12/09/2005

Guebuza Praised for His Commitment to Dialogue

Several speakers at the 19th International Ecumenical Meeting, under way since Sunday in the French city of Lyon, have praised Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, guest of honour at the meeting, for his role in bringing peace to Mozambique.

Guebuza, who was then Minister of Transport, led the government team that negotiated in Rome from 1990 to 1992 with the apartheid-backed Renamo rebels. The talks resulted in the peace agreement of October 1992 which ended the war of destabilisation.

The talks took place at the headquarters of the Catholic Sant'Egidio Community, which provided two of the four mediators.

One of these men, Sant'Egidio president Andrea Riccardi, on Sunday gave fulsome praise to Guebuza for his commitment to dialogue as the means of solving conflicts.

"Our world is built of realism in dialogue, as an art for making peace and for creating the foundations for us to live together", said Riccardi. "I praise the President of Mozambique as a man who had the courage to enter into dialogue in order to save his country from the civil war that was throttling it". Riccardi recalled that, as one of the Sant'Egidio mediators, he had worked with Guebuza for over two years, in order to achieve peace through dialogue.

"Thanks to him, Mozambique won its peace and freedom based on democracy", he said. "Today, Mozambique offers a lesson in the value of the art of dialogue for building peace. But more than this, it also offers a lesson in the capacity for the collaboration of all sectors in order to build a better life for the people".

Riccardi added that, during the two years of the peace negotiations, he reached the conclusion that Guebuza gives primacy to dialogue, and believes in its importance, seeing it as the best way to overcome conflicts. For Riccardi, "dialogue is the recognition of differences, which are not always easy to understand. Sometimes it is painful to accept them".

"We recognise that there are profound differences between us as human beings", he said. "But on the other hand, we recognise that we have to reconcile these differences, because we are the product of differences. Nobody should claim to be superior or hegemonic. Even among the churches there are none that are hegemonic in relation to the others. That's why we have religions from all over the world here under the same roof, debating peace as the supreme and common good of humanity".

"Although our world is globalised, it is profoundly plural", said Riccardi.

At the end of the Sunday session, AIM asked Guebuza to comment on the praise that had seen addressed to him.

But the President is not a man given to speaking about himself. He deflected the question as to whether he had been chosen to head the government team in Rome because of his capacity to enter into dialogue with his opponents. That question, Guebuza said, would be better asked of the man who appointed him - his predecessor as head of state, Joaquim Chissano.

"You'd better ask President Chissano", he said. "But I can tell you that it was a decision of the Frelimo Political Commission which chose me for this mission. I complied with the mission because that's how I am - I always like working and carrying out the tasks that are entrusted to me".

Guebuza is scheduled to leave Lyon on Monday and fly to New York, here he will take part in a special United Nations summit, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the world organisation. On the agenda will be progress (or lack of it) in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were agreed at the UN's Millennium Summit in 2000, and burning topics such as reform of the UN Security Council, with no agreement yet in sight.

In Guebuza's view, disagreement over agenda points did not make the summit invalid - rather, it was an opportunity for further dialogue that might lead to a solution, in the future, if not at the summit itself.