Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-06-Speech-4-192"
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"en.20010906.9.4-192"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I fully agree with the words of Mr Rod and Mr Coelho who spoke before me and which, fortunately, stand in contrast to the attempt to take over the resolution that we will be voting on today, an undertaking which we Portuguese have heard about on the radio and in the press, largely due to the honourable Member who will be speaking next – Mr Miranda.
We have watched these terrible events unfold in Angola with profound and heartfelt regret. The suffering of the Angolans and of these innocent civilian victims of the attack by UNITA or of other events gives us no satisfaction. We do not see these occurrences as a triumph that should feed the warlike approach of the government and prolong the war. We must remember the tragedy that Angola has experienced for the last twenty-six years, in a never-ending violent bipolarisation of the country, of which the Angolan people are weary.
This phase of the civil war, we must remember, is the third wave of the war, and each wave has been more brutal than the last. It is clearly the consequence of UNITA’s failing to meet its commitments, but it is also the consequence of President dos Santos’s plan, announced in December 1998, to use weapons to destroy his old enemy.
This could only lead to disaster and, once again, it is a disaster that we are witnessing.
With your permission, I should like to read from the account of a missionary who returned from Angola a few months ago: “In 2000, Angola celebrated 25 years of independence. In 2001 it ‘commemorated’ 40 years of war. There are now three generations of Angolans for whom living in wartime is all that they know. I lived in Cuíto and Huambo between 1989 and 1994. I saw boundless hope etched on the faces of many Angolans, who were crushed by commitments that had never been met. Now, when it is clear that there is no military solution to the conflict, – not that there ever was! – people are saying more than ever that arms are the key to peace. Whilst this is being said and put into practice, young people are abandoning their studies, adults are not working and children are not going to school, hospitals are without medicines and this armed route will not lead Angola to any kind of future”. Serious incidents are occurring, such as those that we are condemning today. The missionary goes on to say: “I cannot, however, accept such a conclusion about a country that is so rich in natural and, above all, in human resources.”
This priest, Father Tony Neves, who has a profound knowledge of Angola, finishes with a dream of peace, but warns us that “25 years after independence, Angola has only two options: peace or total destruction”.
This is what must make us aware of our responsibilities. We cannot work with the warlords, whether they are involved in diamonds or oil. We can only rely on those who are fighting for peace without weapons in their hands, those who, inspired by the churches, by Archbishop Kamuenho, by the Interdenominational Committee for Peace, are rising up in civil society. We can only rely on those on the moderate wings of UNITA and the MPLA, such as the former prime ministers Marcolino Môco and Lôpo de Nascimento, such as certain journalists of whom we sometimes hear because of the persecution to which they are subjected, such as certain moderate UNITA Members of Parliament like Chivukuvuku Jaka Jamba, many moderate people in the MPLA and, above all, other small parties in the Angolan Parliament, whose voices are never heard. Why do we never hear these people, such as Filomeno Vieira Lopes and Mfulopinda Nando Vítor, who have never taken up arms?
These are the people we should listen to, because Angola does not only consist of the dos Santoses and the Savimbis. Angola belongs to the Angolan people, and we must listen to the spokespeople of those who are suffering and not always the spokespeople who are doing the killing.
The candidature of Archbishop Zacarias Kamuenho is part of this approach and I urge all honourable Members to ensure that we, as an international community, understand the tragedy of the Angolan people. The cold war is long since past and it is high time that the international community stopped pouring oil on the flames of Angola and contributed responsibly to peace, to dialogue and to a bilateral, simultaneous and immediate cease-fire."@en1
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