Clashes broke out in the central Mozambican city of Beira on Monday between the police and demonstrators when court officials tried to take buildings away from the Beira Municipal Council and give them to the ruling Frelimo Party. The 17 buildings concerned are where neighbourhood secretariats, the lowest rung of municipal organisation, operate. The row over who owns the buildings has been rumbling for years.
When the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, won control of Beira Council in 2003, it assumed that the Council owned the houses. Neighbourhood secretariats had operated out of them during the previous municipal administration, run by Frelimo, and so the new Council believed they must be municipal property.
Frelimo, however, claimed that between 1998 and 2003 the City Council had paid rent on the houses, which had initially accommodated Dynamising Groups, grass roots political structures set up by Frelimo at the time of independence in 1975.
In December 2004, the Sofala Provincial Court ruled in Frelimo's favour, because the City Council could not provide any documentary evidence that it was the rightful owner of the houses. Frelimo, however, had a contract with the state housing body, APIE, which showed that its title to the properties was valid.
Beira mayor Daviz Simango did not accept the ruling and appealed to the Supreme Court. For more than five years there was stalemate. The Sofala court ruling remained on the shelf, the Supreme Court said nothing, and the neighbourhood secretariats continued to operate out of the 17 buildings.
Suddenly, the Sofala court, on 5 July, ordered the City Council to give up the 17 houses to Frelimo by last Monday. Simango regarded this as illegal, because the Council's appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending.
He told reporters that the court decision was "political" and constituted an attack on the development of the municipality.
According to a report in Wednesday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", crowds gathered outside the buildings in an attempt to defend them against the court officials and the police. At the Matadouro neighbourhood, the crowd refused to accept the eviction order and the police shot into the air "to maintain order".
According to the press officer of the Sofala police command, Mateus Mazive, "the court official was just doing his job, but the angry population rebelled and tried to attack him. The police were obliged to fire into the air to keep order, but nobody was hurt and there were no arrests".
But the attempt to hand over the buildings failed. The protesters slept in the buildings on Monday night, and stayed there throughout Tuesday.
Aida Tambo, neighbourhood secretary in Vila Massane, told reporters that the eviction attempt made no sense given the appeal to the Supreme Court. She said the people of her neighbourhood would only hand over the building if ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.
The Frelimo Sofala first secretary, Henriques Bongesse, denied that Frelimo had made any attempt to influence the court decision. He said that a team was on the ground working to ensure that as soon as possible the court decision would be implemented, and the buildings would return to Frelimo's possession.
Fonte: allafrica - 15.07.2010
Reflectindo: O anónimo que clama pelo recurso pode ler aqui que o recurso está no Tribunal Supremo. Gostaria que o anónimo quem poderia se identificar se nos dissesse se o Tribunal Provincial de Sofala está agir legalmente e com que base. Portanto, quem não respeita a lei e as instituicões e a sua herarquia? Não este um caso igual ao de Muecate?
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