- Ruling party says it's a coup attempt as opposition leader urges supporters to continue “revolutionary war”
By Noémia Mendes and Sheila Nhancale
Maputo (MOZTIMES) - Mozambique's capital, Maputo, has been in a state of terror since this Thursday morning, with thousands of young people protesting in various suburbs and the city centre. The police responded with great violence, including firing live bullets and tear gas bombs at demonstrators and at residences.
Dozens of people were injured by live bullets fired by the police. The angry population began setting fire to vehicles parked at public institutions in the suburbs, looting shops, barricading streets and burning tyres.
A spokeswoman for the political commission of the ruling Frelimo party said that what was happening in Mozambique was an attempted coup.
“We are seeing calls for violence, for disobedience, for a general uprising. An attempted coup d'état”, Alcinda Abreu said after an extraordinary meeting of the political commission of Frelimo, the party in power in Mozambique since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“When people are incited to occupy the Ponta Vermelha Palace (presidential palace), it is an attempt to attack power, a power that has been democratically established, legally legitimised”, Abreu said, adding that the Defence and Security Forces must intervene to defend the Constitution.
The police deployed to contain the violence in the streets, have lost control of the situation and are firing tear gas grenades and live bullets everywhere, including into homes, hitting people not involved in the demonstrations. There are reports of children targeted by tear gas smoke in the low-income neighbourhoods.
The situation is critical and is seen as the worst urban violence in the history of independent Mozambique. There are still no official figures for deaths or injuries, but videos circulating on social media show dozens of people being shot by police, while young people from the suburbs set up barricades in the streets and threaten to make homemade bombs.
Rights organizations report dozens of deaths across the country since the revolt started two weeks ago acre. There’s a high risk that violence could worsen at night.
The militaries were deployed to the streets, but apparently are not engaging in violence with the demonstrators, just protecting strategic positions in the city.
Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane called the demonstrations to challenge the election results, which he says were rigged. International and domestic election monitoring groups have reported cases of electoral fraud, including the European Union Election Observation Mission, which reported cases of ballot box stuffing in six of Mozambique's 10 provinces.
The popular uprising escalated when two senior opposition figures, Elvino Dias, Venâncio Modnlane's lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, an electoral agent for the PODEMOS party, which is supporting Mondlane's candidacy, were shot dead in Maputo by unknown assailants.
Modnlane accused police death squads of murdering his colleagues and called on his supporters to demonstrate for a week, culminating in a mass march on Maputo this Thursday.
This afternoon, Mondlane addressed his supporters in a live broadcast, urging them to continue their demonstrations.
“Kill the people you want to kill, but this will not stop. We will continue with our demonstrations, and we will not stop until the final victory”, Modnlane said in a live broadcast watched by tens of thousands on his Facebook account.
"We are in a war, a revolutionary war, a war for the country, a war for truth. We will not stop”, he added, while lamenting the deaths and shootings of his supporters.
The opposition leader also said that his lawyers submitted a petition to the International Criminal Court against the political leaders and police chiefs in Mozambique who ordered the police violence against the demonstrators.
Mondlane had promised to lead the demonstrations in Maputo this Thursday, after spending weeks in hideout. He didn't turn up and explained that he was still in hiding in response to the people's call.
“The fact that Venâncio Mondlane is present at these demonstrations is very positive because his presence would increase the impact of the extreme violence,” Gabriel Ngomane, political analyst and professor at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, said in an interview.
"If he were on home soil, his supporters would have a different kind of hostility to what we are seeing today, and his life would be at risk,” Ngomane added. (NM/SN)
