Every Wednesday, flags of former Communist East Germany flutter on the streets of Maputo, capital of the south-east African nation of Mozambique. They are part of protest demonstrations, held for two decades now, by onetime "guest workers" employed for years in state-owned East German enterprises.
"We want our money back!" demanded Jose Alfredo Cossa, 47. He is chairman of ATMA, the organization of the "Madgermanos," a coinage whose various possible meanings include "the ones from Germany" and, in distorted form, "made in Germany."
Cossa himself worked for seven years at a furniture factory in Frankfurt an der Oder, near the Polish border, until East Germany was dissolved in 1990 and he and thousands of his countrymen had to pack up and return to their impoverished homeland.
"Somebody here stole our money, and we want it back!" Cossa said in fluent German. Chances of the Madgermanos ever seeing their money are slim, however. The authoritarian ruling party Frelimo, which won elections again in 2009 and has been in power since Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, has turned a deaf ear to their demands.
For its part, the German government says it remitted all the money owed to Mozambican guest workers, and more, to Maputo long ago. Friendly talks between German officials and the Madgermanos broke off in 2003 after the latter occupied the German embassy for several days.
ATMA's headquarters are located in Jardim 28 de Maio, a squalid municipal park where German flags and slogans adorn a foul-smelling toilet hut and sign maker Luis David Bezerra dos Santos has his stand.
Aged 43, dos Santos lives with his family on the equivalent of about 140 US dollars a month. He said he would never abandon hope of finally getting a payout from the Mozambican government of a sum umpteen times greater than his current salary - "money that belongs to me!"
Every month, 60 per cent of his salary - some 1,200 East German marks - at the Orbitaplast chemical factory in Weissandt-Goelzau, near Halle, had been sent to Mozambique's government, which had promised to give it to guest workers on their return.
After the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany, the German government sent additional millions in social insurance benefits, severance pay, child benefits and reintegration assistance. The Madgermanos say they have received just a fraction of the money.
"They got a raw deal," agreed a German expert in Maputo. "But for Germany the case is closed." "We want to know details," Cossa said. "Who here got the money? Which accounts was it sent to?" He put part of the blame on the Germans, "who shouldn't have simply remitted the money to the government."
The government in Maputo apparently aims to wait out the problem. It declined to issue an official statement on the matter.
In the 1980s, Mozambique's then staunchly Marxist leaders dispatched more than 20,000 of their countrymen to East Germany to work. In return, more than 1,000 East Germans were active in the socialist republic of Mozambique, battered by civil war from 1977 to 1992, as development aid workers as well as military advisors.
Since 1990, the Madgermanos have demanded compensation from the government. In 1994, ATMA said, the government clamped down on them, leading to street battles and arrests. But the Wednesday rallies have meanwhile become a ritual monitored by a small number of policemen, starting at 11 am and ending peacefully an hour later.
Amid the protest signs and East German flags at a recent rally, the Stars and Stripes could be seen. "Thank you, USA, thank you, Obama, for pursuing the corruption of those who stole our money," one placard read.
As a Western diplomat pointed out, pressure from the United States, one of Mozambique's most important donors, was largely the reason that the still all-powerful rulers from Frelimo had not quashed anti-corruption efforts and the right to demonstrate.
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