Speaking at a rally in the locality of Mazivila, in Bilene district, as part of his “Open and Inclusive Presidency” in the southern province of Gaza, Guebuza said that dialogue between political “chiefs” has its uses, but is not sufficient to lower tension.
He was clearly referring to the claims in some quarters that political tensions in Mozambique would dissipate if he were to meet with Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo.
“It is the responsibility of all of us to enter into dialogue”, he stressed, “so that we do not allow people to defend violence”. If dialogue were to become a reality in households, workplaces and everywhere else in society, that really would reduce tensions, Guebuza argued.
He recalled the dark days of the war of destabilisation, which lasted for 16 years and cost the lives of around a million people. “There is practically nobody who didn’t lose a relative or an acquaintance”, he said.
Mozambicans should not allow themselves to be carried away by people who are inciting violence. “You don’t experiment with war”, he exclaimed. “We cannot accept a return to the suffering that we experienced in the past”.
Speakers at the rally denounced alleged irregularities committed by Bilene prosecutors. A woman named Argentina Mondlane said the district attorney’s office had embargoed the building job she was undertaking on a plot of land granted to her by the municipal authorities. In addition she had been ordered to pay a fine of 85,000 meticais (about 2,850 US dollars).
A second resident Francisco Enoque, told a similar story. He had been granted land on which he was erecting a building to house a computer project. The attorney’s office not only embargoed the work, but then told him to knock down what he had built and pay legal costs of 14,000 meticais.
What was peculiar about these cases, Enoque said, was that the municipality, the body empowered to allocate land, had never been summoned to appear in court to explain the legality or otherwise of the buildings.
Post published in: Africa News