Mozambican State Councilor Raul Domingos warned today of the risk of intensifying violence in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, with a foreign military intervention, defending the removal of the “socio-economic root” of the conflict.
Raul Domingos was appointed in April as a state advisor by the Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi, and was for many years considered the number two of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, after which he was expelled from the organization following the general elections. 1999.
In an interview with Lusa, the politician noted that there are “Serious socioeconomic problems” in the province of Cabo Delgado that make young people in the region vulnerable to enticement by extremist groups that have been involved in armed violence for more than three years.
“The fact that we have young people who are easily recruited to join the group of insurgents is an indicator that there are serious socio-economic problems,” noted Raul Domingos.
After these problems are solved, he continued, it will be “half done” for the final resolution of armed violence in Cabo Delgado.
The State Councilor maintained that a solution based on a Foreign military intervention will have the potential to intensify conflict, pointing to the failure of foreign military aid in the 16-year civil war as an example of the infeasibility of external military support.
“Military forces from Zimbabwe or South Africa to an unknown terrain can have the same end as the Russians who were in Cabo Delgado and the same end that the Tanzanians who were in the 16-year war had,” he emphasized.
Mozambique, he continued, has to learn from past experience in order to deal with the type of situations such as what is happening in the north of the country.
Raul Domingos’ reference to the Russians has to do with allegations that military personnel from a Russian security company have been involved in actions to combat armed groups operating in Cabo Delgado since 2017, having withdrawn from the theater of operations without being able to stop the progression of rebel forces.
To draw attention to the risk of foreign troops in the war in Cabo Delgado, the State Councilor also recalled the failure of the military in Tanzania and Zimbabwe who helped the governmental forces of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) in the war against the former guerrilla of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), which only ended 16 years later, through the General Peace Agreement, signed in 1992.
Raul Domingos defended that Mozambique should analyze the possibility that entities linked to the groups that control the production of natural gas and oil in the world are behind the war in Cabo Delgado to prevent the African country from influencing the energy market, with the start of production of natural gas in the Rovuma basin.
