Emil Hagamu, September 2007.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world.  Most people earn less than a dollar a day, and usually they have only one meal a day.  In such a situation, you would expect government efforts to be directed at the needs of the people-providing desperately needed basic necessities of life like clean water, agricultural equipment, affordable and quality medical services, and a good infrastructure like roads and electricity.  These are the things Mozambicans need.  Yet the government's response to the pathetic condition of its people is to provide more contraception and more sterilization programs.  And now it plans to legalize abortion in this country, which has only 18 million people and a low population density of a mere 22 people per square km. 

Death peddling organizations, like International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), have capitalized on government laxity (or outright consent) to implement coercive population control programs.  One such program provides free contraceptives, including abortifacients, to women of reproductive age.  Any concerned pro-lifer would question such "philanthropic" gestures of the anti-life lobby.  How is it possible for the government to provide free contraceptives while neglecting to give its people much needed drugs against killer diseases like malaria?

There are no social welfare programs in Mozambique.  Elsewhere on the continent, children receive allowances.  In South Africa, for example, more children born into a family means more allowance given to that family.  As a result, some Mozambican parents have "given away" their children by registering them with the government of South Africa so they can benefit from their family programs.  In Mozambique, population controllers come in with government support to provide free contraceptives so that Mozambican women can "escape" the burden of bearing children and "enjoy" barrenness.

There are no condom billboards in Mozambique (though they are common elsewhere in Africa), but the country is saturated with condoms.  They are in every medical store, food store, garage, and soft drink shop.  One day I was buying a soft drink from a nearby garage, and I had some change left over.  When I asked what I could buy with it, I was told, "nothing except a condom."  Then the person added that no girl would agree to have sexual intercourse without a condom. 

The marketing of condoms is pushed very heavily through television in Mozambique.  In one TV commercial, a man is turned away at the "last minute," after all the "necessary preparations" had been done, because he had not brought a condom.  The entire scene embarrassed the young man, while the young girl laughed.  The message conveyed by this advertisement was clear and powerful:  NO CONDOM, NO SEX. 

But the population controllers and other pro-death lobby groups understand the double effect of the condom:  they propose it as an ideal weapon against conception and a devastating killer through the HIV/AIDS infection.

 In Mozambique, like in many other countries today, including my own Tanzania, children are introduced to comprehensive sex education during their adolescence.  We all know that the earlier sex education is taught, the earlier children engage in sexual activities.  Children in Maputo, I have been told, begin to engage in sex at a "tender age" (to use the anti-life language) and become sexually active while still quite young.  With increasingly early sexual experiences, teenage pregnancies have become a common reality-and most end in abortion.

Mozambican TV is also extremely pornographic.  Naturally, this has greatly influenced the behavior of young people.  And where young people dress half-naked, the resulting sexual permissiveness leads to cultural bankruptcy.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

Despite the pathetic living conditions, there is one good thing for the people of Maputo: they love life!  For every 100 women I met, one was pregnant.  This is a sign of vitality!  Unlike Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where a 5-month pregnant woman would hide her pregnancy by putting on a long and wide maternity garb, pregnant women in Maputo dress normally and appear happy and proud of themselves.  I think they want to exclaim to the world with joy, "LOOK I AM PREGNANT."

I also saw many children playing in the streets who were barefooted and shirtless but were so very happy.  I took photographs of these kids as I was walking through the streets and markets.  In one place, I was dumb struck to see the children playing in the dirt, merrily enjoying themselves as if they are in heaven.  When I asked to photograph them, they posed willingly.

THE RADIO PROGRAM

Radio Mozambique aired two one-hour educational programs in which I was the guest speaker.  As this is their national radio, the message was able to reach to nearly every corner of the country.  This program aired for four consecutive weeks and had for its aims:

1. To alert the people of Mozambique on the dangers of abortion. 
2. To alert the people on the impending abortion legalization bill that was about to be presented to the parliament by their Health Ministry.
3. To help them reject abortion and defeat the abortion bill.

Topics for this program were: 

• The definition of abortion
• Side effects of abortion on women
• Side effects of abortion on abortion survivors
• Side effects of abortion on families
• Side effects of abortion on society and the nation
• Should Mozambique legalize abortion?

THE PEOPLE'S RESPONSE TO ABORTION

The overwhelming majority of the Mozambican people are against abortion and the legalization of abortion in their country.  Some of the strongest words used by angry listeners to our program were: "Abortion is killing an unborn baby"; "Abortion is a crime against humanity"; "It is better not to conceive than to kill the baby already conceived."

THE VILLAGERS' RESPONSE TO ABORTION

Our radio program reached the majority of Mozambicans.  However, there is also a sizeable group of people who have no access to a radio.  Because of this, I decided to visit three villages, which were about 30 km from the city, with the aim of collecting first hand the villagers' opinion on abortion.  Despite the communication barrier (the people speak Portuguese), my project was successful.  I visited Patrice Lumumba village on two different days, as well as the villages of Benfica and Matola.  I talked to over 50 people (men and women).  They were all against abortion.  They simply don't like to hear the word abortion.  In fact, one villager said to me that abortion was against Mozambican culture.  "Why should some people tell us to kill our own children?  How can we talk about killing our own children and more particularly those unborn who need our love and care?  This is barbaric; this is satanic.  I will never agree to such a proposition, even if forced to by the president.  This is a foreign idea."

The Mozambican people oppose the abortion bill in its totality.  The question is, if the government forces the bill, whom will it serve?  As these villagers are rightly asserting, it definitely will be the Western baby killers that the abortion law will serve.  While IPPF and other abortionists are waiting to celebrate the passing of this law, most Mozambicans are waiting in dismay, wailing in fact.  They will definitely conclude that their government has sold them out to the monster whose thirst is for human sacrifice, human blood.

THE LEGALIZATION PROCESS IS UNDERWAY

Following the Maputo Protocol, and following the signing and acceding to this protocol by the Mozambican government in 2003, pro-abortion groups have been working tirelessly day and night to ensure that an abortion law is passed as soon as possible.   Also, sensing that the government was not acting according to their wishes and realizing that HLI was now swinging the pendulum away from them, they have been forced to hasten their pro-abortion meetings.  Only one week after HLI started the life-saving program through Radio Mozambique, one radical feminist group convened a press conference meeting to "put the house in order," as I was told.  The aim of the press conference, as you would suspect, was to further pressure the government to hasten liberalization of the anti-abortion laws.  The typical deceptive tactics were used again to advance their agenda: They told those in attendance that 11% of all maternal deaths were due to complications of "unsafe abortions"; that they needed to improve the "reproductive health of women"; and that the fertility rate was too high for a poor country like Mozambique.

When I learned of this press conference through a television news broadcast on the evening of Wednesday, September 12, 2007, I understood that HLI's pro-life message was bearing fruit.  By then, we had presented only two topics.  Given the overwhelming support that HLI's radio program was receiving throughout the country, the pro-abortion forces suspected that their imminent defeat would follow.  So they quickly convened this meeting to strengthen their position with the government. 

As I am writing this report, the abortion bill has already been submitted to the parliament by the Health Minister for debate and-most likely for approval-by this people's representative body.  Whether by coincidence or not, on the third week of HLI's radio campaign against the legalization of abortion, the Health Minister secretly submitted his death bill proposal to the parliament-before he could even hear what people would say about the subject through this program.  As Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer recently said in his HLI e-newsletter, "The devil and his minions are on the verge of adding Mozambique to its collection of evil masterpieces."

The abortion bill has been kept away from the sight of the people who will be subjected to its whims.  When journalists, including those on the HLI anti-abortion radio program, rushed to get copies of the abortion bill from the Health Ministry, they were told it was confidential and top secret.  Any pro-lifer would ask, "confidential to whom?"  Why is a document that will affect the Mozambican population classified as "top secret?"  Will the consequences of this document remain secret?

These good journalists did not stop there!  They next went to the parliament.  Some parliamentarians were surprised to learn that there was such a bill.  A few of them said they would not support it.

Why has the Health Ministry kept this deadly document a secret?  I was told that there had been a referendum two years ago on whether or not Mozambique should legalize abortion.  The result of this referendum, which has never been revealed to the public by the government, showed that over 60% of Mozambicans were opposed to the idea of making a law that will massacre their innocent unborn children.  To accept the government's proposal will mean committing suicide.  The government was totally defeated.

Since then, however, pro-abortion groups have been bombarding the media with pro-abortion information in their program called IEC (information, education, and communication) in the hope of reversing the will of the people.  They have further lobbied government support on the reproductive health agenda through seminars, workshops, and conferences that have been conducted continuously for the urban and rural people, with specific targeting of the youth and women.

 On hearing that HLI was in the country running a pro-life program and alerting the people of Mozambique about the evil of abortion, the deadly Maputo Protocol that threatens to impose abortion-on-demand and legalization of abortion in Mozambique, the anti-life groups were clearly worried that they were going to be losers.  They were especially concerned when they heard that through this pro-life program HLI was converting many people, including health officials, government leaders, and-more importantly-ordinary men and women.  So, they quickly convened, strategized, and forced the Health Ministry to send the abortion bill to parliament.  Further delay, it was argued, would be disastrous to their plan of reducing the population of this nation.

Realizing that HLI's message of truth was against them, they worked clandestinely with some health officials to prevent the leaking of their plans.  So, they insisted that health workers, MDs, nurses, and para-medical personnel neither cooperate with HLI nor leak any word about the abortion legalization bill.  When our journalists went to get information from the Health Ministry, they were turned away.  Some of them told our team that they had been warned not to say anything.  This is what I call the government's iron-hand, Western intimidation of its own people.  And one thing is clear: if the government of Mozambique is going to enact a law to legalize abortion, it will do so against the will of its people.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SUPPORTS HLI'S MISSION

On September 4, 2007, I visited St. Pius Major Seminary as a follow-up to my first visit in August.  Fortunately, my meeting with the Rector, Fr. Rafael Sabate, was very fruitful.  At the end of the discussions, the seminary leadership agreed to work with HLI on two projects:

1.  A new seminarian pro-life group at the seminary, which would include participation in the Seminarian Summer Institute held annually in Tanzania for East Africa.

2.  HLI's campaign against abortion and legalization of abortion in Mozambique.

Later that same day, I met Fr. Aloysius at the Bishop's house, who is also the Archdiocesan secretary.  He expressed his happiness with HLI's programs, and through him everything else was arranged.  Fr. Aloysius, a pro-lifer himself, promised to champion the pro-life apostolate in the archdiocese.

I met the Archbishop on September 13, 2007.  He was very pleased to meet me and expressed his gratitude for the HLI pro-life materials I had given him on my first visit.  He wholeheartedly supported HLI's work in its entirety and gave the approval to start a pro-life apostolate in his archdiocese.  He invited me to address his diocesan clergy on the following day, September 14.  I gave him two copies of my presentation, one of which was passed on to Fr. Aloysius for translation into Portuguese.  The speech consisted of two major parts: "The Abortion Debate" and "Making Abortion Legal in Africa - a Systematized Process."

My presentation was 45 minutes long and was followed by a 15-minute question and answer period.  I concluded by putting forward some proposals to the clergy.  The Archbishop promised to invite me on another occasion to help with setting up a pro-life group, but in the meantime, Fr Aloysius will begin to coordinate pro-life activities in the Archdiocese of Maputo.

 The clergy in Mozambique has fully supported the HLI radio campaign against the legalization of abortion though Radio Mozambique.  They suggested that Radio Maria could be used too, and for this purpose the Archbishop immediately appointed Fr. Alfred Buque, Director of Radio Maria, to work with HLI.  Fr. Buque, representing the Archbishop, has already worked with us on two radio programs in which he broadcast the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion during my August visit to Mozambique. 

PRO-LIFE SEMINARS 

I managed to conduct two pro-life seminars.  Had there been no language barrier, I would have conducted more.  Besides explaining to participants the pro-life apostolate, its vision, mission, and objectives, as well as HLI's pro-life work around the globe, I used these two occasions to expose the "Maputo Protocol," the legalization of abortion agenda, and the dangers of abortion.  I also highlighted the tactics to defeat pro-abortion arguments.

PRO-LIFE MATERIAL 

I was able to distribute pro-life material to many people, both inside and outside Mozambique.  Within the country, I distributed pro-life materials to clergy, journalists, workers at Radio Maria, medical personnel, people in urban and rural areas, staff at the hotel where I stayed, and to the participants of the seminar.  I distributed pro-life materials to individuals with whom I spoke and who were from other countries - Swaziland, South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia, as well as the USA.

THE ROAD AHEAD

On the morning of September 28, 2007, I returned to the bishop's house to bid farewell to the Archbishop (who had so generously received me and given me audience with the diocesan clergy) and to say goodbye to Fr. Aloysius.

Fr. Aloysius and I discussed at length the future of the new pro-life and pro-family apostolate in Mozambique.  We agreed that there is need to initiate a pro-life apostolate in the Archdiocese of Maputo as a starting point and later to extend the apostolate to other dioceses.  We established a plan of action for this project, delineated responsibilities for various archdiocesan departments and staff, and we established that HLI would assist with the necessary training and materials for this new mission.  HLI will provide pro-life materials that will be translated into Portuguese, return to Maputo in the spring of 2008 to provide training workshops, and be available on an ongoing basis for any other necessary assistance.  Fr. Alfred Buque has agreed to run an HLI pro-family program on Radio Maria, and for this purpose I gave him many pro-life materials, including The Facts of Life book by Dr. Brian Clowes and our 2006 East Africa Pro-Life Conference papers in bound book form.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

HLI's month-long pro-life radio program was a success and has begun to educate the people of Mozambique on the dangerous threat of the legalization of abortion in their country.  To me, this has been a miracle.  Imagine working with people you have never met before, in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language.  The Holy Spirit has surely been present in this great program!

I would like to sincerely thank HLI Central for facilitating this program and my trip to Maputo. The Holy Spirit was working with us-leading the way, blessing us, and spreading the message of light and truth.  With His continued help, we will reap a rich harvest of life in Mozambique.