Joaquim ChissanoPresident, Your H.R.H. Princess AnneRoyal Highness, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen; may I first on your behalf extend a very warm welcome to President Chissano and his delegation to No 10 Downing Street. It is not, of course, the first time that the President has visited Britain. It is not the first time that he has visited here. Indeed he is an old and valued friend but it is the first official visit since his election as President and in that capacity we would like to welcome him anew and wish him well in all his endeavours.
And we bid his delegation also a very warm welcome to the United Kingdom and may I say, Sir, how delighted we are that you have brought Mrs Chissano with you. She has a very very full programme and we hope she too will enjoy this official visit to our country.
Can you have a little bit of applause as well as “Hear, hear” ? “Hear, Hears” are very nice but there are times when they are not enough especially when I mention women.
It is also, I understand the first official visit which the President has paid outside the continent of Africa and may I say to you, Sir, we are very honoured that you should have come first of all to Britain. You are quite right of course; you know it enhances our opinion of the value of your judgement! I am sure that this visit will be a very great success. In welcoming warmly, we cannot forget the sad circumstances of the death of his predecessor President Machel. Samora Machel was a man of outstanding qualities as well as being uniquely lively and extrovert. These walls have heard Samora Machel many times and will not forget him and they still echo with so many of the things he said. He made an enormous personal contribution to the negotiations which brought Zimbabwe to independence and he showed statesmanship of the highest order and some of the talks during that period took place in this room or in the dining room next door. We know, President Chissano, how close you were to Samora Machel and we welcome you too for that, knowing that we have the essential continuity and knowing that you too knew how Samora Machel thought and he knew that you would be a worthy successor. And I hope that one day Samora Machel 's vision of in his own words and I quote.
“Bringing all the people of southern Africa: the black and the white tribes together at the top of the mountain to see the beauty of their land.”
We hope that vision will be realised. How marvellous, how wonderful, all the people to dissolve their differences and climb to the top of the mountain to see the beauty of their land.
I also counted him as a personal friend. His loss is felt far beyond the borders of Mozambique and indeed of Africa. Mr President, your visit comes at a time of undoubted difficulty for your country affected as it is by guerilla warfare and by attempts to destabilise your legitimate Government; attempts which we condemn. These have made it much more difficult to carry through all the important work of economic development and the age old enemy of drought leading to failure of the harvest has recently exposed your people to a cruel famine. The devastation which it has wreaked upon families and above all on small children has been brought home to us, to all our people very recently by television and you know when these things appear on our television, our people respond. That is part of our character, that is part of our friendship and I know that the programme Blue Peter put out an appeal for T shirts and they have got 2 million T shirts and I am very pleased that tomorrow, Mrs Chissano is going to the BBC to record a small “Thank you” to the children of this country from the children of Mozambique. What a lovely idea Ma'am; we think it is marvellous. Thank you very much. [end p1]
Mr President, we admire the couragous way in which you set about tackling these problems. You yourself said that there could be no doctrinaire solutions. You are, I know, negotiating with the IMF and the world bank for an adjustment programme and have already put into effect many of the measures required and may I say that required a great deal of courage and in you Mozambique has found a President of courage. It has required difficult decisions but you have not shirked them. This approach will encourage others to help you and I am very pleased to announce that as soon as you reach agreement with the IMF, which we understand is very close at hand, Britain will provide an additional £15 million of aid to help you meet Mozambique's essential need for imports and may I say, it is not only £15 million but it also comes with our warmth, with our best wishes and with all our expressions of friendship and admiration for the work you are doing and love of the children of your country.
We have this year pledged an additional £11.3 million for food aid and disaster relief to help you cope with the consequences of famine and when I say that, may I just say may we never complain again about rain, never! because, you know, you would like some of ours, we would like you to have some of ours too but we will never complain again, indeed we will count our rain a blessing. And also we have tried to give help too, through the European community. We shall keep a close eye on what is happening in Mozambique on the arrangements for distribution of food aid. May I make it clear that we shall be ready to consider further help if this is required.
I want to say a particular word about the work in Mozambique of British charities such as Save the Children and Oxfam. They have made an outstanding contribution both through help in dealing with the famine and through longer term programmes such as immunisation and child welfare and, Mr President, it is a particular pleasure and honour to me to have with us this evening Her Royal Higness Princess Anne, the President of the Save the Children Fund who has visited Mozambique to see for herself the situation and the work being done by British charities. Ma'am we are honoured to have you with us and we would like to pay a special tribute to you for the fantastic work you do and how you elevate the reputation of Britain in all the countries you visit.
We are all very proud of the lead you have given and of the encouragement you have given to all who provide this help. Mr President, you and I have also discussed Mozambique's requirements for help with military training and we are glad to have the commander of Sandhurst here tonight and I have been glad to reassure you that we shall continue to do our best to meet your needs.
There may be areas in which we can increase the help that we have already given and as I indicated earlier in the talks we have had, we will look further into this.
Mr. President, I hope you will feel as a result of our discussion and of the welcome that you have received that Mozambique has a good friend in Britain; a friend who sympathises with the difficult problems you face, a friend who will do our best to help you to overcome them, a friend who remembers with gratitude the help and support we received from Mozambique in the difficult discussions leading to Zimbabwe's independence and is in that spirit of genuine friendship and support for your efforts, Mr President, that I ask all our guests to rise and to drink with me a toast to the President of Mozambique, to his success in the difficult task of reconciliation and reconstruction which lies ahead and to the friendship between Britain and Mozambique; may it long endure and be fruitful to both.