Government calls for participation in 50th anniversary celebrations

Maputo, 5 Apr (AIM) – The Mozambican government has called for massive participation by all citizens in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence on 25 June 1975.

Speaking in Maputo to reporters on Friday, the government spokesperson, the Minister of State Administration, Inocencio Impissa, said the centrepiece of the celebrations will be a march across the country bearing the “flame of national unity”.

President Daniel Chapo will light this torch on Monday, Mozambican Women’s Day, in Nangade district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. It will then pass from hand to hand, as in a relay, for 70 days, across all the country’s provinces, until it reaches Maputo’s Machava stadium on 25 June. It was at this stadium that the country’s first president, Samora Machel, declared Mozambican independence half a century ago.

Impissa said the march will take place under the slogan: “50 years of independence: Consolidating National Unity, Peace and Sustainable Development”.

He added that, for the Mozambican people, the flame will represent a moment of strengthening national unity, after the post-election social convulsions “which sowed hatred among brothers”.

Impissa said the celebrations will cost between 20 and 30 million meticais (between 313,000 and 470,000 US dollars, at the current exchange rate). He stressed that the gains from the flame of unity will outweigh the expenditure.

“We are looking more at the gains of national unity, at the values of reconciliation, peace and concord which we can obtain with the torch. This has no price”, Impissa said.

On Thursday, when he opened a meeting of the Frelimo Central Committee, Chapo urged Frelimo members to participate fully in what he regarded as “a broad movement of exaltation of the motherland, national unity, tolerance, citizenship, peace and inclusion”.

Chapo said the celebrations will be a deep reflection on the gains and achievements made in the 50 years of independence.

“We should use the moment to reflect on how to overcome the challenges that the country has faced in the past 50 years, and how to turn Mozambique into a prosperous, democatic and peaceful society in the next 50 years”, Chapo said.
(AIM)
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