Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, who is stepping down after 42 years in politics and at the forefront of a liberation struggle against Portuguese rule, says although he wants to ”be free” now, he will be on call to help resolve ”terrible problems” anywhere in the world.
The veteran leader ruled the southern African nation for 18 years during which he negotiated an end to a vicious 16-year civil war that claimed up to one million lives and was marked by the use of landmines.
Chissano said in an interview that he was bidding adieu in full glory after this week’s elections which he chose not to contest.
”I decided to be free,” he said. ”The only thing which will hold me is the chairmanship of the [ruling] party, not government affairs or anything similar to government affairs.”
”I have been here 18 years and I think that’s a lot of time,” he said. ”On top of that I was in government before becoming president for 12 years which means that I am in government for 30 years. And before that I was in the leadership of my party or the liberation movement for another 12 years.
”I think I have attained the normal age for retirement if I were a civil servant so taking all this together… it’s time [to] retire,” the 65-year-old Chissano said.
He said he accomplished most of what he had set out to do to lift the war-devastated country from ruin to economic recovery.
”All this also gives me the feeling that I continue to merit the respect of the world, of Africa, and therefore I may in my humble way try and bring some inputs in the search for solutions of the terrible problems which we are facing in the world,” Chissano said.
Chissano became Mozambique’s first foreign minister after it gained independence in 1975 and took over as head of state in 1986 after founding president Samora Machel’s death in a plane crash over South Africa, at the height of a civil war that only ended in 1992.
”This leadership was undertaken under very hard conditions and of course I could consent [to] all sacrifice when it was absolutely necessary but I [hoped to] bring about a situation of peace in Mozambique and a situation of economic growth, thus creating the basis for development.”
Chissano shed his ruling Frelimo party’s Marxist ideology and opened up the economy with stirring results.
”It was a hard task and I am happy that we have reconstructed almost everything and we went beyond reconstruction,” he said.
Foreign investors had come in a big way, there had been a huge expansion in education, health, electricity and water supply services, Mozambique was nearly self sufficient in staple crops and the poverty index was 55% now from around 70% earlier, he said.
Chissano plans to set up a foundation to deal with issues related to peace, development and the revival of local culture.
The multi-lingual leader, who did his higher studies in Portugal and France, ruled out taking top international jobs.
”I will not stay in the headquarters of the African Union or the United Nations,” he said. ”If I willingly have decided to leave this job, obviously I would not seek any other job which would put me in the same position.”
Chissano underlined that peace appeared to have taken firm roots in Mozambique and said the main opposition Renamo party — a former rebel group which had been blamed for some of the worst atrocities during the civil war — had also undergone a metamorphosis.
”As it had to happen, Renamo itself is suffering some transformations… working as a coalition of parties, some of which did not take part in the armed struggle,” thereby minimising any threats of a slide into violence despite the ”excess of desire to take power by some leaders”, he said. – Sapa-AFP