Moz Islamist attacks: fears for economy
AN INCREASING number of attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Mozambique’s oil-rich northern Cabo Delgado province is threatening the country’s economy, with a potential $30 billion (R396bn) oil investment, and accompanying jobs, under threat. The attacks are also disrupting the lives of civilians, while creating a security and political threat.
Last week, seven people were hacked to death with machetes and their homes torched in an area in the north that has recently experienced several similar attacks.
Since mid-May, 35 people have died in a series of brutal attacks, including beheadings, while hundreds of houses have been burnt down.
The attacks, which began in October last year when police stations in the north were attacked, have been carried out by Al Sunnah wa Jama’ah, also known as Al-Shabaab, but with no connection to the similarly named group in East Africa.
The movement has between 350 and 1 500 members who are organised into small cells along the coast of northern Mozambique, says Eric Morier-Genoud, a lecturer in African history at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland.
The US embassy in Mozambique has warned its citizens to leave the area, while the UK has issued a travel warning.
And according to analysts, the potential for an escalation in the conflict between the Islamists and security forces is significant.
“The prospect of a full-scale war has alarmed many people. The state, civil society and oil explorers are worried about what the violence will mean,” Morier-Genoud says.
Liazzat Bonate, a historian at the University of the West Indies in Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, points out that the socio-economic ground is fertile for the Islamists to gain support among Muslim youth in the north, who are being left out of the incipient prosperity produced by the finds of oil, gas and other natural resources in Cabo Delgado.
“There are economic, social, political as well as religious and security issues at play. Cabo Delgado province borders Tanzania and is home to 2.3million people, 58% of whom are Muslim,” adds Morier-Genoud.
The group developed along similar lines to that which gave rise to Boko Haram in Nigeria, which started as a religious sect and then transformed into a guerrilla group.
“The movement emerged within a particular religious, social and ethnic group known as the Mwani. They feel they have been marginalised for decades by migration into their area, a lack of economic development, and their neighbours’ political clout,” says Morier-Genoud.
Other analysts argue that the Islamists are motivated by greed rather than grievance. The group is even said to have become involved in illegal mining, logging, poaching and contraband, making millions of dollars a week through these activities.
Mozambique has responded to the latest crisis by entering into security agreements with the governments of Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda; by setting up a regional military command; and by moving more troops into the north. – African News Agency (ANA)