MOZAMBIQUE: DHLAKAMA/SABC/4/5/18 SABANews 1
GORONGOSA – Former rebel RENAMO leader AFONSO DHLAKAMA of MOZAMBIQUE has died.
SABC News quotes media reports as saying Mr DHLAKAMA passed away after an unconfirmed heart attack at the age of 65.
He has died after his group and the government of MOZAMBIQUE agreed to share power in the country, which had known limited peace since independence in 1975.
Mr DLAKAMA led a terror group with an undisclosed number of bandits trained by the RHODESIAN Central Intelligence Organisation in 1975, to block the movement of ZANLA guerrilla forces of ZIMBABWE across the MOZAMBICAN Border.
RENAMO is an acronym of the RESISTENCIA NACIONAL MOCAMBICANA, which is PORTUGUESE for the MOZAMBICAN NATIONAL RESISTANCE.
The RHODESIANS and apartheid SOUTH AFRICA sponsored the group to punish the FRELIMO Government of the late SAMORA MACHEL for hosting the ZIMBABWEAN fighters.
Mr DLAKAMA took over after the death in 1979 of the FIRST RENAMO Leader, ANDRE MATSANGAISSA, a dissident killed in combat after raiding a FRELIMO position.
In OCTOBER 1992, way after the independence of ZIMBABWE in 1980, RENAMO signed a ceasefire accord after killing almost ONE-MILLION MOZAMBICANS and a number of ZIMBABWEANS.
Mr DLAKAMA transformed the rebel group into a political party, but still retained huge catches of weapons and military bases in the mountains of GORONGOSA and other areas.
He won 33-POINT-SEVEN percent of the presidential vote in 1994; but grabbed a decisive majority of parliamentary seats in FIVE of the country’s 11 provinces, with the UNITED NATIONS declaring the polls fair and free.
RENAMO contested the processes and results of the 1999 Elections, in which FRELIMO won a much narrower majority of votes, and RENAMO supporters staged widespread protests throughout 2000 in the cities of BEIRA and the capital, MAPUTO.
Repeated discord between the TWO sides led to the resumption of the RENAMO terror war that claimed yet more lives and displaced tens of thousands of others up to around mid-2016.
President NYUSI managed to silence the guns and brought the veteran rebel leader to the discussion table, in a process saw some stability since CHRISTMAS 2016.
He said they had agreed with Mr DLAKAMA to revise the national Constitution soon, in order to bring a fresh provision for the governance of regions of the country.
President NYUSI said the system would start to apply from 2019, when a political party or a coalition would propose to the Head of State a Governor for each province in which they win general elections.
The authorities in MOZAMBIQUE have not announced any arrangements for the burial of the former rebel leader./Sabanews/cam