Healing the wounds of past conflicts: Mozambique opts for a culture of peace.

• Author: Chissano, H.E. Joaquim

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2000 as the International Year for the Culture of Peace, to serve as a means to engage people at all levels in a common endeavour towards a global movement for a culture of peace.

The signing of the General Peace Agreement in October 1992 in Rome between the Government of the Republic of Mozambique and the Resistencia Nacional Mozambicana (RENAMO) was indicative of the willingness of the Mozambican people to end the scourge of violence of 30 years of successive wars, remove negative external factors, put aside the divergences that were created among different sectors of the society, and capitalize on factors that contribute to national unity, tolerance and mutual respect.

After several efforts, namely the 1984 Nkomati Accord on good neighbourliness and peaceful coexistence with South Africa and other similar initiatives, the General Peace Agreement finally secured the silence of guns. The understanding marked, above all, the beginning of a new era in the history of the people of Mozambique, an era of continuous dialogue in a society where tolerance, unity in diversity, and respect for individual freedoms and the rule of law arc now nurtured.

Notwithstanding this encouraging scenario, the question always arose: how to heal the wounds of war?

Everyone has experienced immeasurable pain in their hearts as a result of war. Hatred has been sown in every one of us.

By embarking on the path of forgiveness, tolerance and reconciliation-the essence of the culture of peace-Mozambique chose a formula that would lead to lasting peace, based on the country's specific conditions, thus laying the foundation for the country's sustainable development.

The success of this choice is hard to deny. It resulted in the strengthening of a multiparty system based on the country's 1990 Constitution, which created a new political and judicial framework in the country, consolidated peace and laid the foundation of a democratic society based on the universal principles of freedom and equality before the law.

All these elements have played a decisive role in improving the living standards of the Mozambican people.

Despite its success in strengthening peace, the people of Mozambique cannot...