Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has bemoaned France’s issuing a travel advice recommending its citizens not to travel to the northern Cabo Delgado province following the escalation of insurgency attacks in some of the districts in the province.
The French Foreign Affairs ministry issued a statement last week strongly recommending its citizens “not to travel to Mocímboa da Praia, Pemba and Palma, as well as on the roads linking these locations, due to the presence of terrorist and kidnapping threats”.
“It should be remembered that in the context of the instensification of the terrorist threat in Cabo Delgado, jihadist attacks are to be feared in the Mocímboa da Praia and Palma, The entire province of Cabo Delgado, including the city of Pemba, is formally not recommended”, the statement read, expanding the advisory to districts in the province of Nampula, south of Cabo Delgado.
President Nyusi told members of the Mozambican press travelling with him to the 37th African Union summit, in the Ethiopian capital of Adis Abeba, that “every country has an agenda and the agenda is aligned and integrated. There must be a reason why an announcement was made”.
However, Nyusi said that he had expected the French to help in the fight against terrorism as opposed to causing alarm given the friendship relationship the two countries enjoy. As such, he believed that the travel advisory flies in the face of Mozambique’s efforts to prove to the world that it is committed to fighting terrorism.
Comment
Nyusi seems to have forgotten that governments have to ensure the safety of their own citizens both within and outside their nations’ borders. In the past months, insurgents have run amok in Cabo Delgado, attacking military positions and killing scores of Mozambican soldiers, destroying private property, which has caused more internal displacement.
As such, by issuing the travel advisory, the French government did what any responsible government would do – this is in stark contrast to how the Mozambican government has been behaving with regards to the safety of its citizens.
Perhaps Nyusi’s calculation is that the travel advisory might further delay TotalEnergies, the French oil-giant, lifting the force majeure imposed in April 2021 following a major attack on the town of Palma, in the Afungi peninsula.
TotalEnergies Chief Executive Office Patrick Pouyanné said during a presentation of the 2023 results that the company hoped to restart activities in the Ruvuma basin by end of 2024. However, he three a caveat: “What we don’t want to happen is to make people return to Cabo Delgado and force them to leave, which would be very complex.”
With Nyusi on his way out, TotalEnergies might be bidding time to see who is likely to be the next president, and waiting to see what economic arrangements he or she brings and who the people in his or her inner circle are, as nobody likes dealing with a lame-duck president.
But what was hard to comprehend was the President’s conspiratorial take. Nyusi decried the timing of the travel advisory, saying that “perhaps the message was awaiting a moment… now, it it’s a natural or devised moment, that is something else. But we’re going to respect and there’s nothing to question.”
If Maputo suspects that the French might be behind something, the issue should have been dealt through proper diplomatic channels, which begs the question: was the President advised or he acted on his own accord?
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