Mozambique: Portuguese president starts 4-day official visit on Thursday

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Mozambique: Portuguese president starts 4-day official visit on Thursday

8:35 CAT | 16 Mar 2022

File photo: Lusa

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will start a four-day official visit to Mozambique on Thursday. He will go to two units of the European Union military training mission (UETM) units.

In a note published today on the official presidency website, the “strong military component” of this official visit – initially scheduled for January and postponed due to Covid-19 – is highlighted.

This will be Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s third presidential trip to Mozambique, where he made his first state visit, in May 2016, limited to the capital and its surroundings, and returned in January 2021, for the inauguration of Filipe Nyusi after his re-election as president, when, in addition to Maputo, he went to Beira.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa travels from Lisbon on Wednesday and arrives in Maputo on Thursday morning, when Filipe Nyusi will receive him at the Presidency Palace with military honours. The programme for the visit includes another institutional meeting in parliament.

In the framework of bilateral military cooperation, “De Sousa will visit the Mozambican Marines School” and, in the framework of European military cooperation, “the national contingent, namely two training centres” of the EUTM, in the district of Katembe, in the southern part of Maputo bay, and Chimoio, in Manica province.

The Presidency also noted the “business dimension” of this visit. Together with Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will inaugurate a tourist development built by the Visabeira Group, next to the Indian Ocean, in the Maputo Special Reserve.

According to the programme, the two heads of state will also inaugurate the Aga Khan Academy in Mozambique in the presence of Prince Rahim Aga Khan, the son of His Highness the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim community, who now has his Seat in Portugal and has Portuguese nationality.

In the Mozambican capital, “President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is also due to visit the Portuguese School of Mozambique and the Eduardo Mondlane University to mark 30 years of cooperation between the law school of that institution and the Lisbon University law school and meet with the Portuguese community.

“The visit is also an opportunity to address several relevant issues at bilateral and multilateral levels,” the statement said.

Speaking to journalists today at Belem Palace in Lisbon, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said the “additional justification” for this visit was Mozambique’s role as “a fundamental part of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP).

He then pointed out that, “because of the situation in Ukraine, Mozambique and Angola had voting positions that were not the same as those of most CPLP countries, but were sensitive to the idea of not opposing the condemnation” – referring to the abstentions of these two countries concerning the resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine approved by the United Nations General Assembly.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said his visit to Mozambique would be an opportunity to talk about the “enrichment of the CPLP” and an “exchange of views” on the current global situation.

The programme for his visit ends on Sunday, and the Portuguese head of state travels to Portugal on Monday morning.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa is personally linked to Mozambique, which he met when he was 19 or 20 years old, during his father Baltazar Rebelo de Sousa’s term as governor-general (1968-1970) of the then overseas province, in the middle of the colonial war.

Two decades after April 25th 1974, and the independence of Mozambique in 1975, he visited the country in political functions as president of the PSD, active in defence of a foreign policy that gave priority to the relationship with the Portuguese-speaking countries, to the detriment of Europe.

As a law university professor, he often went to Mozambique for conferences and academic exchange actions and even broadcast his television commentary programmes from Maputo.

Source: Lusa