“Cultural debts”: the infernal crucifix of the wretched Mozambican people and the triumphant blessing of the “gang” exit

Paulo Vilanculo "

This article questions whether the early release of those convicted of hidden debts in Mozambique represents exemplary punishment or merely a travesty of justice. Who was truly punished? Was it exemplary justice or just for show? Was this truly exemplary punishment or simply a travesty of justice, a concerted ploy between rulers and state sculptors? What is left for the people? What message is sent to unemployed and disenchanted youth when it becomes clear that crime can, after all, pay? Where is the state when the most affected, ordinary citizens, continue to lack access to quality healthcare, decent schools, food security, and energy, yet with a colossal debt that limits the present and mortgages the future? Why not a regime pact to recover the plundered assets? The curtain that descends for Mozambicans on one of the most scandalous cases of default, the multi-million dollar debt case, has arrived with the early release of the protagonists, after serving only a short time. The accused leave prison not as defeated inmates, but almost as public figures, misunderstood heroes, in a society where white-collar crime is released as if in a well-rehearsed theater. The protagonists leave "the scene" as heroes with their heads held high, amid discreet smiles and a fresh start, free, perhaps richer, certainly better informed, and perhaps even more dangerous, having tested the limits of the system and emerged virtually unscathed. The impression is that it was all nothing more than a carefully choreographed judicial theater, demonstrating coldness to the people and firmness to international donors, while ensuring the unbroken existence of hidden pacts between accomplices. The prison, far from being a haven of austere seclusion, sometimes felt like a political retreat. The corrupt elite never ceases to be elite, even behind bars. The so-called prison was almost transformed into a haven rather than a place of punishment. This revealed more the fragility of the separation of powers than the strength of Mozambican justice. If there was any truth, it was stifled behind the high walls of impunity. If there was punishment, it hardly seems so. If there was justice, it was merely staged. The narrative of "justice served" and the sentences were handed down with some symbolic weight. More than exemplary punishment, what we witnessed was a damage control operation, an "institutional whitewashing" of the state's image, which ended with the "gang" walking out the front door and the people remaining on their knees. The release of the convicted men raises questions about the seriousness of the Mozambican justice system and the structure of the prison system itself. For the Mozambican people, what was expected as justice has become a bitter piece of political and legal illusion. Meanwhile, the main perpetrators, with ties to circles of political and economic power, continue to live without major setbacks. Those named as masterminds or accomplices have never seen the door of a cell. The case suggests much more of a silent agreement between government officials and those responsible for the embezzlement, where prison served merely as a moment of public and temporary atonement in exchange for protection of the true masterminds, a guarantee that secrets would not be revealed, and the maintenance of channels of impunity open for similar future maneuvers. All this is happening while millions lie buried or in bank vaults laundered under the names of shell companies, family foundations, and front men. This is more than a crime: it is economic and moral genocide. The "prison exiles" are now returning free without the public treasury having recovered the more than two billion dollars that were stolen from the Mozambicans. This hypothesis gains strength as the State fails to recover the embezzled funds, fails to pursue the assets of those convicted, and fails to even review the structural policies that enabled such a massive fraud. The solution would not lie solely in the Penal Code but in the plea for political will, organized popular pressure, and the redefinition of the social pact, with a true pact of the regime—not of elites, but of national redemption. This would imply granting amnesty conditional on the full return of assets, the obligation to invest in social sectors (agriculture, health, education), and the creation of public funds for youth employment. This is not impunity. Sociologist Helder Jauanaargues for the need for strategic restorative justice, capable of recovering misappropriated resources and transforming them into social policies, rather than maintaining a symbolic justice system that only protects the powerful. Jauana criticizes the lack of a pact between regimes that would allow the return of stolen assets and their reinvestment in the country in exchange for the decriminalization of offenders. The proposal for a "regime pact," where the state would negotiate with looters to decriminalize them in exchange for the return of assets and national reinvestment, would be a less symbolic and more pragmatic approach to restorative justice. This has already been applied with relative success in countries such as Nigeria, which recovered billions through agreements signed with Abacha's family; in Brazil, with plea bargains and leniency agreements in Operation Car Wash; and in Rwanda, which created community reconciliation courts after the genocide. Why doesn't the legislator, who theoretically represents the people, promote a strategic and courageous regime pact, as proposed by Jauana, with the aim of at least recovering some of the looted assets, rather than maintaining the hypocrisy of a selective justice system, punitive only for appearances and essentially impotent? The failure to adopt regime pacts like the one proposed by Jauana is neither coincidence nor ignorance; it is a deliberate choice to maintain the status quo. It is understood here that the failure to adopt such pacts is not due to ignorance, but rather to the self-interest and complicity of those in power. The legislator's silence and inaction are not neutral; they are clear expressions of structural complicity. Many of those who currently legislate, oversee, or judge are directly or indirectly linked to the State's exploitation. In other words: a regime pact would imply that the predators themselves would hand over the prey, which would imply the rehabilitation of the robbers, would imply the exposure of political, business and family networks and bring the money back, revealing those involved in the cycle of financial and political corruption. The "gang" left through the front door, while the country remains trapped in debt and discredit. It's impossible not to see the gang's exit as a kind of windfall: the money is gone, the direct beneficiaries will never be identified, and the few convicted are already back on the streets. The people will continue to pay in silence, without choice, without justice, with absolute poverty as the only legitimate inheritance left to the population, where children will continue to have swollen bellies from hunger, mothers without midwives, without medicine, in a state that proudly claims to be growing. What remains is discouragement, disbelief, and a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a state captured by private interests, where the poor foot the elite's bill, and justice is merely a stage show staged to distract the public.

2025/12/3