Was it the thought of missing out on “piri piri”, the Mozambican style barbecued chicken with succulent jumbo shrimps that put the country’s cities on fire the other day ?
Many people thought so as riot over hike on food prices gripped dozens of towns and villages such as Inhambane, Manica Sofala and Cabinero.
It is however a development that can let sparks fly into nearby countries and beyond unless nipped in the board. It is highly inconceivable for one to live without food and as the russians would say,”he who does not work will not eat.”
Both the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the UN World Food Programme have openly forcast that the food situation is really bad. So many wars and conflicts in the continent are nipping on the available food reservoir which leaves other countries unaffected by strife walking on thin ice.
Not much food to go around makes it a dicey situation. The Mozambicans apparently wouldnt take it any longer as one strategists put it, their pockets are no longer deep.
When people are hungry, psychologists say, they go over the cliff and it becomes a do or die situation.
Which means that the only way for countries to untie themselves from the food yoke is to grow more. Many african nations have shown a huge appetite for imported foodstuffs. The corresponding result is that meagre foreign exchange is being taxed for sometimes luxury goods which hardly cut along what the majority of africans need.
What is being touted is for the upcoming UN conference to find a solution to the crisis as quickly as possible as there are restlessness all round.
In the Mozambique situation, it is all the more of a surprise that this former portuguese colony would have bottomed out with such riots and deaths.It is a country where billions of dollars in new investment are now being ploughed in the mining, rail, ports and gas sectors although admittedly, endemic poverty remains sea bottom deep.
The riots and deaths no doubt have shaken the government of President Armando Guebuza to the bone and would need an urgent financial energizer from for instgance, the Banco de Investimentos to bail it out of the food crisis.
Experts say Mozambique is not of Africa’s pauper club as it has, which is quite unigue, unemployment and under employmengt as two of its key problems which had not been properly addressed since independence.
One western commentator remarked at the time of independence, it was like a white pauper handing over to a black pauper.
The uniqueness of of Mozambique remains on the country’s male workforce, 80 percent of whom work seasonally in the gold and coal mines in South Africa and when things were good in Zimbabwe.
But a reverse of the trend is underway as miners are cashing in what they are calling ”the great coal revolution” which will usher in two mega mining projects in Tete – one of which is projected to produce 11 million tonnes of coal a year as from 2011.
Not far from Mozambique, UN bureaucrats said they have now postponed the release of a report detailing alleged killings of tens of thousands of Hutus by the rwandan army two years afterthey sqelched the 1994 genocide that killed more than half aillion Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Rwanda, one of the top contributing countries to the UNAMID force, 3556 personnel and the UN mission in Sudan (UNMIS) -says it will putout of both outfits if the report is released officially.
Rwanda in an apparent anger reacted as a matador in a spanish bullring.
For the time being at least, both sides have gone back to the drawing board to reassess their strategies, Rwanda’s action of publish if you dare on hold.
Risking a possible gaping hole in both peace-keeping missions and what country or countries would be able to do a replacement at short notice would best be answered in October
By Rod Mac-Johnson