Attacks: Analysts advocate independent investigation into allegations of abuse

"We hope that the State will respond as soon as possible because there are conditions to appoint an independent, credible, serious and multi-stakeholder commission to verify what has happened and what is happening in Cabo Delgado", defended the director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), Mozambican civil society organization, Adriano Nuvunga.

 The European Commission found on Thursday “extremely shocking” the recent report by Amnesty International (AI) on human rights violations in northern Mozambique that the organization attributes to the Defense and Security Forces (SDS), calling for a “transparent investigation” and effective ”. The Government leaves the door open for inquiries, but has said that the videos on which the allegations are based are "propaganda" of the insurgents facing Mozambique. "The pressure is increasing, we hope and call on the State to respond positively and create conditions as soon as possible," said Nuvunga

. Speaking to the Moza Eye, the journalist and analyst Fernando Lima said that the Mozambican state "can only gain" from the investigation, as this will allow "the suspicions and pressure" of national and international organizations to be removed. “If the State wants to distance itself seriously and in practice, it must allow an investigation”, underlined Lima. Borges Nhamire, a researcher at the Center for Public Integrity (CIP), considers that the investigations carried out by the Government “do nothing”, recalling other cases that occurred in the country, and that, according to Nhamire, “had no results”

. “This country is full of investigations that have no results. To get concrete information out there has to be an independent investigation ”, he reiterated. For analysts, there is increasing evidence and reports of human rights violations resulting from the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado, calling for conditions to be created to clarify them “once and for all”. "The only way to clarify this is to pave the way for an independent investigation into this type of situation, to dispel all possible doubts", defended the president of the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) of Mozambique, Luís Bitone. 

 Cabo Delgado is the northernmost coastal province of Mozambique, home of mega-projects for natural gas exploration and facing a humanitarian crisis with more than 1,000 dead and 250,000 internally displaced - the result of three years of armed conflict between Mozambican and rebel forces, whose attacks have already been claimed by the Islamic State 'jihadist' group, but whose origin remains unclear. AI and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are among the organizations that have called for an investigation into the acts captured on video that show alleged members of Mozambican forces torturing and even executing others on the war stage in Cabo Delgado. 

 The Mozambican government has already repudiated the images and declared itself open to investigating the circumstances, classifying the videos as propaganda for the "terrorist" forces that reach the northern province and use the FDS uniforms to record them. On Tuesday, the Mozambican Interior Minister, Amade Miquidade, said that the government suspects that there is a nucleus that produces disinformation to denigrate the SDS and said that an investigation is underway to find out "where is the nucleus for preparing these videos" .