The Mozambican police have said that ‘enough is enough’ of the demonstrations and stoppages, after presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for new protests this week, saying that they are ‘urban terrorism’ with the intention of ‘altering the constitutional order’.
“It is urgent to say enough to the violent demonstrations that tend to sabotage major projects that the country achieved during independence and that are the hope of the next generation,” declared the commander of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), Bernardino Rafael, at a press conference in Maputo.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called on Monday for a new three-day period of national demonstrations in all provincial capitals in Mozambique, starting on Wednesday, contesting the electoral process in which, according to the official results, he was defeated.
“We will demonstrate at the borders, at the ports and in all 11 provincial capitals (…) We will paralyze all activities so that people will understand that they are tired,” Venâncio Mondlane said in a live broadcast on his official Facebook account, concerning the “fourth stage” of protests against the general elections of October 9, which, he said, will have “several phases” – to be announced later – and which, he said, are also in protest against “kidnappings and hostage-taking” and “against the murder of the people”.
In statements to journalists, the PRM commander insisted on “no more violent demonstrations”, referring to the fact that the previous seven-day protests culminated in 46 demonstrations that “seriously affected the economy”, including vandalism of commercial and state-owned establishments and police stations.
“In no country in the world is a citizen allowed to say that he wants to strike, no country in the world, even in the oldest democracy in Greece, does this happen. How can a citizen threaten? How can this be allowed? Either it is ignorance or excessive emotion or he does not understand social coexistence,” Bernardino Rafael said in accusations against Venâncio Mondlane, adding that the marches are “subversive”.
“With the clear intention of altering the democratically established Mozambican constitutional order. This tendency to alter public order and security with a clear tendency to affect the Constitution constitutes a flagrant violation of the mother law that guides democratic social coexistence in our country,” Commander Rafael said.
In the same communication, Bernardino Rafael asked Mozambicans to go to their workplaces as usual this Wednesday, pledging that the Mozambican police would guarantee calm and public security.
“These demonstrations are no longer just violent; they have become subversive, with clear tendencies towards urban terrorism, affecting key sectors of the economy when they declare attacks on railway lines, borders, large supermarkets, and interrupting the [transit] corridors of our country,” he pointed out, dubbing the protests “urban terrorism”.
“Because, there is a clear violation of the Constitution of the Republic, a total affront to what guides social coexistence and a serious alteration of the order. It is urgent to say enough to the demonstrations,” the PRM commander concluded, calling for “peace and harmony” in the country.
After street protests that paralyzed the country on October 21, 24 and 25, Mondlane called for a seven-day general strike starting October 31, with nationwide protests and a demonstration culminating in Maputo on Thursday, November 7. This resulted in chaos in the capital, with barricades erected, tires burned, and tear gas fired by the police throughout the day to disperse the protests.