Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano believes that African people will conquer the socio-economic challenges it has been facing since about four decades ago, when it started to shake off the colonial rules.
He said that, the same way they managed to win their freedom from colonialism, and become politically independent, they will also win the socio-economic battle.
Adressing a seminar, in Lisbon, to mark the forty first anniversary of the foundation of the then African Union Organization (OAU), now African Union (AU), Chissano stressed that if Africans could win these long and hard and, some times, very bloody anti-colonial wars, they also can win the socio-economic battle.
He dedicated a special attack to the skeptics, those who insist in saying that Africans were born to live in "eternal socio-economic underdevelopment", and thus discourage the world from supporting the continent's efforts towards emancipation.
Speaking in his quality as the AU chairperson, Chissano noted that it is not these people's negative assertions that will change the fact that Africa is today much better than it was about 41 years ago. It is a fact that, since then the more than 600 million Africans, have been progressively gaining the right to chose their own destiny.
He called upon the international community not to heed the skeptics, "who are denying the undeniable", and continue refusing to work to eradicate the ills of the continent, such as poverty, and others, and allow the African peoples access to a better life, comparable to that in the advanced countries.
To ilustrate his point on the existing development, he gave the example of Mozambique, where there was very little at the time of independence, both in terms of socio-economic infrastructures, but today there are much improvements, although a lot is yet to be done.
He also said that the day of African victory on the continent's ills is not far, even because African countries count today with more qualified technicians in all sectors of the economy than they did about four decades ago.
Chissano reiterated his urging of the international community to support the development of Africa, taking into account that it was underdeveloped by the former colonisers, and increased support would be one of the ways to help repair the damage.
For his part, and in the same occasion, Portuguese Prime Minister Durao Barroso reiterated the comitment of his country to support Africa, and to do all in its hands to persuade the rest of Europe to do the same.
He said that Europe should take the African fight against its socio-economic ills as its own, and should never feel in peace until the about 600 million Africans are free from absolute poverty.
"Helping Africa out of this situation is not only a moral duty, but a national and international imperative", he said.
Fonte: AIM
