Good afternoon. Mozambique is to be home to a representative office of the United Nations (UN)’s commissioner for human rights (see below). The announcement yesterday came after lengthy negotiations between the UN agency and the government. The latter will surely use it to try and improve its reputation and argue that it is a defender of human rights. But the fact that the UN is opening an office here in particular must reflect particular concerns that the agency has with Mozambique. Of course, there are flagrant violations of human rights in many African countries, but reports of abuses by security forces fighting insurgents in Cabo Delgado province are particularly eye-catching and have travelled around the world. So, the UN wanted to open an office, and the government (under previous president Filipe Nyusi) asked for one: not something that all African governments would welcome.
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Among the many human rights problems in Mozambique, foreign investors are concerned about prison conditions, torture and unlawful killings by security forces in Cabo Delgado, and the treatment of LGBT people. Those issues are thus likely to feature on the agenda of the UN officials based in Mozambique. The Mozambican government will have its own agenda. It will certainly want to get some benefits from this presence, such as in obtaining human rights training for police officers. Despite the police’s traditional and well-deserved reputation for brutality, ministers are not indifferent to this problem. When protests erupted across the country in 2024 following the disputed election results, the government was taken aback by the level of police violence. In order to address the problem, it had to send the armed forces out onto the streets instead, who acted with more restraint. The UN agency could also help with vocational training for prisoners to assist their rehabilitation.
