Pope Francis hails peace in postwar Mozambique

September 05, 2019

Pope Francis on Thursday urged Mozambique to uphold its hard-earned peace after warring parties signed a peace deal in August, decades after the end of its brutal civil war.

“You have experienced suffering, sorrow and affliction, but you have refused to let human relationships be governed by vengeance or repression or to allow hatred and violence to have the final word,” said Francis during a trip to three African countries.

The pope described last month’s peace accord as a “landmark” for the country. However, he urged the country’s political leaders to avoid incendiary rhetoric as Mozambicans gear up for elections next month.

“As we know, peace is not merely the absence of war but a tireless commitment, especially on the part of those of us charged with greater responsibility,” said the pope.

Read more: Can coffee growing in Mozambique save a rainforest and keep the peace?

People wave flags with a picture of Pope Francis

Thousands of people turned out to catch a glimpse of the pope during his trip to Mozambique

New politics

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi thanked the pope for his “immeasurable support.”

“The efforts made by the Mozambicans, Holy Father, are essentially aimed at building a nation where non-violence becomes a culture lived by all, where politics is done through the force of argument and not the force of arms,” Nyusi said.

A 1993 peace accord signed in Rome by warring parties collapsed two decades later when government forces raided opposition encampments in the bush, triggering a new insurgency.

But negotiations were relaunched in 2016 and concluded with a new peace accord last month, paving the way for fresh elections. More than one million people were killed, including from famine, throughout the 15-year conflict.

Read more: ‘No peace, no election in Mozambique’: RENAMO junta leader tells DW

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Africa and communist East Germany

Vocational training far from the civil war battleground

Skilled workers from African socialist and Marxist-Leninist states received vocational training in communist East Germany until it was reunified with West Germany. In 1983 while a civil war was raging at home, these Angolans were taking part in a six month course at the Central Institute for Industrial Safety in Dresden. East Germany backed the Marxist-Leninist MPLA regime.

Africa and communist East Germany

Solidarity with African liberation movements

A plane from the East German airline Interflug at Luanda airport. It is carrying supplies for Angolan schools. In 1978, other beneficiaries of East Germany’s Solidarity Committee, which coordinated development aid, included the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), the African National Congress (ANC), Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Africa and communist East Germany

Courses for African journalists

East Germany trained hundreds of African journalists from almost every corner of the continent. They attended the ‘School of Solidarity’ run by the Federation of East German Journalists in Friedrichshagen, East Berlin. This course for young journalists from Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe took place in December 1976.

Africa and communist East Germany

‘School of Friendship’

Margot Honecker, education minister and wife of East German leader Erich Honecker, greets Samora Machel, Mozambique’s first president at the School of Friendship in Straßfurt in 1983. Mozambique and East Germany had agreed in 1979 that 899 Mozambican children would attend the East German school over a four year period.

Africa and communist East Germany

Dr Agostinho Neto High School

While President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola was visiting East Germany, High School No. 26 in Pankow, East Berlin was renamed in honor of his predecessor, Dr Agostinho Neto. Members of the communist East German youth league, FDJ, welcomed the Angolan president waving banners which read “On the side of the Soviet Union, for peace and socialism!”

Africa and communist East Germany

Angolan president at the Berlin Wall

Angolan President dos Santos (5th from left) also visited the Berlin Wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate in East Berlin. East Germany sealed off the western sectors of Berlin in August 1961 to prevent disgruntled East Germans from fleeing to the West. East Berlin called the Wall as the “anti-fascist barrier.” Some 200 people were killed by communist border guards while trying to cross it.

Africa and communist East Germany

African guests at East German Communist Party congresses

The ruling East German Communist Party (SED) was always pleased to welcome foreign guests of the right ideological temperament to their congresses. Guests in 1981 included Ambrosi Lukoki (back row far right), member of the MPLA from Angola, as well as Berhanu Bayeh (back row 2nd from left), later to become foreign minister in Ethiopia’s Marxist-Leninist Derg dictatorship.

Africa and communist East Germany

East German Communist Party (SED) functionaries in Africa

High-ranking African Marxist-Leninists visited East Germany and their East German counterparts returned the compliment by travelling to Africa. East German politburo member Konrad Naumann (2nd row, right) attended the third party congress of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in Bissau in November 1977.

Africa and communist East Germany

East German and African schoolchildren

Communist indoctrination of schoolchildren in East Germany spilled over into the holidays when they attended camps for the Young Pioneers and Thälmann Pioneers youth organizations. The visitor from the People’s Republic of Congo is being introduced to Die Trommel, the Thälmann Pioneers’ magazine at the Pionerrrepublik Wilhelm Pieck camp near East Berlin.

Africa and communist East Germany

A weekend with an East German family

Young African visitors, attending a summer camp in 1982, spent a weekend with East German families. A special train took them to Schwedt, an industrial town closer to the border with Poland. Sandra Maria Bernardo from Angola is welcomed by her host Ingeborg Scholz and daughter Petra.

Africa and communist East Germany

Tractors for ‘fraternal socialist states’

In 1979 tractors made by the East German tractor plant in Schönebeck were donated to Ethiopia, then a Marxist-Leninist state. The ZT 300-C tractor was exported to a total of 26 countries, including Angola and Mozambique.

Africa and communist East Germany

East German textile machinery in Ethiopia

This textile factory in Kombolcha in the Ethiopian province of Amhara (picture: November 2005) produces sheets and towels. It was built in 1984 with the support of East Germany and Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia). Almost all of the machinery was made by the East German collective combine TEXTIMA in the city of Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz).

Africa and communist East Germany

East German prefab in Zanzibar

The state of Tanzania was founded by Julius Nyerere in 1964. East Germany supported his experiment in socialism by erecting a long row of prefabricated concrete buildings in Zanzibar. The prefab blocks were freighted to Zanzibar by sea and were assembled on arrival. The ‘Michenzani,’ as it is called, is still standing.

Africa and communist East Germany

Wages unpaid 25 years after East Germany’s demise

Some 15,000 Mozambicans worked as contract labor in East Germany in the late 1980s. Most returned home after East Germany’s reunification with West Germany on October 3, 1990. Back home the Mozambicans were called ‘Madgermanes’ – a derivation of ‘Made in Germany.’ The Mozambican state never paid them the wages for work they did in East Germany. They protest regularly in Maputo to this day.

Author: Johannes Beck / mc