Portuguese Defence Minister Augusto Silva on Tuesday began a four day visit to Mozambique, in order to assess the degree of implementation so far of the framework programme for military cooperation between the two countries, covering the 2010-2013 period.Speaking at a Maputo press conference, Silva said that the main objective of the programme is to train Mozambican officers. He added that over the past 20 years of military cooperation, about 1,500 Mozambican officers have been trained in Portuguese military academies. He also stressed Portuguese support for Mozambican military schools. “Over the past six years we estimate that 5,000 Mozambican officers have benefited indirectly from Portuguese assistance from the fact that they have undertaken their training in Mozambican schools that enjoyed Portuguese support”. Silva added that, over the past two decades, a total of 1,008 Portuguese military personnel had worked in Mozambique as military advisors. Currently there are about 30 such advisors in Mozambique. As for the Cessna aircraft that Portugal has offered to the Mozambican airforce, Silva said “it has three essential missions: it will be an instrument to train pilots, it will be used for medical evacuations by air, and it will operate in maritime surveillance”.His host, Mozambican Defence Minister Filipe Nyussi said there has been Portuguese cooperation in the army, navy and air force, and in training cadres at the level of command and leadership. Mozambique was now designing a higher level military institute and hoped to learn from Portugal’s experience in this area”.Nyussi said that he had also discussed the threat posed by piracy on the high seas with Silva, but gave no details.
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