Mozambique President Armando Guebuza to visit Malawi

President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, will visit Malawi on 03-05 April, an action aimed at strengthening cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

On Monday, the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique Guebuza authorized the movement of that country from the interior of southern Africa, which takes place one year after the president of Malawi, Joyce Banda, has been in Mozambique, on his first official visit abroad .

Banda’s rise to power as a result of the sudden death of the previous president, Bingu wa Mutharika, has allowed the thawing of relations between the two countries, marked by conflict since the colonial period, when Portugal and Malawi maintained close relations.

After the independence of Mozambique, Malawi’s support to Renamo rebels provoked threats of military retaliation by the Government of Maputo and, since the period of multiparty politics in the two countries, relations worsen again, especially with the governance of Mutharika.

In 2009, the former president came to shorten an official visit to Mozambique, compared to exacerbate the differences, particularly on the navigability of the Zambezi and Shire rivers common with that Malawi intends to have direct access to the Indian Ocean.

Currently, Malawi is seen as an alternative passage for the flow of coal from Tete to the port of Nacala, via a rail line still under construction.

Maputo also notes with concern the conflict between Malawi and Tanzania on Lake Niassa, Mozambique also bathes, and being mediated by a commission chaired by former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.