The lusophone personality of the year for the MIL is a Mozambican who dedicates the prize to Quelimane

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The lusophone personality of the year for the MIL is a Mozambican who dedicates the prize to Quelimane

2:17 CAT | 04 Apr 2018

DW / File photo / Manuel de Araújo

Mozambican Manuel de Araújo, who was honoured as Lusophone’s Personality of the Year by the International Lusophone Movement (MIL), dedicated the award to the inhabitants of Quelimane, the city he presides over and wants to put on the national map again.

“For me, this award represents the effort that Quelimane residents have been making to put the city on the map, not only in our province and in Mozambique, but also across the world,” he said in a statement to the Lusa news agency.

The award, which is already in its ninth edition, was delivered on Wednesday last week by the president of the MIL, Renato Epifânio, at a ceremony held at the Portuguese Geography Society in Lisbon.

Manuel de Araújo recalled the efforts of the population of Quelimane (centre east of Mozambique) to resume the “prosperity of the past”.

According to Manuel de Araújo, who was elected president of the municipality as the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement party candidate, Quelimane, capital of the province of Zambezia and a city of about 450,000 inhabitants, “was an extremely prosperous city which, between 1972 and 1964, produced about 30 percent of the gross domestic product of the then Portuguese territory”.

“Today, it’s about 10 percent. Imagine the difference and the impact this brought. There were large companies [in Zambezia], which employed around 80 to 90 percent of the workforce,” he recalled.

“After 16 years of civil war, (which ended in 1992) and with the nationalisations, the main companies left, leaving a great level of unemployment. We have been making efforts to recover the economic and business fabric of Quelimane, the city, and Zambézia. And the prize reflects this effort that the citizens have been making to revitalise the economy and the way of life” they once had, he said.

De Araújo was the ninth Portuguese-speaking personality to be distinguished by MIL, after the Brazilian ambassador Lauro Moreira (2010), the Timorese bishop Ximenes Belo (2011), the Portuguese academic Adriano Moreira (2012) and the former executive secretary of the Community of the Countries of Portuguese Language (CPLP), the Guinean Domingos Simões Pereira (2013).

The remaining awards were awarded to the former secretary of the Galician Academy of Portuguese Language (AGLP), the Spanish ngelo Cristobal (2014), the Brazilian diplomat and former president of the International Institute of Portuguese Language (IILP) Gilvan Muller de Oliveira (2015), claiming the Portuguese throne D. Duarte de Bragança (2016) and the Angolan ambassador Rui Mingas (2017).

The MIL is a cultural and civic movement with more than 40,000 members from all the CPLP countries (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique,

Source: Lusa