Mozambique and Uganda to reactivate joint military training

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Mozambique and Uganda to reactivate joint military training

12:59 CAT | 21 May 2018

Photo: O País

Mozambique and Uganda have decided to reactivate joint military training in the context of the relaunch of cooperation in the field of defence and security.

The announcement was made by Mozambican Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation José Pacheco after signing the general cooperation agreement and the memorandum of understanding for political and diplomatic consultations on Thursday in the framework of a three-day visit to Mozambique by the president of Uganda.

According to the head of Mozambican diplomacy, in terms of defence and security, the historical ties between the two nations date back 50 years. In a first phase, when Mozambique was on the national liberation route, the then leader of the Ugandan resistance Yoweri Museveni visited the liberated areas.

After independence (1975), a group of Ugandan fighters, led by Museveni, were in Montepuez, Cabo Delgado, receiving military training to liberate the country from the dictatorial regime of Idi Amin.

This experience dictated the defence and security cooperation mechanisms for the exchange of information and the use of the capacity of the two countries to train Mozambican officers in Uganda and Ugandan officers in Mozambique.

“In this specific case, Mozambique has now expressed the readiness to use its ocean access to train Ugandan marines,” Pacheco said.

Interest in reviving military cooperation is shown by President Yoweri Museveni’s agenda.

On Friday he held a closed meeting with national liberation struggle combatants and on Saturday paid a visit to the Montepuez Basic Military Education Centre where, according to José Pacheco, “not only to did he relive his past day there, but he was also able to look at how Montepuez is now, given that it was there that he benefited from military training”.

In addition to defence and security, the two countries have also identified areas of policy and diplomacy, agriculture, industry, trade and tourism as priorities for relaunching bilateral cooperation.

Regarding the specific policy and diplomacy component, the two parties agreed that by August they should hold a meeting of the Joint Standing Committee to review the operationalisation of the implementation of the General Cooperation Agreement.

Museveni promises to support military training in Montepuez

Meanwhile, President Museveni promised support for the Montepuez Basic Military Education Centre as a way of repaying the solidarity of the Mozambican people and immortalising the friendship between the two countries.

Minister of Defence Atanásio M’tumuke thanked the Ugandan president for the gesture and said that the friendship between the two countries would be perpetuated by his visit.

This is Yoweri Museveni’s first visit to the Montepuez Basic Military Education Centre since he became president of Uganda 32 years ago, after a five-year guerrilla war.

Source: Folha de Maputo