Peace round the corner in Mozambique

By M.S. Prabhakara

CAPE TOWN, DEC. 21. Exactly one year after the announcement of the results of the Mozambican elections, Mr. Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Renamo, has `recognised' the legitimacy of the Government of the President, Mr. Joaquim Chissano. Mr. Dhlakama has been leading a violent agitation against the outcome of the elections in December last.

This is the substance and import of a joint communique signed by the two leaders and released in Maputo yesterday evening after talks lasting seven hours. The meeting, held in the premises of Parliament, was the first between the two leaders since the election results were announced.

A radio report this morning quoted Mr. Dhlakama as saying that ``the fact that we met here and are shaking hands for the first time after the elections means everything''.

There was uncertainty till the end whether Renamo would finally come on board and play its role as the legitimate opposition party in Parliament.

A meeting scheduled between the two leaders for Tuesday failed to take place because of differences over the `agenda'.

Crucial among the issues to be resolved are the alleged discrimination against erstwhile Renamo soldiers recruited into the national army, appointment of Renamo loyalists to executive positions in the six provinces where Renamo won a majority, and the insistence that police and civil service should be `non- partisan' - which usage means that these should be really `bipartisan', comprising equally Renamo and Frelimo supporters.

However, there are more fundamental differences rooted in the history of the liberation movement and the subversive role played by Renamo, a creature of the rebel Rhodesian regime which later also secured the support of the apartheid regime, to undermine the liberation movement.

These linkages even now manifest themselves in new and strange ways - as in the floating of a so-called `Democratic Union of Africa' (DUA) at a conference hosted by the (now defunct) New National Party in Cape Town in March last year.

The DUA is described as the `African branch of the International Democrat Union', whose members include the Tory Party in Britain, the Republican Party in the U.S. and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

Mr. Chissano, who secured 52.29 per cent of the votes, won his second five-year term as President with Mr. Dhlakama trailing behind with 47.71 per cent. Renamo too, which improved its position in the national Parliament, nevertheless failed to displace Frelimo as the ruling party.

Mr. Dhlakama has maintained, with considerable support from his allies in the region, in particular in South Africa, that the outcome of the December 1999 elections were rigged, though both international observers as indeed the Supreme Court of Mozambique certified the outcome as free and fair.

The agitation against the `rigged' results recently took an ugly turn when scores of people were killed in violent confrontations between the agitators and the police in some of the areas where Renamo had done well in the elections.

However, given the history of Renamo, a measure of caution will be justified on whether this `recognition' really means the end to the year-long confrontation.

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Section  : International
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