE never recovered. On 2 November 2024 the next director general of SISE was killed in a mysterious car crash in remote Mapai, Gaza province, near the Zimbabwe border. So Pacheco must also build an intelligence service.

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