Mozambican political analysts say that recent statements by the General Police Commander, Bernardino Rafael, who called on the population of Cabo Delgado to use knives and machetes to fight terrorism, reveal that the state has capitulated and shirked its responsibility to ensure defense and security.

"When they enter our fields what we have to do is to chase and resist with knife, machete, and machete, and at that point one has to run to communicate the Defense and Security Forces," he said recently in Bilibiza, in the district of Quissanga.

Called to comment, the Minister of Defense, Cristóvão Chume, referred any explanation to this call to the PRM Commander himself, but drew the population's attention to the seriousness of this phenomenon.

"That is what is most important," said Chume quoted by VOA, who added that "we are organized as a state to defend the population and where we are not we have to work with SADC, Rwanda in addition to the local force that has given substantial support to the Defense and Security Forces."

For journalist and analyst Luís Nhachote, Bernardino Rafael's statements reveal that the state has capitulated in its mission to defend the population.

"When the General Commander of PRM goes to Cabo Delgado and says that, she's showing that the state has abdicated its role, capitulated, and doesn't have the capacity to protect its citizens," said Nhachote.

Nhachote said that "this type of statement that sounds even a little frivolous, but it is strange that the State, in the voice of the Commander in Chief of the Defense and Security Forces that is President Filipe Nyusi, has been systematically calling for the Total to return to Palma, because there are already minimum conditions of defense and security, it's a little bizarre.

A lawyer and human rights advocate, Custodio Duma, is also on the same page.

"Removing that responsibility from the state to the citizen means the state has exonerated itself from its role of providing security in a circumstance where even our defense and security forces including SADC and Rwandan forces are failing to address terrorism," Duma commented.

On the other hand, Nhachote said that Rafael's statements still reveal the quest for protagonism in the fight against terrorism.

"Who is leading and is the main actor in the fight against terrorism in that province? Is it the General Police Command or the Mozambican Army? I think that it is the Army that is the main actor, let's note that in the last statements of the Minister of Defense he shows annoyance with this kind of protagonism," commented Nhachote.