Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-15-Speech-4-214"
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"en.20070315.24.4-214"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Pinior for pointing out that in Guatemala terror is a tradition extending back decades, on both sides. When we were dealing with Guatemala in the urgent debate in the last session a few months ago, I reminded the House that in the early 1970s, that is more than 30 years ago, a German diplomat, Karl Graf von Spreti, was abducted and murdered by terrorists in Guatemala; he was a prominent Bavarian politician who always spoke out for freedom and we shall shortly be marking the anniversary of his death again in Bavaria. Even then, terror was used both by the regime and by those opposing it.
Since then, the country has still not found rest, despite a degree of democratisation in the last 20 years. There is violence on the extreme right, there is violence on the extreme left and, as Mr Pinior has rightly pointed out, there is unfortunately also the violence of organised crime, which is in many ways mixed up with the political extremists. That is why we really must pursue an intensive and offensive policy on Latin America.
I am very grateful to Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra for taking this initiative on behalf of our group, and also to Mr Dess, who is particularly concerned with relations with Latin America – in his case mainly Brazil. We want to make clear, however, that Latin America is of concern not only to our Spanish and Portuguese colleagues but to all of us, and that the continent is an important partner. Only when democracy and the rule of law are at last firmly rooted in Central and South America and all forms of extremism are brought under control will that continent be able to play the role which its economic and cultural weight actually demands.
That is why — and I agree with Mr Pinior here — we must use all the commercial policy instruments at our disposal to work for democracy and the rule of law. Democracy and the rule of law are not a luxury, neither are they a flourish that might perhaps be applied to what are really economic relations. In the long term, there can be no successful economic relations with regimes and forces that flout basic human rights. That is why this human rights debate is indispensable and we must apply pressure accordingly."@en1
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