Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-24-Speech-4-221"
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"en.20080424.25.4-221"2
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"Mr President, colonial rule in the former territories of French West Africa and French Central Africa came to an end between 1958 and 1960. This was not the outcome of a protracted conflict and the resulting emergence of a collective national consciousness, but rather a way of preventing the development of liberation movements. It was a top-down rather than a bottom-up process. From French overseas departments they first became autonomous territories and then independent states.
With the exception of Guinea (Conakry), French influence has nevertheless always remained greater in these states than in other former colonies. The big desert state of Chad still has a French military presence and that has certainly influenced who was allowed to rule the country and who was not. This powerful European influence has not led to the development of European standards of democracy and human rights in these countries. The states and their national borders derive not from domestic movements which shaped an independent state, but simply from the colonial past.
This means that ethnic differences can lead to ethnic confrontations. In countries like these that means a continuing struggle for power, over who are the first-class citizens and who the second-class citizens. Ethnic and geographical diversity is often not reflected, or only poorly reflected, in the composition of the government. The problems this causes cannot, in my Group's view, simply be resolved by stationing a new body of European troops there. There has always been a military presence there, and it has made the present situation worse rather than better. The answer lies not in stabilising the current situation, which only benefits the current rulers, but in making space for change from the bottom up."@en1
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