Soares speaks out

Mario Soares, ex-president of Portugal and currently Euro MP and President of the EU Delegation for Relations with Israel, has expressed his thoughts on terrorism, the USA, NATO and world affairs. Pravda.Ru prints extracts from his interview with Portuguese daily newspaper Diario de Noticias.

A Palestinian suicide bomber acts because of “a lack of horizons which leads towards desperation and hatred. The feeling that life is unbearably unfair. That his own dignity and that of his family is not minimally respected. For this reason he takes up desperate acts to affirm himself in this situation”.

The definition of a terrorist for Mario Soares is that “There are many different types of terrorism, as we know. Was Arafat a terrorist? Yes, he was, just like Begin. But he is also the Nobel peace laureate and an interlocutor, considered legitimate, of the Oslo Agreements”.

“The anti-colonial movements were, for a long time, considered as terrorists and after independence, many former terrorists became respectable men of state. It all depends upon points of view but one has to be careful when using the label ‘terrorist’ “.

On Israel’s recent incursion into the occupied territories, “The behaviour of the Israeli Armed Forces against the Palestinians and in particular against Arafat, is ethically intolerable”.

Mario Soares had equally strong words against the United States’ globetrotting policy of arrogance: “If tomorrow the United States want to bomb any country, whatever it is, I have no doubt that they will do so. No military power can stop them, nobody has the military superiority that they have. But the law and international legislation can. The problem to put to them is what happens the day after the bombing”.

Mario Soares is not impressed by NATO: “Since Kosovo, I have been asking myself what sense NATO makes today. In 1949, NATO was set up to contain any Soviet effort to penetrate Europe. It was a defensive organisation”.

Regarding the future, his message is clear: “We need to publicise a culture of peace. We need to have policing organisations which contain terrorism. And we must do this in agreement with the pre-determined rules and in agreement with the Law. Not arbitrarily or following the warmongering instincts of those who only trust the force of weapons”.

Marcia MIRANDA PRAVDA.Ru