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VICE PRESIDENT Joice Mujuru

Senior Reporter—-
VICE PRESIDENT Joice Mujuru has described the Mozambican National Resistance Movement’s return to the bush to start fighting Cde Armando Guebuza’s government as sad. She told ZBC News last night that Western countries that sponsor Renamo had not forgiven the Sadc region for challenging white supremacy.

“Our entrance is Mozambique and that is our route to the sea, our railway line, our fuel and everything. So we have to protect our pipeline and whatever goods are coming through Mozambique.

“This is not what we expect in the region at the moment considering that we are going to lose life. We have already lost our stature through this Western destabilisation.”

Cde Mujuru said a million people were killed over 16 years of the bloody civil war which destabilised not only Mozambique, but the entire sub-region.

She said Zimbabwe and its regional counterpart would go back to the round table on how the conflict can be stopped.
Zimbabwe-Mozambique Friendship Association chairperson Mr Devy Popatlal said what Renamo was doing was senseless.

Renamo staged a pre-dawn attack on a police station on Tuesday after declaring the end of a two-decade-old peace deal that ended one of Africa’s worst civil wars, officials and locals said.

Police fled their post in the central town of Maringue when Renamo fighters opened fire in an escalation of hostilities between the ex-rebels and Frelimo, the ruling party.

“The Portuguese government is following with concern the situation reported in Gorongosa,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, also calling for the country “to quickly return to a normal situation so it can follow a path of economic development and social progress”. Gunmen attacked the police station, fortunately there were no casualties because the policemen fled the post,” Maringue’s administrator Antonio Absalao said.

The town is located about 35 kilometres from Renamo’s military base, which government troops seized on Monday in an operation the ex-rebels claimed was aimed at killing their leader, Afonso Dhlakama.

“The situation is horrible here. Early this (Tuesday) morning, armed men supposed to be Renamo attacked, and it was a mess,” said Romao Martins, a Maringue teacher.

“For one hour shooting could be heard from all directions and people fled from their homes,” he said.
Schools have been shut amid fears of an escalation in violence.

The United States said it “profoundly deplores” the resumption of violence, urging both parties to take “decisive steps to calm tensions”.
“We will welcome public declarations of representatives calling for peaceful solutions,” the US embassy in Maputo added in a statement.
A spokesman for Renamo hinted that the group was responsible for yesterday’s attack.

“The president of Renamo has lost control of the situation and you cannot blame . . . (him) for what happens from here on,” Fernando Mazanga told AFP.