MOZAMBIQUE’S REBEL LEADER
Government violating ceasefire, says Afonso Dhlakama
Mozambique’s rebel leader says the army ‘ambushes, kidnaps and detains’ Renamo fighters and supporters
Maputo — Mozambique’s rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama has accused government forces of violating a ceasefire his armed group Renamo declared following a surge in deadly violence in 2016. Dhlakama, who only gives rare interviews by phone from the central Gorongosa mountains, where he has been holed up since October 2015, claimed the government was not taking its ceasefire overtures seriously. The army "ambushes, kidnaps and detains" rebels and Renamo supporters, he said in an interview on Friday. "There have been deaths," he claimed, but gave no details. On January 3, Dhlakama announced a two-month ceasefire, extending a week-long truce he had declared in late December — a move welcomed by Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi. Worsening clashes between the ruling Frelimo party government and rebel group Renamo in 2016 had revived the spectre of Mozambique’s civil war that ended more than 20 years ago. Dhlakama’s Renamo is an armed insurgent group that led a 16-year rebellion and an oppos...
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