THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 28, 1995 TAG: 9509280375
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
For a group of African visitors this week, Hampton Roads is a study in democracy. In this post-Cold War era, many nations with a chaotic and bloody past are looking to the United States for help on the rocky road to peace, stability and democratic rule.
Mozambique, for example. The dirt-poor east African country, a Portuguese colony until 1975, is only now emerging from 30 years of war.
A delegation of senior Mozambican military officials is touring local military installations as part of a U.S. State Department program designed to give them a first-hand look at how the military functions in a peaceful, democratic society.
It's a timely visit, because Mozambican democracy is in its infancy. The country held its first-ever multiparty elections last November.
That milestone capped a long, sad history: centuries of domination by Portugal, a 10-year armed struggle for independence and, finally, a 17-year civil war that became one of the proxy battlefields of the Cold War.
The Marxist regime that overthrew Portuguese rule became a client state of the communist bloc. A rival faction was created by the white-led Ian Smith regime in neighboring Rhodesia and later drew support from South Africa's apartheid government and the Reagan White House.
Fratricidal warfare claimed more than 1 million victims. Roughly one in every 15 Mozambicans died.
Now that peace has come at last, it is being warmly embraced.
``We strongly believe that the peace we achieved will be a permanent peace, because it is the will of a majority of the people,'' Brig. Gen. Paulino Jose Macaringue said between stops on a bus tour of the area Wednesday. Macaringue, Mozambique's national director of defense policy, is the senior official in the five-man delegation.
``It was never a war desired by our people, but of the foreign interests which provoked and instigated it,'' he said. ``After 30 years of war, our people have concluded that war is not the way to solve problems.''
Peace, welcome as it is, leaves the Mozambique military in something of a quandary: how to retool its mission in a changed world. It's a challenge not unlike that facing the U.S. military as it downsizes in the aftermath of the Cold War.
The biggest lesson he has learned from his group's U.S. visit so far, Macaringue said, is this:
``It is very clear to us that the military is subordinated to the U.S. civilian powers,'' he said. ``This is something that helps us a lot to try to form our beliefs.
``In my country, the military took power from the civilian authorities and used these powers to serve their own purposes and interests. There are many examples of that in Africa.
``I believe this is a key point of democracy: that the military serves the democratically elected government.''
Another lesson, learned over the course of several meetings with military chaplains, is U.S. religious freedom.
Religion is a sore point in Mozambique, where it carries some heavy colonialist baggage.
``With the Catholic cross came also the bayonet of colonialism,'' Macaringue said. ``It did away with the sovereignty of the different tribes. The Catholic church became the official religion.''
The delegation was pleased to learn that the U.S. military not only tolerates religious diversity but provides spiritual guidance for service members of many faiths: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim.
The Mozambicans began their monthlong U.S. visit in Washington last week. From Hampton Roads, they will move on to Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico and New York.
Their lessons in democracy are a work in progress, Macaringue said. There's no cookie-cutter formula.
``I can't tell you we have reached the final level of democracy,'' he said. ``But our people more and more are learning about what is happening in other countries.
``We don't intend to just import U.S. democracy to our country without any analysis. You can't force one model of development on a country. That's what they tried to do before, with socialism, and it failed.
``Democracy doesn't belong just to the United States or the United Kingdom. Africa is looking for its own concept of democracy.
``Democracy is a state of mind.'' ILLUSTRATION: Mozambique's BLOODY ROAD TO DEMOCRACY
1498: Portuguese explorers reach the coast, launching five centuries
of colonial rule.
1964: The Front for Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) begins an
armed campaign against Portuguese rule.
1975: After a decade of sporadic wafare, Mozambique wins its
independence. FRELIMO establishes a one-party socialist state.
1976: An opposition group, the Mozambique National Resistance
(RENAMO), is formed with the support of Ian Smith's white-led regime
in neighboring Rhodesia - now Zimbabwe - and launches a bush war
against FRELIMO.
1992: The warring parties sign a peace agreement.
1994: FRELIMO is declared the winner in a U.N.-observed, multiparty
election.
[Color Photo]
TAMARA VONINSKI
Staff
Top Mozambique defense officials, led by Brig. Gen. Paulino Jose
Macaringue, were welcomed to Hampton Roads on Wednesday by Navy
chaplain Fred Rothermel.
MOZAMBIQUE
Land area: 784,090 square kilometers, almost twice the size of
California
Population: 17,346,280
Life expectancy: 48.5 years
Fertility rate: 6.25 children/woman
Religions: Muslim, Christian, indigenous beliefs
Government: multiparty republic
Literacy (age 15 and over): males 45%, females 21%
Labor force: 90% engaged in agriculture
Gross domestic product: $9.8 billion
Per capita GDP: $600 (1993 est.)
Inflation: 40% (1993 est.)
Unemployment: 50% (1989 est.)
Source: World Factbook
by CNB