Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-24-Speech-4-163"
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"en.20050224.14.4-163"2
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"Mr President, Liberia and Sierra Leone have moved on from being countries whose social elites were very much in thrall to American and European traditions, to being countries that have brought into the present day the most primitive aspects of African history. We can take it as read that the chaos and the reversion to old ways have resulted from the long-standing discrimination against the people of the interior, who are poor, ill-educated and least urbanised.
They rebel against the English-speaking inhabitants of the coastlands, whom they regard as colonials. That is what happens in Liberia, established in the nineteenth century as a colony where slaves freed in America could return to their African roots. One group managed the land, while the other regarded themselves as colonial masters along the lines of the Europeans in other African countries.
It is significant in all African countries that present-day state borders were drawn by foreign colonial powers. Groups that belonged together by virtue of a shared language and culture were separated from each other. Groups that had very little in common were joined together in a single federated state. Mr Posselt also drew attention to this during today’s discussion of Togo.
Adventurers and profiteers, who employ drug-addled children as assassins and decorate themselves with the heads of the victims they kill, terrorise those whom they cannot control. I might add that the Americans did a good job of training Charles Taylor as President and bringing him into office, after which it was very difficult to get rid of him again. What is even more important is that, after the removal of one person, the groups in the interior who have reverted to primitive living should be given the opportunity to develop as fully-fledged twenty-first century people.
I would counsel against pinning all our hopes on Nigeria’s influence. Nigeria may well be a major power in the region, but it also has a tradition of internal conflict
and dictatorships, although it is fortunate that matters have been improving recently. The problems of Liberia and Sierra Leone will not be resolved in the long term without all the groups of their inhabitants being involved on an equal basis."@en1
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