Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi warned that terrorism being waged by Islamists insurgents in the northern Cabo Delgado province could split the country.
Speaking on Friday at an event held at ACIPOL (Policy Academy), a visibly irritated Nyusi criticised what he called “unsubstantiated arguments and theories” on terrorism making the rounds on social media, adding that most people do not take the issue with the seriousness that it demands.
“Why do they invent explanations that do not help? We must be united to combat it (terrorism) because if we play, we might end up without the motherland. Is that what you want?” he asked.
Comment
Nyusi is known for being a poster child of public chastisements. After the triumphalism that marked the end of 2023, the first quarter of 2024 has shown a backsliding in the war against the Islamist insurgency, with the insurgents seizing back the initiative and carrying out operations in many coastal districts of Cabo Delgado, killing troops and chasing them out of some districts, as they expand to the south of the province, and threatening northern districts of Nampula province.
This led Nyusi to make an emergency trip to the Rwandan capital of Kigali for a few hours to confer with President Paul Kagame – the details of their conversation have not been shared nor linked.
Meanwhile, there are a few questions remain unanswered: what explains the resumption of the insurgents’ operational initiative after their leadership was practically eliminated during August-November 2023? Why did the Defence and Security Forces (FDS) not pursue the enemy into their strongholds, which the FDS always claim to know, until they surrendered or fled Mozambique? Why did the government rush to announce that the internal displaced could return to their zones of origin, without assessing the insurgents’ capabilities? Why does the government insist on the resumption of activities by the French oil giant TotalEnergies while knowing that the insurgency is still a threat? Why does the state not cut the insurgents’ logistical lines based on optimistic comments on television by the FDS leadership that they have knowledge of the entire logistical chain? How many people (civilians, soldiers and policemen) have died because of this exaggerated optimism?
Instead of getting irritated and evaluating the perspectives offered by different experts and threatening that the country could be split, should the president not be answering the questions above, and ask his advisors why the insurgency is not being eliminated, even when the support of Rwanda and Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) forces, as well as financial support from the European Union? What divides more is terrorism of failure to stymie it? And if the country is about to be divided as he warns, Mozambicans would like to know by whom, when, how and why?
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