Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
South African Press Association - October 12, 2004
Speaking at Maputo airport before heading home to Harare, Mugabe told journalists the meeting with Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano was very fruitful and the two had discussed the state of his own country.
"Political tension in Zimbabwe is easing, the economy is growing," Mugabe insisted, although inflation in Zimbabwe is running at more than 300%, and the United Nations has estimated this year's harvest will meet only half the country's needs.
Mugabe and Chissano talked on Saturday on areas of cooperation including transportation and joint ventures in tourism. The two nations have had close relations since the early 1970s, when Marxist rebels in Mozambique provided shelter for guerrillas fighting the white-dominated government of Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia.
On Sunday Mugabe said his country was overcoming its political and economic crisis.
"We are now, day by day, regaining a noteworthy political and economic stability", he told journalists in Maputo.
He repeated his earlier contention that the country has enough food to feed its people.
Mugabe's often-violent land reform programme, combined with erratic rains, have left his country without enough to eat and isolated the longtime president internationally.
Mugabe said on Sunday he was visiting Mozambique to pay homage to Chissano, before Chissano leaves office at the end of the year.
He said Zimbabwe is also preparing a major agro-industrial trade fair "that will show how far the country is emerging from the economic crisis that it experienced in recent years".
Mugabe said HIV/Aids remains one of the main causes of death in Zimbabwe, but "we are doing all in our power to reduce the spread, while at the same lessening the suffering and tragedy of those already infected".
"We are even, with the help of India, producing anti-retrovirals in the country, although not in great quantities. We have a factory that we built with Indian aid, and our idea is to expand it."
Mugabe said he regards Mozambique as his "second homeland".
He lived in the central city of Quelimane, and later in Maputo, during the 1970s, and it was from Maputo that he directed the struggle of the Zimbabwe African National Union against the white minority regime of Rhodesia's leader Ian Smith before independence in 1980.
Mugabe has been ruler ever since.
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