Deployment of Rwandan military personnel in Mozambique “illegal” - Opposition

MAPUTO, Mozambique 

The president of the main opposition party in Mozambique, RENAMO  (Mozambican National Resistance) on Monday said the deployment of Rwandan military personnel in Mozambique was “illegal”. 

Ossufo Momade said that the Mozambican parliament and other countries in the SADC region should have been told about the deployment in advance.

“The Rwandan military are in the country illegally, given that the Assembly of the Republic was not informed and that other countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community [SADC] were themselves taken by surprise,” Momade told the media at the end of a visit to Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique.

At issue is the arrival in Mozambique, starting last Friday (July 9), of a contingent of 1,000 Rwandan military and police personnel to support Mozambican forces in the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado.

 He maintained that the Mozambican head of state, Filipe Nyusi, had violated the Constitution in not bringing the matter up for debate in parliament.

“The President must respect the Constitution and take this matter to the Assembly of the Republic,” Momade said, adding that the SADC “was also taken by surprise”.

“What we thought would happen was that the SADC force would arrive from the 15th, but we were surprised when we realised that the Rwandan force arrived first, which worries the Mozambicans,” the Renamo president said.

On Sunday, Mozambican Defence Minister Jaime Neto said the deployment of troops to Cabo Delgado was articulated within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), after South Africa criticised the prior arrival of the Rwandan forces.

At the same summit in which the intervention of SADC forces in Cabo Delgado was approved, it was explicitly stated that Mozambique “was also free to contact any African sister country”, Neto remarked, adding that Rwanda had “a formal SADC contact for military intervention in Mozambique”.

South Africa’s defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Saturday that it was “regrettable” that the Rwandan troops had arrived before the SADC force deployed.

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told South African state broadcaster SABC that “regardless of the bilateral agreement, it would be expected that Rwanda’s intervention to help Mozambique would take place within the scope of the regional mandate decided by the SADC heads of state”.