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Passengers and cargo board a boat from a fishing beach that has become one of the main arrival points for displaced people fleeing the armed violence that plagues the province of Cabo Delgado, in the Paquitequete district of Pemba, to northern Mozambique. (Photo: EPA-EFE / RIicardo Franco)
Southern Africa and the wider international community are growing impatient as they wait for Mozambique to spell out a coherent and credible plan that others can support to help it fight a terrorist insurgency linked to the Islamic State in its gas-rich northernmost province, Cabo. Thin.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC), the European Union, France, the US, Portugal and possibly others have offered support to Maputo to combat the Ansar al-Sunna Wa Jamo (ASWJ) insurgents who swear allegiance to the Islamic State and are also known as Islamic. State Province of Central Africa (ISCAP).
On Monday this week, Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, and Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana, along with Tanzanian Vice President Samia Suluhu, visited Maputo for an urgent meeting with Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi to discuss to set exactly what you want.
Official sources said the three leaders, who make up the troika of the SADC security body, made the trip to Maputo to consult Nyusi because he had not shown up at a troika summit in Gaborone late last month, to discuss the regional response to the insurrection. Regional governments were dismayed by Nyusi’s absence, as well as what they saw as an inadequate presentation by his defense minister, Jaime Neto, on Mozambique’s plan to deal with the insurgency.
An official said Daily maverick at the time Neto had presented not a plan or strategy, but simply a “shopping list” of weapons, equipment, and ammunition that Maputo wanted from SADC and others.
Regional governments and other potential partners in the fight are skeptical about the ability of Mozambique’s security forces to take the fight to the insurgents and their ability to effectively operate whatever equipment can be provided. Until now, the security forces have performed poorly in the fight against insurgents. South Africa-based private military company Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) has been assisting by attacking insurgents with very light helicopter gunships since March. But DAG has reportedly complained that what it lacks are good ground forces to follow up on its air strikes.
Because Monday’s meeting of the four leaders in Maputo was very close, it is unclear what they agreed to, as well as postponing any official decisions on how to respond to the insurgency until a full SADC summit is held in January.
South African officials and analysts believe that Maputo’s indecision is due to a number of factors, including fear of losing control to outside forces, denialism, inherent secrecy, internal political divisions within the ruling party, Frelimo, as well as tensions between security forces on how to act. handle the insurgency, in part due to the incompetence of the military in particular.
The DAG is reportedly engaged with the police and internal security forces, who have been at the forefront, while the South African arms company Paramount, which recently began providing equipment such as armored vehicles and light helicopters to combat the insurgents, is contracted with the army. according to reports from security analysts.
Cabo Ligado, the conflict observatory that monitors the insurgency, reported this week that contracting the two private military companies with different security agencies seemed counterproductive and provided further evidence of inter-agency friction.
And while Mozambique and its potential partners hesitate about what to do with the insurgency, the South African National Tax Authority is looking into a possible prosecution against the DAG for violating South Africa’s anti-Mint law by providing military assistance to a foreign power without official permission from Pretoria. . according to the bulletin Africa intelligence. However, a senior official from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) said Daily maverick: “Enforcing that law is not a priority now when we are trying to contain a regional terrorist threat.”
It seems more likely that Pretoria is turning a blind eye to the activities of the DAG, in the absence of any other support to Mozambique in the fight against the insurgency. However, Jasmine Opperman, an insurgency analyst at ACLED, The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which produces the Cabo Ligado newsletter, suggested that Pretoria’s reported moves to act against the DAG could be a clue that the South African government was preparing to intervene militarily itself.
Delivering the state of the nation address in Mozambique’s parliament on Wednesday, Nyusi appeared to rule out any intervention by foreign troops and defended his secrecy about his plans. He said Mozambique was stepping up international cooperation to combat terrorism, but stressed that national sovereignty was paramount.
“This is critical,” Nyusi declared. “Mozambicans need to develop our own skills. We will be in the first line of the country’s defense. No one will do it for us. ”
“We are not going to speak publicly about the strategies that the country should adopt,” he said, but confirmed that many countries around the world, including Mozambique’s partners in SADC, had promised assistance.
“We need to know how to manage this support, otherwise we run the risk of creating a salad of interventions in Mozambique,” he warned.
Last week, Mozambique government spokesman Filimao Suaze, who is also a deputy justice minister, was categorical, when speaking to local reporters, that Mozambique did not want foreign troops in the country.
SADC and some of its members, including South Africa and Zimbabwe, have indicated that they are ready to provide support as soon as Mozambique clarifies exactly what it wants. This week, Mnangagwa spokesman George Charamba told Zimbabwean television that security in the region must remain the exclusive concern of SADC, which had its reserve brigade “to deal with any threat that might affect us.” .
Charamba’s comments prompted reports that the SADC was ready to deploy the SADC force in Mozambique. However, Charamba had added that SADC support may not necessarily be military. The type of support would depend on Mozambique’s ability to contain the threat. And so on Monday’s meeting with Nyusi; Mnangagwa and the other regional leaders present had tried to establish what kind of support Mozambique needed, he said.
… The EU Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell Fontelles, complained in the European Parliament that: “We are waiting for the green light from Mozambique to send a mission of security experts who have been appointed since November and who are ready to go. We are just waiting for authorization. “
Meanwhile, in Pretoria, South Africa’s Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor, said at a press conference on Monday: “We must fight with our security forces against any attempt to introduce terrorism into the region and our country.” .
South Africa “… would support a sovereign state as requested because we cannot impose ourselves.”
South African officials said France had offered to patrol the sea off Cabo Delgado with navy ships from its Indian Ocean fleet based on Reunion Island. France has large economic interests at stake because French energy company Total owns the rights to the largest gas reserves in Cabo Delgado.
Earlier this month, the US counter-terrorism coordinator Nathan Sales visited Maputo to speak with the government and later told reporters that Washington was also ready to help Mozambique fight the Islamic State insurgency, largely Part by improving its border security and law enforcement capabilities. Maputo sources said the government would likely accept this offer.
Portugal, the former colonial power of Mozambique, has also offered its support. Defense Minister Gomes Cravinho was in Maputo this month to meet with his counterpart, Neto. They discussed increased training for Mozambican forces, according to Mozambican officials, who said the government also wanted logistical and equipment support from other countries, as well as broader development support to address the root causes of the violence.
The European Union has also offered support, similar to that offered by the United States, officials said.
But this week The EU Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell Fontelles, complained in the European Parliament that: “We are waiting for the green light from Mozambique to send a mission of security experts who have been appointed since November and who are ready to go. We are just waiting for authorization. “
He added that the EU had a problem since its representatives could not travel to Cabo Delgado to assess the situation. Borrell announced that Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva had gone to Mozambique as his special representative to try to solve this problem.
Borrell also harshly criticized the Mozambican government when he said that the insurgency was not simply an extension of the global Islamic terrorist movement, but was also caused by poverty, inequality, corruption and because “the population of the area lost respect for a state that could not provide what I needed ”.
Opperman also criticized Mozambique for “lacking a coherent and integrated strategy” to deal with the insurgency.
“I do not believe that Frelimo has the political will to tackle this problem with the urgency it deserves due to its obsessive fear that foreign participation could go against its own interests,” he said.
And regional governments were not putting enough pressure on Mozambique to deal with what was potentially a regional threat, due to solidarity between the former liberation movements that rule Mozambique and most of the other countries in the region.
While presidents and diplomats converse and consult, insurgents on the ground in Cabo Delgado have occupied the port city of Mocimboa da Praia for more than four months and continue to use it for incursions into other parts of the province.
Cabo Ligado reported that Insurgents attacked near liquefied natural gas projects in the Palma district on December 7, burned houses in the town of Mute, 25 km south of Palma city, and then headed north to burn houses in the town of Nqueo. DAG helicopters had retaliated with airstrikes against insurgents, who had used mortars and rocket-propelled grenades during the fighting.
Cabo Ligado has calculated that since the insurgency began in October 2017, 2,441 people have died, 1,237 of them civilians deliberately attacked. DM
