Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-12-Speech-4-025"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20040212.1.4-025"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, first, may I apologise to the House for missing much of this debate, but unfortunately I had to be present at the STOA Panel to vote to try and prevent the suppression of a scientific report at the behest of Europe's chocolate multinationals on inedibles in food. Doubly unfortunately, the vote was lost by 11 votes to 8.
On Afghanistan, firstly I congratulate Mr Brie on his report on a difficult subject in a difficult country. I was privileged to be part of the delegation from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy to Afghanistan in June 2003. It was clear that security is the paramount issue. Unfortunately, the glass increasingly seems to be half-empty, rather than half-full.
The occupying coalition troops and the United States sit out their days in their fixed and mobile fortresses, when on the streets they exhibit the same heavy-handed style currently displayed in Iraq. ISAF has a footprint centred on Kabul, limiting its operations to 2% of Afghanistan's land area. The rest of the country is effectively abandoned to feuding warlords who monopolise revenues and dispense arbitrary justice in their private prisons, making President Karzai at times little more than the United States-backed mayor of Kabul.
After the marines killed three Afghan national army soldiers in a friendly-fire exchange, ISAF stepped in to broker peace between the two groups, ostensibly on the same side. Yet for many in the Afghan national army, the ISAF and the United States troops are merely all flowers from the same garden.
Campaigns without resources to spread ISAF's presence outside Kabul are wishful and wistful thinking. No-one seems able or willing to find the money to increase the number of troops – some 40 000 would be needed for nationwide coverage.
In the south the main targets for the remnants of the Taliban are foreigners, but without reconstruction work, the temptation for the local population is to see the situation as no better, if not worse, than under the Taliban. Many people argue that large sections of the Taliban could be brought back into civic society, but to do that would be to shift the social centre of gravity back towards an Islamic conservatism that bodes ill for women's emancipation.
Human rights is important, particularly the situation of women. Formal rights may well be given but they are unlikely to play out in the villages. The best hope for the future may be universal education, which will not change current attitudes but rather those of the next generation.
The United States and the EU are pushing bottom lines that in practice are probably undeliverable. As the United Nations Special Representative said, if you are trying to introduce western-style democracy in Afghanistan, you are wasting your time."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples