Washington, DC — President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique was in Washington, at the end of February, for a mini-summit of southern African leaders with President George W. Bush and granted an interview to allAfrica.com.
Following the end of a prolonged civil war in 1992 and the elections in '94, in which Frelimo defeated its long-running military foe, Renamo, Mozambique has struggled to rebuild, attempting to reverse profound economic decline and poverty, and wrestling with natural disasters like the massive floods of early 2000 which displaced a quarter of the population and destroyed infrastructure. Despite being heavily reliant on aid and debt relief, the country has attracted significant foreign investment and achieved impressive growth, projecting annual rates of 7-10% for the next 5 years.
In this first part of the interview, President Chissano talks about his meeting with President Bush, Mozambique's economic performance, the problem of corruption and the need for international assistance to deal with the underdevelopment in the north of his country.
You attended a summit with President Bush, along with Presidents Dos Santos and Mogae of Angola and Botswana. How did it go?
Yes, the President of the United States, President Bush invited us, first of all to speak about his commitment to work with us in Africa for development and to tell us that his policy is to put Africa as a priority; then he also wanted to exchange views about regional situations, country situations. He was interested to talk with us because he knew that we were the three countries who had taken a positive stand in the combat against terrorism.
So, in a nutshell, we addressed the issue of aid, in the sense that we would like to see aid to be increased from the developed countries, namely from the United States of America in order to support the Nepad [New Partnership for Africa's Development] which is a new undertaking of the African countries to own their process of development and for changes in Africa towards a better governance.
Of course Angola must have come up; did you discuss the changed circumstances in Angola, following the death of Savimbi?
Yes. Actually there was not much discussion on Angola except that President Dos Santos stated that the new situation brings about better prospects for peace and reconciliation.
So, we discussed a series of issues like Aids, hunger, poverty at large, capacity-building for dealing with problems of border control against all international types of crime like money laundering, smuggling of small weapons and narco-trafficking.
Also we spoke about the peace-keeping operations in Africa and the need for building capacity among the Africans themselves. Of course, we want this always to be connected with the world community of nations, we don't want to replace that; but we feel we should have capacity, not only to work in our regions in Africa, but also in other regions - which has occurred already in the case of Mozambique, which has very small armed forces. We have been participating in different countries.
So did Mr. Bush make any offers in terms of aid or assistance, either in kind or in money?
No, we didn't go to into details, we spoke in principles because this was an open discussion. But we noted areas of interest, especially agriculture, and he recognized that the United States has got the skills and possibilities of helping, provided there is water. Even on that, we pointed out that, with more help, we can create conditions within some countries so that there is water.
For instance, in Mozambique floods and droughts occur at the same time because we cannot control the flow of water in rivers that come in from neighboring countries to reach the sea; sometimes the water doesn't come because there are droughts, and sometimes there is too much because there are heavy rains everywhere.
Maybe this is a good moment to ask you about the Zambezi Valley Project that you have described during this visit. To what extent is water management a factor in that project? Obviously what happens in the countries upstream of the Valley will have a big impact on whether that project can work?
Yes, the management of water is very important and we have a commission within SADC [Southern African Development Community] which deals with the management of water to control floods, rivers and the utilization of waters upstream so that downstream there's no lack of water, but also to control the utilization of dams so that they don't overflow or flood us with the opening of their gates without coordinating with us, because we are downstream.
We also are talking about the construction of dams, even on the Zambezi river, both to further control floods but also to produce more electricity and increase the irrigation capacity; we can also control the levels of the river to make it navigable so that it becomes more useful.
You have specifically referred to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a potential model for the Zambezi project. I believe you said that you were in discussions with TVA, USAID, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That's a massive project; can Mozambique do this alone or does this have to be a SADC project? And where do you find the capital?
Yes, this is a vast program. not just a project. What we need is to have a comprehensive plan so that then we can offer this plan to different countries and different companies who would like to invest, to Mozambicans too, of course, also to invest in different areas.
We are speaking of something like 240 square kilometers of land from the border with Zambia and Zimbabwe in the West to the sea, in a very wide area along the Zambezi. When we speak about the Zambezi Valley, we speak about the basin of the Zambezi, the river itself, with all of the tributaries, so we don't expect that one country or one company is going to bring the money, because it entails mining, the railways, power distribution, power production in dams...
In the Zambezi Valley one can build a new dam the size of Cahora Bassa, and actually we want to build that at a place called Panda Nkua, which is downstream of Cahora Bassa. But besides that, one can build several other medium size and small dams, up to 15, so one can generate a lot of energy in that area, which can serve Mozambique but also the neighboring countries.
So in that perspective we can say that it can become a SADC program for electrification, for instance; but also we are going to produce a lot of food, so there willl be improved food security not only for Mozambique but for the region.
So have you received a positive hearing in the U.S. about this project? Did you get any promises of support?
Yes, The Tennessee Valley Authority, they are interested in us. My ministers have visited them and also the army core of engineers; they came to Maputo to visit us and they will have other activities besides helping us to plan. They may have other activities with our armed forces.
On the broader front of economic development, we are quite struck by the fairly dramatic growth seen in Mozambique.
The growth of Mozambique is due to good planning and the measures taken and macroeconomic reforms, but also to microeconomic planning and performance at the village level, the work of the people and the support which the State has given to the small farmers, the peasants.
But while it is to be applauded, one should not expect that this growth will bring big changes to the life of the people. The per capita income in Mozambique is about $210 so even if you have an increase of 15%, the poverty is still there. No one can do efforts beyond what can be done, but we would need to achieve more than 100% because this is what would be required to change the situation overnight. So, we'll need this type of growth for a long period of time, which can happen only if we continue to get support from the outside. The capacity for generating our own resources is increasing, but for a long time we'll need a complement from the outside.
At the same time, quite frankly, we have also noted that Mozambique has been strongly criticized over corruption and you, yourself, set up a commission not too long ago to address this. How are you getting on top of this problem?
Well, of course, Mozambique is in the process of organizing itself; you know we got our independence and the personnel to work in the civil service was not there. We had to create everything. But then we had the war, which I hate to call a civil war because it was something created by our enemies outside, but anyway, it became a civil war; after 16 years of civil war we are reconstructing and we are living in the most abject poverty in our country. We have to organize our institutions to deal with several issues and we cannot deal with everything at the same time.
Now, I think that we have got a correct line to follow. We start by reforming the public sector, which comprises the civil service and the centralization of power. The reform of the civil service will create a new way of doing things and a new way of approaching the service itself, by the civil servants. This already, by itself, will decrease the possibilities of corruption, as the bureaucracy will decrease; or, let's say, we'll have a sound, good bureaucracy, doing things according to the norms which are required but not to complicate things for the citizens. They will do things in such a way that they are clear to the citizens so that the citizen who is jeopardized by negligence or by corruption will see it immediately, will see what his rights are.
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There are a lot of measures in this public sector reform but, at the same time, we have to give capacity to institutions so that we may start enforcing administrative measures, judicial measures. We want these institutions to control each other and enable the public to have real access, a real partnership with the institutions. So we are addressing these issues.
But I guess what people outside must be asking is, are we going to see big court cases where the kind of scam that journalist Carlos Cardoso was uncovering when he was assassinated, for example, will actually get dealt with in court and will the people who were responsible end up being put in jail?
Of course they will, because we'll have this machinery where people know that if they shout that there's corruption, and point the finger, there will be no reason to be afraid; we will have a mechanism that will enable us to pinpoint problems and be able to take the cases up to a court in a very clear manner, so this will be a joint work by everybody.
May we ask you about the case of the children of Carlos Cardoso? As you know, they have inherited his newspaper and now that it is being sued in a libel case, they face bankruptcy, even though they are very young. I wonder what your view is? Does the law just have to take its course, or do you think that this case should be dropped?
OK, the newspaper is being sued but the children of Cardoso are not being sued, so I would have nothing to comment there. What I know is that this is a case of a citizen who felt that his name was attacked; he went to court to say "I want to clear my name" and he hired lawyers; he didn't do this only in Mozambique, he did it in South Africa and in Portugal, against newspapers. He does not know who are the owners of those papers in Lisbon and South Africa, and he acted the same way in Mozambique. He addressed the newspaper without regard for who owned it. This is what I know. I am not here to defend him, he has got his lawyers, his lawyers will defend him, the law will take its course.
