Allegations by Amnesty International that “white contractors were prioritised for evacuation ahead of Black locals” when the Amarula Hotel was attacked in Palma, Mozambique, by the local Shabaab on 25 March have been slammed by the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) and other people who were present at the time. Shabaab, also known as The Youth in Arabic, is the group fighting against Total's gas mining efforts in Cabo Del Gado, said terrorism expert Janine Opperman. In a statement, DAG noted it had rescued 24 people on the day, of which six were white and 18 were “black persons of differing…
Allegations by Amnesty International that “white contractors were prioritised for evacuation ahead of Black locals” when the Amarula Hotel was attacked in Palma, Mozambique, by the local Shabaab on 25 March have been slammed by the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) and other people who were present at the time.
Shabaab, also known as The Youth in Arabic, is the group fighting against Total’s gas mining efforts in Cabo Del Gado, said terrorism expert Janine Opperman.
In a statement, DAG noted it had rescued 24 people on the day, of which six were white and 18 were “black persons of differing nationalities”.
“The DAG team did not choose who would or would not be evacuated, they secured the landing site and loaded the people that were sent to them for evacuation by the lodge manager, this was done six people at a time, at no time did our staff enter the lodge whilst undertaking the evacuations,” the statement said.
DAG’s response came on the heels of Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa Deprose Muchena claim witnesses “told us of racial discrimination in decisions about who to evacuate from the Amarula hotel”.
“These are alarming allegations that the rescue plan was racially segregated, with white contractors obviously receiving preferential treatment,” Muchena said.
The total lack of co-ordination between the Mozambique security forces and Dyck Advisory Group resulted in evacuations that were racist and must be thoroughly investigated.
”DAG noted most of the people “we rescued over the 10-day period that we undertook operations in Palma, were Mozambican nationals, in fact of the 240 people that we got to safety at the Afungi Peninsula only 12 were white, and two of those where bodies that we recovered so that they could be returned to their families”.
One of those bodies was that of Andries Nel, who was building workers accommodation at the Total LNG project.
According to the Adrian Nel Family Foundation busy raising funds on backabuddy, Nel “put his life on the line to run out of the compound to retrieve a gun from an abandoned military vehicle in the road, to have some protection if any insurgents breached the compound”.
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The foundation noted the convoy in which Nel was helping to evacuate people and his family was ambushed by insurgents where he was shot twice, and “he continued driving whilst fatally wounded to ensure he could get his loved ones as far away from danger as possible”.
His brother Wesley who was part of the group evacuated by Nel, said Amnesty’s statement, was “completely sensational and crap”.
“I was there. We all were abandoned black and white. But it was us “white” people who saved 150 locals by driving us all out of there,” Wesley said on micro-blogging platform Twitter.“
No thank you at all, my brother Adrian Nel lost his life saving countless locals.
”Their mother Maryl Knox, in an open letter to Amnesty, said the real question was where was the Mozambiquan government which had helicopters and gunships at the start of the attack, but “suddenly disappeared”.
Demanding an apology from Muchena, Knox said his “lies” had invited further racial discord.
“The first evacuation was the administrator of Palma, his wife and daughter along with a few others, all Moz citizens apparently,” Kotze stated.
“The next helicopter evac was woman [and] children- all local people and another man who apparently decided he fitted into that group- well you sure do now as you have no ‘balls’ Mr VIP,” Kotze said.
DAG noted it had not evacuated the Lodge Manager and his dogs as initially claimed by Mucheno – and since rescinded by Amnesty.
“This was a private arrangement made with a commercial charter company,” DAG said.
And Knox was having none of it, calling the manager “a coward” who had arranged his own evacuation.
“You have the blood of my son and many others who died that day on your hands, and I will never forgive or forget your cowardice,” Knox said.
“That helicopter time [and] fuel that you so selfishly used for your own cowardly exit could have provided air cover for the safe evacuation of everyone in the convoy.”
