“WE CANNOT ALLOW WAR TO RETURN” - GUEBUZA

President Armando Guebuza on Tuesday appealed to Mozambicans not to allow war to return to the country, stressing that “war is something evil that feeds on blood and perpetuates suffering”.He was speaking at a rally in the locality of Nhamapaza, in Maringue district, on the second day of his “open and inclusive presidency” in the central province of Sofala.His words had particular impact because Maringue was at the heart of the apartheid war against Mozambique. From 1986 until the end of the war in 1992 this district housed the headquarters of the apartheid-sponsored rebel movement Renamo. To this day there are still a couple of hundred of Renamo fighters in Maringue who, in violation of the 1992 peace agreement, were never demobilized.Mozambicans are well aware of the evils that war unleashes, Guebuza said. “We cannot allow war to return”, he declared. “Today, because we are at peace, we can move around and work at will”.  The echoes of war in Maringue could be heard in the remarks made by local residents who spoke at the rally, and protested that their district still contained armed Renamo gangs. One of them told Guebuza “here in Maringue there are still armed men in the bush who prevent us from working the land”.Others said the continued presence of armed gangs brought the name of Maringue into disrepute, and makes it difficult to heal the wounds left by the war of destabilisation.“We are being dragged through the mud by these armed men”, said one speaker. “Wherever we go, when we say that we come from Maringue, we are confused with these men”.Renamo calls these armed men its “Presidential Guard”. It claims that they are bodyguards of its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, and that the peace agreement allows such a force. In fact, the clause in the agreement allowing Renamo leaders to have their own security, which would be treated on a par with the state police, expired when the first multi-party elections were held in 1994.Guebuza also told his audience that rises in the world market price of liquid fuels was among the factors driving price rises in Mozambique. There was little Mozambique could do about this, since it was not an oil producerHe urged Mozambicans to step up their own production to minimise the impact of international crisis. “We have to resort to what we produce rather than wait for what comes from far away”, he said.He pointed out that parts of the country enjoy the right conditions to produce wheat, which would reduce the need for imported wheat. Furthermore local crops such as cassava and sweet potato could replace bread made from wheat flour.