Maputo, Mozambique — The swearing in last month of Armando Guebuza as the new secretary general of Mozambiques ruling party, Frelimo, makes it certain that he will be the partys presidential candidate in 2004, since President Chissano has said he will not run again.
As a top party official for the past two decades, Guebuza is well-known among Mozambicans and has a controversial history.
In the early 1980s he was personally responsible for implementing 'operacao producao a policy under which the then sole party, Frelimo, sent thousands of city dwellers to 're-education camps in the far north of the country if they were perceived to be insufficiently compliant to the authorities or engaged in anti-social practices, such as prostitution.
A few years earlier, faced with a number of Portuguese in the newly independent Mozambique who were seen as trying to obstruct the Frelimo government, Guebuza declared the policy that came to be known as "24/20"; the trouble-makers had 24 hours to get out of the country and could only take 20 kilos of personal belongings.
Memories of both periods remain keen and there are anxieties that such heavy-handedness might be a hint of things to come.
Guebuza's extensive business empire is also the subject of some discussion; a commonly-heard nickname for him is 'Gue-business. Critics charge that he has used his political power to leverage his business affairs and vice versa.
Armando Guebuza is popular in Frelimo. He won his position as secretary general with 106 votes, over 70% of the total; the next candidate polled only 18 votes. He has been in the leadership of the party since 1968, serving under the country's first president, Samora Machel, as interior minister twice, 'minister-resident' in Sofala province and as minister without portfolio. Under President Chissano he was appointed Minister of Transport and went on to become the chief Frelimo negotiator during talks with Renamo to end the civil war, concluding the agreement which eventually led to multi-party elections, in 1992.
Akwe Amosu managed to win 15 minutes with him in the grounds of a well-known primary school in Maputo, before he went into a Frelimo party meeting.
Being sworn in as the secretary general of Frelimo and the partys future presidential candidate must be an important moment in your life. Is this something that youve long worked for?
Of course, of course. I had not been working to become secretary general; but once the situation arose, I of course fought for this position because I had the confidence of my comrades and friends who believed that, as President Chissano had decided to renounce the candidature for the new term after 2004, I would be fit for it; from then on, I started fighting for it.
What accounts for the strong support that you have in the party?
(laugh) I dont know. But I believe, from what I see, that people trust me and that this trust was translated into a very strong voting position for myself. For example I had 72 per cent of the votes in the central committee, so I believe that people trust me and that they are ready to help me because they know that I cannot do it alone.
You will lead a major election campaign in 2004. What are the most important planks of your programme and your vision for Mozambique?
Fortunately we have a programme in Frelimo, one that was approved by the recent 8th congress, meaning that Im not having a special plan of my own, as I identify myself completely with whatever was decided in that meeting.
Areas of concern on my side are, one, the absolute poverty issue which is the biggest problem that we are facing in the country and all other problems are, in a way, related to that.
The second is, in order to overcome that, to work to continue to attract investment, both national and international. You will ask but what kind of national investment do you have?
So whats the answer?
We do have, we do have; people need to be more realistic, in the sense that even if they have just [a small amount of] U.S. dollars or meticais this can be transformed into something that could help them and also help implement the programme of the government. So we need all that.
Of course, in order to grow faster, we rely on foreign investment and I believe the continuation of a creation of a good investment atmosphere is important. In order to do that we need to make sure there is good governance in the country, there is transparency, that all freedoms are respected and encouraged to be used according to the rules of the democratic game; also that we fight strongly against, on one side, corruption, which is a very serious problem, and on the other, with crime.
On that, I would say that the impression of people is that Mozambique is completely a country of crime but thats not what I mean. What I mean is that whatever crime exists worries Mozambicans seriously because they are not used to this kind of situation. So it is our responsibility to calm our people and fight strongly against crime.
We also have to consider the issues related to HIV, malaria and cholera which, due to our conditions, are very dangerous and deadly diseases. Of course, all these have a main cause - poverty.
Another element to deal with poverty - we are going to continue to encourage agriculture; I mean the rural areas must be developed and agriculture must be more and more commercialized because, mostly in the country, we have subsistence agriculture.
What do you say to people who say: "Look, Frelimo has had a long time to address this issue and yet if you go outside this wealthy island of Maputo you see extreme poverty and lack of investment throughout the country?" Many feel there hasnt been enough effort. so far. to address this problem.
Well it's true that we have been in power for the last 27 years; but we would need to consider the fact that since '75 up to now, we faced problems that were not made by ourselves.
This region had enemies of African people like Ian Smith of Rhodesia and apartheid in South Africa; that involved military attacks and economic blockades which made it difficult to continue the economic plan that we had.
And we had 16 years of war. Nevertheless, the government of Mozambique showed that it meant to develop the country. You see the main programmes to electrify this country were established during those periods, rehabilitation of Nacala corridor, even Beira corridor partially, were done during that time. Even the Limpopo corridor was partially rehabilitated during that time.
So while we were rehabilitating, while we were constructing something, we were seeing that Renamo and apartheid were destroying whatever we were doing. But a lot of things were done. Only we could not succeed because of these pressures, which were outside of our control.
Another example; since we achieved peace, all schools that were destroyed have been reconstructed, as well as clinics, which shows the capacity that Frelimo has to rebuild.
Can I ask you about the governance issue, because you raised it in your list of priorities? Two weeks ago, the independent weekly newspaper Savanah published a list, drawn from publicly-available sources, of your apparently extensive business interests and it raised the question of whether it is possible for senior officials to keep a boundary between their business interests and those of the country and government. There appears to be a perception that your business interests might compromise a presidency that you might lead.
Well there are laws in this country which establish that if somebody holds government office he may not also be in the management of his own business, so I am going to respect that completely.
And secondly, I have been involved since a long time in situations where I have personal interests on one side and collective interests on the other side and always I have given preference to the public interest. I am sure that I will go on doing that.
Im not saying it is an easy thing because at that level of the presidency, we may have interference; but whenever there is a conflict, I would respect the presidency.
One particular question that one of my press colleagues here raised with me was the linking, in that list of interests, of your name with the newspapers O Diario and Domingo. He complained that you appeared to be a shareholder and that those papers were, in fact, supportive of you. Is there any justification in that?
(sigh) Well, I would say in this inventory, there are many, many things that are just speculations.
Secondly, you have to consider that you are dealing with private property and you are not going to interfere with whatever a private newspaper would do, in terms of its positioning on different issues. You have, today, things like Imparcial; they take a position apparently supporting Renamo and nobody can complain about it. Or you have other papers that will take different positions. So I dont think we should interfere with the liberty and freedom of the private newspapers or private enterprises in this field.
Can you foresee the need for new rules that would regulate that relationship between press and politicians?
Well, we have here the law on the press and I think it's enough; but you can sometimes find people from the press saying that it's not enough, so it's up to them to present a proposal. Of course, we would look into [any proposal] and I would be very supportive if it is, on the one hand, to protect their interests but, at the same time, to protect the interests of the public.
When I spoke to President Chissano in Washington three months ago he talked about an extensive plan for dealing with corruption. Is it as serious as the international multilateral bodies say?
Well, we can see it in a positive way. They are concerned that the process here does not derail and it could derail if corruption intensifies; so there is a need to make sure the process does not derail and on that basis, we have to fight corruption as it is.
Frelimo has had the same leaders for decades. Wouldnt it have been better for the party to have a younger, fresher leader?
Well, I think that one has to look at the situation in terms of programme, of competence, not in terms of age. A farmer or a worker or a skilled professional is interested in seeing whether this government is delivering, not whether there is a new face or whatever. So what we have been doing all this time is to do our best to involve young people in this process, to make sure we have continuation. But without putting competence in question.
The problem of age is, in a way, a problem of some people who do not dare say exactly what their programme is. They should try to convince us about their programme but instead of that, they hide behind age.
Meanwhile, you can see that the majority of leaders in Frelimo are young. If you go to government, most of the administrators at district level, they are young people, 30 or 35 years old. Go to the governors, you will find no old ones. Go to the ministers, probably you will find only five veterans out of 20. If you go to the party you will see exactly the same thing. So what we are facing here is that people are a little bit shy to present their programme and fight for that so instead they use the age issue. They should come forward and present a programme.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Are you the hard man of the party? People point to '24/20' and operacao producao and say, "this guy is very tough, he wont respect human rights." Is that fair?
Well thats their perception. I believe that Im very - Im trying to be very respectful of different opinions and also respectful of all contributions of my colleagues and even of those who are not part of our party. And I may have shown that, I believe, during the Rome agreement discussions; I hope I did it during my holding of the office of chief whip when I was responsible for Frelimo in parliament. So I believe that Im not a person who would just be unfair for the sake of whatever.
So human rights would be safe in your hands?
Sure, sure, sure, sure. They are sacred. We have accumulated a lot of experience and it shows us that you have no other way to solve the problems of the population but through respecting freedom of expression, human rights, etc.
On exactly that issue, and looking to Zimbabwe, when I spoke to President Chissano, he said the world was not giving President Mugabe a fair chance to hold the election. And he blamed Europe particularly for being unfair. Since then we have seen a disputed election and an escalation of repression and I wonder whether you think it is, at last, time to sound a note of warning for President Mugabe?
I want to believe - and Ive expressed this on other occasions - that Europe should give us a chance as SADC [Southern African Development Community] to work out this problem properly and not interfere so directly in the way we choose to deal with these issues.
The SADC region had worse problems before, with Ian Smith and then apartheid; but because we united and we were working in an African way, we were able to overcome those terrible problems.
Countries like Mozambique had internal problems, as you know, but because of the type of leadership that existed in the region it was possible to overcome them.
It is a serious problem but we should be given a chance to make use of our experience. For example, I believe that Europe - and I believe they want to help us - America also, they should use us more, and not go straight into the issues there, because they cannot understand Africa as such.
But Zimbabwe could well be heading for a civil war if this situation continues.
Well that is, in part, probably because Zimbabwe feels that it is suffering such hostility; whenever you have the mentality of being under siege you have to defend yourself and all rational ways of handling problems practically become out of reach.
