Politics: Air in Moz is smoldering.

Day of the Heroes

February 3^rd is a national holiday here in Mozambique; it is the Day of the Heroes. Citizens are expressing their patriotism with ceremonies similar to our Memorial Day and Veterans Days. In Mozambique, a relatively new country, the memories of fighting are fresh.  

For sixteen years the country was ravaged in a civil war between the political party FRELIMO and a rebel group called RENAMO, which ended 1992. Just last month, 24 years after the peace agreement, Mozambique was finally declared landmine free, yet the political conflict remains.

The country remains precarious politically even in 2016.  The rebel group leader of RENAMO (who remains as the head of the now political party since its inception 40 years ago) has vowed to seize control of six Northern provinces through legitimate electoral votes and is claiming electoral fraud in the 2014 election. Warnings to control these areas have been made, but the party might not have the strength within its number of leaders.

The low-level violence between the two political parties remains; last month the RENAMO secretary general was shot and his bodyguard killed. Citizens are fleeing areas, claiming that the government forces are burning down homes in search of the opposition. There remains a division between RENAMO’s north and central with FRELIMO’s south, claims of income-inequality despite the money coming into the country from exporting natural resources (found in the north).  

There are eyes on this smoldering heat, Peace Corps Security remains abreast of the situation for the safety of volunteers in those regions.

The land-mines buried in the soil were cleared but those evolving from the voter’s booth remains.

Mozambique, our Glorious Land

Rock by rock constructing the new day

Millions of arms in one only force

O Loved fatherland we will be successful

United people from Rovuma to Maputo

It harvests the fruits of the combat for the Peace

The dream grows waving in the flag

And goes cultivating in the certainty of tomorrow

-          Mozambique National  Anthem , chorus 

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