In the past two weeks, the insurgency has made inroads into new areas, expanding the war to areas previously deemed safe in the northern Mozambican Cabo Delgado province.
Indeed, the insurgents have been seen roaming areas in the south of the province, such as the administrative post of Metoro, in Chiúre district, among others. The insurgents have also returned to the coastal town of Quissanga and the Quirimbas archipelago, where they have been circulating unhindered owing to the absence of the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces (FDS).
The new push by the insurgents has resulted in further displacement of the local population, with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimating that over 58,000 people have been displaced in two weeks.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Cristôvão Chume sought to undermine the insurgent attacks and destruction of property, saying that the situation is stable and that it is just a small group of insurgents that left their base to attack communities devoid of FDS protection.
Comment
There has been a failure by the Makonde conclave to effectively and strategically tackle the insurgency, and also deal with the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) dossier. An analyst specialising in defence and low-intensity warfare issues told Mozambique Insights that the failures arise from the tribal perception and its consequent narrow perspective in both the management of the conflict and of the LNG dossier to a narrower ethnic dimension to the detriment of a much broader perspective.
In general, the conclave saw the opportunity at the helm of the nation as their “time to eat”. It did not matter who sat on the table with them; what mattered and still matters is what the group can get from deals with such individuals, as well as filling critical public service positions with people of the Makonde ethnic group or those who will do the group’s bidding. This is to ensure that the “collection base” is broadened so that the conclave’s coffers can keep on filling up.
To defend Cabo Delgado from the insurgency, at one stage the conclave manipulated the narrative first, and law after a growing criticism as well skepticism, to establish a local force, buoyed by the alleged bravery of the Makondes which the Liberation Struggle and Frelimo sold to Mozambicans, seen by many as a tribal militia – the fact that the local force was created in the Makonde plateau deepened suspicions that, it was there to only defend their territory and some interests in particular.
Three people, namely President Filipe Nyusi, police Commissioner Bernardino Rafael, and the conclave’s patriarch Alberto Chipande seem to be the only authorized voices to speak about Cabo Delgado, with sporadic statements from Defence Minister Cristôvão Chume. The three would want to be seen as great military and political strategists who, however, have failed time and time again to define the priorities for the war against the insurgency.
It did not help that Nyusi was also preoccupied with the personal matter of the “hidden debt” scandal, which saw three Mozambican companies contracting loans worth $2.2 billion from international banks to finance the purchase of fishing vessels and military assets at exceedingly inflated prices, between 2013 and 2014, which resulted in former finance minister, Manuel Chang, being extradited from South Africa to the United States, and with the president involved in an immunity battle in a court in London, which he eventually won. Furthermore, Nyusi made the mistake of handing the defence of Cabo Delgado to Bernardino Rafael to the detriment of other forces that comprise the FDS, especially the military, intelligence and the defence ministry, considering the type of menace posed by the enemy.
Although he seems to be adept at controlling and manipulating the succession battle, Nyusi and the Makonde conclave leave a divided party in Frelimo; a deep crisis; a country plagued by war; under the control of organized crime; and with a rising cost of life.
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