Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-18-Speech-4-157"
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"en.20010118.8.4-157"2
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"Mr President, at the start of this part-session, the request from our group, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, for a debate on the situation in Algeria was accepted. The reception accorded this request was just what one might expect, namely a wave of fine feelings, fine but perfectly gratuitous, on the part of the usual ranks of those for whom the all-purpose defence of human rights has become a sort of knee-jerk reaction in the place of any real political analysis, sometimes, as is the case for at least a few, with no result other than to hide more obscure intentions.
So our own message is not compassionate but political. We, of course, wish to express our distress at the heinous violence which bruises the Algerian nation a little more each day, but we are also aware that the Algerians have had more than enough compassion. Since, thanks to the courageous policy of their president, President Bouteflika, it has been demonstrated – and that at least is an achievement – that no voice of reason, no promise of amnesty, no attempt at reconciliation, in a word, no political solution will be accepted by the fanatics. We must take action, and we must recognise that those Member States that grant their leaders asylum, and sometimes more than that, are well and truly guilty of collusion in the events we are condemning here, with each speaker outdoing the last in a spiral of hypocrisy.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of the matter. Several Member States are actually guilty of conniving with the perpetrators of massacres. They express regret officially, whilst, behind the scenes, protecting, concealing and welcoming. Sometimes they even welcome in France, in full knowledge, the perpetrators of criminal acts committed in my own country. We believe that any proper defence of human rights must begin with the reinforcement of the rule of law in Algeria and must contribute towards ensuring the authority of a government and a president elected in what we persist in considering democratic elections.
Democratic human rights monitoring should not apply exclusively to the established governments. I am thinking in particular of the other countries of North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. It must also help support them, in particular, aside from all the details which have been blown up out of all proportion, when they come up against such an indiscriminate killing frenzy, which is all the more dangerous because it is secretly supported by external powers, powers which are not even European, if you get my drift, and which are taking advantage of an unstable situation to pull strings behind the scenes, working through these fanatics. The old games between empires are at work, and the victim is not just the Algerian people, but Algeria itself, and its oldest and ultimately most faithful friends.
So, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us attempt once and for all to get a clear grasp of the state of affairs in Algeria. Yes, there are external forces at work in Algeria. Yes, once again Algeria, although, admittedly laying itself open to this with its centuries-old internecine divides, has been given over to power struggles and my own country, France, which undoubtedly bears some responsibility towards this country, will continue to accept them in the name of ancestral friendship and to ensure that the government and the president which the country has chosen succeed in ensuring as best they can in the face of instability and certain external machinations – including, I repeat, by some of our friends – peace and the authority of a state which is, even today, a constitutional state."@en1
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