IDENTIDADE TIMORENSE

Ratificámos todos os principais tratados
internacionais de direitos humanos.
Já apresentámos dois relatórios
dos tratados às instituições relevantes
e continuaremos a investir esforços
no sentido de reforçar ainda mais
o respeito pelos direitos humanos,
pela liberdade e pela dignidade para
todos.
A nossa Constituição reconhece o
primado do direito internacional sobre
as leis nacionais, isto é, todas as
nossas leis devem conformar-se com
o direito internacional. E agora, com
permissão, mudo para inglês.
I will now address the issue of climate
change – obviously very superficially
because of the time constraints here.
While it is a fact that the rich and
powerful contributed most to the deteriorating
world environment, we
acknowledge that the advance of science,
technology and industries in
the last 200 years has brought enormous
benefits to all, even if those
benefits have been distributed in an
unequal manner.
But we in the developing world
should not put all the blame on the
rich and powerful for the harm done
to the planet. We must acknowledge
our share of responsibility in the destruction
of our forests, lakes, rivers
and seas. Asia has no less responsibility
than the US and Europe to reverse
the climate calamity. We are
almost half of the planet’s inhabitants.
This alone means that we put enormous
pressure on the land, minerals,
forests and water. To modernise our
economies and improve the lives of
hundreds of millions of the poor in
Asia, we are using increasingly more
energy extracted from planet Earth.
Many of the emerging powers of Asia
are also now crossing oceans,
searching for energy elsewhere – in
Africa and Latin America.
Therefore Timor-Leste – working together
with the Maldives, two of the
smallest countries in Asia – calls for
an Asian common agenda on sustainable
development anchored on
environmental protection and recovery,
on land and water management,
health and education for all, and on
the elimination of poverty and illiteracy.
I have an appeal to the rich and the
powerful. The rich and the powerful
should ask themselves whether they
have delivered on the pledges made
in front of TV cameras and whether
past policies have been effective in
addressing under-development and
extreme poverty.
All too often, leaders of the developing
countries are blamed for the lack
of improvements in the lives of our
people, in spite of the generous development
assistance we supposedly
have received from the rich.
But donors should also make an honest
and critical analysis of the poli-
cies. We know there is a genuine
sentiment of solidarity from men and
women in the streets – in the US,
Europe and Japan – towards their
fellow human beings in poorer regions
of the world, but donors must
also streamline the lengthy, onerous,
superfluous, wasteful, redundant and
bureaucratic paperwork that drowns
and discourages anyone in our countries.
(Applause)
Donors must invest more of every
dollar they pledge in rural development,
agriculture, food security, water
and sanitation, roads, health and
education. To strengthen national
institutions and the democratically
elected leaders, donors must provide
more direct sector budget support to
enable them to deliver services and
development to the people.
It is disheartening that only a handful
of rich countries have met the target
of 0.7% of gross national product for
development assistance. At the same
time, generous pledges made in the
spotlight of international conferences
– side by side with movie stars and
rock singers – are largely forgotten
the moment the Hollywood curtains
fall and the floodlights are turned off.
It is even more disheartening to see
how quickly tens of billions of dollars
are easily found to rescue failed
banks, insurance companies, fraudulent
real estate agencies and obsolete
auto industries, and how tens of
millions of dollars in bonuses are paid
to incompetents and crooks responsible
for the financial debacle – and yet
decades of appeals to the rich to increase
foreign development assistance
have been met with much resistance.
We believe that one wise and fair
way to assist countries suffering from
the consequences of the financial
meltdown is to write off the debt owed
by the LDCs and Small Island Developing
States and to restructure the
debt of the debtor countries that are
facing enormous internal and external
challenges – such as instability, climate
change and extremism – in
many parts of the world, particularly
in South Asia and the region of the
Great Lakes of Africa.
Timor Leste is privileged in that we
do not have a single cent in foreign
debt, so our appeal to you is not motivated
by self-interest. Actually if you
Dezembro 2010 – №3
Internasional
open the economies yearbook of
2010 – the pocketbook version – you
will find some interesting data there.
Timor-Leste today has the highest
surplus in the world as a percentage
of its GDP and not a single cent in
foreign debt. Nevertheless, we feel in
solidarity with those countries that for
decades have incurred debt which
they are today unable to pay and
which entraps hundreds of millions of
people in the world. If it has been
possible to mobilise billions of dollars
almost overnight to rescue failed
banks and insurance companies,
then there must also be the moral
obligation and political wisdom to find
the much smaller amount to meet the
obligations of the developed countries
towards the poor in the third
world, to ratify some of the imbalances
that are pervasive in the world
today.
As I speak here today with a deep
sense of gratitude to you – to the
European Parliament, to European
leaders and to all our development
partners – I wish with humility also to
acknowledge our own failings and our
limitations. We in Timor-Leste, and in
much of the developing world, should
not reverse roles by lecturing the
West – in retribution for the West
having lectured us for decades – but
should also look at ourselves in the
mirror and answer our own questions
from our conscience. What have we
ourselves done to lift the hundreds of
millions of our people from extreme
poverty? We can do that. We can all
do better, in Timor-Leste and elsewhere.
We have made tremendous progress
in the last three years. Our country
has only been independent for eight
years. I have shared some of the figures
with you, but there are many
other areas of achievement that are
not quantifiable. They are not measurable,
but they are equally important.
We have been able to heal the
wounds of our society, reconcile
separate communities and heal the
wounds between us and Indonesia
with which we share a tragic history
of 24 years. Today Timor-Leste and
Indonesia enjoy the best possible
relationship of any two neighbours.
We have been able to build bridges
with the entire region. We have established
diplomatic relations with
more than 100 countries. These are
non-quantifiable, non-measurable
achievements. Our people, in spite of
the profound wounds of 24 years of
occupation, do not harbour resentment
towards anyone.
These are our beliefs and our convictions.
We are determined to live up to
the expectations of our people and
lead them towards a peaceful and
prosperous future.
May God, the Almighty and the merciful,
bless us all.
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