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Posted to East Timor
list on 14 July 2006 by John M Miller <fbp@igc.org> : http://etan.org/resource/etlist.htm
See ETAN Menu - Current Crisis in
East Timor (2006): http://www.etan.org/et2006/may/crisis.htm
Subject: XG: Speech on the Swearing in of the second Constitutional
Government
PRESIDÊNCIA DA
REPÚBLICA
GABINETE DO PRESIDENTE
Message of H.E.
The President of the Republic
On the occasion of
The Swearing-in of the Second Constitutional Government
Palácio das Cinzas,
14 July 2006
With the swearing-in of the Second
Constitutional Government today we close a cycle of profound crisis
that has threatened the institutions of our democratic State based on
the rule of law and subjected our people to unpredictable and unjust
sufferings and distress.
Timor-Leste was blemished once again.
Many things have been said and written about Timor-Leste as of late.
Some hastened to announce that we would become a ‘failed State’. Others
shed ‘crocodile tears’ insinuating that we had become prisoners of
powerful global, political, military or economic interests. Yet, many
continued to believe in us because they know that a people like ours
who resisted against all forms of intimidation from the most
brutal domination to the most malicious seduction for over two
decades never gives up!
We have dared to walk on the ‘razor’s
edge’ unwaveringly and so we have arrived at this solemn ceremony that
marks the inauguration of a new Government. All around us there are
thousands of Internally Displaced Persons who are still afraid of
returning to their homes, some are afraid of reprisals, others do not
return because they lost all of their belongings, except for the burnt
walls of their homes, which were destroyed and vandalised.
But it was because of the innermost
conscience of our responsibilities that we were capable of assuming
institutional solidarity, which is so esssential, between all the
organs of sovereignty in order to find the way towards reasonable
political compromises and the key for solutions that are
constitutionally legitimate, in full compliance with our Fundamental
Law.
People’s hopes, the expectations yet
to be satisfied from those who dedicated their lives to the resistance
struggle, and the ambitions of the youth, who are still awaiting for an
opportunity to learn, to become qualified and to deserve, through their
work, a better life and a brighter future in their homeland, are
growing all around us.
Today, the new Government is taking a
heavy load upon its shoulders. Although this ceremony is only a modest
step forward, it is important to remember the countless obstacles that
hindered every small advance we made in the tormented path that we have
travelled over the last months. We must make enormous efforts to bring
reconciliation amongst all the Timorese and to heal the wounds that
have divided us. But there is no reconciliation without truth and truth
demands justice so that the wrongdoings, and the confidence in the
impunity, will not be repeated.
Finally, we will only find an answer
to this serious and painful crisis when we give the voice back to the
sovereign people, so that the people can express themselves about the
way in which they have been governed and choose those who they can
trust. Once the displaced persons are assisted, order is re-established
in the streets, and the functioning of the public services are ensured,
then it will be the time for us to prepare for the elections, which are
the appropriate means to resolve the conflicts peacefully and to
overcome the crisis, thereby strengthening the State based on the rule
of law and consolidating the constitutional democracy.
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