Ambassador's Public Statements

Remarks of Ambassador Dan Mozena
Swearing-In Ceremony
November 19, 2007

Secretary Frazer, thank you for your kind remarks.  I am honored to be sworn-in by a colleague and friend whom I deeply admire and respect.  I look forward to remaining a part of your Africa Team.  I thank as well the President, Secretary Rice and the Senate for their confidence in me to serve as United States Ambassador to Angola.

Ambassador Diakite and Counselor Codo, I am pleased you are able to join us today.  I know that Amb. Diakite traveled a great distance only to share this moment with us; I am so grateful.  I thank you for your friendship and partnership over the past three years.  I commit to you to continue in Luanda the work we began here to deepen the relationship between our two countries.    

Honored guests, colleagues, friends and family, Grace and I thank you for sharing this occasion with us.  We are touched especially that so many friends and family members traipsed here from Iowa and beyond surely to confirm with their own eyes that this is actually happening.  I thank particularly my mother Edna Mozena and my mother-in-law Anne Feeney for venturing so far to join us. 

My mother has always believed that she has “good kids.”  When asked how she could be so sure, she has a ready response:  Her kids never abused cats when growing up on the farm and never stole nails or thumbtacks from Spahn and Rose Lumber Co., where they worked summers.  Well, I’d say she set the bar pretty low, but still, knowing that your mother thinks you are “good kid” does wonders for building the self-confidence that helps me survive and thrive in the Foreign Service.

I wish, too, to thank Grace, my partner, companion and friend for the past 36 years.  We truly are a team.  Without her, I would most certainly not be standing here now; I wonder if even I would be standing at all without her partnership.

I need to recognize one person in absentia, Miss Albrecht, the long-deceased teacher at the one room country school where my older brother Darryl and I were two of a total student body of a dozen or so spread over the eight grades.  In her geography classes, Miss Albrecht, who surely had never ventured beyond Dubuque County, painted such wondrous images of the Silk Trail, China and the world, that I as a small boy living on the last farm down the lane dreamt that some day I would see these wonders for myself.  On Thanksgiving Day Grace and I depart for Angola, our latest venture in making that dream of so long ago a reality.

Grace and I will arrive in Angola at an exciting time in that country’s history.  Over four decades of violence and war ended in 2002, and a “new Angola,” as Secretary Frazer described it, is now emerging.  Fueled by surging oil revenues, the economy is growing at nearly 20%; roads, railroads, airports, telecommunications and other aspects of the infrastructure are being rebuilt at break-neck speed; and Luanda is a forest of construction cranes as the city seeks to accommodate its new prominence.  Legislative elections slated for next year and presidential polls the following year will be important steps in Angola’s development as a democracy.  These are, indeed, heady times in Angola.

Nonetheless, Angola faces a number of challenges, most especially how to ensure that the nation’s great wealth brings improved quality of life to the Angolan people.  Following generations of war, Angola now must build the public institutions, civil society, and the private sector, needed for the nation to flourish as a stable, prosperous, free-market democracy.  To this end, Angola has in America a true partner. 

Already American private investment is the pillar of the petroleum sector; American NGO’s are working hard with their Angolan counterparts to strengthen civil society; and United States Government is actively engaged in helping Angola defeat malaria, the number one killer of children, eradicate polio, prevent the HIV/AIDS pandemic from ravaging the nation, clearing the millions of landmines left from the wars, diversifying the economy to agriculture and other sectors to reduce dependency on oil, and reforming the financial sector.  We are prepared as well to partner with Angola so its soldiers can employ their skills in keeping the peace on the continent

Once in Angola, I will do everything that I can to deepen and broaden this relationship, which I believe is greatly in the interest of both countries.  As a former Peace Corps Volunteer, I know the importance of person-to-person diplomacy and will strive to know the broad spectrum of Angolans, visiting all 18 provinces in the process.

Secretary Frazer, Ambassador Diakite, colleagues, friends and family, we are eager to depart for Post and get to work, so I will conclude here.  Thank you again, Secretary Frazer, for your continuing confidence and support.  I promise to do my utmost to fulfill your vision in Angola.   And thank you all for taking the time to share this special moment with us.  Grace and I truly have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving