MAPUTO – The Mozambican police association (AMOPAIP) has accused former presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane of “incitement to hatred” because he has urged members of the public to retaliate against any police officer who commits abuses.
His list of measures which he demands should be implemented within the first 100 days of the new government includes an explicit revival of the Old Testament adage of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.
“For each member of the public murdered by a member of the riot police (UIR), automatically he will be repaid in the same coin. This member of the UIR will be erased from existence, he will go to hell. That’s what we have to do”, said Mondlane, in his latest live broadcast, transmitted on his Facebook page. “Call me an agitator, call me what you like. The people are being killed, they are being kidnapped. This is what has to be done. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.
Interviewed in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”, the chairperson of AMOPAIP, Nazario Muanambane, said he was extremely concerned that the runner-up in the presidential election “is inciting hatred against the police”.
“The candidate Venancio Mondlane, who enjoys great support from a large part of the Mozambican population, has lost control and is now posing the population against the police”, said Muanambane. He feared that Mondlane’s words could lead to indiscriminate attacks against members of the police.
“We could have situations in which policemen who have nothing to do with the excesses of their colleagues are attacked by people following calls from politicians”, warned Muanambane.
Muanambane, who worked as a police officer for 40 years before his retirement, accused Mondlane of indifference to the deaths of policemen, and to the destruction of police stations during the December riots.
“If Venancio Mondlane were to become President, he will need those policemen and those police stations”, he added. “Our policemen have their defects, as do our doctors, nurses and teachers. But you don’t kill doctors because some of them make mistakes which result in deaths”.
Instead of calling for the murder of policemen, said Muanambane, politicians such as Mondlane should urge the police to act within the law, and remind them that they are criminally responsible for any abuses they may commit.
The measures that Mondlane is proposing are a mixture of the reasonable, the impossible, and changes that have already been implemented by previous governments.
Mondlane calls for the elimination of all primary and secondary school fees in public education – apparently unaware that these fees were abolished many years ago. Currently, up to pre-university level, no fees are charged for basic education in state-owned schools.
Mondlane also demand that Value Added Tax (VAT) be removed from basic foods, mentioning in particular rice and maize flour. But the Mozambican tax authorities have never imposed VAT on basic foods (including not only rice and maize, but also, among others, bread, wheat, powdered milk, salt, and tomatoes).
The dangerous proposals from Mondlane include abolishing the annual vehicle inspection – the excuse for this is the poor state of Mozambican roads. So Mondlane would allow dangerous vehicles onto the roads merely because the roads have potholes.
Toll gates are an obvious source of money for repairing the roads. But for months Mondlane has encouraged motorists not to pay the tolls, and rioters who pledge allegiance to Mondlane have destroyed several of the gates.
For the hundred days covered by Mondlane’s decree, no tolls should be paid. He did not suggest any alternative forms of payment for road maintenance.
He also called for free drinking water for all Mozambicans. He did not suggest how the water companies will survive, if they are forbidden to charge for their services.
READ: Mozambique: Mondlane calls for stoppage on Fridays to sing national anthem – Watch
Mondlane also demanded that the price of cooking gas and electricity be reduced by 50 per cent.
He also ordered that everybody must sing the national anthem every Friday at 13.00. Everything else in the country must stop while citizens sing the anthem. A new, obligatory greeting will be introduced in the form of the word “anamalala”.
This is a word in the Macua language (spoken mainly in the north), meaning “it’s finished”. Mondlane seems unconcerned that people who are not Macua speakers may object to being told how they should greet each other.
Source: AIM
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