In Pretoria, Marcelo argued that the Portuguese in South Africa witnessed the end of a 50-year political cycle and that the two countries had already reconciled, dropping images of the past.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, considered this Wednesday in Pretoria that the Portuguese in South Africa witnessed the end of a 50-year political cycle and stressed that reconciliation “is largely done.”
“I think so, what happens in South Africa, This is what I wanted to explain in all my interventions, it is that South Africa officially saw Portugal as a Portugal of the past, and saw for a long time, not long ago, the Portuguese community as a community mainly nostalgic and of the past”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Asked by Lusa at the end of a meeting with the Portuguese community residing in the South African capital -the last point of the official visit to South Africa-, the head of state stressed that “it is good that both parties realize that not even South Africa sees Portugal as Portugal until April 25, 1974, not even Portugal can see South Africa as a reality that does not consider, for the sake of it, the Portuguese who live here fully integrated”.
“President [Cyril Ramaphosa] He told me that I am going to contact the representatives of the Portuguese communities, which means, I understand that there is a new reality inside and Portugal, that is, as a Portuguese State, and the Portuguese economy and Portuguese society, are different new reality what existed,” he declared.
On a possible national reconciliation between Portugal and the Portuguese communities of South Africa, former residents of the former colonies of Angola and Mozambique, in the framework of the 50th anniversary of April 25, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa considered Lusa that “it is largely done”.
“I think I have done this throughout my life, and my presidency, which is to defend, I was one of the first to defend the vote in the presidential elections for those who live outside the physical territory of Portugal, it did not exist at the beginning, then the idea of expanding the electorate, of voters abroad, and little by little that was done, it took time, but it was done, and I think this reconciliation is largely done,” he stressed.
Previously, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa praised the bravery of former Portuguese residents in the former overseas territories for restarting “new lives” in South Africa after the April 1974 revolution. “There are people here who certainly came from Angola and Mozambique, had lives started, stopped, restarted in South Africa and with what difficulty”he said.
“I remember being here in those times and after those times, and before democracy, and after democracy, and knowing what the Portuguese went through in South Africa”, declared the President of the Portuguese Republic in his speech at the Association of the Portuguese Community of Pretoria (ACPP).
Source: Observadora
