[civsoc-mw] FW: Mozambique 494 - Covid-19 worries; Cabo Delgado war, response, analysis - 9 July 2020

[cammack at mweb.co.za]

Events in neighbouring Moz. D

 

From: J.Hanlon <j.hanlon at open.ac.uk> 
Sent: 09 July 2020 16:29
To: Dev-Mozambique-List <dev-mozambique-list at open.ac.uk>
Subject: Mozambique 494 - Covid-19 worries; Cabo Delgado war, response, analysis - 9 July 2020

 

MOZAMBIQUE 494
News reports & clippings

9 July 2020
=========

Editor: Joseph Hanlon (  <mailto:j.hanlon at open.ac.uk> j.hanlon at open.ac.uk)

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Articles may be freely reprinted but please cite the source.
===========================
Attached: this newsletter in pdf
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Also in this issue:
   Cabo Delgado: Fight for control of the coast
======================

Covid-19: looking nervously over the border

The daily number of new cases of Covid-19 in Mozambique and neighbouring Zambia and Zimbabwe has remained constant for the past months, at 15-25 cases per day. But in Malawi the daily number of cases has tripled in a month and it has jumped four-fold in South Africa. Neighbouring Tanzania stopped reporting Covid-19 cases two months ago and is closing treatment centres, but the number of cases is believed to be increasing rapidly.

South Africa is particularly worrying. In Cape Town the virus has spread into the townships. In Khayelitsha Covid-19 "is spreading like wildfire"; the local hospital is overwhelmed and people are being sent home to die. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53256879

Malawi's newly-elected President Lazarus Chakwera was inaugurated Monday at a ceremony attended by only 100 guests in the capital, Lilongwe. On Sunday he ordered that the ceremony be moved from the national stadium to the country's military headquarters as infection rates have jumped. Vice-President Saulos Chilima and his wife Mary said Sunday they had tested negative for coronavirus days after his personal secretary died from the virus. He said the surge in cases was "alarming and frightening".

On Wednesday 8 July there were 31 new cases, bringing to total to 1071, and there have been 8 deaths. The largest number of active cases are in four provinces: Nampula: 247, Cabo Delgado: 177, Cidade de Maputo: 100, and Provincia de Maputo: 76. There are 2,311 people in quarantine. Six Covid-19 patients remain hospitalized in isolation wards.

Nearly all international flights to and from Mozambique in July have been cancelled; Portuguese airline TAP has had two flights to Maputo to evacuate Portuguese citizens, but they flew empty to Maputo as TAP refused to fly Mozambicans trying to return home. (Carta de Mocambique 8 July)

School classes will resume on 27 July, for grade 12 only in those schools that meet conditions for preventing the spread of Covid-19. Initially only 170 state secondary schools out of 667 and 19 vocational training institutes, out of a total of 27, will reopen. Schools that do not meet the conditions will have their running water and toilet facilities upgraded, in a project budgeted at around $50 mn and expected to last three months.

BBC 7 July report on Covid-19 in Africa https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53181555

5% infected in Nampula city;
are numbers under-estimated?

The Ministry of Health did a sample survey in Nampula city, which showed Covid-19 in all neighbourhoods and 5% of people infected, with 66% having no symptoms. Two neighbourhoods showed 11% infected, while the others were 1-6%. The survey of 6272 covered both neighbourhoods and key occupational groups. Market traders were worst affected, with 10% positive for Covid-19, and 21% in the central market. Of health workers tested, 7% have had Covid-19.  https://t.co/gyQRIiCCJT?amp=1

Sam Joes from UNU-Wider makes the point that Nampula city has a population of about 820,000 and if 5% are infected, that would be 41,000 cases in Nampula alone, yet the whole province of Nampula is reported to have only 314 cases. That would mean that only 1 in each 130 cases is being found and reported. Considering that 34% have symptoms, this suggests that less than 3% of cases with symptoms are being identified in Nampula city. https://twitter.com/esamjones

Cabo Delgado: 
Fight for control of the coast

Fighting is driving people out of the coastal zone from Mocimboa da Praia 70 km south to Quiterajo, as insurgents try to control an area important for boats smuggling and supplying the gas field at Palma.

Mocimboa da Praia was occupied for the third time on 27 June. Insurgents finally left the town on 1 July and defence forces returned the next day. But insurgents remained in the outskirts of the town and controlled access roads until at least 7 July, and there were reports of gunfire. (MediaFax 3 & 6 July, VOA 8 July) Mayor Carlos Monba told STV (7 July) that all government infrastructure had been totally destroyed. Insurgents "vandalised everything. No government service is working. Everything is stopped." he said. Most people have fled the town, and 20,000 people are in refugee camps and in Mueda and Pemba. (O Pais 8 July) 

Up to 100 people were killed in the fighting and a number kidnapped. Insurgents destroyed the Catholic church, secondary school, and local hospital, and did major damage to businesses and houses. The was also damage due to shelling. Pinnacle News photos of extensive damage and burned buildings in Mocimboa da Praia
https://www.facebook.com/pinnaclenews79/photos/pcb.3051714414914318/3051709944914765/?type=3 <https://www.facebook.com/pinnaclenews79/photos/pcb.3051714414914318/3051709944914765/?type=3&theater> &theater

Defence Forces in Mocimboa accused

Defence forces are accused to extortion, invading houses, and beating local people, according to residents of Mocimboa da Praia, reported in Carta de Mocambique today (9 July). People are careful to not meet soldiers on the street because they must pay MT 200 ($3) to be allowed to continue on their way. A soldiers in uniform was seen leaving the town with a television set taken from a house. This is justified by defence forces because they say local people have cooperated with and welcomed the insurgents, and even allowed them to stay in their homes. But defence force actions appear to be exacerbating hostility to government and support for the insurgents. https://bit.ly/Carta9Jul (in Portuguese)

There is also an unconfirmed claim that defence forces assassinated four people in Unidade neighbourhood, and to have kidnapped people.

The corpses of 26 people were found by residents of the Milamba neighbourhood of Mocimboa on 26 June. Two sources identified them as being civilians who police had arrested in the preceding nights. The bodies were discovered near the Quinhevo River, a few kilometres outside of Mocimboa. (Cabo Ligado 30 June)

MediaFax (6 July) reports that with no government presence, there is anarchy in Mocimboa. After the insurgents left, some military and police also vandalised infrastructure and looted what was left in shops, market stalls and houses. Zitamar (8 July) reported that owners of local businesses appealed to national business association CTA to intervene to try to stop the military ransacking commercial premises in the town.

Nearly all villages in Quiterajo are now abandoned according to Carta de Mocambique (7 July). Communications are now so poor that an attack on Ilala village which killed 18 people about two weeks ago has only now been reported. Carta reports that insurgents went from door to door, asking who had just arrived in the village from Macomia after the 28 May raid there. Anyone who admitted that they were from Macomia town was shot dead. Nearby Simbolongo village (Mucojo district) was attacked on 4 July and three people killed.

District government has left Quissanga and is working from Metuge, near Pemba, according to the district administrator, Bartolomeu Muibo. The 25 March attack on the town destroyed government facilities and all the district records, he said. (STV, Lusa 8 July) Quissanga was taken over by the military after the civilian administration fled.

1301 dead in Cabo Delgado civil war according to ACLED in its latest weekly report.

250,000 people are displaced by the war according to UN OCHA. https://t.co/7oVvc5mAnp?amp=1

Egidio Vaz is overseeing President Filipe Nyusi's communications strategy, according to Africa Intelligence (9 July). As Filipe Nyusi's unofficial advisor, Vaz is playing a key role in defending Frelimo's response to the insurrection in Cabo Delgado. He has been active on social media attacking critics of Nyusi, and a February post called on government to take action, "including extrajudicial" measures, against journalists who are covering the rebel attacks in the north of the country. Vaz has worked for UK and Swiss aid agencies and runs a PR firm. The newsletter says, cautiously, "he may have been involved in launching a new anonymous website called Noticias de Defesa … that toes the government line." Vaz denies it. https://bit.ly/AfInVaz

Journalist Ibraimo Mbaruco is still missing, 92 days after he was taken, apparently by the military. He is an announcer at the community radio and television station in Palma,

New research: insurgency remains local,
and present counter-insurgency is not working

The civil war has provoked significant research, including three articles published this week.

The jihadi insurgency in Mozambique: origins, nature and beginning in the Journal of Eastern African Studies is an important study by Eric Morier-Genoud, an expert on religion in Mozambique. He argues that the sect, which refers to itself as Al Shabaab, emerged around 2007 in Balama, and initially distanced itself from state institutions aiming to establish a counter-society ruled according to Islamic law (sharia). It was expelled by other Muslims from Balama and Chiure in the south of Cabo Delgado but gained a presence six other districts. Morier-Genoud argues "that the sect probably shifted to armed jihadism as a consequence of the repression it experienced from the mainstream Muslim organizations and, later on, the state - the latter’s involvement possibly tipping the sect into abandoning its approach of withdrawing from society." Finally, he argues "there certainly have been external influences and manipulations, and Al- Shabaab has indeed linked up with ISIS, but it is doubtful that these factors radically and definitively altered the nature of the insurgents." There is no evidence "which would indicate a take-over of Al-Shabaab by ISIS. Indeed, "there are already divergences between Al-Shabaab and ISIS." This is the best and most detailed study of the origins of the insurgency.
The article is on https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1789271, which is available only to university researchers; others must pay UK pounds 34. Eric Morier-Genoud says he hopes to have a free version on his website next week: https://bit.ly/EricM-G

Do impasse militar ao drama humanitario: Aprender com a historia e repensar a intervencao em Cabo Delgado (From military stalemate to humanitarian drama: Learning from history and rethinking intervention in Cabo Delgado) by Joao Feijo of the Rural Areas Observatory (OMR) notes that an insurgency that started with a few machetes and guns has escalated, using captured weapons and vehicles, to be a serious threat. And he notes the standard guerrilla tactics of attack, occupation, and withdrawal. "In clear continuity with the guerrilla strategies used by Renamo, dozens or hundreds of women and young people are abducted." And attacks are on the symbols of the state or those linked to it. In the 27 June attack on Mocimboa da Praia, the 30 de Junho neighbourhood (where the Maconde population and civil servants are over-represented) was particularly targeted by insurgents. Attacks on residences of better off individuals and people politically aligned with Frelimo are often mentioned. Feijo points to history: in the 1960s "despite information about the discontent of peasant populations of the Maconde plateau, in its official speeches, the colonial government opted for the de-mozambicanization of the conflict, calling the Frelimo guerrillas Tanzanians manipulated by Russians and Chinese. … Once again, government ignores historical phenomena of marginalisation of local people by the state." Finally he points to growing excesses by the security forces, which "reinforce people's distrust of the security forces and central power, increasing resentment and broadening the base of recruitment of disgruntled young people."
In Portuguese only on https://omrmz.org/omrweb/publicacoes/dr-93/

"Militarization of Cabo Delgado is likely to prolong the insurgency", warn MediaFax and Zitamar (7 July). In June Tomas Bedae, Commander of the Lakes and Rivers Police Regiment of Cabo Delgado, was appointed district administrator of Macomia, and Ana Combo, director of the police training college in Nhamatanda, Sofala, was named administrator of Mueda. Indiscriminate action by the defence forces against unarmed populations, may set the stage for more conflicts for many more years, said Jerry Manghezi, a researcher at the Rural Areas Observatory (OMR) think tank. He warned that many people already felt excluded from accessing state resources, and when the defence forces started attacking them, they stopped collaborating and started protecting the supposed insurgents. “Military intervention must not be lacking, but the state should focus more on actions that promote local development, providing more basic public services,” he said. The article in English is on
https://zitamar.com/militarization-of-cabo-delgado-likely-to-prolong-the-insurgency/ 

Islamic state warns South Africa against intervention

Noting that Mozambique is looking for foreign military support, Islamic State's al-Naba' newsletter (3 July) warned South Africa that if it intervened, this "may result in pushing the soldiers of the Islamic State to open a fighting front inside its borders." And it adds "If the Crusaders reckon that their support for the disbelieving government in Mozambique will protect their investments and guarantee the continuation of their plunder of the resources of the region, they are deluded," and the "soldiers of the Caliphate" will push them out of the gas fields.

The statement and an English translation are on http://www.aymennjawad.org/2020/07/islamic-state-editorial-on-mozambique

South Africa has soldiers in Mozambique Kobus Marais MP told the South African parliamentary defence committee Wednesday (9 July). They are apparently from the maritime reaction squadron. South African Defence Forces refused to comment. (News24 9 July)

How the Frelimo elite profited from Sasol Inhambane gas

The Frelimo elite and party, rather than the state, gained the profits from the gas in Inhambane by "creatively" managing the contract and domestic gas sales, according to a detailed study to be published in the journal The Extractive Industries and Society.

Sasol developed the relatively small Pande and Temane gas fields from 2001 and built an 865 km pipeline to South Africa. The project was majority owned by Sasol and part by CMH, a subsidiary of the state oil and gas company ENH, and a small part by IFC, the World Bank investment arm. In 2009 part of CMH passed to private shareholders "all directly or indirectly related to the Frelimo nomenklatura", with no public record of how this was done or if they paid for their shares.

The researchers found that in preference to simply taking royalties from the exported gas, Mozambique opted for a production sharing agreement, with ENH taking a portion of the physical gas (known as domestic gas, a model also used in Cabo Delgado). At first, ENH could not use the domestic gas and simply sold it to Sasol, with no record of what happened to the money. In 2009 a group of companies were set up to use the gas, owned by a careful balance of groups connected to the faction of Joaquim Chissano, a group connected to Armando Guebuza, and to the Frelimo party holding company SPI. Up to 75% of the gas was used to generate electricity; ENH sold the gas cheaply to the four companies and the electricity generators have a long term contract with the state electricity company EDM paying them much more than EDM pays for Cahora Bassa hydro-electricity. All of this was done in secret without public tenders.

The authors argue that Mozambique is similar to many other poor developing countries: "Unlike well-developed capitalist economies, which would be able to generate sufficient surpluses and revenues to sustain the regime, developing countries rely to a great extent on informal, extra-legal resources and rents that are typically orchestrated using the state and its control over the government to create spaces for rent-seeking."

"The politics of domestic gas: The Sasol natural gas deals in Mozambique" is by Padil Salimo (based on PhD research), Lars Buura, and Jose Jaime Macuane. The paper is on https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214790X20301593 which requires a university access to the journal. (Knowledge about Mozambique is not free. But copies can be arranged for Mozambican scholars.)

Sasol is quitting its exploration in Inhambane and is handing back to the government blocks 16 and 19, the company said on 6 July. This follows its 27 June announcement that it will sell its 50% share of the Inhambane-South Africa pipeline and the Ressano Garcia gas fired power station, as it tries to recuperate from a disastrous US investment hit by plummeting gas prices. It won the exploration license in 2005 but failed to find gas or oil. The coastal blocks include the Bazaruto Archipeligo National Park and important tourist areas of Vilankulo, and border the Temane and Pande production areas which are inland, to the west of blocks 16 and 19.

Coal mine resettlement struggle continues after 8 years

Indian company Jindal started coal mining in Tete in 2012 but only finally agreed last year to resettle 289 families of the Cassoca community. Some have now been moved to new houses, but they blocked the entrances to Jindal’s mine on Monday (6 July) saying the land offered to them is not suitable for farming. (Zitamar 8 July)

Anoop Kumar, Jindal Africa’s head of human resources, confirmed that mine activities were paralysed. He said the government, not the company, should be blamed for not allocating land to the population. "We accepted that we have to resettle the families … but it’s the government who should be giving them fields,” Kumar said.

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ARTICLES MAY BE FREELY REPRINTED but please cite the source: "Mozambique News Reports and Clippings".   Previous newsletters are posted on bit.ly/mozamb <http://bit.ly/mozamb> 

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Important external links
Cabo Delgado civil war weekly report - Zitamar, MediaFax, ACLED - http://bit.ly/CaboLigado
Covid-19 daily updated data and graphs https://covidmoz.netlify.app/
Previous editions of this newsletter: bit.ly/MozNews2020
Downloadable books: http://bit.ly/Hanlon-books Election data: http://bit.ly/MozElData
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Background reading

Special reports
Mozambique heroin transit trade
   English - LSE - http://bit.ly/Moz-heroin
   Portuguese - Pt - CIP - http://bit.ly/HeroinaPT
Gas for development?
   Gas_for_development_or just_for_money?_2015 bit.ly/MozGasEng
   Gás_para_desenvolvimento_ou_apenas_dinheiro?_2015 bit.ly/MozGasPt
Social protection report - 2017 Mozambique - http://bit.ly/MozSocPro
Special report on four poverty surveys: bit.ly/MozPoverty
2018 Constitution - http://bit.ly/2KF588T
Minimum wage and exchange rates 1996-2018 -- http://bit.ly/MinWage18
$2bn secret debt - in English
   Kroll - Full report on $2bn debt - http://bit.ly/Kroll-Moz-full
   Kroll report summary - http://bit.ly/Kroll-sum
   Key points of Mozambique parliament report - Nov 2016 - http://bit.ly/MozAR-debt-En
   Following the donor-designed path to Mozambique's $2.2 bn debt - http://bit.ly/3WQ-hanlon
In Portuguese:
   Parliamentary Report on the Secret Debt (complete) bit.ly/MozAR-debt

Election study collaboration: We have detailed election data from 1999 through 2014 and are inviting scholars to use this data collaboratively. http://bit.ly/MozElData
Election newsletters are on http://bit.ly/2H066Kg

Eight books by Joseph Hanlon can be downloaded, free: http://bit.ly/Hanlon-books
Bangladesh confronts climate change (2016)
Chickens and beer:  A recipe for agricultural growth in Mozambique (2014)
Há Mais Bicicletas – mas há desenvolvimento? (2008)
Moçambique e as grandes cheias de 2000 (2001)
Paz Sem Beneficio: Como o FMI Bloqueia a Reconstrução (1997)
Peace Without Profit: How the IMF Blocks Rebuilding (1996)
Mozambique: Who Calls the Shots (1991)
Mozambique: The Revolution Under Fire (1984)

Two more will be available shortly to download:
Apartheid’s 2nd Front (1986)
Mozambique and the Great Flood of 2000

These are still available for sale:
Galinhas e cerveja: uma receita para o crescimento (2014) (free in English)
Zimbabwe takes back its land (2013)
Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South (2010)
Do bicycles equal development in Mozambique? (2008) (free in Portuguese) 
Beggar Your Neighbours: Apartheid Power in Southern Africa (1986)
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This mailing is the personal responsibility of Joseph Hanlon, and does not necessarily represent the views of the Open University.
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