Good afternoon. Two fairly extraordinary outbursts of violence over the last few days, the beheading of a military reservist in the town of Morrumbala and the storming of a prison in Sofala province (see below), testify to the state of lawlessness into which the country has fallen, and which may be getting worse.
As well as challenging the authority of the government and the security forces, these incidents have a revolutionary character to them. Rumours spread on social media say that the dead reservist was drawing up lists of supporters of the opposition Podemos party to be assassinated. The context for this is that many opposition activists have been killed across the country since the elections in October, and popular opinion blames the security forces for conducting an assassination campaign.
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All this is not surprising, given the protests over the past three months sparked by the disputed elections and the police repression of those protests. Even the complaints about the cost of living can be linked to Venâncio Mondlane, the former opposition presidential candidate who instigated anti-government protests last year, and his demand for cheaper everyday goods. What is perhaps more surprising is the lack of a coherent message from the government in response to these and other events.