Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-15-Speech-3-057"
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"en.19991215.4.3-057"2
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"Mr President, I agree with the previous speaker that the people of Macao are the main element missing from the 1987 agreement between Portugal and China, and indeed from this handover. They have not been consulted. Why not?
Mr Patten, the Portuguese presence in Macao was not the result of an unfair treaty extracted from a weakened China in the 19th century by force or by the threat of force. It was the result of a properly agreed treaty. Four hundred and forty-two years of continued and peaceful presence have woven economic, cultural, spiritual, family and political ties. Even during the hardest times in Portugal, the population of Macao has remained loyal. It is this loyalty which earned its Council the name of “Loyal Senate”.
These are the links which you are preparing to break. Today at least, Mr Soares, this is not just a lot of hot air. You are abandoning the 440 000 inhabitants of Macao to communism without allowing them to have a say. Macao and Timor were in the same situation. It is ironic that just when the people of Timor are gaining independence, the people of Macao are returning to servitude. In the words of Jean de la Fontaine, “Thus do the courts acquit the strong” – communist China – “and doom the weak” – Indonesia today – “as therefore wrong”.
You talk about retrocession yet you can only retrocede something which was taken illegitimately. You talk about the local population but what guarantees do you have about their rights, for example, the religious freedom of the Catholics bound to a Rome which does not recognise the communist government? You talk about maintaining a European presence in Macao. I am very afraid that this presence will be like the ruined cathedral which overlooks the city and of which only the façade remains. It will only be a remnant of what was, an illusion simply serving as an alibi for abandonment by the West, with gaping holes which, in the past, gave access to a wonderful structure and which will now be open only to the wind."@en1
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