{{Mozambique\u2019s President Armando Guebuza warned on Sunday he would respond firmly to deadly weekend attacks against civilian vehicles blamed on armed members of the former rebel group Renamo.}}<\/p>\n
President Guebuza condemned the \u201ccriminal act\u201d against civilians in remarks carried by the State radion channel Radio Mozambique.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the government, we will continue to fight so that our people can live in tranquility; so that our people are not intimidated; so that our people do not live in fear\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
President Guebuza said he viewed the attack as Renamo\u2019s reply to his recent calls for dialogue with the former rebels.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenamo must stop their attacks and come to dialogue\u201d, President Guebuza said. \u201cThe government is always open to talks to preserve the peace and stability in Mozambique\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mozambique\u2019s armed forces also said they are ready to respond to a series of attacks by militia sympathetic to Renamo, the head of the country\u2019s armed forces said.<\/p>\n
Three people were killed in an attack on a bus in the central province of Sofala on April 6, while four members of Mozambique\u2019s special police force and a Renamo militiaman died in clashes in the same area on April 4, according to the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are ready, waiting for the head of state to respond to Renamo\u2019s initiative\u201d, Paulino Macaringue, chief of the armed forces, told reporters after a Women\u2019s Day ceremony in Maputo, the capital on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Renamo, formerly backed by South Africa\u2019s apartheid government fought a 15-year civil war against the ruling Frelimo, that ended in 1992, with a peace agreement brokered by church groups. <\/p>\n
The former rebel movement said last year it could resume conflict and complained that elections in 2009 won by Frelimo were unfair.<\/p>\n
Mozambique is the site of an aluminium smelter operated by BHP Bilton (BHP) while Rio Tinto and Vale SA have coal operations in the country. <\/p>\n
Anadarko Petroleum and Eni Spa have discovered natural gas off its coast while Sasol operates a gas field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are monitoring the situation closely as the priority is the safety of our employees\u201d, Johannesburg-Sasol said in an e-mailed response to questions by Bloomberg. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Intercape has appointed security consultant Paul O\u2019Sullivan to assess the security risk of travelling in the north of Mozambique following an attack on one of the company\u2019s buses.<\/p>\n
The bus, from the Mozambican branch of the South African company was travelling in Muxungue en route to Beira when six armed men signalled for the driver Jaime Bule, to stop the bus.<\/p>\n
Intercape spokesperson advocate Roelien van de Walt said that when the driver saw the men were not wearing any uniform, he became suspicious and accelerated past them. <\/p>\n
The men, who are believed to be from the former rebel group Renamo, then opened fire on the bus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 49 passengers on board and two passengers sustained minor injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenamo has denied that they were involved in Saturday\u2019s attacks, which left three people dead, Verdade reported. The spokesperson for the party, Fernando Mazanga, told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that Renamo \u201cdoes not attack civilians \u2014 we attack those who attack us.\u201d Mazanga warned people to be careful while travelling in Muxungu\u00e9, where the attack occurred. \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Mozambique\u2019s President Armando Guebuza warned on Sunday he would respond firmly to deadly weekend attacks against civilian vehicles blamed on armed members of the former rebel group Renamo.}} President Guebuza condemned the \u201ccriminal act\u201d against civilians in remarks carried by the State radion channel Radio Mozambique. \u201cAs the government, we will continue to fight so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7036"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7036"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}