Shock over journalists’ murder

Mozambican journalists have reacted with shock to the killing of prominent colleague Carlos Cardoso by unknown gunmen on Wednesday, and said his assassination was a warning to them all. Cardoso, editor of the independent daily newssheet ‘Metical’, was gunned down in an ambush on Wednesday afternoon near his office in the quiet Maputo embassy suburb of Polana. News reports said the killers blocked his car with two other vehicles and then fired more than 10 shots from an AK-47 assault rifle before escaping. Cardoso’s driver was seriously wounded. In the first official reaction to the murder on Wednesday, Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told Mozambican Television that he was “deeply shocked” and “profoundly affected” by Cardoso’s death. He praised Cardoso, a former director of the state-owned AIM (Mozambique News Agency) from 1980 to 1989, as “a journalist who has fought tirelessly for freedom of the press.” A colleague of Cordoso told IRIN his death was a “very big blow for what he meant as a role model. The very best journalists passed through Cardoso’s hands, and he was a role model in terms of investigative reporting”. In a separate attack late on Wednesday, a gang stopped Radio Mozambique journalist Custodio Rafael on his way home from work. AFP reported that the attackers told him, “You talk a lot,” before beating him and cutting his tongue with a knife. Cardoso’s death prompted a rare show of unity in parliament on Thursday, when both ruling party and opposition deputies observed a minute’s silence and demanded an investigation into his murder. The 117 opposition RENAMO-Electoral Union MPs then marched from parliament to the spot where Cardoso was slain. A local journalist working for an international news organisation said of Cardoso’s murder: “It’s a threat to us, to the integrity of journalists. Whenever we write we will think twice, although we are determined to continue to report the truth.” He told IRIN that Cardoso, a well-respected investigative journalist, had been receiving death threats for years. He had exposed cases involving drug trafficking, corruption, and the impact of structural adjustment. In an interview with IRIN on 13 November, Cardoso was sharply critical of hardline elements in both RENAMO and the ruling FRELIMO party in the wake of political clashes that left 41 people dead. “It is very difficult at this stage to say what could have led to his tragic death. I talked to reporters at his paper and they said he wasn’t working on anything special,” a colleague said. He added that it was vital “for the sake of press freedom”, and the government’s credibility, for the killers to be found and brought to book. “But, judging by the police’s past record, that is going to be very difficult.”