Analysis: Why Museveni’s visit to Mozambique is significant

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Analysis: Why Museveni’s visit to Mozambique is significant

3:18 CAT | 02 Jul 2018

Uganda's president in Montepuez, Cabo Delgado. File photo: O País

President Museveni returned recently from a “pilgrimage” to Mozambique. Mozambique is significant because it is one country where the Ugandan leader’s revolutionary zeal was honed in his early years. Tanzania and North Korea are the other countries where his military and political wings begun to flap eternally.

He arrived at Montepuez, a town in the northern Cabo Delgado province to a host of excited residents, many carrying the Mozambican and Ugandan flags, chanting and dancing.

Near the Basic Military Training Centre, various cultural and dance groups performed as a military band went about practicing the Uganda National Anthem. A resident said, “Museveni is a son of Montepuez. We are glad that 40 years after we raised him, he is returning to visit us.”

Later, Mr Museveni’s chopper and his entourage touched down at the open ground where the crowd went into frenzy, cheering and ululating.

Mr Museveni walked for about a kilometre to the entrance of the barracks where he laid a wreath on a monument built in memory of fallen officers and men of the Mozambican army. The deceased combatants formed a backdrop that trained Uganda’s liberators led by Museveni himself. They were the nucleus of FRONASA.

He toured the barracks, which between 1976 and 1978, served as home and school for 27 young men he had recruited. Among those who received him at Montepuez were Gen Caleb Akandwanaho a.k.a Salim Saleh, a senior presidential adviser and coordinator of the Operation Wealth Creation programme, Lt Gen Ivan Koreta, an Army MP and Col Bosco Omure, from Internal Security Organisation.

Later, Mr Museveni awarded medals to veterans who supported the Ugandan trainees while others were recognised post-humously among whom were Juliao Chissico Francisco, a driver and Luis Manuel, a cook.

He also signed the visitor’s book at a spot where he sat with late Mozambican liberation icon, Samora Machel, and other leaders to plan their activities. Maputo City Council Assembly bestowed upon Mr Museveni the highest and prestigious honour of the City of Maputo that is called ‘The Key of the City of Maputo’.

Mr Museveni is celebrated in Mozambique just as he is in Tanzania, which formed part of the liberation corridor for Uganda and Southern Africa under the able leadership of Mwalimu Nyerere. Mr Museveni learnt from and worked with the best in the business of placing Africa on the map and asserting our sovereignty. Mozambicans are proud of him because his struggle was not in vain and he has never forgotten their sacrifice for the Ugandan people.

Relations between the two countries have always been whole-hearted under successive governments. On this occasion, he bonded with former leaders, Joachim Chissano and Armando Guebuza, and shared more insights.

The Mozambican link is an inspired story of African strength and true co-operation among the peoples and governments. Our countries may not be so large or rich but they are capable of hoisting their people out of any unpleasant situation into first world powers. The FRONASA people were fewer than one hundred but see how much they achieved across borders! Amin, the Portuguese and other wakombozi did not know what hit them.

As I always say, the struggle has never concluded till a time when we have achieved the combined goal of political maturity and socio-economic liberation.

Mozambique is a stable and democratic country in the same league as Uganda. Foreign interference has completely been defeated. Our countries relate with foreign powers on equal terms.

What remains is for all Africans to preserve historical relations and identify areas of common origin, which explains why our communities can communicate in dialects that are mutually intelligible from the tip of Egypt down to Cape Town and from the Horn of Africa to Western Sahara.

Even where cultures and language are not unconnected, the future invites us to work together and to treat physical borders as mental barriers only. Ugandans and Mozambicans should exchange goods, services and investment in diverse sectors like agriculture, ICT, education, security, energy and manpower exchange.

By Faruk Kirunda