Madgermanes

Today Nelson Monheguete, José Alfredo Cossa, Aurelio Timane, Aly Bunaia and Lino Fenias are living in a hopeless situation. In the 1980s they had been employed as contract workers in the former German Democratic Republic. From the time they started working, a portion of their earnings had been withheld and transferred to their homeland Mozambique. After the fall of the Berlin Wall they were sent back home. Under a pretext, government officials at the airport in the capital Maputo took the papers documenting their work in the GDR and the proof of the amount of deductions from their wages. The Mozambican government still owes the former contract workers a total of 74.4 million US-dollars in payments for transferred wages and about 18.6 million US-dollars for transferred social insurance payments. Almost 25 years after their return, the so-called Madgermanes still protest in the streets of Maputo every Wednesday. The five protagonists tell their personal story and provide insight into their lives in Mozambique. We learn a lot about their time in the GDR, as well as their role within the protest against the Mozambican government.