Chapo lights symbolic “Olympic pyre”

Maputo, 26 Jun (AIM) – Mozambique’s torch of national unity ended its symbolic march across the country on Wednesday, when President Daniel Chapo used it to light what was described as an “Olympic pyre”, in the Machava stadium, the place where, 50 years earlier, the country’s first president, Samora Machel, had declared Mozambican independence.

In lighting the pyre, Chapo was accompanied by his three predecessors as head of state, Joaquim Chissano, Armando Guebuza and Filipe Nyusi. The torch had been marched for 15,000 kilometres, across all 11 provinces of Mozambique in the previous 79 days.

This was a repetition of the torch of unity that had been carried to the Stadium on the day of independence in 1975. The intention is to symbolise peace and unity.

In his subsequent speech, Chapo stressed that he himself is a product of independence, since he was born in 1977, two years after the declaration of independence.

Chapo declared that the diversity of cultures is part of the “true essence” that Mozambique needs to attain its economic independence. He called for “a boosting of national unity, cooperation between our institutions, the strengthening of our democracy, and the commitment to the building of welfare for all”.

He stressed the need for integrity, transparency and the fight against corruption. He warned that the persistence of corruption has “perverse effects on the allocation of resources”.

But the main challenge facing the country, Chapo added, was the consolidation of peace and security in the face of the terrorist attacks that persist in parts of the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

“Our vision for the coming years is focused on laying the foundations for economic independence”, he said. “This is a promise that we shall honour, no matter how challenging it may be”.

The leader of the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), now the largest opposition force in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Albino Forquilha, declared that 25 June should be a day of celebration for all Mozambicans. Independence, he said, does not belong to any political party.

Mozambicans, Forquilha claimed, had come together “without ideologies to liberate the country and its people”. The opposition, he added, should participate in the independence celebrations, “out of respect for the State”.

Forquilha was invited to address the ceremony in representation of all opposition parties. This sparked off a barrage of insults on social media from assorted opposition bloggers who regarded Forquilha as a puppet of the ruling Frelimo Party.

As usual on State occasions, there was no sign of the former rebel movement Renamo. Its leader, Ossufo Momade, chose to give a press conference in Maputo on the day prior to the celebrations, claiming that Mozambique is “a failed state”.

He said that Mozambique could have become a robust and developed state over the previous 50 years. He failed to mention that for much of that period Renamo was in the service of the white minority regimes of Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and of apartheid South Africa, and systematically wrecked much of the economy.

Momade declared that it is “fundamental to hold free, fair and transparent elections to allow a change in the ruling party”.

Former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane issued a statement on his Facebook page on Wednesday claiming that “those who fought against the settlers yesterday have become the worst settlers, insensitive to the suffering of the people, intolerant of criticism and ever more authoritarian” (although it makes no sense to describe people born and bred in Mozambique as “settlers”).

He claimed that “dozens of strategic industries were closed down on higher orders”, whereas in reality many of the factories closed were sabotaged by Renamo, the party to which Mondlane once belonged.

Mondlane said that it makes no sense to speak of independence “when sovereign decisions depend on authorisation or financing from the West”.

“How can one speak of independence in a country where political power interferes shamelessly in the judicial and legislative power?”, asked Mondlane.

“The absence of the foreign settler is not enough”, he declared. “It is necessary to eradicate the domestic settler”.

But Mondlane himself has close ties with the real settlers, the remnants of the Portuguese colonial regime, now organised into the fascist party Chega. When Mondlane visited Portugal last July, the only political party that received him was Chega.

So toxic is Chega that the mainstream Portuguese right will have nothing to do with it. Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, who heads the right wing Democratic Alliance (AD), the winner in the recent elections, has publicly stated that he will not form any kind of coalition with Chega.

Chega makes no secret of its belief that countries once ruled by Lisbon should still be part of the Portuguese empire. On 25 April, the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of fascism in Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the then Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, made official apologies to the peoples of the former colonies for the crimes committed by the colonial regime.

The sole dissenting voice was that of Chega, which raged against Rebelo de Sousa, and demanded that the former colonies should pay compensation to Portugal. Chega accused the President of “betraying Portugal and its history”.
(AIM)
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