Good afternoon. Opposition politician Venâncio Mondlane has complained about President Daniel Chapo’s comments rejecting the possibility of an amnesty for people arrested during the protests sparked by last year’s disputed elections (see below). The issue was discussed by Chapo and Mondlane at a meeting earlier this year, and, as Zitamar News understands, they both agreed at least in principle that there should be an amnesty. Chapo has said that there is no legal basis for one, but all that means is that parliament would need to pass a law granting the amnesty, and there is no reason why it cannot, as it has done in the past.
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Mondlane had other grounds for grievance against Chapo as he left the prosecutor’s office in Maputo on Friday, where he was grilled yet again about his conduct. Last week, in his speech marking 50 years of Mozambique’s independence, Chapo was relating the country’s history when he rather suddenly made a reference to the “violent, criminal and illegal demonstrations of recent months”. He compared them to the Mozambican civil war of 1977-1992, saying that both events caused the destruction of infrastructure and held back the creation of prosperity and the fight against poverty. It was the only real topical reference in a speech that was otherwise bland, uncontroversial and full of platitudes. The occasion did not force Chapo to address the subject of the protests, but he chose to anyway, and in a rather provocative way, comparing them to the guerrilla fighters of then paramilitary force Renamo with whom the government fought a cruel and bloody war.
