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The Conflict with Renamo, 1976-1992
«February 1983»
Dossier MZ-0020
36. «Com a mesma violência revolucionária, punir bandidos, punir candongueiros!»
Above: A page of photographs about the threat of black-marketeering from the Sunday newspaper Domingo, published just after the Chibuto meeting announcing that economic sabotage was to be harshly punished. Click here for a gallery of pictures of the rally.
There was a clear hardening of the Frelimo Party government's stance towards the MNR/Renamo rebellion in the early months of 1983. It had first been manifested in January by the public summary executions of captured rebels (see previous page). In a speech at Chibuto in the middle of February, President Samora Machel announced that black-marketeers (candongueiros) were to be considered as equivalent to "bandidos" and were to receive the same harsh punishments as armed MNR rebels. A new law (5/83) was passed to permit flogging, and in April several offenders, including a smuggler, were publicly executed by firing squad.
The British Sunday newspaper The Observer reported that a British mercenary, Lt. Alan Gingles, aged 27, had been serving in the South African army, without resigning his British commission, and had been killed while trying to blow up a Mozambican railway line in a sabotage operation. The British shipping agent Dion Hamilton, involved in the smuggling of arms through Beira airport, received a 20 year jail sentence.
Consolidated Downloadable Zipped Files
Click on the yellow folder image below to download an unsorted zipped archive of documents and press clippings in PDF format concerning the armed conflict between Renamo/MNR and the Mozambican government in February 1983.
