Young Mozambicans have for the past decades lacked means of survival and thus ended up recruited into terrorist organisations, General António Hama Thay revealed on Thursday.
Gen. António Hama Thay is an official in the Mozambican military (currently in the reserve). He has held various positions in the Mozambican government, including chief of the air force.
The General explained this Thursday, in Maputo, that the absence of alternatives for survival, coupled with the fact that the different groups that were resettled in the northern region of Cabo Delgado could be treated differently is a factor that determined the involvement of young Mozambicans in the group of extremists, who cause terror in that part of the country.
He noted that since, after the resettlement process, some groups that lived off fishing were in places where they could not carry out activities that they were acustomed to.
According to Hama Thay, the investing companies were not able to create a framework for the integration of local youth in the projects, limiting themselves only to bringing in labour from other regions of the country, even recruiting for professions considered elementary such as carpentry, electricity , plumbing and cooking.
Hama Thay was speaking at a lecture on the theme “Terrorism: Conceptual Analysis and its Historicity”, at the launching ceremony of the cycle of lectures on terrorism as a global phenomenon carried out by the UEM.
As a solution, the general considers it essential to create additional programs aimed at young people in Cabo Delgado, highlighting the affected districts and considering mining as an integral part and providing the marketing of minerals at competitive prices, as well as evaluating the possibility of creating more mines with the participation of young people.
Furthermore, young people should be prioritized in economic activity based on youth entrepreneurship. For this, the General says that it will be necessary to invest massively in training aimed at young people in projects that meet the expectations of young people.
“In view of what can be extracted as knowledge about terrorism, it is time for Higher Education Institutions to create a chair on this subject,” he stressed.
The cycle of lectures now launched aims to help understand the phenomenon of terrorism in general, and of our country in particular, with a view to providing subsidies that help to better understand this phenomenon, thus contributing to the national debate on terrorism, with a view to creating a more structured knowledge on the subject.
António Hama Thay holds a Doctorate and Post-Doctorate in Business Management and Administration from the Commonwealth Open University. Since 2013, he has been a professor at the Faculty of Economics at UEM.
