Friends of Mozambique should help the debate, but not mediate – Andrea Riccardi

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Friends of Mozambique should help the debate, but not mediate – Andrea Riccardi

12:24 CAT | 20 May 2016

Notícias (File photo) / Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio Community

The founder of the Sant’Egidio community, who on Tuesday discussed the Mozambican political crisis with Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said on Wednesday in Lisbon that “friends of Mozambique” should help the debate, but rejected the need for mediation in the conflict.

Andrea Riccardi, who in 1992 mediated the peace agreement that ended the Mozambique civil war, met President Rebelo de Sousa in Lisbon on Tuesday and discussed the Mozambican political and military crisis, considering it “a serious situation”.

“There are tremendous, brutal facts, there are dead, the situation is serious, but I’m not pessimistic,” the historian said, adding that he had confidence in the renewed negotiations between the government of Mozambique and the main opposition party after Renamo president Afonso Dhlakama decided to accept the invitation of President Filipe Nyusi to resume peace talks.

Riccardi said that he was very worried about the tension in the country, but believed “a solution will be found.”

“If a solution could be found to the civil war, then a solution will be found to the current tension,” Riccardi told reporters in Lisbon, where he was giving a lecture on the pontificate of Pope Francis.

Since the 2014 general elections, which Frelimo (Liberation Front of Mozambique) won and whose results Renamo (Mozambique National Resistance) the main opposition party, refused to accept, peace has progressively deteriorated in Mozambique, with the political, military, economic and financial crises worsening.

“Mozambique worries us a lot,” said the founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, citing the weakness of the country’s financial situation and the growing instability of the Mozambican state.

“We follow Mozambique closely and we have faith,” Riccardi said.

The October 4, 1992, General Peace Agreement, ending nearly two decades of fighting between Frelimo and Renamo, was signed in Rome following negotiation mediated by the Community of Sant’Egidio. sometimes referred to as “the UN of Trastevere”, after the neighbourhood in Rome where it maintains its headquarters.

Founded in 1968 in Rome by Andrea Riccardi, the Community of Sant’Egidio is a Catholic organization that undertakes projects for the promotion of peace, inter-religious dialogue, solidarity and evangelisation.

According to the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, speaking at the Andrea Riccardi conference, the Community of Sant’Egidio pays attention to reality “as it is”, with its “dramas” and “tragedies”.

“It was very important that, in the late 60s, Andrea Riccardi, in the midst of all the ideologies then in full swing, chose to attend to “reality as it is”, with all its tragedies and dramas,” D. Manuel Clemente said.

Source: Lusa /Ecclesia