Murder in Maputo

Gilles Cistac had just finished his breakfast at a popular café in central Maputo on March 3rd when unidentified assailants in a passing car shot him dead. An expert in constitutional law, Mr. Cistac had recently said there was a legal basis to demands from the main opposition party for the devolution of political power. His assassination has exposed a fierce power struggle within Frelimo, the ruling party, between the former president, who remains head of the party, and his successor. It also reveals a tussle between Frelimo and the opposition over the proceeds of new gas reserves in the opposition-supporting north. Frelimo has kept a tight grip on power in the capital ever since the country’s independence in 1975.

Yet it has struggled to mend relations with Renamo, a former guerrilla group against which it waged a long and bloody civil war that ended only in 1992. Conflict broke out again two years ago when Renamo’s firebrand leader, Afonso Dhlakama, returned to the forested Gorongosa hills and took up arms against the government, waging a low-level insurgency. He emerged from the bush to sign a peace accord a month before a general election in October last year, but then cried foul, alleging after the poll was won by Frelimo that it had been rigged.

After taking just 37% of the national vote, but winning majorities in the center and north, Renamo has pressed ford evolution of power to regional governments. That would give it more say in provinces where it won majorities. It would also give it a bigger share of gas revenues, which the party argues should be shared out more equitably to benefit all Mozambicans. Mr Cistac’s arguments that devolution is legal played a large part in Renamo’s bid.

A naturalized Mozambican of French origin, Mr. Cistac had worked in Mozambique for 22 years. A law professor at Mozambique’s University of Eduardo Mondlane, he was an adviser to several government ministries but also an outspoken critic of the ruling party. His foray into the debate over decentralization drew fire from Frelimo official sand pro-government media. A week before his death Mr. Cistac filed a complaint with the attorney-general after receiving threats on Facebook from a user under the alias of “Calado Calachnikov”— Portuguese for “silent Kalashnikov”. The devolution debate has sent the ruling party into a spin.

By talking about giving power to Renamo, President Filipe Nyusi has irked his predecessor, Armando Guebuza, who accuses the president of splitting the country. Mr Guebuza stepped down in January after two terms but has retained his sway over Frelimo as the party’s president. Hundreds of human-rights activists and students marched in Maputo on March 7th, demanding justice for the lawyer’s murder. But some say there is little political will to find the culprits.

The assassination of Mr. Cistac is the most prominent since that of Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist whose exposés of pervasive corruption in the upper echelons of Frelimo led to his death in 2000. Mr Cistac’s murder is unlikely to douse Renamo’s enthusiasm for more autonomy. But there seems little hope that it will be granted by Mr. Nyusi. “If Frelimo radicals have decided to kill him, thinking that it would demoralize Dhlakama and Renamo, they are mistaken,” Mr. Dhlakama said on television last week. With Renamo fighters still in the bush, the ruling party should heed his warning.

MARCH 14TH–20TH 2015

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16