Lisa Albert has a funeral this Monday. On Saturday he went to the morgue to ask for confirmation of the death of Benjamim, born in 1986. He carries with him the white bracelet that confirms his death on November 7, 2024, when Maputo experienced an unprecedented protest. The family still did not have any official information and it was this Mozambican of Swedish descent who obtained it. Benjamim died while passing near a friendly police station. “He was friends with the agents, they even gave him food,” but “other agents shot him,” Lisa Albert tells the Observer, sending a photo that identifies the body.

On Sunday, friends, family and neighbors mourned the death of a man who was not at the “demonstration against the murder of the Mozambican people,” at the end of the “seven days of liberation of Mozambique from the black settler.” That’s what the weekend was for: to care for the wounded, to begin mourning for the deceased, to rest from the days of strikes and protests.

Maputo experienced a war scenario but does not know what the next day will be like

This is what Venâncio Mondlane said in the last communication he made from exile: these two days would be to regain strength, not to protest in the streets. The independent candidate for the presidential elections – who claims victory at the polls while the National Electoral Commission gives it to the Frelimo candidate, Daniel Chapo – is scheduled to announce the fourth phase of the contest for this Monday. which will be the “most painful” and which will “affect the national economy.”

“Almost normality” returned to the streets of Maputo, this Sunday, city day, a resident tells the Observer. “Everything is quiet, there is a lot of traffic, the shops are open, although the streets are still not clean after the remains of Thursday’s demonstration,” continues another resident. “We are all in suspense waiting for tomorrow.” [segunda-feira]”, he emphasizes.

The announcement from VM7 (Mondlane’s nickname) could come this Monday, but the demonstrations “should not resume until Wednesday” because “people also need to work,” says a source linked to the protests.

“Today [domingo] The country is calm, but it will not return to normal until the electoral truth is restored,” begins by warning a name well known to Mozambicans, especially young people and the police: Quitéria Guirengane. Only to later lament: “Today was the day of the witch hunt.”

When people “are treating the wounded, resupplying themselves, the police stations are in intense activity, sweeping neighborhood by neighborhood, throughout the country, identifying and arresting the young people who were (or who believe they were) in the demonstration,” he denounces. the Political and social activist of the Observer.

“We have reports that In Mucuba, they picked up 17 and 18 year olds from their hospital beds and took them to cells, even against the will of the doctors,” continues the leader of the Mozambique Women’s Observatory.

Quitéria Guirengane, member of the Movement for the Defense of Freedom of Association (a platform that brings together non-governmental organizations) and leader of Nova Democracia, adds that “this witch hunt is taking place in Cabo Delgado, Tete, Inhambane, Gurua, Arrime , among other places”, so it is clear “that this is not an isolated case but a generalized one” of those who are looking for “culprits for a problem created by the government and Frelimo.”

Founder of Geração#18 de Março, an organization that supports victims of the demonstrations, Quitéria has received numerous requests for help in its “reporting center” and knows that the number of deaths in these protests is “far above the 16 officers” – Mondlane yesterday pointed out 100 on CNN Portugal, and that there are “more than a hundred injured.”

Quitéria adds that “many young people are in the hospital with 6, 8, 10 bullets in their bodies, in sensitive parts that doctors do not risk removing,” proof of strong police repression. “It’s not one bullet in the body, there are several, what is this preventive police like?” he asks, before outlining two scenarios for the following days. In both there is a common denominator: violence.

Young people have lost their fear and have nothing to lose

The first arises from the narrative of President Filipe Nyusi and the government. “It is adding more fuel to the response,” he warns. “He is trying to divide and govern, inviting social groups and various political actors to the palace, trying to isolate Venâncio Mondlane. “He even invited the pastor of the church he attends.” Quitéria does not believe that it is about promoting dialogue, since at the same time “they arrest people – the count is already 2,300 -, they say that it is a movement of vandals and criminals, they say that nothing is going to change, that they have made a lot of money .

On the other hand, the activist continues, “people close to him are always on Facebook writing that they are following in Mondlane’s footsteps, that they are going to catch him, that he is in Nigeria and that they are going to persecute him.” Now, Quitéria considers, this continues to “repulse young people more.” In the neighborhoods, he emphasizes, “people lost children but they did not lose strength, on the contrary, they say that we cannot surrender, we cannot hit the people with weapons.”

Thus, if the Government maintains this discourse, “there will be an escalation, “Young people have lost their fear and have nothing to lose.”underlines.

The second scenario will end the same way. “We will continue to protest and the government does not like or dislike peaceful demonstrations. And they believe that they are going to repress us by force, but we understand where the regime’s weaknesses lie: in the economy.” That is why they began to say that “the poor will not have to eat”, that “hunger” is coming, that “the protests caused millions to be lost”, that “the economy is going to collapse”, but “it is all a fallacy” . Quitéria will use the example of the Covid-19 pandemic to try to dismantle the government’s argument: “We stayed at home for three months and the economy did not collapse.”

Now, it is not only “the poor who will suffer,” but “it is not only the poor who are in the streets.” In the avenues where the elite live, the protest has already arrived, with banging of pots and pans, for example. “The upper class is already panicking for fear of food shortages, but we know that There is no cheap freedom, there is no struggle without sacrifice.”Quitéria stands out.

The danger of neighborhood militias, of urban guerrillas

In other words, the activist predicts an increase in police repression. Now, as I always told the police in other marches, “violence begets violence.” And if the government “discredits Mondlane as a valid interlocutor, if he stops leading the protest, then we will have neighborhood militias, no one will control this hatred that people have towards those who are killing them in different ways, and it will be the struggle of every citizen.”

Quitéria gives an example: “In the Luís Cabral neighborhood, members of the UIR [Unidade de Intervenção Rápida] went to a cockroach [bar informal de Moçambique] and the people there told us to leave with a message: ‘Tell your boss we know who he is.’ If control of the entire contestation process is lost, we will have an urban guerrilla war, We will have more lynchings and burnings. [já houve casos de comunidades que queimaram casas e família de polícias que mataram manifestantes]”.

The youth revolt is growing, he warns. “They tell me: ‘Quitéria, We are tired of being abused, of being beaten. We want an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we also want to hit those who hit us“.

Frelimo “lost contact with the people, with this generation that did not go through the civil war, that does not understand the language of weapons, that has a great desire to be free and that invokes the past of anti-colonial struggle – they learned that despite After the massacres, the combatants continued fighting, so now they will not stop either,” he says.

But this time, with certainty and hope: “The whole world is seeing what the government of Mozambique has always done.”

Frelimo thinks “that young people don’t think,” says Quitéria, pointing out what he considers a “misinformation campaign” promoted by forces of the historic party. “They invented that Mondlane is a Jihad agent. The young people laugh. That the CIA pays me. The young people laugh. Nobody believes it and this only fuels more indignation.”

The government has to change, he insists, “within Frelimo there are voices that say so,” and it can move towards “reconciliation, the reestablishment of the truth – numbers are not negotiated, they are counted -, admitting that they failed, apologizing, willing to start again, rebuild, turn the page.”

The perfect storm that will change Frelimo’s calculations

Therefore, until this happens, street protests will continue and the police will continue to repress. Until when? Until one of the parties gets tired? Paula Cristina Roque believes that the security and defense forces cannot withstand five more days of street protests. On the other hand, “people have realized that they have a voice, that they have power and that they are not going to give it up easily,” the researcher specializing in African affairs highlights to the Observer. Therefore, he foresees “an intensification of the response.”

He believes that “diplomatic pressure will increase,” which “There are internal pressures within Frelimo itself that say this is not sustainable”Therefore, “all this tension will cause a perfect storm that will change the calculations” of the party that has been in power for 49 years. “They cannot continue to violently repress Mozambicans before the eyes of the whole world. “The world’s attention is focused on Mozambique.”

Paulo Cristina Roque remembers that neither the European Union nor the United States of America “recognized the victory of Frelimo and Daniel Chapo.” and that he The protest in Mozambique went further than the one that occurred in Angolawhen, in 2022, UNITA and other opposition parties did not accept the election results.

“In Angola, international recognition was not automatic but there was a predisposition on the part of Portugal, the United States and the EU to accept the victory of the MPLA. And seeing the moderation of UNITA, to avoid a bloodbath, they maintained the status quo and economic interests and did not want to put pressure,” explains the researcher.

Who kills also dies

However, Mozambique is different. “Frelimo is weakened and fractured internally, there was violent repression, the population is united in this war, civil society and the Catholic Church are walking in the same direction,” he highlights.

In fact, the SADC (Southern African Development Community) called an emergency meeting for the 16th and the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) also expressed itself in a letter of support to the bishops of Mozambique.

“It will be difficult to continue repressing the will of the people who want to be free”say the Catholic bishops, while warning: “If the current government continues down this path, it will be impossible to govern the country and life will be more miserable.”

Quitéria Guirengane will not surrender “until the revolution triumphs.” Accustomed to confrontations with the police, as she has been organizing demonstrations and marches for several years, she learned “to live comfortably with one idea: whoever kills, also dies.”