Good afternoon. Is the government winning the war against the insurgents in Cabo Delgado province? Certainly President Filipe Nyusi would like to create that impression. Not just among voters, with the elections less than one month away, but also among the insurgents themselves, judging by his appeal to their leaders this weekend to hand themselves in (see below). The implication is that victory is certain and the insurgents need to choose between surrender or death. No doubt Nyusi would like to recall in their heads what happened to Ibn Omar, who was seen as an overall military commander of the insurgency and who was killed last year.
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Beyond these sorts of statements, however, there does not seem to be any effort from the government to negotiate a peace deal with the insurgency. Whether or not the authorities have the names of some insurgent leaders, as Nyusi claimed, they have had the opportunity to hold talks with them through the medium of their friends and relatives. This was particularly feasible during the occupation of the administrative post of Mucojo earlier this year, when there was a stable insurgent presence in one place for over two months. But no negotiations took place, for the simple reason that the government has never been interested in having peace talks, only in military victory.
