Yesterday UN has brought to light a series of human rights violations happening on a daily basis in Syria, including massacres, rapes, torture and forced migration.
This will come as no surprise to any person who has been following the conflict for the last two years.
And truly, I'm sure all of us know there are no saint's when it comes to war so both the government and rebels have been practicing this atrocities.
Some may say that the government does it in a greater scale. That night be true, but one can only imagine what the rebels would do if they had the same resources.
Especially because I don't think the people who has started this conflict to achieve a much deserved freedom, are now able to control those who joined them for their own agenda.
My question is the same as ever, when will UN have the guts to step into the conflict in order to protect innocent civilians?
It just upsets me that the two major countries in UN -Russia and US- can actually make the rest of the UN inactive just because they are the greater military powers in the world.
How many more will have to die for us to take a stand instead of remaining as mere spectators?
quarta-feira, 5 de junho de 2013
terça-feira, 4 de junho de 2013
Why is Turkey Fighting?
Sei que hoje seria dia de escrever a mensagem deste blog em português, mas a verdade é que acabei de ver este video e acho-o demaseado importante para lhe passar ao lado.
Aos meus compatriotas que não entendem Inglês, penso que podem por ligendas.
Aos meus compatriotas que não entendem Inglês, penso que podem por ligendas.
segunda-feira, 3 de junho de 2013
A man without a country
I'm going to tell you Suleimane Camaná's story.
Suleimane was born in Guiné-Bissau twenty five years ago.
His parents got separated when he was seven.
With no right to choose, he remained with his mother who travelled to Senegal.
For many years he lost track of his father.
At the age of nine he was already working doing errands in exchange for bread.
In the years that followed he would do a bit of everything, including carrying goods or work at a car garage, always without having any wages, only food in return (sometimes not even that, instead he felt the lashes of a whip).
His mother remarried when he was twelve and since he didn't like his stepfather, he's started to live on the streets.
His mother would die just a few years later.
One day he heard someone speaking of Europe, "the land of the white, where no one felt hungry".
He's decided then that there was where he wanted to be.
For six years he saved the little money he could demand from a few of his employers until he finally had enough for that- much desired- boat trip.
Except that the voyage wasn't what he expected as a large part of his travel companions died along the way.
Finally the vessel drops them somewhere around Barcelona and a guide takes them to Switzerland by not very known pats...
Suleimane will remain in Switzerland for the next three years.
However one day he meets a man in France who tells him he has met his father who is now living in Portugal as a Portuguese Citizen.
From then until he gets his father's contact isn't hard.
His father's reassurance that it will be easy to get Portuguese documents with his birth certificate (which his father had kept all these years) raises Suleimsne's hopes to have a better future here in Portugal.
So with nothing but a hand full of dreams Suleimane arrives to his father's house in the north of Portugal.
However on the day after his arrival he is awaken to a much harsher reality.
On their way to take care of Suleimane's legal documents, he and his father are approached by the public security police inspectors who suspect they might be illegal because they are speaking creole...
With no Portuguese legal documents Suleimane is arrested.
The only contact allowed between father and son will be a single phone call in which the son informs the father that he's already in Lisbon.
Desperate to remain in Portugal Suleimane will beat the inspectors as they try to take him to the plane a few days later.
He is beaten back.
Realizing it will not come to anything he rips open his wrist with is teeth (in his mind anything is better than going back to his country even death).
The inspectors will handcuff him, tie his legs and carry him to the plane.
Unfortunately for the Portuguese inspectors, the Guiné authorities do not allow Suleimane back in his country for from their point of view he has no family or job perspectives there,
The twenty five year old is sent back to Portugal (on his way the inspectors try to reach an agreement with Morocco's authorities to leave him there, but they are not up for it).
Portuguese inspectors will try to deport Suleimane once more, yet the attempt will still be unsuccessful.
Living in fear of deportation Suleimane keeps himself locked inside his father's house, too afraid to come out should he find another inspector eager to send him away from the only relative he has, although a tribunal has forbidden his deportation for the time being.
I must say, I am not proud at all of the way Portuguese authorities handled this all case.
Are we humans or are we beasts?
Tell me, is it not better to provide Suleimane with the documents which would allow him to take part of the working class in Portugal and build a life for himself instead of force him to remain inside a house by fear of getting caught?
And don't tell me he will take someone else's job if that happens. These people work on heavy hard jobs and I don't see many Portuguese born citizen's applying for them...
Suleimane thought he had nothing when he had no money nor clothes he could call his own.
Yet we've proved him that he could loose what he didn't think he had, a country, his dignity and his will to live and fight for a better tomorrow.
What does it make of us?
(This happened in May 2013)
Suleimane was born in Guiné-Bissau twenty five years ago.
His parents got separated when he was seven.
With no right to choose, he remained with his mother who travelled to Senegal.
For many years he lost track of his father.
At the age of nine he was already working doing errands in exchange for bread.
In the years that followed he would do a bit of everything, including carrying goods or work at a car garage, always without having any wages, only food in return (sometimes not even that, instead he felt the lashes of a whip).
His mother remarried when he was twelve and since he didn't like his stepfather, he's started to live on the streets.
His mother would die just a few years later.
One day he heard someone speaking of Europe, "the land of the white, where no one felt hungry".
He's decided then that there was where he wanted to be.
For six years he saved the little money he could demand from a few of his employers until he finally had enough for that- much desired- boat trip.
Except that the voyage wasn't what he expected as a large part of his travel companions died along the way.
Finally the vessel drops them somewhere around Barcelona and a guide takes them to Switzerland by not very known pats...
Suleimane will remain in Switzerland for the next three years.
However one day he meets a man in France who tells him he has met his father who is now living in Portugal as a Portuguese Citizen.
From then until he gets his father's contact isn't hard.
His father's reassurance that it will be easy to get Portuguese documents with his birth certificate (which his father had kept all these years) raises Suleimsne's hopes to have a better future here in Portugal.
So with nothing but a hand full of dreams Suleimane arrives to his father's house in the north of Portugal.
However on the day after his arrival he is awaken to a much harsher reality.
On their way to take care of Suleimane's legal documents, he and his father are approached by the public security police inspectors who suspect they might be illegal because they are speaking creole...
With no Portuguese legal documents Suleimane is arrested.
The only contact allowed between father and son will be a single phone call in which the son informs the father that he's already in Lisbon.
Desperate to remain in Portugal Suleimane will beat the inspectors as they try to take him to the plane a few days later.
He is beaten back.
Realizing it will not come to anything he rips open his wrist with is teeth (in his mind anything is better than going back to his country even death).
The inspectors will handcuff him, tie his legs and carry him to the plane.
Unfortunately for the Portuguese inspectors, the Guiné authorities do not allow Suleimane back in his country for from their point of view he has no family or job perspectives there,
The twenty five year old is sent back to Portugal (on his way the inspectors try to reach an agreement with Morocco's authorities to leave him there, but they are not up for it).
Portuguese inspectors will try to deport Suleimane once more, yet the attempt will still be unsuccessful.
Living in fear of deportation Suleimane keeps himself locked inside his father's house, too afraid to come out should he find another inspector eager to send him away from the only relative he has, although a tribunal has forbidden his deportation for the time being.
I must say, I am not proud at all of the way Portuguese authorities handled this all case.
Are we humans or are we beasts?
Tell me, is it not better to provide Suleimane with the documents which would allow him to take part of the working class in Portugal and build a life for himself instead of force him to remain inside a house by fear of getting caught?
And don't tell me he will take someone else's job if that happens. These people work on heavy hard jobs and I don't see many Portuguese born citizen's applying for them...
Suleimane thought he had nothing when he had no money nor clothes he could call his own.
Yet we've proved him that he could loose what he didn't think he had, a country, his dignity and his will to live and fight for a better tomorrow.
What does it make of us?
(This happened in May 2013)
sábado, 1 de junho de 2013
"Portugal" e "Feira cabisbaixa" de Alexandre O'Neil
Ó Portugal, se fosses só três sílabas,
Linda vista para o mar,
Minho verde, Algarve de cal,
jerico rapando o espinhaço da terra,
surdo e miudinho,
muinho a braços com o vento
testarudo, mas embolado e, afinal, amigo,
se fosses só o sal, o sol, o sul,
o ladino pardal,
o manso boi coloquial, a rechinante sardinha,
a desancada varina,
o plumitivo ladrilhado de lindos adjetivos,
a muda queixa amendoada
duns olhos pestanítidos
se fosses só a cegarrega do estio, dos estilos,
o ferrugento cão asmático das praias,
o grilo engaiolado, a grila no lábio,
o calendario na parede, o emblema na lapela,
ó Portugal, se fosses só três sílabas
de plastico, que era mais barato!
"Feira cabisbaixa"
doceiras de Amarante, barristas de Barcelos,
rendeiras de Viana, toureiros da Golegã,
não há "papo de anjo" que seja o meu derriço,
galo que cante a cores na minha prateleira,
alvura arrendada para o meu devaneio,
bandarilha que possa enfeitar-me o cachaço,
Portugal; questão que tenho comigo mesmo,
golpe até ao osso, fome sem entretém,
perdigueiro marrado e sem narizes, sem perdizes,
rocim engraxado, feira cabisbaixa,
meu remorso,
meu remorso de todos nós...
Linda vista para o mar,
Minho verde, Algarve de cal,
jerico rapando o espinhaço da terra,
surdo e miudinho,
muinho a braços com o vento
testarudo, mas embolado e, afinal, amigo,
se fosses só o sal, o sol, o sul,
o ladino pardal,
o manso boi coloquial, a rechinante sardinha,
a desancada varina,
o plumitivo ladrilhado de lindos adjetivos,
a muda queixa amendoada
duns olhos pestanítidos
se fosses só a cegarrega do estio, dos estilos,
o ferrugento cão asmático das praias,
o grilo engaiolado, a grila no lábio,
o calendario na parede, o emblema na lapela,
ó Portugal, se fosses só três sílabas
de plastico, que era mais barato!
"Feira cabisbaixa"
doceiras de Amarante, barristas de Barcelos,
rendeiras de Viana, toureiros da Golegã,
não há "papo de anjo" que seja o meu derriço,
galo que cante a cores na minha prateleira,
alvura arrendada para o meu devaneio,
bandarilha que possa enfeitar-me o cachaço,
Portugal; questão que tenho comigo mesmo,
golpe até ao osso, fome sem entretém,
perdigueiro marrado e sem narizes, sem perdizes,
rocim engraxado, feira cabisbaixa,
meu remorso,
meu remorso de todos nós...
sexta-feira, 31 de maio de 2013
The aid...
I've watched an interview with the Russian ambassador in the US saying the Russia is not aiding Syria's government on the conflict, but complying with a contract those two governments had made in 2007...
However, I read yesterday on a Portuguese newspaper that the Russian government was not happy that the EU decided to take off the embargo (partially) on Syria's weapon supplies so that the rebels could be armed, but continuing to deny its supply to the Syria's government.
Apparently Russian's vice foreigner affairs minister said it was a mistake on EU's part and that Russia supplies weapons to the Syrian government because Assad's regime is the true regime so the supply of weaponry to that government is a stabilizing factor...
Truly, do they think we are all idiots?
Either Russia is fulfilling a contract made before the war on that region or aiding the "true regime".
So what's it going to be?
However, I read yesterday on a Portuguese newspaper that the Russian government was not happy that the EU decided to take off the embargo (partially) on Syria's weapon supplies so that the rebels could be armed, but continuing to deny its supply to the Syria's government.
Apparently Russian's vice foreigner affairs minister said it was a mistake on EU's part and that Russia supplies weapons to the Syrian government because Assad's regime is the true regime so the supply of weaponry to that government is a stabilizing factor...
Truly, do they think we are all idiots?
Either Russia is fulfilling a contract made before the war on that region or aiding the "true regime".
So what's it going to be?
quinta-feira, 30 de maio de 2013
Receber sem trabalhar
Durante anos tenho ouvido dizer que a UE pagou aos agricultores para deixarem de produzir.
No entanto não foi bem assim.
Pelos vistos os fundos da UE destinavam-se á modernizaçao e reestruturação da agricultura nomeadamente para cultivo de novos produtos.
Infelizmente muitos destes agricultores acabaram por não investir no sector acabando por ficar com os fundos para outros gastos pessoais (na minha vila foram Land Rovers e afins...).
A falta, ou escassa fiscalização sobre como esses fundos estavam a ser utilizados permitia que alguns dos agricultores se dessem ao luxo de só remexerem a terra sem cultivar nada quando ouviam dizer que uma destas fiscalizações estava em curso no caso de os fiscais irem ao campo o que não acontecia tão frequentamente como devia.
No caso do sector das pescas algo parecido se passou quando surgiram fundos comunitários para destruição e aquisição de novos barcos, pois grande parte dos pescadores acabou por optar ficar com o dinheiro a adquirir nova embarcação.
Dir-me-ão que não compensava usar o dinheiro nesta modernização pois uma grande fatia deste acabaria por ficar nas instituições governamentais através de taxas e impostos (até acredito que o mesmo se tenha passado na agricultura), mas a verdade é que esse dinheiro acabou por não ser utilizado para fim a que se destinava.
Até consigo imaginar as risadas que estas pessoas deram na altura, pavaneando-se pelo sua esperteza enquanto o país diminuia a sua produçao drasticamente.
É esta gula, esta ganância por bens materiais sem mostrar interesse em realmente trabalhar para os conseguir, juntamente com uma péssima gerência política que deixou o país no estado em que está hoje.
Pois não se queixem agora...trabalhem, só assim a situação mudará.
No entanto não foi bem assim.
Pelos vistos os fundos da UE destinavam-se á modernizaçao e reestruturação da agricultura nomeadamente para cultivo de novos produtos.
Infelizmente muitos destes agricultores acabaram por não investir no sector acabando por ficar com os fundos para outros gastos pessoais (na minha vila foram Land Rovers e afins...).
A falta, ou escassa fiscalização sobre como esses fundos estavam a ser utilizados permitia que alguns dos agricultores se dessem ao luxo de só remexerem a terra sem cultivar nada quando ouviam dizer que uma destas fiscalizações estava em curso no caso de os fiscais irem ao campo o que não acontecia tão frequentamente como devia.
No caso do sector das pescas algo parecido se passou quando surgiram fundos comunitários para destruição e aquisição de novos barcos, pois grande parte dos pescadores acabou por optar ficar com o dinheiro a adquirir nova embarcação.
Dir-me-ão que não compensava usar o dinheiro nesta modernização pois uma grande fatia deste acabaria por ficar nas instituições governamentais através de taxas e impostos (até acredito que o mesmo se tenha passado na agricultura), mas a verdade é que esse dinheiro acabou por não ser utilizado para fim a que se destinava.
Até consigo imaginar as risadas que estas pessoas deram na altura, pavaneando-se pelo sua esperteza enquanto o país diminuia a sua produçao drasticamente.
É esta gula, esta ganância por bens materiais sem mostrar interesse em realmente trabalhar para os conseguir, juntamente com uma péssima gerência política que deixou o país no estado em que está hoje.
Pois não se queixem agora...trabalhem, só assim a situação mudará.
Subscrever:
Mensagens (Atom)