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afrol.com, 19 December - The editor of the independent weekly "Savana", Salomao Moyana, along with one of the paper's senior reporters, Paulo Machava, have received an anonymous phone call threatening them with death, reports the Mozambican news agency, AIM. Moyana told AIM that Machava took the call on December 14. There was a male voice on the other end of the line, saying that Machava andMoyana were on a list of people to be eliminated, because "you talk too much" and "you stick your noses into things". The death list apparently also included some businessmen and a politician. According to Moyana, in the light of the November 22 assassination of "Metical" editor Carlos Cardoso, such threats ought to be taken seriously. Cardoso, 48, was hit at least five times in the crossfire from his unknown attackers' AK-47 assault rifles and died instantly. He was considered the father of Mozambique's independent media and has been hailed internationally as the country's leading investigative writer. As a result of this current incident, Moyana has requested police protection. He said he thought there was some force at work interested in destabilising the rule of law that Mozambique was trying to build. Mozambique has had a positive political and economic development the last years, until recent clashes between the old political rivals Frelimo and Renamo killing 41, corruption scandals and the murder of Cardoso. - There are forces that are not interested in the atmosphere of democratic freedoms, freedoms of expression and of the press, that we are experiencing, he told AIM. Instead, they wanted to "speed up the deterioration of the political situation by attacking the press". Moyana has been one of the most outspoken editors reacting to the assassination
of Cardoso, saying he would pursue Cardoso's killers and contending that Cardoso was the victim of a "sophisticated crime." . Source: Media Institute of Southern
Africa (MISA)
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