Yet they provide the main opposition Afonso Dhlakama's former rebel movement the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana with its first real chance to taste power albeit at local level...
One of their allegations is that when nominating officers for the new integrated Forças Armadas de Defesa de Moçambique the party leadership favours men with family or ethnic links to Afonso Dhlakama - including Mateus Ngonhamo Deputy Chief of Staff of the new army Eliás Dhlakama (the leader's brother) and Lieutenant-Colonel Madobe...
For some years particularly when it thought Harare was getting too close to Afonso Dhlakama leader of the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana Maputo has used them to argue that a network of armed oppositionists perhaps linked to Dhlakama threatens both Mozambique and Zimbabwe...
