Maputo — Under its project "Transforming Guns into Hoes" (TAE), the Christian Council of Mozambique (CCM), the umbrella body for the mainstream protestant churches in the country, has, since 1995, collected and destroyed 700,000 guns held illegally, according to the CCM general secretary, Marcos Macamo, interviewed in Tuesday's issue of the independent daily "O Pais".

TAE involves offering people holding illegal weapons useful implements (such as sewing machines or bicycles) in exchange for their firearms. Some pieces of the destroyed weapons have been given to artists who have turned them into sculptures which now grace galleries in Mozambique and abroad.

For Macamo, the church should be active in society, so that what counts "is not the number of prayers, but facing reality and pursuing justice, fighting evil in practice, and not just talking about it".

"The role of the church is not to escape from society into an isolated world", he stressed, "but to face society through its own language".

"If we shut ourselves in the four walls of the church, and leave the evil on the outside, it will be still more visible, and we will not be doing anything about it", he said.

Macamo regarded TAE as "a project which continues the pacification that began with the signing of the General Peace Agreement in 1992". Without TAE, the 700,000 guns collected would still be in the wrong hands, and would pose "a great danger to society", he added.

The distribution of goods under this programme is continuing. Macamo said a container has just arrived from Japan containing 100 bicycles that will de distributed in exchange for weapons.

Sometimes, he added, TAE involves, not material goods, but the provision services, such as the drilling of boreholes to supply water to some communities in Maputo province, or the building of classrooms for rural schools.