The secretary general of the Revolutionary Front for Independent Timor-Leste (Fretilin) called for the cessation of the granting of visas to Timorese to avoid situations of misery and abandonment of immigrants in Portugal. In an interview with Lusa in Lisbon, Mari Alkatiri, who coordinates the platform that supports the Timorese government, considered that “in Timor-Leste this wave of demand for life outside the country must be stopped, as long as there is no high-level agreement between the governments to accommodate it.”
In recent days, the situation of crisis and abandonment in which thousands of Timorese find themselves in Portugal, brought by criminal networks to work in the agricultural sector, has been in the news.social situation that has already motivated requests for support from several municipalities.
This is a “shocking” situation that has been the subject of contacts made in Portugal with Portuguese rulers, admitted Mari Alkatiri.
“I think that first there has to be a framework agreement between Portugal and Timor-Leste” that complements the “mobility agreement within the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP)” with the attribution of work visas.
“Mobility by itself does not solve the problem, because when the East Timorese arrive in Portugal, how are they going to stay? How are they accommodated? How can they legally look for work?” questioned the Fretilin leader, who praised the new Portuguese legislation that gives CPLP citizens six months to try to find work.
“This is not enough, but it is already a positive step that the Portuguese Government has taken”, but “the fundamental thing is to suspend their arrival [dos timorenses] now”.
Subsequently, Timor-Leste needs to provide “adequate training for those who want to emigrate”, with “professional and vocational training” that corresponds to the needs of the countries of destination.
For Mari Alkatiri, this willingness to emigrate among the Timorese shows that “there is a youth that has lost hope” in the future of the country, that “no longer lives by nostalgia for the period of restoration of independence” and “wants a future concrete”. .
For this, it is also necessary that Timorese politicians make regime pacts that promote well-being in the medium term and respond to the aspirations of the population.
And that implies that the main parties, Fretilin and the Timorese National Council of Resistance (CNRT, by Xanana Gusmão) agree on the lines of development.
“I have long defended the political consensuses that are essential for small countries” but, in Timor-Leste, “there are many myths and the strongest is that of money” that undermines the agreements.
In Timor-Leste, “there is a certain nostalgia that is the figure of Xanana” that marks a “way of doing politics” in the country, Alkatiri said, adding: “Xanana knows the people very well and knows how to exploit part of them. “. this lack of information” for “the benefit of some.
Currently, the CNRT and Fretilin cannot, in isolation, seize power and then there are “those small parties” that “still continue to proliferate” and that guarantee the balance of power.
“The myth in Timor-Leste is no longer Xanana, the myth in Timor-Leste is money” and “this is also how politics is done,” commented Mari Alkatiri, who praised the work of the president, José Ramos-Horta, who defeated the Fretilin candidate.
“There is not going to be a president in East Timor for all Timorese soon, but he is making an effort in that direction” and he has been a head of state “open to dialogue, a diplomat, who favors international relations and is currently seeking intervene a little more in cooperation with the Government, on the subject of internal development issues”, said Mari Alkatiri, who minimized the risk of a dissolution of the Government, headed by Matan Ruak, which came to be an electoral campaign promise.
“I never believed in that campaign slogan,” said Mari Alkatiri.
Source: Observadora
