Roundup: Mozambique's president says to preserve national unity at all cost

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi on Thursday called on his countrymen to preserve national unity at all cost as the country celebrated its 40 years of independence from Portugal.

This time the country has a lot of reasons to commemorate: it is finally enjoying an apparent peace; a new president and government elected in last October are in power since this January; the economy is expected to rise by an average of 8 percent between 2016 and 2019 predicted by international economic institutions.

Mozambique has made itself more well-known to the world with the estimated more than 150 trillion cubic feet natural gas reserves off its northern coast.

The reason why it is an apparent peace is that the country's largest opposition party Renamo has rejected the results of 2014 elections, and in return wants to take power in six northern and central provinces it claims had won and seeks to set up autonomous "provincial municipalities", which is illustrated in a bill it presented to the parliament earlier this year.

Afonso Dhlakama, Renamo's leader, quite openly declared that the purpose of the bill was to put the government of these six provinces, and all their districts and administrative posts, in the hands of Renamo.

However, in his speech at a public rally in Maputo to celebrate the Independence Day, Nyusi called on his countrymen to preserve national unity at all cost, without which the country can not develop.

"We lost many battles due to lack of unity and consensus," he said, referring to the battles during Mozambican people's resistance against the Portuguese colonialism.

Nyusi took the opportunity to criticize "those who want to divide Mozambique because of individual ambitions for power," stressing that "unity is the weapon which guides and will still guide Mozambique for the future."

In late April, the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, threw the Renamo bill out on constitutional grounds. A lengthy opinion from the Assembly's legal and parliamentary affairs commission listed a large number of articles in the bill that violated the constitution.

After that, Afonso Dhlakama, Renamo's leader, has been reportedly threatening to drag the country back to war if his request could not be reconsidered.

The ongoing talks between the government and Renamo, which begin in 2013 with the aim to solve the country's political crisis, continue slowly while the former rebel movement is reluctant to provide the list of its armed men for disarmament and integration, under the agreement signed by both sides last September.

Dhlakama, who is currently in the central province of Sofala, his stronghold, also boycotted the independence celebrations on Thursday, in protest against the ruling Frelimo party's government.

As for the economy, the Mozambican president reiterated at the ceremony that "natural resources belong to all Mozambicans and should be used in a sustainable, transparent and objective ways to serve the Mozambicans."

The nation is preparing to begin the development of a massive natural gas processing industry in the north, although the first gas would not be produced from the Rovuma basin until 2019 at the earliest.

During its latest review mission to Mozambique, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pointed out that up to 100 billion U.S. dollars will be invested to develop the country's oil and gas sector in the Rovuma basin, and "could transform the country into the third largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter in the world."

In a recent interview, Mia Couto, a Mozambican writer and the winner of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, said that 40 years after independence Mozambique remains a nation under construction, fraught with divisions that threaten to drag it back into war.

"We are searching for one identity," said Couto.

This can be substantiated by insisting appeals for "unity, peace and progress," which was in fact the motto for this year's Independence Day celebrations all over Mozambique.

"This is a country searching to be a nation, just one nation, starting from a very strong diversity," Couto added.

Mozambique gained its independence from Portugal in 1975, but afterwards a 16-year civil war started soon, affecting Mozambicans severely, especially in rural areas, with hundreds of thousands of people killed.

Currently, Mozambique still faces serious inequalities, which are seen as a time bomb feeding tensions. The talks between the government and Renamo are stumbling, and in Couto's view, as long as Renamo keeps its weapons there is a risk for the violence to flare up again. Endi