Maputo — The Mozambican media should play a key role in overcoming fatalism and the belief that poverty cannot be defeated, declared President Armando Guebuza on Friday night.

Speaking at a dinner to mark the 30th anniversary of the government's Mass Communications Institute (ICS), the only body in the country that specialises in rural journalism, Guebuza said "Poverty cannot be viewed as an unbeatable curse. We have the right to liberate ourselves from it".

Poverty persists, he argued, not only because of structural factors in the Mozambican economy, but also because of attitudes inside people's minds "resulting from the erosion of our self- esteem induced by five centuries of foreign rule".

"So we sometimes lose trust in our ability to change the reality that surrounds us", said Guebuza. Instead, Mozambican were tempted to depend on others, or opt for "borrowed solutions" while "we have the strength and resources to be the agents of our own transformation".

The media, he urged, should "deconstruct" fatalistic attitude.

and strengthen Mozambican self-esteem. He praised media professionals for "the continued growth of their patriotic spirit" and for "accepting our agenda against poverty as their own agenda".

The ICS started out with technologically simple communication centres in villages and peri-urban areas, which were no more than loudspeakers and amplifiers broadcasting useful information, local news and entertainment. Now the ICS operates some 25 community radios operating all over the country.

Guebuza praised the ICS for "30 years of information for development, valuing the information that will strengthen our self-esteem and lead us to recover our trust in ourselves".

In the rural communities where it works, he added, the ICS played a key in publicising vaccination campaigns, the fight against AIDS, the promotion of literacy and adult education, and mobilising communities to comply with their duties and demand their rights.

The ICS had continued its mission of bringing information and entertainment to the Mozambican countryside, even during the darkest days of the war of destabilisation - and Guebuza paid tribute to the ICS workers who had lost their lives in those years.

He urged the ICS to continue to ensure that the content of its programming is relevant to local development.

Communication for rural development, Guebuza said, involved cultivating self-esteem and the values of patriotism and national unity, promoting civic and health education, and spreading the word about technological innovations that would held farmers in such areas as processing and conserving their produce.