Amnesty International Report 1995 - Mozambique

Some people were detained without charge for political reasons. There were reports of beatings and floggings by po-lice and soldiers. Two soldiers were convicted of human rights violations carried out in 1993. The opposition Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (RENAMO), Mozambique National Resistance, assaulted prisoners. A second year of peace following the October 1992 General Peace Agreement between the government and RENAMO brought further advances but also some set-backs in the observance of human rights. Mozambique held its first multi-party elections in October. The governing Frelimo Party and President Joaquim Chissano were returned to power but RENAMO gained 112 seats in the 250-seat parliament. Under the terms of the 1992 peace agreement, ONUMOZ, the UN Operation in Mozambique, was to oversee the demobilization of soldiers and the collection of weapons. A 30,000-strong army was to be formed of volunteers from the former government and RENAMO armies. However, progress was slow. Soldiers confined to assembly camps grew impatient and between January and October there were mutinies up and down the country to back demands for food, pay and demobilization. Mutinous soldiers took hostages and committed acts of violence resulting in some deaths. Almost 80,000 soldiers, about a quarter of whom were RENAMO soldiers, were demobilized. A unified army of just over 11,500 was formed by December; fewer soldiers than expected enrolled. The UN collected nearly 200,000 weapons, including tens of thousands it found in 67 sites which the government had not declared to the UN and 79 undeclared RENAMO sites. ONUMOZ was unable to investigate reports of other arms caches before its mandate expired in December. In January the UN decided to increase protection of human rights by raising the number of UN civilian police monitors (CIVPOLS) (see Amnesty International Report 1994) from 128 to over 1,100. Their task was to monitor the neutrality of the Mozambican police and also to monitor respect for civil and political rights and liberties in general, including during the election campaign. The monitoring activities of the CIVPOLS were severely restricted in areas formerly under RENAMO control as the Mozambican police were unable to re-establish police posts in these areas. CIVPOLS reported that they investigated 61 complaints of human rights violations. The commissions set up in December 1993 to monitor the police and security services (see Amnesty International Report 1994) also investigated allegations of human rights violations by police. The UN expressed regret that the impact of the CIVPOLS was reduced because, although human rights violations were reported to the commissions, this did not result in any corrective or preventive action. In the second year of peace thousands more refugees returned. A peace movement grew and community leaders appealed for reconciliation and for weapons to be handed in. There was greater freedom of movement but RENAMO continued to restrict access to many areas. Acts of violence including beatings and stone-throwing by supporters of both Frelimo and RENAMO against members of the opposing party increased as the election campaign gained momentum. Almost 90 per cent of registered voters went to the polls despite RENAMO's last-minute announcement that it would boycott the elections. RENAMO then decided to participate in the elections which were extended for a third day. ONUMOZ pronounced the elections free and fair. There were some reports of people being detained for political reasons. A journalist was illegally detained for five days in May after making a radio program which criticized transport police for forcing people to hand over possessions and for pushing passengers clinging to moving goods trains off the trains in Nampula. The journalist was released uncharged. Eight RENAMO members were arrested in Montepuez, Cabo Delgado province, in September and accused of attempting, apparently for political motives, to commit a murder. They had not been tried by the end of the year. The commission set up under the peace agreement to monitor the security ser-vices reported that Alexandre Niquisse Macassa, a RENAMO soldier captured by government troops in 1989, had been held in Inhambane until August 1994 instead of being released under the terms of the October 1992 amnesty for all political prisoners (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The government denied this and said that the prisoner had been released in 1992 and that a release document had been issued by the Inhambane District Prison in August 1994 to enable him to receive the subsidies given to demobilized soldiers. There were reports that at least 10 other captured RENAMO soldiers continued to be held after their prison records were changed to class them as ordinary criminal offenders. There were numerous reports of police subjecting detainees to beatings and other ill-treatment. In some police cells, conditions amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In one case, detainees were said to have been packed so tightly into a small, filthy police cell that they could not all lie down to sleep. Military and paramilitary personnel were also reported to have beaten and flogged prisoners. Military police in Nampula reportedly arrested a civilian in January, beat him severely and held him in a cell intended for detained soldiers until he paid a bribe to secure his release. Soldiers in Cabo Delgado province reportedly severely beat Santos Mulota Rosa because they suspected him of being a RENAMO member. In September members of the paramilitary Rapid Intervention Police claimed that some fellow police officers had been flogged on the orders of their commander. Some police and soldiers accused of assaulting prisoners were prosecuted. Two soldiers tried by the Nampula Provincial Military Court in April each received 18-month prison sentences for assaults committed in June and September 1993 respectively. The first, a military counter-intelligence officer, was convicted of illegally arresting and torturing a soldier. The second had ordered a subordinate to administer 15 blows with a piece of wood to an imprisoned soldier, Maurício Mendes Ramucha, who sustained wounds which required surgical treatment. Reports that a member of the Presidential Guard had "disappeared" or been killed when soldiers suppressed a disturbance at the Magoanine barracks in March 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994) were found to be incorrect. Agostinho Pedro Riquixa rejoined his family in Nampula in June 1994 after travelling from Maputo on foot and stopping frequently on the way. He said he had fled from the barracks when he saw his colleagues being shot and wounded by the troops sent to put down the disturbance. Agostinho Pedro Riquixa's father, who had made inquiries about his son's whereabouts, had reportedly received an official letter saying that his son had been demobilized before the shooting incident. The commission set up under the peace agreement to monitor the behaviour of the police said that they had sent a delegation to Mozambique Island in Nampula province to investigate the alleged killing by police of Ossufo Buanamassari in June 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994) but that as so much time had passed, it had been impossible to gather reliable evidence. The discovery of 150 skeletons in Gaza province in September was a reminder of the killings of civilians which both sides had carried out during the war. Villagers in the area believed that the victims had been abducted by RENAMO in Chokwe district in 1991. The provincial governor ordered a memorandum to be written but no further action was reported. Abuses carried out by RENAMO included the arrest and beating of two local government officials whom they suspected of trying to disrupt a conference which RENAMO and other opposition parties held in the coastal town of Xai-Xai in May. The two were taken to a football ground where RENAMO officials beat them and threatened to throw them into the Limpopo river. One sustained a broken rib. The two men were later rescued by police. Non-governmental organizations continued to try to unite families who had been separated by war. They tried to find people such as Sandra Galego, who had been captured by RENAMO in 1986 (see Amnesty International Report 1994), and whose whereabouts remained unknown at the end of 1994. An Amnesty International delegation visited Mozambique in January to make inquiries about the protection of human rights during the peace-keeping operation. In June it published a report, Mozambique: Monitoring human rights – the task of UN police observers. It also provided human rights education materials for CIVPOLS and Mozambican police including pocket-sized cards containing 10 basic rules of law enforcement. These materials were included in a human rights training course provided for CIVPOLS in Mozambique by the UN Centre for Human Rights.