Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-225"

PredicateValue (sorted: default)
rdf:type
dcterms:Date
dcterms:Is Part Of
dcterms:Language
lpv:document identification number
"en.20000518.9.4-225"2
lpv:hasSubsequent
lpv:speaker
lpv:spokenAs
lpv:translated text
"Mr President, once again the drama unfolding in an African country is bringing Parliament face to face with the daily horrors of a bloody conflict and civil war. Certain kind souls are already pointing the finger at misgovernance and ethnic causes and indicating the culprits who should be eliminated. As with the oil of Congo-Brazzaville, Angola or Nigeria and the mineral resources of Chad, Niger or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as in the latter generally or in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the causes are indeed economic and the fight for control of the diamond-producing areas is the basis and reason for this continuing conflict. We are right to condemn the Revolutionary United Front or RUF for unilaterally resuming hostilities and for involving thousands of child-soldiers in the horror. However, the Sierra Leone army and its militias should also come in for criticism. We are right to condemn the use of diamonds by the RUF for war purposes. But what are the economic interests behind the government’s actions? We are right to condemn Liberia and Burkina Faso for their involvement in the arms trade and the recycling of diamonds. But who is selling arms to these countries and who is buying the diamonds? We are right to send in a UN Implementation Force and to want to disarm those who are fighting. Yet without proper distribution of the wealth of these countries, as in other African countries, and if we continue to allow mining and oil companies to pillage these countries and to fund the groups controlling these resources, our intervention will once again be in vain as it will not tackle the real causes."@en1

Named graphs describing this resource:

1http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/English.ttl.gz
2http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/Events_and_structure.ttl.gz
3http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/spokenAs.ttl.gz

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph