Mozambique: Portuguese parliament starts hearings on cooperation and violence on Wednesday

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Mozambique: Portuguese parliament starts hearings on cooperation and violence on Wednesday

3:55 CAT | 07 Dec 2020

File photo: parlamento.pt

Hearings in the Portuguese parliament on Portugal’s cooperation with Mozambique and the situation of the attacks in Cabo Delgado start next Wednesday, December 9, with the hearing of the representative of the Aga Khan network.

Members of the parliamentary commission on Foreign Affairs and Portuguese Communities from two of the three parties that submitted the request approved on November 19 the hearing of several individuals on Portuguese cooperation with Mozambique and the situation of the attacks in Cabo Delgado region, telling Lusa on Friday that the individuals to be heard have already been agreed and the hearings, all of them behind closed doors, start on the 9th.

On the first day, Nazim Ahmad, diplomatic representative of Imamat Ismaili to the Portuguese Republic and linked for decades to the Aga Khan Network for Development, with projects in Mozambique, as well as president of the Aga Khan Foundation in Portugal, and journalist António Mateus, who spent several years in the region, including as a delegate for the Lusa agency in South Africa and Mozambique, will be heard.

On the second day, December 15, Fernando Jorge Cardoso, professor and researcher at the Centre for International Studies at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE), with extensive experience in the analysis of African issues, and journalist and commentator on international issues Nuno Rogeiro will give evidence.

The hearing of the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, has not yet been scheduled.

The Social Democrat (PSD) parliamentary group had the previous week submitted a request to hear the Mozambican ambassador to Portugal, Joaquim Bule, international policy commentator Nuno Rogeiro and journalist António Mateus regarding the worsening of the situation in Cabo Delgado, while in the same document condemning those acts.

The PS and CDS also proposed hearings on the same subject which were unanimously approved, so the parties agreed to decide jointly on the personalities to be heard.

“That was what was agreed today,” Social Democrat (PSD) deputy Nuno Carvalho told Lusa, not excluding, for now, the names proposed by the PSD in its initial application, but admitting that the scenario had changed a little. Now the question “was centred on cooperation, but keeping in mind the situation in Cabo Delgado,” he said.

Socialist Party deputy Paulo Pisco said at the time that what was at stake was Portugal’s cooperation with Mozambique, without neglecting the situation in Cabo Delgado, and that the hearing of the head of the Portuguese diplomacy would be important as regards EU-Africa cooperation on terrorism generally.

The province of Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique, has been the target of attacks by armed groups for three years, causing nearly 2,000 deaths and displacing 435,000.

According to the PSD’s request, the attacks are “motivated by religious issues” and “have been considered as real terrorist acts and, as such, condemned by the international community, with numerous appeals for their end and for the condemnation of those responsible for them”.

“Portugal shares a historical and emotional connection with Mozambique, having an important community residing in the country who, like the local population, is affected by these attacks and the enormous insecurity they cause,” the deputies say.

For this reason, “while condemning these attacks, it is also essential to guarantee a strengthening” of Portuguese cooperation with Mozambique, “in order to contribute to creating the conditions for strengthening the Mozambican economy and society and, ultimately, helping to create conditions for these attacks to cease”.

Source: Lusa