Sad when we have to beg for respect for the lives of others – Mia Couto

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Sad when we have to beg for respect for the lives of others – Mia Couto

8:55 CAT | 01 Sep 2016

O País / Mia Couto

The Mozambican writer has spoken about the military-political situation the country is experiencing, and with political and military tension heightening every day and impinging more and more upon the lives of ordinary Mozambicans, his opinions are sharpening.

For the writer, “it is a sign of extreme poverty when we have to ask someone not to not attack hospitals and not to attack civilians and to respect the lives of Mozambicans,” he says, adding that “it is sad to be negotiating something as basic as peace”.

Couto does not see the political struggle as anything more than a struggle of ideas and causes. He never thought that the extreme of having to beg for respect for the lives of others would be reached in Mozambique.

“The obsession with power has to be questioned internally by the two forces (government and Renamo),” he says. Looking at the issue of concessions, the writer praises the government but goes no further, explaining that these are purely political issues.

What is not a political issue, he says, is the appeal for the silencing of guns so that negotiations can take place in peace. “I do not see anywhere in the world a government facing such a situation, a little strange (to tell): a political force that is sitting in Parliament to discuss some things and that same force wearing a mask military discussing other things in another forum.”

For these and other reasons the author of “Sleepwalking Land ” again says that he does not know how to think about the matter, ending his monologue with the forlorn sentence: “I am lost!”

Source: O País