Mozambique: Education Ministry needs over 12,000 new teachers
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Mozambican professor Brazão Mazula said in Beira on Monday that there are “obscure objectives” behind the terrorist groups operating since 2017 in the province of Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country.
“‘Obscure’ means that you cannot see what is behind what appears. It is necessary to discover these interests, in order to establish whether economic interests play a primary role in the issue,” the former rector of Eduardo Mondlane University and president (from 1999 to 2002) of the Association of Portuguese Language Universities (AULP) told journalists in the Sofala provincial capital.
A PhD in History and Philosophy and the author of several books, Mazula says that it is possible to fight terrorism in Cabo Delgado, but not just through military means: “It is difficult to fight terrorists, but it is possible to fight them. Militarily on the one hand, but also creating awareness among citizens and young people not to join, because there are examples in Cabo Delegado of young people who do not join these terrorists.”
Mazula, recipient of a ‘Doctorate Honoris Causa’ in the area of Democracy and Social Harmony from Zambeze University in Beira, highlights the consequences of terrorism for Mozambique. In addition to death and destruction, these include “use of youth to kill defenceless people and citizens”, in a scenario not only of “abundance of natural resources” but also of inequality and poverty.
“I think there are many interests, starting with poverty. Some do not want to accept that poverty is the cause, but it is poverty (…). And then there is tremendous tribalism in Cabo Delgado, inequality is important, and then there are drugs,” the Eduardo Mondlane University professor pointed out.
“Cabo Delgado is not alone as a gateway for drugs,” Mazula also stressed.
READ: Mozambique: Population abandons villages and agricultural plots for fear of attacks
In 1994, Mazula was appointed president of the National Elections Commission (CNE) of Mozambique by consensus.
The new wave of terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, displaced 99,313 people in February, including 61,492 children (62%), according to an estimate released this week by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The Mozambican Minister of National Defence, Cristóvão Chume, on February 29 confirmed attacks by insurgents in four districts of Cabo Delgado province, but said that this did not constitute “a resurgence” of terrorist activities in the north.
“I want to say that this is not what is happening, because if that were actually the case, we would be saying that there are districts or district headquarters that are occupied, with no access for the population. What happened is that there are small groups of terrorists who left their base in the Namarussia area and went further south, attacking some villages and creating panic,” Minister Chume said.
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