The leader of the Catholic Church has urged Mozambique's political leaders to uphold peace and tone down divisive rhetoric. The country is hoping to avert political violence in the run-up to elections slated for October.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. Curtis
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Pope Francis rounded off his visit to Mozambique on Friday by giving a Mass to an estimated 60,000 people in a rain-soaked sports stadium in which he warned citizens of the dangers of corruption and injustices carried out by public officials.
"Mozambique is a land of abundant natural and cultural riches, yet paradoxically great numbers of its people live below the poverty line," Francis told the assembled Mozambicans in the city of Maputo, where he was as part of his trip to three African countries. "At times it seems that those who approach with the alleged desire to help have other interests."
Corruption cost Mozambique $4.9 billion between 2002 and 2014 according to Transparency International.
"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.
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.
Pope Francis also visited a medical centre specialising in AIDS treatment, talking to HIV-infected mothers and pregnant women, in a country where 60% of women are HIV positive. The Catholic Church has poured a large amount of money and resources into the fights against AIDS in Africa, but AIDS activists remain critical of the Church's opposition to artificial contraception.
Thousands of people turned out to catch a glimpse of the pope during his trip to MozambiqueImage: DW/Ricardo Franco
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.
The second leg of the papal trip to Africa begins today in Madagascar.
Communist East Germany sought ties with African states which leaned ideologically towards the Soviet Union such as Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania. This era ended with German reunification 25 years ago.
Image: Ismael Miquidade
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-1983-0516-022 /U. Häßler
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-T0517-0022/R. Mittelstädt
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-R1210-302
'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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/Bild 183-1983-0303-423/H. Link
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!"
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-Z0041-138/M. Siebahn
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.
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-T0803-0302
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-1982-0731-010 /K. Franke
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.
Image: Bundesarchiv/183-U1110-0001/Schulz
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).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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.
Image: cc-by-sa/Sigrun Lingel
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.
