Mozambique govt in talks with Renamo

76D505B6-1995-4927-82E0-0C86ADF100AA_cx0_cy10_cw0_mw1024_s_n_r1MAPUTO. — Mozambique’s government and members of the rebel Renamo movement held the first round of peace talks aimed at ending a conflict that has killed hundreds of people in the southern African nation.

International mediators attended the negotiations between the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique and the Renamo party that started on Thursday in the capital, Maputo, without a ceasefire in place.

“There were many similarities but also differences that forced the session to be interrupted for reflection,” said lawmaker Jose Manteigas, a spokesman for the opposition.

The government and Renamo agreed in June to include international mediators in talks to end the violence. Long considered to be a success story since a 16-year-old war ended in 1992 and the discovery of one of the world’s biggest gas fields, the country is now struggling with a debt crisis and rising political tensions.

Former President Joaquim Chissano said last month that Mozambique will avoid returning to full-blown civil war even as it still faces tensions that may result in occasional volatility.

“Both sides have learned from the 16-year war,” Chissano, a member of the Frelimo party, said on June 28 during a conference in Portugal, the African country’s former colonial ruler.

“The members of Renamo that are leading the party aren’t the same as those 16 years ago. There is a change of mentality.”

Talks between Renamo and government resumed yesterday, with mediators present. After a formal meeting, the mediators met separately with the Renamo and government teams in parliament. The three teams (six government, six Renamo, six mediators) will begin actual discussions at a meeting today in the Hotel Avenida.

Renamo and the government had asked three eminent people or institutions to name mediators.

Renamo identified the European Union, the Vatican, and South African president Jacob Zuma.

The government identified three former presidents and prime ministers: Ketumule Masire (Botswana), Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) and Tony Blair (UK). The Vatican named its ambassador in Maputo (the Papal Nuncio) Edgar Pena and the secretary of the Mozambique Episcopal Conference, Joao Carlos Hatoa Nunes.

The EU named Mario Raffaelli and Angelo Romano. The South African selected mediator has not been named, but said they were present when President Filipe Nyusi met with the Renamo selected mediators yesterday.

President Nyusi took a hard line, telling the mediators they had to respect the Mozambican constitution and laws.

Raffaelli is an Italian politician who was the chief mediator of the 1990-1992 Rome peace talks. He visited Maputo in March and offered to mediate again, and met with President Nyusi and talked on the telephone to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, but his offer to mediate was rejected by both sides.

For the government, President Masire was in Maputo (under the auspices of the Global Leadership Foundation, chaired by F W de Klerk), former Presidet Kikwete was expected to name a senior official from his office as mediator, and Jonathan Powell had arrived as the British mediator.

Powell was Blair’s chief of staff from 1995 to 2007 and was chief negotiator in the northern Ireland peace talks.

As the talks resume, the war continues. — Agencies.

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