21 May 2008
Chai — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Tuesday lamented the fact that the Chai museum, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, is not yet fully playing the role for which it was designed, which is to preserve the history of the national liberation struggle.
Chai is a small town whose name is engraved in Mozambican history books because it was here, on 25 September 1964, that the war for independence from Portuguese colonial rule was launched, when a group of Frelimo guerillas, led by Alberto Chipande (who later became Defence Minister), attacked the local Portuguese administration.
The museum stands alongside a monument symbolizing the launch of the armed struggle. It is run by the Education and Culture Ministry, but Guebuza believed that much more needed to be done so that the museum could play its role properly.
"Conditions should be created for the museum to be a place where all visitors can find out about the history of the Mozambican liberation struggle", he said during a brief meeting with the local residents.
The objectives of the museum include collecting, recording, preserving and putting at public disposal collections of documents about the liberation struggle, promoting scientific research and establishing working relations with institutions operating in the area of history.
Among other actions, the museum is to identify historical vestiges of the liberation struggle, collect writings about the independence war, and educate schools and communities in the surroundings about the importance of the struggle for independence.
Guebuza's visit to the Chai administrative post is part of his tour of Mozambican provinces known as his "open presidency". He began his visit to Cabo Delgado on Monday.
In Chai, Guebuza was also briefed on the levels of water supply, because there is no source of clean drinking water nearby. Two wells opened in 1960 dried up after some time due to the nature of the soil, and a small water supply system, rehabilitated in 1980, broke down in 2003.
This system started being rehabilitated in 2007, with funds from the government and from Swedish cooperation, at a total cost of 3.7 million meticais (148,000 US dollars). The undertaking, which is to supply water to about 5,000 residents in Chai town and the nearby village of Litamanda, is being built and inspected by Mozambican contractors.
The system will bring water from the Messalo river, so that the residents of Litamanda, about 4.5 kilometres from Chai, will now be able to dedicate most of their time to food production, rather than walking for hours every day to fetch water.
Guebuza also chaired an extraordinary meeting of the Macomia district government on Tuesday, where he stressed the need for farmers in the district to start being concerned with increasing productivity, and not only with expanding the areas under cultivation.
The meeting also discussed the use of the money distributed to the districts for local development. This is lent out to small businessmen who present projects that will generate employment, or produce food. The problem raised is that most of the beneficiaries are not paying back the money, even though no interest is charged.
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