Renamo President Ossufo Momade is demanding that the state recognize and grant the title of hero to the party's founder and first commander-in-chief, André Matade Matsangaísse.

Matsangaísse was a Frelimo dissident. He was assassinated on October 17, 1979 by government forces in Gorongosa, Manica province.

In Momade's view, Matsangaísse was the promoter of the democratic rule of law in Mozambique.

"We demand that the Mozambican state proclaim André Matsangaísse a national hero, because he really is a great hero. He is the promoter of the democratic rule of law in Mozambique," he said.

The Renamo president was speaking on Saturday in the village of Chinhambudzi, Manica district, in the province of the same name. There, he was taking part in Matsangaísse's funeral, 45 years after his assassination, since, in the context of the war, his body had been buried in Gorongosa.

Ossufo Momade said that Matsangaísse was shot in the head and his body taken away by government forces, and that any other version of the facts is false.

"Unfortunately, what happened happened, he was shot in the head and stayed there, he didn't come out alive, as some people have been saying. They tried to make every effort against the attack so that we could recover the body, but we didn't succeed. They crossed over, picked up the body and took it to the village of Gorongosa, by which I mean that we took our brother's remains here. There are those who say that he was taken by helicopter to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and died on the way. This is the truth because I was there," he said.