CHARLES MANGWIRO, Maputo | Friday
MOZAMBIQUE’S Human Rights League (LDH) has blamed police for sparking last week’s bloody riots in the northern city of Nampula by allegedly firing on demonstrators without provocation.
The League’s northern regional representatives claimed in a report that police confronted opposition Renamo party supporters outside a local soccer stadium last Thursday and opened fire, killing 11 people.
The shooting may, the report said, have contributed to widespread violence during nationwide anti-government demonstrations that left an estimated 41 dead, including at least seven policemen.
The League report claims police attacked the Nampula demonstrators before they had even started to march, while they were gathering outside a sports stadium.
“[Police] started shooting in an attempt to disperse them and to frighten anyone who might want to join the group,” the report read.
League observers, who were uninjured, claimed the shooting was indiscriminate and allege police pursued and shot at least one fleeing protestor.
“Several other fleeing demonstrators were arrested and were severely beaten with rifle butts,” said the report.
The League also cited an unnamed policeman who alleged detainees were “tortured and flogged on the orders of the top officials of the police command” while being questioned.
The report also contends that Renamo demonstrators in the port city of Nacala were encircled by an impassable police barrier outside the party’s local offices.
Police representative Nataniel Macamo said he had not yet seen the report, but dismissed its findings as “rubbish”.
Renamo organised the demonstrations in an attempt to convince the Frelimo government to concede that general elections in December 1999 were rigged.
Renamo contends that Frelimo fraudulently boosted its vote, allowing Frelimo’s Joaquim Chissano to take the presidency with 52,2% of the vote compared to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama’s 47,7%.
Renamo won the majority of the vote in six of Mozambique’s 10 provinces but only garnered enough support to take 117 of the country’s 250 parliamentary seats.
Dhlakama welcomed the LDH report and called for a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the shootings after insisting that Frelimo deliberately antagonised protestors into violence to discredit the campaign.
President Chissano has rejected Dhlakama’s suggestion and instead accused Renamo of “barbarism”.- African Eye News Service