Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-20-Speech-4-243"
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"en.20081120.29.4-243"2
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"Mr President, the problem of human rights violations in Somalia, which we are discussing today, extends beyond the cases quoted in the resolution, which do indeed serve as dramatic proof of the barbarous treatment of the weakest, including girls, women and abducted nuns.
In Somalia, where 95% of the population are Muslims and which is one of the poorest countries in the world, the majority of the people live on the brink of destitution, illiteracy reaches 70%, and average life expectancy is 47 years. Although Somalia regained its independence over 40 years ago, conflicts are still caused by competition between clans for grazing land and water sources.
Before independence, the conflicts were suppressed by the colonial powers. Left to their own devices, the Somalis started a civil war, which intensified as the economy collapsed. In such circumstances, the fight against terrorism and piracy should be based above all on the elimination of poverty and destitution by humanitarian aid to the poorest and facilitation of development.
However, Somalia’s hard-won stability was destroyed by foreign intervention conducted under the banner of war against terrorism. The divided, poor, uneducated and easily manipulated Somali tribes are becoming an easy tool with which to continue anarchy and division.
All peoples have the right to choose their own way of thinking and their own way of life, and international aid should not be used to spread the donors’ own ideology or expand their influence. Not for the first time, opponents are using religion in order to discredit it and to win power, and this is happening not only in Somalia, but also in Vietnam and India, where the persecution of Catholics has become an element of election campaigns.
However, where Christians are being persecuted, Parliament’s left-liberal elements do not permit a debate aimed at the prevention of persecution and human rights violations."@en1
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