Peace in Mozambique is an obligation to Machel memory – family

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Peace in Mozambique is an obligation to Machel memory – family

12:14 CAT | 19 Oct 2016

Noticias / Samora's family deposing a wreath of flowers in Mbzuini on Monday, October 17 2016

Peace in Mozambique is an obligation to the memory of Samora Machel and a historic responsibility, his son, Samora Machel Junior, said on Monday in a family statement released on the thirtieth anniversary of the first Mozambican president’s death.

“We talk a lot about respecting the life and work of Samora Machel, paying tributes, raising statues, disseminating and discussing his thinking, remembering his works and deeds, but I think there is no better way to respect and pay tribute to him and to all who perished here than to do everything possible to achieve peace in Mozambique,” Machel Junior said at a ceremony on the site of the plane crash in Mbuzini in South Africa where the statesman died.

For South African Deputy-President, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Mozambique’s Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario, the family statement recalls the man as “a visionary” with a global perspective on Mozambique’s problems, and someone for whom “peace is not reached with by simply silencing the weapons”.

“He did not believe that, and the decades after his death have proved him right,” Machel Jr said, alluding to the successive crises between the government and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the largest opposition party, which have peaked in recent months.

The son of former Mozambican president by his first marriage to Josina Machel, said that the peace his father sought was not limited to Mozambique, citing as examples the “heinous apartheid regime”, “foreign aggression” in Angola, internal crises in the DRC and the independence of Zimbabwe.

mhoje_samoramjr1_photo_jpg — Samora Machel Junior, speaking on behalf of the family in Mbuzini, on October 17, 2016

“It was in the service of his dream that he died,” Machel Jr said, referring to his work towards “access to education, health, decent housing, decent and fairly paid work, the means of production to generate wealth, freedom of expression and respect for the security and rights of citizens”.

The ceremony in Mbuzini brought members of the South African and Mozambican governments, local, religious and traditional leaders, family relatives including his widow, Graça Machel, and relatives of the other 34 victims of the air disaster, at the memorial bearing his name opened in 2009 and now a South African national heritage site.

“It happened thirty years ago but it looks like it was just yesterday. To my memory, my brothers and sisters and our mother to the memory of the widows and orphans of those who fell here for millions of different provinces, races and religious beliefs, 19 October 1986 continues to be as immediate as if it had just happened,” Machel Jr said, his statement ending with a passage of one of his most famous speeches, A Luta Continua! (“The Struggle Continues!”).

The first Mozambican president died in a plane crash on October 19, 1986 in Mbuzini, in South Africa, while travelling between Zambia and Maputo.

The Mozambican authorities to his day hold the view that the plane was brought down intentionally by the apartheid South African regime, but investigations into the disaster have been inconclusive.

Source: Lusa