Police Killings, Ambushes Put Mozambique Peace On Edge
https://nigeriaafrica1.blogspot.com/2013/04/police-killings-ambushes-put-mozambique.html
The deadliest attacks in Mozambique in more than a decade by suspected opposition gunmen have rekindled memories of a 1975-1992 civil war and put pressure on the ruling party to rethink the marginalization of its main political foe.
Four policemen and three civilians were killed in ambushes of a truck and two buses at the weekend - a tactic widely used by guerrillas in the 1980s - raising fears that the mineral-rich southern African nation's two-decade peace may be under threat.
Renamo, the guerrilla movement founded around independence in 1975 with the backing of white-ruled Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa to take on the Marxist Frelimo party which has ruled the country ever since, has denied it attacked civilians.
But the group - which has seats in parliament but is effectively excluded from power in what is a de facto one-party state - is widely suspected. Military chief Paulino Macaringue was quoted as saying the army was awaiting orders from President Armando Guebuza to strike back.
However, several newspaper editorials said that instead of a military clamp-down, Guebuza should offer an olive branch to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who has been pushed into the political wilderness by Frelimo's stranglehold on politics and the economy since the war ended with a shaky truce.
"The President of the Republic has a vast array of options, that he doesn't use, to come to an agreement with the leader of Renamo and make Renamo feel included in the democratic process," the Magazine Independente said.
Analysts say Renamo is in no shape to launch widespread attacks, with at most 1,000 veteran guerrillas at its disposal and popular support that amounted to only 16 percent of the vote in 2009 elections.
"It is seriously doubtful that these people could actually wage a war," said Joseph Hanlon, a Mozambique analyst at Britain's Open University.
But many Mozambicans are worried that even the slightest violence could upset the relative political stability that has underpinned an unprecedented economic boom based on massive foreign investment in coal mining and natural gas exploration.
The off-shore Rovuma field is believed to hold enough gas to supply Germany, Britain, France and Italy for 15 years, and mining giants Vale and Rio Tinto have invested nearly $10 billion in mines in Tete province, home to some of the world's largest untapped coal deposits.
Renamo, the guerrilla movement founded around independence in 1975 with the backing of white-ruled Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa to take on the Marxist Frelimo party which has ruled the country ever since, has denied it attacked civilians.
But the group - which has seats in parliament but is effectively excluded from power in what is a de facto one-party state - is widely suspected. Military chief Paulino Macaringue was quoted as saying the army was awaiting orders from President Armando Guebuza to strike back.
However, several newspaper editorials said that instead of a military clamp-down, Guebuza should offer an olive branch to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, who has been pushed into the political wilderness by Frelimo's stranglehold on politics and the economy since the war ended with a shaky truce.
"The President of the Republic has a vast array of options, that he doesn't use, to come to an agreement with the leader of Renamo and make Renamo feel included in the democratic process," the Magazine Independente said.
Analysts say Renamo is in no shape to launch widespread attacks, with at most 1,000 veteran guerrillas at its disposal and popular support that amounted to only 16 percent of the vote in 2009 elections.
"It is seriously doubtful that these people could actually wage a war," said Joseph Hanlon, a Mozambique analyst at Britain's Open University.
But many Mozambicans are worried that even the slightest violence could upset the relative political stability that has underpinned an unprecedented economic boom based on massive foreign investment in coal mining and natural gas exploration.
The off-shore Rovuma field is believed to hold enough gas to supply Germany, Britain, France and Italy for 15 years, and mining giants Vale and Rio Tinto have invested nearly $10 billion in mines in Tete province, home to some of the world's largest untapped coal deposits.
