Mozambique's Renamo Says MP 'Killed' in Raid on Military Base

Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo said Friday one of its lawmakers was killed in a raid on its military base by government troops earlier in the week.

The statement came after Renamo, which fought a bloody civil war against the ruling Frelimo party before transforming into a political party, declared that a 1992 peace deal was over.

Renamo said the assault Monday on its base in central Mozambique amounted to an attack by the government on multiparty democracy.

"Our colleague Armindo Milaco died as a result of government forces' attack on our leader's base on 21 October," Renamo spokesman Fernando Mazanga told Agence France Presse. "He was hit by a howitzer."

The party only learned of Milaco's death on Friday because communication had been difficult, it said.

Militants reportedly from the former rebel movement attacked a nearby police station the day after the attack, which kicked off a spate of tit-for-tat violence.

Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama last November returned to his bush camp near the central Gorongosa mountains and started retraining soldiers for a "revolution", without making clear his intentions.

Dhlakama fled ahead of Monday's attack and is hiding at an undisclosed location.

Over the last six months Renamo militants have clashed sporadically with government forces and attacked civilian vehicles on the main north-south highway.

Renamo took up arms against the then-communist government of Frelimo -- the Mozambique Liberation Front -- after independence from Portugal in 1975.

It became the official opposition party after the 1992 peace agreement, but has lost every national election ever since.

Officially Renamo is demanding a bigger role in electoral bodies and its fighters' integration into the government forces. But more than 20 rounds of talks with Frelimo over the past 10 months have stalled with little progress.

The party is boycotting upcoming local polls on November 20 after refusing to register until electoral reforms are passed.

It failed to table its suggestions in parliament, saying Frelimo's overwhelming majority meant they would probably be voted down.

It has been highly critical of the Frelimo government, which it accuses of politicizing the state and stealing the impoverished country's resources.

As Mozambique started mining coal and gears up to extract vast natural gas reserves, simmering tensions between the two reached a breaking point and Renamo demanded a cut of the revenues.

The unrest has been confined to the central region, but this week's attacks have sparked fears of renewed war between the foes, prompting worried reactions from the United Nations, the United States and neighbors South Africa.

Many are unsure how to interpret the movement's statements that ended the peace agreement, after many similar hints to take up arms again in the past.

But its spokesman Mazanga said the movement did not want to return to civil war, following the devastation of the previous 16-year conflict.

"We know the consequences of conflict. If we respond with violence we might plunge the country back in war," he told Agence France Presse.

"We are open for talks, but demand that the head of state and commander of the armed forces withdraw his troops from our base."