Police Reform – 1993
1993
In an interview with Radio Mozambique on 11 February 1993, Aldo Ajello, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Mozambique, said the National Information Commission and the National Commission for Police Affairs, two commissions established within the framework of the general peace accord, had not begun operating because the MNR (RENAMO) had not yet named its representatives, even though there were MNR accusations that the government had integrated approximately 15,000 soldiers and 3,000 employees of the State Information and Security Service into the police force.1 In an interview, the Special Representative reported that President Chissano already had the names on the government side, the names of the nine people who would be appointed after consultation with the other parties, and he was still waiting for a designation from MNR.
On 21 June 1993, two presidential decrees established the National Information Commission (COMINFO) and the National Commission for Police Affairs (COMPOL), both of which were called for in the General Peace Accord (GPA). Each commission consisted of 21 members. COMINFO was charged with the task of verifying that the State Information and Security Service (SISE) did not violate the law or citizens’ political rights. COMPOL was assigned the task of verifying that the police did not violate the law or citizens’ political rights. The two presidential decrees stated that COMPOL and COMINFO members would be sworn in by the President of the Republic and would operate from the day they were sworn in.2
(Comments from External Reviewer: “While COMINFO and COMPOL were created, they were established late and were far less functional than the other peace commissions. Most importantly, the failure to deal decisively with the question of Dhlakama’s personal security detail has resulted in ongoing disagreements between RENAMO and the government, including government raids on houses in Beira where these armed bodyguards stay, the ongoing presence (for several years after the first elections) of armed men in Maringue that Dhlakama claimed were members of his security detail awaiting integration into one or another police force, etc. So while there has been “relative peace and security in society,” police behavior has continued to be a bone of contention between the two former belligerents and indeed the behavior of the police in some districts has been pretty reprehensible, both toward ordinary citizens and toward the political opposition.
“Wherever it could, the government sought to stall the work of commissions that dealt with issues it felt were properly the domain of government and not of a bilateral peace commission. In other words, the FRELIMO government went through the motions on the commissions related to security reform and territorial reintegration with the hope that once the transitional elections were over, the government (FRELIMO, confident that it would be in government) would be able to resolve these matters as it saw fit. This is important because it was not as if all provisions of the peace agreement were uniformly and comprehensively implemented, yet the outcome was still durable peace and some degree of democratic politics.”)