US embassy cable - 04MAPUTO1525

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MAPUTO 001525 
 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR ECA FOR ASSISTANT SECRETARY PATRICIA 
HARRISON; AF/PD FOR LKOENGETER; AF/S FOR HTREGER 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO, OEXC, OIIP, PINR, KISL 
SUBJECT: FIRST EVER IFTAR WITH MOZAMBICAN ISLAMIC 
LEADERS 
 
 
1. SUMMARY: Maputo PAS organized an Iftar at the 
Ambassador's residence that took place the final 
Friday of Ramadan, November 12. Nine prominent local 
Muslim leaders, representative of several different 
communities of Mozambique's sizeable Muslim minority, 
were invited and attended, including clerics, 
businessmen and NGO activists. After the Ambassador 
spoke, one of the most prominent Muslim clerics in 
Mozambique gave unprompted remarks for several minutes 
thanking the Ambassador for taking the first steps to 
bridge the divide between the local American and 
Muslim communities. END SUMMARY. 
 
NINE MUSLIM LEADERS 
2. The nine attendees included: Aminuddin Mohammed, 
president of the Islamic Congress of Mozambique who 
writes a weekly religion column in "Savana", an 
influential independent weekly; Cassimo David of the 
Mozambican Council of Theologians, a former 
International Visitor participant; other business and 
NGO representatives from both Mozambique's Asian 
Islamic community and native Macua community; and two 
key figures in Muslim women's groups. Embassy 
representatives met with most of the invitees prior to 
the event to put the outreach efforts into context. 
 
EMBASSY ZAKAT DONATIONS 
3. On the morning prior to the Iftar, the Embassy 
delivered food baskets as a "zakat" offering to ten 
poorer mosques located in Maputo and surrounding 
areas. The baskets included bulk quantities of staple 
foods such as corn meal. Mission personnel visited 
the mosques in advance of the delivery to make 
contacts and arrange logistics. They followed up with 
personal delivery of the baskets, which included a 
card to the leader of each mosque. 
 
IIP'S "MUSLIM LIFE" SUCCESS 
4. While guests were arriving, PAS played an 
abridged and translated version of IIP's "Muslim Life 
in America" slideshow. The slides, while not 
provoking questions immediately, helped set an upbeat, 
respectful tone for the rest of the evening. During 
supper, the PAO engaged in a conversation with a high 
school teacher of Arabic and the Koran, who had 
studied for seven years in Libya. The teacher admitted 
to having been uncomfortable with the idea of 
attending the Iftar and was defensive about his Libyan 
education. He specifically noted his appreciation of 
the slideshow, however, and proceeded to ask about 
American Muslims. 
 
IMAM SPEAKS, WELCOMES IFTAR GESTURE 
5. The Ambassador presented prepared remarks 
welcoming the guests; she noted her own previous 
experience in predominately Muslim Morocco and 
underscored the historical role that Islam has played 
in Mozambique. Immediately afterward, Mohammed gave 
several minutes of unprompted remarks, thanking the 
Ambassador for taking the first steps to bridge the 
divide between the local American and Muslim 
communities. To be sure, his comments had a modest 
political overtone, acknowledging his (and the local 
Muslim community's) disagreement with certain aspects 
of American foreign policy without going into 
specifics. Nevertheless, he reiterated his 
receptiveness to the positive message conveyed by the 
Iftar. 
 
A MISSION-WIDE EFFORT 
6. The Iftar, though coordinated by PAS, resulted 
from the combined efforts of the Mission. Personnel 
from several sections of the Department of State and 
USAID, Mozambican and American alike, gave freely of 
their time and experience to make this unprecedented 
event work. From day one of planning, the Ambassador 
communicated the significance of outreach, a message 
reinforced consistently throughout the planning 
process. Perhaps the most important element turned out 
to be the extraordinary contributions of several 
Muslim members of the Mission, whose advice and 
judgment proved critical. 
 
7. COMMENT: By any measure the Iftar was a success. 
The mere fact that our carefully selected guests 
appeared at all at this first-ever Embassy Iftar would 
be one measure of success. But more happened: a key 
imam's unprompted generous acknowledgment communicated 
the respect with which the Muslim community viewed the 
Ambassador's gesture, no small feat. In the process, 
the Mission made a number of excellent contacts and 
generated significant goodwill, helping to reduce 
tensions between the communities. 
LA LIME