 Good morning. The US Institute of Peace is delighted to welcome you to this critically important conversation about the urgent complex crisis in Mozambique. In the four years since Islamist militants attacked Palma, the port city in Cabo Delgado, thousands of civilians have been killed and close to 700,000 Mozambicans displaced. Without question, the situation in Cabo Delgado presents an urgent humanitarian crisis and threatens the important progress towards peace, prosperity and democracy that Mozambique has made since the early 1990s. Importantly, the crisis sends another alarming signal that violent extremism impacts significant parts of the African continent. For today's conversation, USIP has gathered representatives from the government of Mozambique and civil society to discuss the conflict and how to address it. We are especially pleased to have with us Mozambique's ambassador to the United States, the Honorable Carlos Dos Santos. Ambassador, thank you for joining us. We encourage everyone to engage with us in ways of awareness about the issue on Twitter with hashtag Cabo Delgado peace. With your permission, Dr. Joseph Sonny, the Vice President of USIP's Africa Center, will introduce our speakers and facilitate the discussion. Dr. Sonny, over to you. Thank you, Liz. Thank you for setting the stage for what we anticipate to be a valuable and enriching conversation. As you said, I'm Joseph Sonny, Vice President of USIP, and I lead the Africa Center. To help us understand the situation in northern Mozambique and explore prospects for peace and development, we are pleased to have with us three distinguished panelists. Ambassador Carlos Dos Santos. Ambassador Dos Santos has represented the Republic of Mozambique in the United States since 2015, and most recently served as high commissioner to the United Kingdom, where he was voted best African diplomat of the year. His long and distinguished career includes serving as ambassador to Germany, director for Europe and the Americas at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, advisor to the President, and permanent representative to the United Nations. Thank you for joining us, Ambassador. Thank you. Ambassador Carlos is joined by Mrs. Chidia Tsungo, activist, founder of the National Solidarity Campaign for Cabo Delgado. Chidia is a young Muslim activist and peace builder, currently pursuing a master's degree in education. Her journey in activism started in 2015 when she founded and led activist Mozambique movement. Since then, she has been committed to train, organize, and campaign for human rights in Mozambique. And in 2018, she created a national solidarity campaign for Cabo Delgado province to raise awareness about the terrorist attack started in 2017. Thank you, Chidia, for joining us. Thank you. Dr. Gregory Pirio is president of Empowering Communication Associates, senior acting professorial lecturer at the School of International Service at American University. Dr. Gregory Pirio is an experienced researcher on political, social, and religious issues. He holds a PhD in African history from UCLA, where his dissertation focused on the political economy of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique and Angola. He directed the voice of America's Portuguese to Africa's service during Mozambique Civil War. He founded and directs Empowering Communication Associates, which is dedicated to empowering organizations, communities, and individuals to make a positive difference in the world and in lives. Thank you, Dr. Gregory Pirio. Thank you. My pleasure to be here. This is a great event. Thank you. Now, before we start, let me share some housekeeping information. We recognize that this first USIP event on the issue of northern Mozambique has only been broadcast in English today. We commit to broadcasting future events in Portuguese to ensure we incorporate the viewpoints of our news or phone colleagues. So, I really apologize for that today. We will begin with a moderated panel discussion for about 45 minutes, and then we will open up for Q&A session with you, the audience. Throughout the panel, if members of the audience have questions to pose to the panelists, they may do so in the chat box on the event page or on social media using the hashtag Cabo Delgado piece. We will address all that we can when we turn to the audience question and answer session. Now, let me turn now to our distinguished panel to explore the question of the day, and I will start with Ambassador Dos Santos. Ambassador, for many years, Mozambique held the promise of a successful post-war country after a protracted civil war that mainly ended in the early 90s. Until recently, foreign investments were flowing into the country, so were tourists. Unemployment was in a downward trend. The discovery of natural resource, including liquefied natural gas, carried the promise to transform the country's development. Unfortunately, today, the crisis in Cabo Delgado indicates that something went wrong somewhere. But before we discuss what went wrong, please, Ambassador, help us understand the strategic significance of Cabo Delgado to Mozambique and the region, just to set the stage for what we follow in our conversation. Thank you very much, Sunny. It's a pleasure and a privilege for me to be here. I want to begin by thanking the Institute of Peace for convening this discussion to raise awareness and to search for solutions to the problem we have at hand. I wanted to thank the president of the Institute, Liz, for joining us, gracing us with a presence which shows her own personal commitment to this issue, her interest in following what goes on. But I wanted also to say that you, as the Vice President and the head of this Africa Center, you have put this issue on the top priorities of the institution, and we don't take that for granted. We want to express appreciation to you, Sunny, for doing that. The strategic importance of Cabo Delgado, to speak about this, I would start by saying that Cabo Delgado is part of a whole, and the whole is made up of 10 provinces and the capital city of Maputo that constitute the beautiful nation of Mozambique. Now, each province contributes to the diversity of culture of the country, and they do their best to make that contribution. Cabo Delgado does have a special feature in the history of Mozambique because it was where the liberation struggle started to liberate Mozambique from Portuguese colonialism. It was, it is also the place where the First Liberated Zones were established, and it is also the place where you find some of the best and pristine archipelagos in the world, the carimbos. So tourism, ecotourism is wonderful there. But what has attracted more attention recently is the endowment in natural resources of Cabo Delgado, which includes the best rubies in the world, which includes the world's largest graphite mines or reserves. But again, what has attracted more attention is the discovery of natural gas, hydrocarbons of show Cabo Delgado that brought oil majors to Mozambique to develop lipofied natural gas. This includes companies from the United States, from Europe, from Asia, and elsewhere. They all flocked there to develop that resource. And I think this is what makes Cabo Delgado strategically important because it is a game changer in terms of the economy of the country, in terms of the economy of the region, and the whole continent of Africa. It's a new global province of natural gas. And I want to state this. It will not go away. It is there, and it is there to stay. So the challenge is to make sure that we restore peace as quickly as we can. And this will require a holistic approach to the problem, dealing with the security situation, dealing with the humanitarian situation, and also the socioeconomic development, including building resilient communities in that region. And I think this is what should be our focus when we look at Cabo Delgado. It's geostrategic location. It is its endowment and resources that makes it very important, not only for Mozambique, but for the entire region. Thank you, Ambassador, for setting that stage. And I think what I'm hearing is how can we help Cabo Delgado cast a way or expand the resource curse? We will get to it. We will get to it. Let me turn to Dr. Pliu. In one of your numerous articles on Mozambique, you and your co-authors very impressively explained the drivers of violent extremism in Cabo Delgado. Please, can you help us understand how we got here? What has driven violent extremism in Cabo Delgado? Please. Okay. Yes. I think this focus on a few drivers of the extremist violence there. But one of the things to underline at the beginning is the issue of the illicit economy that has been taking place in Cabo Delgado for a long time now. And that has been in gems, in wildlife, in drugs passing through there. And why is that important? It means that illicit trading that is going on has corrupted local officials, especially the police. And that puts the population distrustful of government. And so that's a big factor. And I think it's important that the violent extremist group up there is to note is that the Mozambican leadership of it that have been identified, some of them have been traders, legitimate traders, entrepreneurial types. And the stories that we get is that those types of people are often hit up for bribes and fines and things like that by the police. So that is one factor to bear in mind there. The other one is the investment that's going on there and the approaches that have been taken. The ambassador mentioned the Ruby reserves. There has been considerable human rights violations against artisanal minors in that region. And killings and tortures by police and this rapid deployment force that are working with the company that holds the concession for the Ruby mining. This is important. In fact, the British firm Jamfields is the main producer of these diamonds. And they were taken to a court in Britain for these violations of human rights. There are 263 artisanal minors who were the lit against and was settled outside of court for several million dollars. But this is important because the first recruits for violent action in 2017 in Mosinwa, Dupaya were recruited from that area. And that's important because I've studied jihadism in many countries in Africa. And one of the drivers is violence usually by state forces against the population or a peaceful movement. And so they adopt this strategy or this narrative of vengeance. So that is going on. Then on the other side where we had an American firm, Anadarko began to develop a liquefied natural gas facility along the coast near Palma. The meant resettlement of thousands of Mozambicans. And that didn't go well. Anadarko was well-intentioned. But the information we get from me and my co-authors, Yusuf Adham and Bab Patali, that we've gotten from local people is that a lot of these youths that were displaced joined the insurgents. And the leaders of the insurgents came from Mosinwa, Dupaya too. But anyway, so that was where the first attack was. That's where the leadership that came from was Mosinwa, Dupaya. And then he had youth from a little bit further north joining Anad. So it was a resettlement plan gone awry. And that's a big problem not only in Cabal de Gado but elsewhere in Mozambique. The Catholic Church held a meeting in Maputo with people who were representing resettlement schemes throughout the country. And they came up with similar conclusions, is that people were suffering under these conditions. And they weren't getting the benefits of all the investment in that there. And so now with the, and then you also have in complaints now among the people of Cabal de Gado against the government security forces for the human rights, the violation, and you have, which also drives some people into the insurgency. And then, of course, the insurgents are notorious human rights violators themselves. So people are caught within all of this. And the, yeah, so I'll leave it there for now. But I think that tries, that gives a picture of what has happened. And because of the wealth up there, the population, my colleague Yusuf Adam has done intensive interviews in Cabal de Gado. The population thinks that the whole violence up there is all designed to remove him from the land because it's so valuable now. And the resources are so great. Yeah. Good. So we, so there is, we have abuses by security forces. Displacement and resettlement gone wrong. And, and you have the fact that people have the feeling of being marginalized and their life livelihoods taken away. Exactly. And Shidia, you are on the ground. What do you see? And what do you think has been the contribution or not of civil society into this whole situation? Thank you so much. And good afternoon and good morning from those who are watching us. I mean, if we go back to them, to see the beginning of the conflict in 2017, we will see that for almost one year, the issue of Cabal de Gado was not being addressed properly, even in the country. And we will see that the society in general were silent about this issue. That's why by the end of 2018, with other activists, we decided to start a campaign, which is the National Solidarity Campaign, to make sure that people will start talking so that the government will feel the pressure and then they will address this in a different way. Because in the beginning, we had, for example, journalists from also international amnesty, and even here in Mozambique, journalists who were arrested because they were covering the conflicts in Cabal de Gado with like a clear message that nobody would talk about what was going on there. Even to use the term, the term, for example, terrorism, I would say it wasn't allowed. I remember having friends, they were journalists who would say, CD, you can talk about this issue, but don't mention like the word terrorism. And what was happening is that who decided or who wanted to talk and use this term terrorist, we are the one who were targeted by people from the government, some of them saying that, oh no, this is something that only the government can talk about. They know what's happening. But when you would turn on your TV, you would listen like our government saying that, oh no, the situation is under control. But in the other hand, you would receive messages with pictures, people beheaded and what's up. So there were like a very different way of receiving information. We knew that something wrong was going on, but we knew as well that we could not talk about it. And the question was why? That's why even the slogan of the campaign was, Cap Delgado is also a big, because we wanted people to start thinking. So if there is something happening in Cap Delgado province, and there are all these projects that by the end of the day will benefit not only Cap Delgado, but all the country. So why are we all in silence? That's why by the end of 2018, I mean, I would say civil society started to organize in order to not only make the pressure to the government, but also to provide assistance to the IDPs. In the beginning, only religious institutions were providing assistance. The rest of the society, everyone was quiet. And all the noise was to make sure that, okay, the conflicts are happening, but we want to make sure that people's rights are protected. They would have food. They would have somewhere to go in case something goes wrong and attacking the village in the beginning. So by the time, we have seen that civil society has made, I would say, a very important role to make sure that we decide and we define what is the priority in this conflict. Thanks. I will give the Ambassador the chance to clarify or to respond to what we have heard so far. Ambassador, please. Do you have something to add or just to clarify? Yes. Thank you very much. And I thank my co-panelists for their observations. What I would say is there are different ways of looking at the problem in the country. And we have had this too. And I would say first, Mozambique is a democracy. And the country is 46 years young. And the country is building democratic institutions and democratic practices. Mozambique has one of the most vibrant press that you can get, public and private. You have a civil society that has grown fast and has been able to do what they are doing now because there is democracy in the country. And living in the United States and working in the United States, I'm inspired by the constant search for a more perfect union. And this is what I think Mozambique is yearning for. Mozambique is trying to build a more perfect nation. And I think the challenges that we have will continue to be there as they are in many other countries. And we speak of human rights violations, but yes, the government is not promoting human rights violations. The government is protecting the fundamental freedoms of the country. And it has done so in such a way that it has elisted the support of partners from the United States, as a country, the European Union, all important partners that work with Mozambique have supported the government to constantly improve the political, economic and corporate governance in the country. Now, going back to the issue of Anadarko, for instance, I think it would be wrong to think that the emergence of this conflict is because of the investment of Anadarko, which was wrongly done. I don't think so. And I followed from the start of the whole process. What happened was there was a very vivid discussion which was initiated by civil society on how resettlement was being done. And I remember members of parliament visited the resettlement areas, corrected the designs of the houses that were going to be given to the people who were being resettled from the areas where the project was going to be developed. And those improvements were made. And you have beautiful houses for the people because those corrections were made. And there were also issues of compensations, the issues of respecting the ancestral lands of the people. When you compensate, it's not just giving money, it's making sure that you respect the ancestral lands and you do the traditional work that needs to be done. All of those things were done. And the whole project has provided employment not to all young people, but it has provided employment. And the promise of that investment bringing good to the people in Cabo Delgado and the whole nation is still there and is appreciated by many. Let me press you a little bit. So we know there is an insurgency in Cabo Delgado. We know tragic things. The situation is really tragic. So are there any lessons the government should learn from this insurgency? Mistakes not to be repeated? Are there anything you are learning from that? Absolutely. I think the first thing is to act promptly as CJO was saying, probably action was not as prompt as it should have been at the very beginning. And it was thought that this was a minor problem. And then the escalation started to happen. And when you have the kinds of tactics that terrorists use, you are not always aware even if you are a government, you are not always aware of how they will act and what they will do. And I think prompt swift action should have helped. And also... Allow me, allow me. When you say prompt swift action, is it military? What type of action is it? No, actually when you interrupted me, I was going to say engage local communities in trying to understand what is going on. And also intelligence gathering. And also have multidisciplinary studies and analysis by competent experts listening to other countries that have gone through the same problem. Other regions that have gone through the same problem like the Sahel, the Nigeria with Boko Haram and others, studying those and working on building a resilient community, a more attentive community that will work with government institutions to ensure protection for them, but also prevention measures. And also try to address any root causes. If any, when you're dealing with terrorists, you don't identify serious root causes that you would say are from within. Now, they take advantage of some of the imperfections of that they find in the country. And I think that's what the professor and CEO were talking about. It was about some of the imperfections, some of the corruption. There's no country that doesn't have corruption, but that doesn't mean that government forces all of them. And the government as a whole is pursuing a line of illicit trade, a line of drug trafficking, a line of corruption. I think that perception should be corrected. Dr. Perio, do you think there is something missing in this narrative about Cabo Delgado? What are we missing based on your... Let me just say to the ambassador that my heart goes out to the Mozambican people because of all the suffering that is taking place there. And I remember my first visit to Mozambique in 1983. I was in Maputo and Maputo was experiencing something similar because of the Civil War, lack of food, et cetera. It was horrific. And I'm so sorry that parts of Mozambique are going through something similar today. And I think that... I want to... You say that to lead me into this thing is that I think in our analysis of what's going on that we need to look at the kind of narrative that we have for the situation up there. And this is from a strategic communication point of view. I think that we really ought to be looking at both the U.S. government and the Mozambican government. I'm not a Mozambican, but I'll make a suggestion. Is that the narrative be about how do we end the suffering of the people there that... And a less emphasis in this narrative on ISIS that is the U.S. government has put out recently. Not that that's not important, but we need to win the hearts and minds of the people of Cabo de Gado right now. And I think shifting the narrative to their suffering and the alleviation of it is really important. So I want... And there are a lot of other things that go along with that. But that's important. And I think when people speak of the situation, we have to speak from a position of empathy and caring. Because right now in Cabo de Gado, there's a lot of distrust in government. And that's something that if we're going to get beyond this, we have to create this. And I think the ambassador hit it on is engagement with the communities. There has to be a participatory approach for all the development that's going to be taking place. And in the counter-terrorism that's taking place, it has to be participatory. And so I really think that that's... And if I can add one more thing here is that after we learn that youth who have been resettled by Anadarko had been joining the insurgency, my co-authors and I, we talk to Anadarko and we said, look it, you need to have dialogue, greater dialogue with the community. Find out what's going on and all that. Their reaction at the time was, well, that's expensive. Maybe we can do that down the line with USAID. And so on the basis of that, we wrote an article it was published in the Society of Petroleum Engineers about what would be a good methodology for engaging communities when you have investments of this type. Let me... Yeah, actually a good question that Shidia can help answer. Shidia, you work with communities, you work with civil society. What does that mean, engaging with community? What have you seen in the crowd? Is it happening or how should it happen? Okay, thanks once again. I mean, I was attentively listening to what Virgo was saying and it's definitely important to include community. What we are doing involves the community somehow and in Camp Delgado in particular, it's important that people feel that their lives matter. It's not only about the projects, it's about making sure that whatever is going on that will contribute to the future of the country. Someone needs to have this conversation with people because at this time, everyone thinks that these projects are coming to take them, their lives to take them, their freedom, etc. It's extremely important even to promote these conversations around the community. If you are asking me if this is happening, I would say it's happening but maybe we should improve the way we are doing things because by the end of the day, the conceptions and the narrative that the community have, it's not good. It's not good and I would say it opens the vulnerability for all the situation to take place. If people have misconceptions, probably by the end of the day, they can take wrong decisions just because of the information that they receive. That's why even in the beginning of all these conflicts we have been seeing that the strategy of communication, not only from these big organizations but even from the government, need to be very clear and very direct so that everyone will have information from trust both sources and in the right way. So definitely the communication here needs to improve, especially with people in the community. It needs to be better. Thanks Chidia and Ambassador, those are clearly wise advice and please can you explain to us the government's strategies, not just the communication but overall and some of the priorities? Yes indeed. The government of Mozambique is very conscious of the fact that the primary responsibility to protect the people of the country rests on the government of Mozambique and it also rests on all institutions of the country and political actors and civil society organizations are conscious of that. They hold the primary responsibility and the government has taken the decision that the solution of the problem is not only security and military. That is one important factor which has to be dealt with immediately and that is happening but the second thing is humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced people that the president of the institute spoke about when she was making the initial remarks. It's a large number of people who are left without anything that has to be well coordinated and making sure that all those wanting to assist will be able to assist and the government is coordinating that effort but then you have the socio-economic and cultural issues that need to be addressed from the medium to long term and for that purpose the government created an agency, the agency for the integrated development of the North, ADIN. These agencies aims at looking at the whole of the northern region of the country including Cape Delgado. The headquarters of ADIN will be in Pemba, the capital city of Cape Delgado and the idea is that this agency will mobilize support, will get the resources of the government and will assist in developing holistic programs that will look at cultural issues, short social issues, resilient communities and things like that and now that they are developing the strategic plan for this agency they have gone to the three provinces and held consultations has they built that strategy and the strategy aims at doing just that. Now there are governments, international partners and international agencies that are helping and I want to highlight here USID, the United States government through the embassy and USID, you have the European Union helping, the African Development Bank helping but most importantly on the institutional framework and even providing resources to launch this agency is the World Bank. The World Bank has put up serious resources and technical assistance to make these workable and effective institutions. Yes we just we learned that last month the World Bank signed a 100 million grant to support the Northern Integrated Development Agency you just mentioned ADIN and the World Bank has also made Mozambique eligible for the Prevention and Resilience allocation fund so opening the door for another 700 million dollars. So more resources have been poor but Dr. de Peugeot is it the sign that the government of Mozambique and its international partners are shifting strategy from a security-only response to a more comprehensive one? Of course there must be security for development to follow but are there reasons to be hopeful or you still see some risk and pitfalls? Well what I think what we have to look at right now is again restoring the trust, it has been damaged, the population feels that it is being forced off its land by the violence because it's so wealthy and they want to return home to their ancestral homes, they want to engage in their livelihood activities again the IDPs. So I think all of this is great and important but let's again I can't overemphasize the participatory approach. This means getting at the at the village level, talking with the leaders, the traditional religious, the youth, the women's groups and hearing so that they can plan out the steps that need to be taken to improve their lives and that's so important. Development money in itself doesn't guarantee that and that's important and I'm sure that's what people want but it needs to be done. But given the security situation on the tower, is it possible to have those participatory processes? What's your feeling being in the ground there? And please repeat the question please? Yeah given the security situation now in Cabo delgado, is it possible to really engage communities? I mean the thing is that we have no option, we need to engage communities, it's not something that it's optional that we have to choose or not, it needs to happen and the priority now is to define how we will do that and I'm really glad that our ambassador is here because it's very important that whatever we are defining has a strategy to address this issue in all the dimensions because like military force it's just one but there is others that contribute by the end of the day. We need to make sure that there is transparency in the way that all these for example supports that we will be receiving will be managed so that people will understand as well that nobody's taking advantage of their suffer during this time that the priority is definitely the people, nobody will take any but any advantage and we will make sure definitely that the development will be integrated and not something that will be only for these certain type of people and then the other ones will feel excluded because this is what we have to try to avoid now, that everyone feels that they are part of the same country, there are no more or less Mozambicans that everyone really are really important for this process so the answer is we do, we need to do that and no options but the way we will do that is the key important thing for us to discuss now. Yeah and we go back to Ambassador, just on the issue of security moving because we need the security approach or strategy to combine with what Dr. Perius said and Chidiya in terms of bleeding trust but what's your assessment? Is there a new shift in the security approach from the government perspective? What's the vision of security and the strategy the government is planning to put in place? Yes the government is acting on the basis of the means and resources that it has and I think there is some degree of success because if it were not then you we would have an escalation and a spread of this conflict beyond the region that is affected now so there is some degree of success but the government is also conscious of the fact that it needs to do more and it needs more resources, it needs more training and the tourism factor is a new thing in Mozambique. We have had conflicts before and we have known who is on this side or the other side but these are terrorist attacks so you have to develop strategies that can fight this kind of terrorism. Now the government is doing what it can but it's also eliciting support and it is getting support for training, boosting the capacity of the security, defense and police forces of the country. It is also hoping to get equipment, financial resources to make that operational. Now you have the region of Sadak that has arrangements within the region for defense of each member state whenever there is a conflict and you have followed the meetings that have already happened and an assessment, the needs assessment mission has been there and has done its work. We have work going on with the European Union, the United States has sent people to train and these are the things that need to be done. I cannot be more specific about military and security issues, I would leave that to the experts, to the generals but I think this is what is happening. People ask whether Mozambique needs boots on the ground from foreign militaries. It's a good question but it is about the capacity to deal with the issue. Is it through additional people from outside or by training? The government has opted initially at this stage in terms of training and boosting the capacity of the local forces. If there is a point where there is need for more, we have had a peacekeeping operation of the United Nations in Mozambique so this is not something new for Mozambique in terms of having people from outside come and assist and it was one of the most successful peacekeeping operations around the world, the one that was in Mozambique so it's not the issue. Thanks. Before we get to the audience, I would just remind people please post your questions on the website or hashtag Kaboudelgato peace but before I have another question, studio is for you. Mozambique is a big country trying to strengthen its democratic practices and the ambassador said it was. The national elections were held in 2019, the opposition political party Renamo has criticized the government over Kaboudelgato. So Shidia, how do Mozambique domestic politics impact Kaboudelgato and Vazvesan? Anyhow, many minutes. Okay, so I think we cannot look at things just with one perspective. We need to read all the picture and understand how the politics in general works in Mozambique so that people understand even the situation that Kaboudelgato is today. So we will find like a very challenging scenario in Mozambique in terms of not only political participation, the perspective of the political parties but also in the society in general and we will find that it's a little bit complicated because of the background that we have in terms of democracy. The ambassador was saying that we are very young. Yes, I say yes, but we have good examples around the world and we can learn from them the same way we learn about other topics. In terms of the situation and the positions that we have in Kaboudelgato today, I would say that this is about the way things have been how do I say it in English? Like management is that the current word? Maybe I would say that we have three regions in Mozambique, the south, the center and the north. But when we see in terms of how people understand the development of the country, they will always say that the center and the north, they are all always being excluded from more opportunities and that maybe can explain the reason why we have also young people really engaged in being parts of the terrorist groups. Most of them, I mean some of them according to the results of the studies that have been made, it's because of lack of employment but also exclusion in general. So this can help us understand a little bit how things are and if you ask me why we are in the stage that we are, I wouldn't properly give you an answer because even when we see the structure of the government, we will find many people coming from the center from the north of the country. But what about in terms of making something for these regions? Then it's where the question comes. It looks like all of the attentions until now were to the source and probably things are changing because of the resources that were discovered in the north of the country. So all the changes are shifting from that side. But that's not the best way to lead a nation to development because we need to make sure that development is integrated so that people won't feel excluded. And we will find definitely groups in the center and the north. Even if it's like political related, they will always be, I would say sometimes against most of the things, not because they don't have ideas but because they feel excluded in the process of contributing somehow to what should be the priorities in the country. Thanks. Dr. Apirio, anything to add from a historical perspective? Well, let me just add, I think a couple of things. This training that the Mozambican military has gotten from the US at a small scale and they're getting from Portugal, I think the EU, I think is really important. And there's important lessons to be learned from other countries, as the ambassador has said. I think there also needs to be on place a well thought out and effective strategy to promote defections from the Macho Bamos, those young people who have joined in this insurgency, and in reintegration. I'm looking at Uganda was done with the Lord's Resistance Army, which could give some real good indications about how that can be done. And I believe the US military was involved in supporting that project there. And there have been some good studies done on that, lessons learned. The other thing is there was a good, really interesting interview with the judge in Cabo de Gado, who tries the people who are brought in and accused of being part of the insurgent group. And he says, well, I have to let 95% of them go because there's no evidence. And very interestingly, he said, I think we could learn from other countries, how other countries have handled this, because my training in a legal system, however good it is, is not sufficient for what we're dealing with here. And so I think, and so those kinds of, and that could fit into a nice defection reintegration kind of program, which will be, and how do we attract these young people away from the group and keep them out? And rather than just thinking about killing them, you know, how can we accomplish it? Because a lot of them have been misled to go there and out of frustration and unemployment. The other thing the judge said was that 95% of the young men who come before him are illiterate, which says something about the education system and the lack of opportunities that they would have because of that. I think Mozambique will have a lot, will benefit a lot from learning from neighboring countries, I think. And then I think about how you will agree with that. And that's something you also mentioned, that maybe one of the lessons learned is to learn from others. Oh, yes, absolutely. That is correct. And the professor did mention the experience of Uganda. I should mention that President Sheshan was one of the envoys to work President Sheshan is a former president of Mozambique. And he worked after leaving office, he worked on that particular conflict. So he does have experience on it. And I'm sure he's sharing internally, but we are trying to learn from different partners. And yes, inclusion and a sense of all citizens being included and all regions of the country being included in development. Yes, that is something that the government has been pursuing for the many years and integrated development of the whole country. And I think there are strides being made there. I will turn now to questions from the audience. And then there is one, there are a couple of questions. I will pick one around religion. And what is the role of religion in the conflict dynamics and other role for religious actors in peace efforts in Kabul, Delgado, Ambassador, please. Yes, I can start. Please. Yes. Mozambique is a secular state. During colonialism, the Catholic religion was the most important one. And that did create a division among religions. But after independence, Mozambique became a secular state and it allowed the development, I mean, the development of religions and freedom of religion. And because of the past, there were some tensions between the state and the Catholic church, but those issues were resolved such that today we have diplomatic relations with the Vatican. And I was privileged to be the first ambassador of Mozambique to the Vatican when I was in Germany. So the Catholic religion is still important. And then you have the Muslim group, which is large and other Christian religions, and then traditional religions. Now, the churches have always been involved in the peace processes in the country previously. For the country to reach the negotiation process in Rome between the government and Renamo, there was a lot of groundwork that was done with the involvement of the churches. The churches did speak to both sides of the pond that didn't want to speak to each other. And that helped. Now, with regard to Kabul, Delgado, there have been situations or accusations that the Muslims are the ones driving this. And it is definitely clear to me and to many Mozambicans, to most Mozambicans that the Muslim religion in the country is actually a good religion like others who are promoting peace in the country. And they have done a lot. Now that there may be elements from there who will be involved with extremism, of course, but that doesn't make it a promoter of terrorism. And I think the role that they can play is precisely to assist and to be involved in the search for solutions to the problem. But they are not the problem. Livia, how can we engage better religious leaders, whether Muslims or Christians, how from your own experience? Okay. If you remember in the beginning, I was saying that before 2019, most of the assistance that were being given to them, this place of people were being given by the religious institutions. I mean Christians and I mean Muslims. Since the beginning, the religious institutions have helped so much to make sure that all the country will be paying attention to this issue. Even until now, we have, for example, the Catholic Church always writing open letters to the presidents to make sure that he knows what are their point of views and what should be the priorities in according to what they think should be. And in other hand, we also have the Muslim religious institutions here making sure that within their community, they spread the message that this is not what should be. If some of them are following this, it's because they believe in something different from what should be. We have them clearly distancing themselves from that and making sure that people from the community won't be confused about what should they follow or not. So I would say that they play a great role here in the country to make sure that they bring more people in the message of peace and not violence. Yes, great. Yeah, I wanted to add something here. What's going on there is not about Islam. It's about vengeance. It's not, you know, and people are hijacking religious terminology to carry out what is essentially a narrative of vengeance. And the other thing is, is the Mozambique doesn't have religious conflict. I remember this was several years ago. I was in Beira, which is further south, but I was at the Islamic center there. I was working on a program. This was the inter-religious program to fight to end malaria. And we were sitting around, and I asked the question, there were Christians and Muslim leaders around the table. And I asked them this question. I said, why is it that in Mozambique you can get along so well when in other countries are divided by religion? And they teared up. And they said, it's because our political leaders have never divided us on the basis of religion. And so I think when we're thinking of Mozambique, this is not a religious conflict. And some of the great defenders of what's going on and the abuses against Muslims had been the Catholic church, for instance, in Pemba, and the call for social justice. So let's not look at this as a religious conflict. Thanks. I have another question for Ambassador Santos. Why is the resistance for security sector support from the southern African and the women community from the southern? We have seen that the president has been a little bit reluctant to allow military support from neighboring countries. Is there a reason? No, I think there's a perception there because Mozambique is a Sadak member state from the very beginning, and it is now chairing Sadak. And the president has had several meetings with the chairman of the organ, the president of Botswana, and the other presidents that have been working with him from within the region. And you had the needs assessment mission, which was in Mozambique and Podusta report. And that report was a Sadak report, which means Mozambique was included. And then you had a ministerial meeting that included Mozambique and Mozambique didn't chair that meeting because it was chaired by the organ. But it was there, the minister of foreign affairs was there. So I think it is a misperception that the president is reluctant to accept the help of his colleagues in in Southern Africa, the countries of the region. Those are his most trusted allies, I would say, taking the basis of history. And there has been so much support in the past from Tanzania, from Zimbabwe, from South Africa and others. Why should Mozambique accept now? I think what is going on now is to make sure that the government receives the support that it can lead, it can coordinate, it can manage. And just another question in terms of what concretely the international community, what can they do to support the government or in Cabo Delgado? What do you expect concretely from the development community? What do you expect? On the development side, I think it's one humanitarian assistance, which can be in financial resources, in material resources, and using different mechanisms through the UN through non-governmental organizations and other mechanisms, and also working with government, government institutions that are working on the ground. That's humanitarian. On the development side, it would be good to support a team technically, but also in terms of financial resources and technical capacity and make it work, because it is all inclusive. It is about the integration of all plans, programs for the development of the North, not just Cabo Delgado, but the Northern part of the country. And I'm glad to say that countries like the United States, where I'm working now, Canada, that I'm also covering from here, the European Union, the institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank, all these institutions are supporting the government in these strategies. So I keep receiving questions. I have another one. We can't ignore the fact that there is corruption. We can ignore the fact that there are human rights abuses. So what is the government doing to address those domestic issues that may be an impediment? And this is a question I will start with, Sidia, just if it's possible, is it true? And what do you think the government can do to address these domestic obstacles to improve the management of foreign assistance or the management of development assistance to Cabo Delgado? First, and then Ambassador, you will respond. Yes, as I said in the beginning, it's extremely important to build the trust, especially for those who have the will to support. And people know our background in this country that it's not that beautiful. So it's important for us to make sure that at least for this time, not only for this time, but I mean, in general, but this is a very specific thing. So I would say that since we already know that there are many organizations, there are many countries who will be supporting us, it's important to build the capacity for those who will be able to manage. Even now, the situation in Cabo Delgado in terms of humanitarian supports, there are many organizations, I would say, that are trying to do something, but the coordination of these organizations, it's not happening in the proper way. And also, some of the people, even including local, has a young person because I have contact with young people. I know that most of them have no experience, of course, and it's important at this point, if we prepare people to deal with this situation. And it's not only the people in the communities that needs to be prepared. Even the people from the government who will be in the front line to manage this, they need to make sure that they are representing the holy country. And the humanitarian support is very, very important that it's properly managed because if we properly address this on the ground, we make sure that we reduce the vulnerability of the people. The more people feel the poverty, the more the most people feel abundant, the space, even for them to be easily engaged with the terrorists. So it's important for us not only to see from only what we receive, but to see the importance of what we are receiving and what will be the impact of the people on the ground. And it's important, as well, that the government opens space, even for the civil society, to be able to, not only to audit, to see how things have been managed, to be able to support in terms of what should be done to be improved. This is a very complicated situation. We want to make sure that people keep supporting us. And for that, we need to make sure that we are transparent in the way that we manage all the support that we are receiving. I have a question for Greg. But, Ambassador, do you want to respond? And then I will quickly, and then I have a question for Greg on Nebuchadnezzar. Just very briefly, to totally agree with Sidia what she has said, let's build the capacities of those intervening within the country to be able to do so. And with regard to corruption, if you know Africa well, you will know that Mozambique is one of the countries that has the most government ministers going to prison, the most very important heads of public enterprises going to prison, and being charged seriously. And I don't think we can say that the government is not fighting corruption. We have an office dedicated to that. It was initially an office within the Attorney General's office, but now it's an office of its own that has done a great deal. Is it enough? No, because corruption continues to grow, like it is growing everywhere. And where there is corruption, there is a corrupt tool. Those who come from within, from without, and they corrupt the people there. So it is a serious problem that we have to take into our own hands, internationally, locally, but also internationally, and make sure that we fight it. Mozambique has learned the, has learned the hard way, because when we had these so-called hidden debts, I would call them undeclared debts to the IMF, the country suffered a lot. And this is being dealt with. And even legislation is being improved. Institutions are being improved to make sure that something like that, of that magnitude, never happens again. And the fight of corruption has to involve everyone. I apologize in advance, because we will not cover all the questions. There are many questions. I have a last question for Greg. The question is about negotiating with jihadists. Greg, do you think the government can negotiate with Al-Shabaab or should negotiate with Al-Shabaab? My goodness, that's a big question. 30 seconds. Yeah. I think that they should be open to that, because we want to come out with a peaceful solution. How we get to that point where you can negotiate with people that you really don't even know, and unclear of the leadership, and that sort of thing is, but I wish I had a good answer for you on this, but I think it would be important to get to that stage of where you can begin to create some trust. I remember when, for how long the Mozambican government never negotiated with Ranamo, it was under South African control for so long. And when it got out of that, that opened the page. And whoever thought that it was possible for that to happen, that there would be peace talks and everything going on. And remember they were considered our bandits back then by Furlimo. But it got to that point. So how we get to that point, I'm not completely clear. In the meantime, I think that narrative of concern about the Mozambican, the Mozambicans who are caught up in this, that this is why we want peace is to help the population, that it's not just an internationalist agenda, et cetera, et cetera, we'll begin to open the space where people can think, okay, let's work towards that end, and maybe pull support away from the jihadists. But I don't have a good answer. Thank you. Ambassador, you have the final word from the panelists in 30 seconds, if possible. Oh, yes. Well, what I would say is that the one point that we have to carry from this discussion, and I really appreciate the opportunity, is the sense of urgency in all we do, because it's just too many people suffering. So whatever we can do and do it together, we should do it. And Cabo Delgado still has the promise of changing the economy of the country, of changing the living conditions of the people in Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique, and throughout Southern Africa, and beyond. So let's work on making sure that we keep Cabo Delgado as a promise to change this game. Thank you. This has been a good and frank dialogue. As we have heard, Cabo Delgado is more than violent extremism or a major natural gas development. These are the issues that have received the most international attention. Northern Mozambique is a complex challenge, as we have learned, economic, political, and social, one that must be met for the sake of the suffering Mozambican people. Not too long ago, Mozambique was war shattered. The international community engaged in that complex situations and peace was built. A peace that had been maintained since 1990s. Now, we have to bring that same intense engagement and sense of urgency to Cabo Delgado, and realize the promise of the inclusive peace that the Mozambican people deserve. Ambassador Dos Santos, Dr. Piriu, and Ms. Chisungo, thank you for sharing your expertise with us today and improving our understanding of the crisis. To all of you attending, thank you for being part of the conversation. We look forward to having you again soon. To learn more about USIP work in African future events, please visit our website, www.usip.org. Enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you very much.