Internet cuts after Mozambique’s disputed vote hit businesses

MAPUTO: Uber driver Rofino Fiel said the post-election protests that have convulsed Mozambique for weeks have been disastrous not only because of the running battles on the streets of Maputo -- internet shutdowns are bleeding his business dry.

Like many working in small and medium-sized businesses, often in the informal sector, successive blackouts have cost him dear and there is little relief in sight as the protests over allegations of vote-rigging look set to continue.

“This is too much. We are having a very negative experience and per week it costs us a loss of 8,000 meticais ($126),” the 25-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Our activity has come to a complete halt.”

Protests have escalated since election authorities said the Frelimo party had won the Oct 9 vote with a landslide victory, extending its 49-year rule. More than 56 per cent of Mozambique’s 17 million eligible voters abstained.

The results have been widely disputed, fuelling clashes between the police and protesters which rights groups and local hospitals say have killed at least 30 people. Many young people supported independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, who says the vote was rigged and has encouraged demonstrations.

Amnesty International has condemned the government’s “violent and widespread crackdown on human rights”, saying it is the worst suppression of protests in the country in years.

Civil society groups and international observers said the vote did not meet democratic standards, and the Constitutional Council has requested clarification from the electoral commission on discrepancies in the vote count.

Digital rights groups say that there have been at least five mobile internet shutdowns since Oct 25, alongside social media shutdowns lasting several hours.

According to the constitution, the government can force mobile phone operators to shut down internet services in cases of national emergency but the government has not declared the current unrest a national emergency.

The #KeepItOn coalition, a global network of over 334 human rights organisations working to end internet shutdowns, urged Mozambique’s authorities to end the increasing use of shutdowns.

“Mozambican authorities’ regular practice of shutting down the internet around elections and in times of political unrest must not be allowed to continue,” the coalition said in a statement on Nov 7.

Mateus Magala, minister of transport and communications, said the recurrent internet restrictions were aimed at preventing the destruction of the country.

“When we see violations that jeopardise the integrity of all Mozambicans in the nation we have to act as such, so that our means of communication are not used for the destruction of the country,” he said on Sunday.

For Edson Chiado, who manages a real estate business in the centre of Maputo, the shutdowns are hurting his livelihood.

“I need the internet to work and make sales and, as it is, many things are at a standstill,” said the 34-year-old, who has worked in the property sector for 10 years.

“You always have to separate the internet, which is key to our economic life, from political matters.”

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The shutdowns have affected a wide range of professionals from financial market operators, or traders, to website programmers, who generally work remotely.

A trader who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns said the internet outages had cost him as much as $100 dollars a day in recent weeks.

Americo Marime, owner of a tech start-up that does network analysis, management systems programming, and web page monitoring, said there were days when he was unable to meet deadlines and ended up losing some clients.

He said some of the web pages he monitors also suffered routine failures and he was unable to fix them.

“Even clients, some of whom are outside Mozambique, couldn’t contact me to report the problem ... So, in short, the internet blockage stopped programmers’ work,” said Marime.

Some people have tried to use virtual private networks (VPN) or free WiFi to keep their businesses going but connection was very slow and there are only three places in Maputo where free WiFi is available.

Celio Lazaro, an activist who works on social justice and economic inclusion, said mobile phone operators should be held criminally responsible “for contributing to the limitation of citizens’ rights”, as well as jeopardising the livelihoods of those who depend on the internet to work.

The country’s three mobile phone operators -- South Africa’s Vodacom, and Mozambique’s Tmcel and Movitel -- have sent messages to users saying the outages were beyond their control. When contacted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Vodacom and Movitel declined to comment while Tmcel did not immediately reply to a request for a comment.

“This (the blocking of the internet) is not helping to end the protests, but rather is intensifying popular dissatisfaction,” Lazaro told journalists on Monday during a press conference in Beira, in central Mozambique.

Even as internet services are gradually being restored, Mondlane has called for a new round of demonstrations across the country, meaning there could be more economic pain in a country where around 65 per cent of the population live in poverty.

The president of the Confederation of Economic Associations of Mozambique, Agostinho Vuma, said he was aware of the negative impact that the internet shutdowns were having on small businesses. “There’s nothing we can do about it, but the situation does affect us,” he said.