The Denis Hurley Peace Institute, an NGO that is part of the South African Cathholic Bishops’ Conference, regularly compiles reports on Northern Mozambique from its sources in Pemba, Mozambique. We co-publish, with the DHPI, those reports here.
COUNTRY UPDATES: 2 SEPTEMBER 2020
Johan Viljoen
President visits Bishop of Pemba
On 31 August 2020 President Felipe Nyusi held a meeting with Bishop Luis Fernando Lisboa at the Episcopal Palace in Pemba. Bishop Luiz Fernando, who invited the President of the Republic, speaking at the end of the private meeting to journalists present, thanked the chief executive of Mozambique for his availability. In turn, Filipe Nyusi was happy and grateful for the invitation and praised the role of the Church in Cabo Delgado.
After the meeting with Bishop Luiz Lisboa, Nyusi delivered a reassuring speech: “The country is living at a time when it needs to speak, to dialogue. It is necessary to understand what the other sees and what the other knows. Being a religious, this Bishop of ours has a lot of information. It is logical information because the church is implanted here in the territory of the province and has many believers, priests. We took the opportunity to share information and even exchange some ideas ”. The Bishop of Pemba thanked the President of the Republic and said that the conversation had been “rich” and “fruitful”.
The meeting followed two weeks of escalating tension between the Church and the State, during which period the Holy Father personally phoned the Bishop, and the Mozambique Episcopal Conference issued a Pastoral letter, in a show of unity.
Insurgent Attacks: Is Pemba Next?
To date, insurgent attacks have remained limited to the areas around Mocimboa da Praia and Macomia, in the north of the province of Cabo Delgado. However, on Friday 28 August the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) in Cabo Delgado presented to the press an alleged member of the insurgents that have attacked that region of the country since 2017. The defendant is said to have been caught with a briefcase containing five AK47 weapons and six pairs of military uniforms, material he allegedly received from another individual who passed through the region in a passenger transport vehicle from the district of Mueda, almost 300 kilometers of Pemba.
The director of SERNIC in Cabo Delgado, Ntego Crisanto Ntego, has no doubts: this is an operation aimed at moving arms to Pemba by the armed group. “History tells us that insurgents, when they are about to enter a territory, first advance the equipment (that is, weapons) and then they come dressed as civilians”.
According to Calton Cadeado, a researcher in the Department of Peace and Security of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CEEI / ISRI): “ Pemba is today a place of great political value for this group of insurgents – to demonstrate visibility and power. Like Pemba, there is another place in Cabo Delgado, called Mueda, considered a bastion of the military political power of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO). Once attacked, it would mean attacking the heart of the country’s power. These are the elements known to any strategist who realizes that this group intends to attack – to show visibility and power. There is no immune point in Pemba. But it is necessary to understand how these insurgents, these terrorists, will act. And where they hide to make their attacks. So far, when they attack, they have used the bush. But in an urban space, for an urban guerrilla, it is necessary to understand how far the level of engagement and boldness goes, for a terrorist movement of attacks in an urban space.”
According to Cadeado: “There is a mix of nationalities. We are talking about Mozambicans and foreigners: Tanzanians, Somalis, Ugandans. It is what is known until now. Few South Africans, but this is speculation for which there is still no evidence. The identity of these people is important for us to know where they come from, but it doesn’t tell us much about their international connections, so we can talk about group funding. It is difficult to say precisely where the funding comes from. From Mozambique, we had information, according to which people used electronic mechanisms of circulation, transfers and receipts of money. It seems that this has been managed. So much so that the Mozambican state has intensified its mechanism for controlling transfers, circulating currency, because of money laundering and financing of terrorism. We are talking about natural resources – timber, precious stones, etc. But, regarding this traffic, it is not known to say what is the magnitude and who controls it.”
Cadeado explains the lack of a regional initiative:” It is known that there is a very strong communication between the Mozambican state and Tanzania, at least from the point of view of security. They are meeting, with suspicions on both sides, but they are meeting. After all, the threat in Mozambique can also reach Tanzania. At the multilateral level, of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), there is a difficulty in cooperating. Today, the terrorist threat is located in the province of Cabo Delgado, close to Tanzania, and it is difficult to convince a strong engagement of Botswana, Malawi or Angola, which is distant. It is difficult to talk about cooperation. But the others are aware of what is happening in Mozambique.”
Mocimboa da praia Still Under Insurgent Control
Army source says insurgents are still in Mocímboa da Praia since the port of the village was occupied two weeks ago, says the Lusa agency. Mozambican forces “had to back down”.
The group of attackers that invaded the port of Mocímboa da Praia, north of Mozambique, on August 12, remains at the headquarters in the village, which is currently isolated, a source in the Armed Forces of Mozambique said on Thursday 27 August.
“”They have been in Mocímboa da Praia since the assault on the port. Many of our forces had to retreat. For example, my unit, one of those in Mocímboa, retreated to Mueda [just over 100 kilometers from Mocímboa da Praia]. We had a lot of casualties. I have noticed that there are efforts to get more reinforcements, but the situation is very serious and complicated because you cannot count on the port of Mocímboa da Praia,” he said. “They will attack again”.
Another Mozambican Army source in Maputo told Lusa that “it is clear that, from Mocímboa da Praia, they will attack again. Their strategy is to attack and retreat to stock up. They have also had several casualties in these last attacks. But we know that they will attack again,” said the source, who is linked to the central department that records occurrences in the Mozambican army.
Religious Sisters in Mocimboa da Praia Still Missing
The whereabouts of two sisters of São José de Chambéry who went missing during the violent attack by jihadist groups on the port of Mocímboa da Praia in early August are still unknown.
Father Kwiriwi Fonseca, of the Diocese of Pemba, says that the authorities have so far provided no clarification as to what happened to these two women religious and the more than 60 people who were in the community home when the attack took place.
“When the city was occupied, because of the infeasibility of communication, the lack of communication, we were unable to establish contact with the sisters. We are on the positive side … We believe that maybe they are not dead but have lost communication. That’s how we comfort ourselves because we don’t know exactly the official news. We have no official news. ”
Father Fonseca reveals that the Mocímboa da Praia region is banned and that “no one can get there”. The Pemba priest recalls that the attack “started on August 5,” which was followed by “consecutive days” of fighting, “until the 11th”. “During those days they attacked and occupied the Port of Mocímboa da Praia.”
It was during that attack that contact with the two sisters was lost. These sisters, Inês Ramos and Eliane da Costa: “They are Brazilian. One [sister Inês] is elderly, over 70 years old, and the other is an adult lady ” says Father Kwiriwi.
At the time of the attack, “about 60 people” were at the home of the sisters of Saint Joseph of Chambéry. They were essentially elderly and some children. What happened, no one knows. “If the sisters went back to the place, we don’t know either, because there is nowhere to buy a new phone… As we have no news regarding these 60 people, we don’t know if they disappeared, if they died, have been kidnapped. We do not know…”
The lack of news about these two Brazilian nuns and the feeling of insecurity in the northern region of Mozambique was also mentioned by Father José Luzia Gonçalves, a Portuguese missionary, to Rádio Sem Fronteiras, a broadcaster in Cabo Delgado.
In the interview, released this week on the official website of the Diocese of Pemba, the priest said that there is, “at this moment, a distressing situation” in Cabo Delgado. “It is distressing because we have no news about what is going on with those two sisters and those children and elderly people they cared for in Mocímboa… We don’t know…”
SADC to Intervene?
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that SADC is preparing plans to intervene in the conflict in Cabo Delgado.
“At the level of SADC, yes, the issue of insecurity in northern Mozambique is being discussed extensively based on briefings by the Government of Mozambique itself,” said Ramaphosa.
“President Nyusi is now the president of our SADC region and we are involved through a number of other SADC structures to be well informed and to see how far plans can be made to address the security challenge we face there”, he said.
The South African head of state, who did not specify the type of SADC intervention, was speaking to journalists at the end of a virtual press conference on the latest wave of corruption within the ruling party.
South African Police Investigating Involvement of South Africans in the Conflict
“The investigation into the involvement of South Africans in the insurgency involves Interpol and the Mozambican authorities,” a spokesman for the investigative police unit HAWKS told the South African Lusa News Agency.
According to Lloyd Ramovha, “the investigation has several branches, detectives are examining cross-border financial flows, the origin of these funds and the involvement of organized crime in fundraising”.
“About 100 South Africans may be fighting alongside terrorists and crime activity within our borders is being used to finance these efforts,” the news agency reports him as saying.
