Watch: Example of Samora keeps hope of a better future alive

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Watch: Example of Samora keeps hope of a better future alive

8:04 CAT | 20 Oct 2016

Noticias /President Filipe Nyusi at the ceremonies held yesterday at the Monument to the Mozambican Heroes in Maputo

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi declared on Wednesday that commemorating the country’s first leader, Samora Machel, is not just the formal marking of a date, but a means of keeping alive the hope of a better world for all Mozambicans.

For Nyusi, to celebrate the life of Samora Machel is to have the certainty that a better future is possible.

He was speaking in Maputo at the Monument to the Mozambican Heroes, where Machel is buried, on the 30th anniversary of his death, on 19 October 1986 when the presidential aircraft crashed at Mbuzini, just inside South Africa, in a disaster that has been widely blamed on the apartheid military.

“The life of Samora Machel is a school, a human and patriotic inspiration”, said Nyusi. “With him, we learn the spirit of dedication to a cause which serves in the first place the interests of the majority, and that Mozambican action must always be above individual or group ambition. He taught us the value of truth and of openness. He fought constantly against what might divide us: tribalism, racism and religious extremism”.

Machel “was a man of the people and always defended the interests of the people”, Nyusi added. Machel’s governance was marked by “inclusion, the sharing of opportunities and the distribution of wealth”.

Nyusi regarded Machel as a hero, not only because of the courage with which he led the Mozambican struggle for national liberation from Portuguese colonial rule, but also “because his life and work enshrine the ethical and moral values and the sense of citizenship of each Mozambican”.

The significance of Machel’s life, he continued, extended beyond Mozambique’s borders. “Samora knew very well the meaning of international solidarity”, said Nyusi. “It was he who encouraged us to make our own the cause of the freedom of other people who were living under foreign rule or dictatorial regimes”.

He urged all Mozambicans to follow the example of Machel, because “a people without heroes is a people without reference points, without a direction, without a destination and without a history”.

Nyusi attacked the rebel movement Renamo for its bellicose attitude that undermined the climate of peace that Machel had fought for.

He urged Renamo “to show that there are no impassable barriers when we put the interests of the people and of the Mozambican nation above all else. That was the lesson of Samora”.