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Mozambique: Guebuza Urges Hard Work And Conviction
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
10 December 2007
Posted to the web 10 December 2007
Lisbon
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has warned his fellow countrymen not to behave like children "who expect to receive everything they want from their parents".
Speaking on Sunday night, at a meeting with the Mozambican community in Lisbon, where he had taken part in the Europe-Africa summit, Guebuza urged his audience to accept that whatever Mozambicans want will have to come from their own hard work, and not from a chorus of lamentations.
"All that we need is within our reach", he said. "It is enough that we work hard and, above all, with the conviction that we are capable of becoming as prosperous as other people. Everything starts with first believing that we can do it. You can't climb out of poverty if you don't believe it's possible to climb out".
Believing that an act is possible is a pre-condition for carrying it out, he said. It was only because Mozambicans thought it was possible to overthrow colonial rule, that they were able to wage the ten year liberation struggle that culminated in the country's independence.
He added that any Mozambicans who remain sceptical about the possibility of eradicating poverty should look at what the country has achieved in the past 15 years of peace. They would see that "we have come a long way. and with more work we will go further".
He recalled that, when the peace agreement to end the war of destabilisation was signed in 1992, the country was in ruins, but now the country wins international praise for its transition from war to peace, and for its rapid pace of economic growth.
"I personally believe that we are able to beat poverty because we have already shown that we are a heroic people in the much more difficult battles that we waged in the past", said Guebuza.
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Guebuza stressed the role of young Mozambicans in the fight against poverty. Those who had the opportunity to study in universities (and there are 600 Mozambicans studying in Portuguese universities) should play a leading role in the anti- poverty struggle.
Just as it was young Mozambicans who formed the guerrilla army that defeated the Portuguese colonial regime, so it was the new generation today that must be to the forefront in the fight against poverty. Those who had higher education should design strategies that will permit the rapid development of the country.
There are about 6,000 Mozambicans currently living in Portugal and around 1,000 of them attended the Sunday meeting.
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| Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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