Equatoguinean President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has sidestepped accusations of human rights violations and won his country membership in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). Credit: Embassy of Equatorial Guinea/CC-BY-ND-2.0

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 25 2014 (IPS)

Evidently, oil talked louder. By unanimous resolution, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) admitted Equatorial Guinea as a full member, in spite of the CPLP’s ban on dictatorial regimes and the death penalty.

At the two-day summit of heads of state and government that concluded on Wednesday Jul. 23 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, Portugal was the last nation to hold out against the inclusion of the new entrant. Portuguese prime minister, conservative Pedro Passos Coelho, finally yielded to pressure from Brazil and Angola, the countries most interested in sharing in the benefits of Equatorial Guinea’s oil wealth.

The CPLP is made up of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

“Obiang never thought entry to the CPLP would be possible, but in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, all the president’s goals are possible." -- Ponciano Nvó, a lawyer and distinguished defender of human rights
Between its independence in 1968 and the onset of oil exploration, Equatorial Guinea was stigmatised as a ferocious dictatorship.

But when the U.S. company Mobil began drilling for oil in 1996, the dictatorship of President Teodoro Obiang, in power since 1979, was afforded the relief of powerful countries “looking the other way.”

Gradually, the importance of oil took precedence over human rights and countries with decision-making power over the region and the world became interested in sharing in crude oil extraction. Oil production in Equatorial Guinea has multiplied 10-fold in recent years, ranking it in third place in sub-Saharan Africa behind Angola and Nigeria.

“The kleptocratic oligarchy of Equatorial Guinea is becoming one of the world’s richest dynasties. The country is becoming known as the ‘Kuwait of Africa’ and the global oil majors – ExxonMobil, Total, Repsol – are moving in,” said the Lisbon weekly Visão.

Visão said this former Spanish colony has a per capita GDP of 24,035 dollars, 4,000 dollars more than Portugal’s, but 78 percent of its 1.8 million people subsist on less than a dollar a day.

In the view of some members of the international community, “Since 1968 there have been two Equatorial Guineas, those before and after the oil,” Ponciano Nvó, a lawyer and distinguished defender of human rights in his country, told IPS during a three-day visit to Portugal at the invitation of Amnesty International.

In spite of average economic growth of 33 percent in the last decade, the enormous wealth of Equatorial Guinea has not brought better economic conditions for its people, although it has lent a certain international “legitimacy” to the regime, crowned now with the accolade of membership in the CPLP.

Since Equatorial Guinea’s first application in 2006, the CPLP adopted an ambiguous stance, restricting it to associate membership and setting conditions – like the elimination of the death penalty and making Portuguese an official language – that had to be met before full membership could be considered.

“Portugal should not accept within the community a regime that commits human rights violations; it would be a political mistake,” and also a mistake for the CPLP, Andrés Eso Ondo said in a declaration on Tuesday Jul. 22.

He is the leader of Convergencia para la Democracia Social, the only permitted opposition party, which has one seat in parliament. The other 99 seats are held by the ruling Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial.

In Portugal, reactions were indignant. The president himself, conservative Aníbal Cavaco Silva, remained wooden-faced in his seat in Dili while the other heads of state welcomed Obiang to the CPLP with a standing ovation. Meanwhile, in Lisbon, prominent politicians were heavily critical of the government’s accommodating attitude.

Socialist lawmaker João Soares said allowing Equatorial Guinea to join the CPLP is “shameful for Portugal and a monumental error,” while Ana Gomes, a member of the European Parliament for the same party, said it was unacceptable that the community should admit “a dictatorial and criminal regime that is facing lawsuits in the United States and France for economic and financial crimes.”

“The dead are not only those who have been sentenced to death in a court of law, some 50 persons executed by firing squad after being convicted; we should multiply that number by 100 to reach the figure for the people who have disappeared,” and who were victims of repression, Nvó told IPS.

In the 46 years since independence, “during the first government of Francisco Macías Nguema, all the opposition leaders were murdered in prison, without trial, having been accused of attempts against the president. The ‘work’ was carried out by the current president, when he was director of prisons and carried out a cleansing, before overthrowing his uncle,” he said.

Before oil was discovered, “Obiang never thought entry to the CPLP would be possible, but in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, all the president’s goals are possible,” he complained.

In Nvó’s view, joining the CPLP “is another step in Obiang’s strategy of belonging to as many international bodies as possible for the sake of laundering his image. He used to belong to the community of Hispanic nations, but then he came to believe that he would never get anywhere with Spain; then he joined La Francophonie, but that did not last because of his son’s troubles with the French courts.”

Now, however, the CPLP has been satisfied with a moratorium on the death penalty, which remains on the statute books. Its enforcement depends only on the fiat of the head of state. “It’s an intellectual hoax,” Nvó said.

The Equatoguinean foreign minister, Agapito Mba Mokuy, told the Portuguese news agency Lusa on Tuesday that his country “was colonised for a longer period by Portugal than by Spain (307 years under Portugal compared to 190 under Spain), so that the ties to Portuguese-speaking countries are historically very strong.”

“Joining the CPLP today is simply coming home,” he said.

In a telephone interview with IPS, former president of East Timor José Ramos-Horta said, “I agree with the forceful criticisms denouncing the death penalty and serious human rights violations that are committed in that country.” In his view the denunciations of the regime made by international organisations are to be credited.

However, Ramos-Horta believes that “concerted, intelligent, prudent and persistent action by the CPLP upon the regime in Equatorial Guinea will achieve the first improvements after some time.”

In exchange for admission, Ramos-Horta recommended the CPLP should establish an agenda to force Obiang to eliminate the death penalty, torture, arbitrary detentions and forcible disappearances.

It should also include, he said, improved facilities and treatment for prisoners; access to inmates by the International Red Cross; and later on, the opening of an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Malabo.

One of the most critical voices raised against the events in Dili was that of political sciences professor José Filipe Pinto, who asserted that a sort of “chequebook diplomacy” had prevailed there, with Malabo offering to make investments in CPLP countries, relying on its resource wealth.

In his opinion, “an organisation must have interests and principles,” and he regretted that “some elites and the crisis conspired to exempt the latter.”

(END)

“Insisting on an ethnic balance in the armed forces of Guinea Bissau is not at all realistic,” says José Manuel Ramos-Horta. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Oct 2 2013 (IPS)

Guinea Bissau is “close to becoming a failed state,” but not due to ethnic or religious violence, which has never existed in that small West African nation, argues Nobel Peace laureate and United Nations envoy José Manuel Ramos-Horta.

“The Guinea Bissau political leadership has never managed to have good relations with the military and vice versa, and it could be said that today the country is dangerously close to becoming a failed state,” Ramos-Horta, a former president, prime minister and foreign minister of East Timor, said in this interview with IPS during a recent visit to Lisbon.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named Ramos-Horta as his representative to mediate in Guinea Bissau – which experienced its latest coup in April 2012 – taking into account the East Timor leader’s personal and political credentials in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).

But the initial timetable outlined for the country’s return to the path of democracy, which included elections slated for Nov. 24, will not be met due to political and organisational problems, the foreign ministers of seven of the eight CPLP countries acknowledged on Sept. 25.

The seven countries were Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe (Guinea Bissau is the eighth member of the CPLP).

The CPLP has cut off dialogue with the regime in Guinea Bissau.

Q: Is there a real possibility of peace in that country?

A: I’m realistic and optimistic. To the contrary of what has happened in other parts of the world, including Europe, there has never been ethnic or religious violence in Guinea Bissau.

Churches or mosques have never been set on fire or destroyed and cemeteries have never been desecrated, as has occurred even in the European Union. To guarantee peace and establish democracy, what is urgently needed is for politicians and the military not to push the people too much.

Q: It would seem like the latest coup was the straw that broke the patience of the international community.

A: It’s true. There was not the slightest indication of why that last coup happened, except for the responsibility of these two elites, the political and political-military, for the sequence of violence initiated by João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira in 1980, when he overthrew President Luís Cabral, annulling six years of success in Guinea Bissau after its independence from Portugal.

Some 20 or 30 years ago, coups were routine in Africa. Today, the African Union takes even more radical stances on the defence of democracy than the EU. However, it is necessary to engage in dialogue, pragmatically, with those who have the weapons.

If there is no dialogue, what good is democracy?

It was precisely to have channels of understanding and negotiation that the U.N. secretary-general named me as his representative, and results have already been seen.

Q: Shortly after the coup, the AU, CPLP, EU, United States and United Nations indicated that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) reacted too mildly to the military’s seizure of power. After nine months in your mission, how do you see things?

A: The positions taken by those institutions and countries were totally correct. And it is also necessary to stress that ECOWAS intervened pragmatically to keep the situation from being further aggravated, and prevented the dissolution of parliament and the elimination of the constitution.

They have invested a great deal of money, but this situation is unsustainable. The important thing at this stage is to hold elections as early as possible, within five or six months I hope, to re-establish the democratic order and to put in place a strategy to help the country recover.

Q: Who is engaged in the dialogue today with the Guinea Bissau regime?

A: There has been no recognition from important governments or organisations, but there is a day-to-day relationship with the United States and Great Britain, which are in dialogue with the regime. Spain kept its ambassador there and France has always been active through its business attaché.

The EU imposed some sanctions, but it maintained its social and humanitarian programmes. Portuguese aid is channeled through non-governmental organisations and churches. Portugal’s position is due to something very simple: its long-standing relationship with the people of Guinea Bissau, who are and will still be there, independently of the regime that is in power.

Q: Besides the enormous fragility of the state, what are Guinea Bissau’s biggest problems?

A: Extreme poverty, with very poor social indicators, persistent political instability, the weaknesses and fissures in the army, the military’s frequent intervention in politics, and in the last few years, the penetration of Latin American drug cartels, in Guinea Bissau as well as many other states in the region, which exacerbates the difficulties in those countries because of the creation of new areas of crime and new tensions and dangers.

Q: With regard to this last problem, it has been said that Guinea Bissau is becoming a “narco-state”.

A: That is nonsense expressed by some academics who write reports that don’t have a strong foundation in reality, which have been repeated by the media without the slightest regard for intellectual rigour.

An academic makes an analysis, a news agency from a big country in the North picks it up, and after that all of the newspapers go to the same source, which may or may not be objective and impartial, since no one has carried out an exhaustive investigation.

Guinea Bissau is just a small country, victim of the drug cartels of Latin America and the mafias of the EU and Russia. They are the ones who are really responsible.

As a representative of the U.N. secretary-general, I cannot give the names of cities that are real centres of drug money laundering, where what you see is great opulence, with mansions, fancy buildings and luxury cars, while in Bissau all you see in the streets are goats and cows.

Q: Another frequently mentioned problem are the supposed “ethnic quotas” within the armed forces, where the Balanta people [the largest ethnic group, making up over one-quarter of the population] are clearly predominant in the leadership.

A: When false problems are raised, big difficulties are created. Guinea Bissau is multiethnic and multicultural, and has several religions. That is a wealth, not a disadvantage.

The Balanta were historically dedicated to agriculture and livestock-raising. But they are also a people with a strong warrior tradition…which forms part of their history.

There are other groups that prefer trade over weapons, and others that prefer to be government officials.

However, Western experts, unfamiliar with the situation there, often say ethnic balance in the armed forces is necessary. This is not at all realistic, because you can’t insist that a merchant become a soldier.

Excerpt:

Pensioners protesting in the Praça do Município in Lisbon. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

The elderly have taken to the streets in Portugal to protest drastic public sector pension cuts announced this week by the government of conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

Never before had so much grey hair been seen in the frequent anti-government demonstrations. Shoulder to shoulder with employed and jobless workers and often leaning on the arms of their grandchildren, senior citizens have come out on to the streets in defence of their fragile rights.

Temporary workers, civil servants and pensioners have been hit hardest by the harsh austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank in exchange for a 110-billion-dollar bailout package in mid-2011.

Since then, the so-called “troika” has dictated the public finance policy of this crisis-stricken country of 10.6 million people.

The cuts announced by the government for this year and next in the state administration amount to 4.92 billion dollars – half the sum spent to bail out three private banks, the opposition and trade unions complain.

The additional cuts in pensions are even worse than “all the damage already done to pensioners,” said Jorge Nobre dos Santos, head of the Frente Sindical da Administração Pública (FESAP), a public employees’ union.

“The money has been and still is being managed by all sorts of agents, governments and politicians, without even asking the permission of its legitimate owners,” those who paid in to the Portuguese Social Security (SSP) system all their lives, dos Santos complained.

He pointed out that the measure is retroactive, violating the state’s commitments to its retired workers. The strategy is to engulf all pensions, “whether public or private,” he said.

“The state’s credibility is at stake; it is being undermined by the prime minister,” he maintained.

Teles Alcides, a representative of the Frente Comum dos Sindicatos da Administração Pública (FC), another public sector union, described the proposed cuts as “robbery.”

The FC has pledged to do everything possible to block the new measure. “The attempt to reduce pensions plunders those who have contributed to the system and have pension rights,” said Alcides.

The only alternative for hundreds of thousands of people in Portugal “is to express outrage over these measures, that are unprecedented in their harshness – a veritable robbery of what has been discounted from our pay throughout our working lives; this is money that is not the state’s, but our own,” said retiree Armindo Brandão, who faces a 9.5 percent cut in his SSP pension.

“For me, with my pension of 1,020 dollars, this is an enormous reduction, as well as being sheer robbery, but as the robbery is committed by the government, the thief is not arrested,” Brandão said.

The pensioners’ protests have turned violent, with almost daily verbal and even physical attacks on SSP or General Tax Directorate officials.

According to an association of pensioners and retirees, ARE, the protests are an uprising against the public authorities triggered by the continued attacks on this vulnerable sector of the population “which sees its retirement income dwindling daily due to new taxes and cuts.”

The situation “amounts to a confiscation of the assets of those who paid contributions all their lives and who now see their pensions cut in an unprecedented act of plunder,” says an Aug. 13 ARE communiqué.

The feeling among those most affected by the crisis is one of profound injustice, as shown by a letter sent to the Lisbon newspaper Público by a reader, Manuel Morato Gomes.

While cuts are being made even in widows’ pensions, no explanations are being given for “the exceptions for former judges and diplomats, or for the life pensions granted to former members of parliament, government ministers and presidents,” Morato Gomes complained.

Where, he asked, are the justice, morality, equity and common sense in this measure? He accused Passos Coelho of “acting only in accordance with his liberal theories, completely disregarding people’s needs.”

IPS consulted another retiree, Feliciano, a former soldier who fought in the colonial wars in Portugal’s former colonies in Africa (1961-1974), where he lost a leg. He receives a modest disability pension.

He asked to only be identified by his first name “for fear of reprisals.” “They might take away the little money that I get,” he said, lamenting “the lack of sensitivity and respect for those of us who went to Africa to fight for our flag in an unjust war that we did not even believe in.”

“I survived the war in Guinea Bissau, although I was severely injured, but I do not think I will survive this government. It only wants to get rid of the old people; let them die as soon as possible, so the state can balance its books,” he said.

Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco e Silva has taken the precaution of asking the Constitutional Court to rule on the legality of the government’s proposed budget cuts bill, which includes lay-offs in the civil service.

An editorial in Público says that the conservative Cavaco e Silva does not remotely suppose that the law is unconstitutional. But “its provisions are so drastic, its coverage so wide and its potential consequences for the lives of thousands of citizens so devastating that no president would risk signing it into law without the Constitutional Court’s approval.”

The editorial concludes with the prediction that, if the Court vetoes the bill, “radical supporters of the austerity measures will say again that the constitution has become a blockading force that is dragging the country into the abyss. They may say so, as long as they do not then claim that the rule of law can coexist with violations of the constitution.”

João Lopes Marques: “Angela Merkel likes to think that one day, all Europeans will speak German, at least as a second language.” Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 26 2013 (IPS)

“Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” This famous question attributed to former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger has an obvious answer today: Angela Merkel, the conservative German chancellor.

Analytical and ambitious, Merkel became the country’s first woman chancellor (head of government) in November 2005. Nearly everyone, with conservative leader Helmut Kohl in the lead, underestimated the daughter of a Protestant pastor who grew up in East Germany, earned a doctorate in physics and quantum chemistry, and was involved in that country’s Communist youth movement.

Portuguese writer and journalist João Lopes Marques describes in the 270 pages of his latest book, “O Plano Merkel” (The Merkel Plan), what he calls the true story of the most powerful woman in the world, “the decider of our fate”. The book was launched in Lisbon on Monday Jul. 22.

Lopes Marques’ previous four books, “O Homem que quería ser Lindbergh” (The Man Who Wanted to Be Lindbergh), “Terra Java,” “Iberiana” and “Choque Cultural” (Culture Shock) had already won him acclaim.

The writer, who holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and a master’s in European Studies, told IPS in this interview that the financial crisis that broke out in 2008 “pushed Angela Merkel into the private realm of our daily lives” as suddenly “words like diktat, über alles, Fourth Reich and other Teutonic spectres found their way into European newscasts.”

Q: Merkel is at the centre of the most incredible conspiracy theories. How have they arisen?

A: Merkel is a totally atypical personality who made the transition between two worlds, from socialism to capitalism, and her political rise in the West was meteoric, utterly unimaginable.

She appeared at the right time, with the right profile. Then-Chancellor Kohl (1982-1998) needed a young Protestant from the East (the former German Democratic Republic) to trumpet the consolidation of German reunification. And what happened was so surprising that there are people who claim she is (Adolf) Hitler’s daughter, a CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) asset or even an extraterrestrial.

Obviously, I believe none of these things. However, there is a clear pattern to her political action: a great “Americaphilia”, sometimes in disguise. Atlantik-Brücke (Atlantic Bridge), a Berlin lobby group to which many of Merkel’s inner circle belong, takes part in the conferences of the Bilderberg Club – a community of interests between trans-Atlantic élites.

Q: What surprises you most about her character?

A: The same things that have surprised every other author who writes about her: her lack of ideology, vision and courage, the way she navigates without a moral compass.

Her only lodestars are money, her next re-election and her reappointment as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and of the German people. (She has a reputation) for putting off commitment until the last minute and her concessions are always very timid – as demonstrated by her management of the eurozone crisis.

Q: How would you define the current strategy for strengthening Germany’s power? Is Europe in a kind of war, as some analysts maintain?

A: To begin with the second part of your question, yes. Europe is truly at war – economically, especially, but also in terms of north versus south in the region. It will not be like the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) between Protestants and Catholics; rather than over religion, it has to do with cultures and lifestyles. The siesta, for instance, has become morally incorrect.

In the name of saving the euro, Germany feels it has the right to “Germanise” Europe. Merkel likes to think that one day, all Europeans will speak German, at least as a second language.

But the most important thing is that Germany is staking its future on three pillars: a) win the exports battle, especially to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) that represent 50 percent of GDP growth; b) take advantage of the weakness of neighbouring countries in the post-2008 crisis and use the opportunity to rewrite a new European order; and c) get rid of the more inconvenient post-war taboos, like being a militarily emasculated state, and controls on foreign arms sales.

Germany is already the third largest arms dealer in the world, after the United States and Russia.

Q: After eight years in office, Merkel is preparing for a third term. Is she grooming a protégé, an heir apparent to this continental power?

A: From what her biographers have said over the years, Angela enjoys exercising power. Indeed, she enjoys it too much. She has no children, no family that depends on her. This is her life work. Her popularity rating at the moment also helps, standing higher than the approval rating of her CDU party.

It is practically a given that she will win the Sept. 22 elections. The question of her successor is an enigma. There is talk of Thomas de Maizière, her defence minister, who launched her into big-time politics in 1990. Or Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former minister who resigned in 2011 over plagiarism in his doctoral thesis.

A third possibility is David McAllister, former prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, whose father is Scottish. Angela sees him as a future champion of the free market, a pragmatist with his feet on the ground, like herself.

Q: What features of the German Democratic Republic still stand out in Merkel?

A: Her use of tacit silence. She will only give an answer – and never in black and white – when she no longer has the option to keep silent. Look at the scandal over PRISM, the U.S. electronic surveillance programme.

Angela Merkel always knows much more than she lets on. The same is true of what she shares about the first half of her life (in East Germany).

Another thing is her lack of sensitivity to values, including the ideological foundations of the European project, which was cooked up in the 1950s, precisely in order to avoid war with Germany.

And again: her indifference to history. With her we have entered a new era in quantum physics which is, after all, her specialty. Like Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, according to which an electron disappears at one location and we do not know where it will reappear, with Merkel we have something new – quantum politics: we shall never know for sure what her ideas are.

Excerpt:

Gay activists march on Apr. 25, the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Credit: Anette Dujisin/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, May 31 2013 (IPS)

The heated reaction to the legalisation of same-sex marriage has run counter to the widespread image of France as the cradle of the modern republic and equal rights since the 1789 revolution. In contrast, Portugal with its reputation for prudishness, has shown itself to be much more open and tolerant.

The violent backlash of wide sectors of French society against the Apr. 23 parliamentary approval of the bill allowing same-sex marriage, signed into law May 18, perplexed many observers accustomed to regarding this country as a haven of tolerance.
Clashes between police and protesters, many of them members of traditionalist Catholic organisations who view gay unions as an affront to the sanctity of the family, continued late into the night of Sunday May 26.

However, tempers cooled, and on Wednesday May 29 the first French marriage between two men took place without incident in the southern city of Montpellier, with 500 people celebrating, 140 journalists in attendance, and only five far-right protesters who were easily controlled by around 100 police officers.

Prominent figures who oppose gay marriage include Archbishop of Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, and the bishop of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron, Marc Aillet.

In contrast, in Portugal, also a Catholic country, when the law on same-sex marriage was approved in 2010, the then Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, maintained a respectful silence because of the separation of church and state.

And Portugal went one step further. Following a proposal by the left, supported by several rightwing members of parliament, the Portuguese legislature on May 17 approved a bill allowing “co-adoption” by a same-sex couple of the children (biological or adopted) of one of the partners.

Rui Tavares, Portuguese Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, told IPS the apparent contradiction was because “France is a conservative country, but most foreigners do not believe this because they are only familiar with historic moments like the 1789 revolution, the Liberation (resistance against German occupation 1940-1945) and (the student movement of) May 1968.”

But Tavares said those events “were exceptions to the rule,” and that since 1945, “France has only twice elected leftwing presidents, François Mitterrand (1981-1995) and François Hollande (the incumbent).

“The rest have all been conservatives: Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, and Nicolas Sarkozy.” Extreme rightwing leader Jean-Marie “Le Pen even got to the second round of voting in the 2002 presidential elections,” he said.

“What a fine example France is, as the first European republic, but paradoxically retaining many aristocratic and monarchical features, a country with structures that are more authoritarian and hierarchical than those of Portugal,” Tavares said.

“Large pockets of reactionary and retrograde Catholicism remain, that hid under cover during the Liberation, reappeared with the Algerian War and are very well organised,” he said.

In Portugal, in contrast, “there is no extreme right, nor organised Salazarist supporters,” he said, referring to António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), the founder and leader of the dictatorship established in 1933 and overthrown in 1974 by the Carnation Revolution, led by leftwing army captains.

“This country has been liberalised, urbanised and modernised a great deal in the last 30 years, and the majority of the population identify with those changes that have improved their lives, and are now much more open and plural,” he said.

In spite of this, “homophobia continues to exist in Portugal, as reflected in language and attitudes, although it is more broad than deep, and many people opt for an attitude of non-interference in other people’s lives, even in aspects that might be regarded as objectionable.

“In general, Portuguese people do not tend to have absolutist views about anything,” Tavares said.

In Portugal, “family ties are strong, and have even become an argument in favour of gay marriage,” he said, describing a personal experience: “My mother, who is 80 years old, telephoned me to say that from now on she is in favour of same-sex marriage, because she heard a gay man say how much his mother would like him to get married.”

In France, “distances are greater, even between close relatives, so opposition to same-sex unions appears to be a rational or values-based issue, and is not undermined so much by experiences of family affection,” the Member of the European Parliament concluded.

For his part, Fernando Fernández, a writer and retired journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP), said “what is striking about the protests in the country against the law legalising same-sex marriages is that they are an apparent contradiction in a society that has a world reputation for being tolerant, open and liberal.

“It’s true that French society can appear liberal from the perspective of countries that are deeply marked by the Catholic Church, like Spain or Poland,” Fernández told IPS in a telephone interview.

“But in addition to the religious influence, French society is no doubt much more determined by what it regards as its values, and will not accept homosexuals having the same rights and responsibilities” as heterosexuals, he concluded.

Emilia, a 29-year-old Portuguese lesbian, spoke to IPS on condition that her surname be withheld, “because I am one of the lucky few to have a job, in a country where there are many homophobic bosses and unemployment among young people is nearly 50 percent.

“Of course there are fundamental differences between Portugal and France, where a strong police presence is needed at a marriage of a same-sex couple, showing the level of stupidity and primitivism among some French people,” she said.

However, she said the situation in Portugal should not be idealised.

“It’s true that our laws on gay marriage and adoption are among the most advanced in the world, but it’s also true that life is not easy for us, especially when it comes to equal opportunities. We are rejected by people with very conservative morals who hold high office in companies and institutions,” she said.

The heated reaction to the legalisation of same-sex marriage has run counter to the widespread image of France as the cradle of the modern republic and equal rights since the 1789 revolution. In contrast, Portugal with its reputation for prudishness, has shown itself to be much more open and tolerant.

Gay activists march on Apr. 25, the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. Credit: Anette Dujisin/IPS

The violent backlash of wide sectors of French society against the Apr. 23 parliamentary approval of the bill allowing same-sex marriage, signed into law May 18, perplexed many observers accustomed to regarding this country as a haven of tolerance.
Clashes between police and protesters, many of them members of traditionalist Catholic organisations who view gay unions as an affront to the sanctity of the family, continued late into the night of Sunday May 26.

However, tempers cooled, and on Wednesday May 29 the first French marriage between two men took place without incident in the southern city of Montpellier, with 500 people celebrating, 140 journalists in attendance, and only five far-right protesters who were easily controlled by around 100 police officers.

Prominent figures who oppose gay marriage include Archbishop of Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, and the bishop of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron, Marc Aillet. In contrast, in Portugal, also a Catholic country, when the law on same-sex marriage was approved in 2010, the then Patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, maintained a respectful silence because of the separation of church and state.

And Portugal went one step further. Following a proposal by the left, supported by several rightwing members of parliament, the Portuguese legislature on May 17 approved a bill allowing “co-adoption” by a same-sex couple of the children (biological or adopted) of one of the partners.

Rui Tavares, Portuguese Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, told IPS the apparent contradiction was because “France is a conservative country, but most foreigners do not believe this because they are only familiar with historic moments like the 1789 revolution, the Liberation (resistance against German occupation 1940-1945) and (the student movement of) May 1968.”

But Tavares said those events “were exceptions to the rule,” and that since 1945, “France has only twice elected leftwing presidents, François Mitterrand (1981-1995) and François Hollande (the incumbent). “The rest have all been conservatives: Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, and Nicolas Sarkozy.” Extreme rightwing leader Jean-Marie “Le Pen even got to the second round of voting in the 2002 presidential elections,” he said.

“What a fine example France is, as the first European republic, but paradoxically retaining many aristocratic and monarchical features, a country with structures that are more authoritarian and hierarchical than those of Portugal,” Tavares said.

“Large pockets of reactionary and retrograde Catholicism remain, that hid under cover during the Liberation, reappeared with the Algerian War and are very well organised,” he said. In Portugal, in contrast, “there is no extreme right, nor organised Salazarist supporters,” he said, referring to António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970), the founder and leader of the dictatorship established in 1933 and overthrown in 1974 by the Carnation Revolution, led by leftwing army captains.

“This country has been liberalised, urbanised and modernised a great deal in the last 30 years, and the majority of the population identify with those changes that have improved their lives, and are now much more open and plural,” he said. In spite of this, “homophobia continues to exist in Portugal, as reflected in language and attitudes, although it is more broad than deep, and many people opt for an attitude of non-interference in other people’s lives, even in aspects that might be regarded as objectionable.

“In general, Portuguese people do not tend to have absolutist views about anything,” Tavares said. In Portugal, “family ties are strong, and have even become an argument in favour of gay marriage,” he said, describing a personal experience: “My mother, who is 80 years old, telephoned me to say that from now on she is in favour of same-sex marriage, because she heard a gay man say how much his mother would like him to get married.”

In France, “distances are greater, even between close relatives, so opposition to same-sex unions appears to be a rational or values-based issue, and is not undermined so much by experiences of family affection,” the Member of the European Parliament concluded.

For his part, Fernando Fernández, a writer and retired journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP), said “what is striking about the protests in the country against the law legalising same-sex marriages is that they are an apparent contradiction in a society that has a world reputation for being tolerant, open and liberal.

“It’s true that French society can appear liberal from the perspective of countries that are deeply marked by the Catholic Church, like Spain or Poland,” Fernández told IPS in a telephone interview. “But in addition to the religious influence, French society is no doubt much more determined by what it regards as its values, and will not accept homosexuals having the same rights and responsibilities” as heterosexuals, he concluded.

Playwright Fernando Sousa was a junior officer on Apr. 25, 1974. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Apr 25 2013 (IPS)

The anniversary of the peaceful Carnation Revolution that overthrew Portugal’s 1926-1974 dictatorship has gone from being a popular celebration to a day of mass protests against the draconian austerity policies of the government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

For the second year running, the commemoration of Apr. 25 gave rise to demonstrations against the conservative government’s cutbacks in social spending and its handling of the severe economic crisis in accordance with the terms laid down by the so-called “troika” of international creditors: the International Monetary fund, EU and European Central Bank.

Thirty-nine years ago, 144 leftwing army captains toppled Europe’s longest dictatorship and dismantled the 560-year-old Portuguese empire.

The most prominent of the officers who led the 1974 uprising by the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) boycotted the official ceremonies in parliament on Thursday morning to protest government measures that they said ran “against the spirit of April.”

In parliament, the seats of honour reserved for the most famous of the so-called “captains of April” who are still alive were empty, including those of Generals Pedro Pezarat Correia, Franco Charais, Amadeu Garcia dos Santos; colonels Vasco Lourenço, Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho and Mario Tomé; and admirals Manuel Martins Guerreiro and Vítor Crespo.

The ceremony was also skipped, “in solidarity with the military officers who paved the way for democracy,” by former president Mario Soares (1985-1995), the historic leader of Portugal’s socialists who is considered the father of the democratic state since the 1974 uprising put an end to the dictatorship.

Security was especially tight this year events because of fears of protests. Unlike in previous years, only invited guests were allowed in the legislature for a celebration that was almost exclusively limited to politicians.

As he left the building, socialist lawmaker and former minister José Lello said this was because “they are afraid of and feel harassed by” the Portuguese people who are outraged at the growing poverty and hardships caused by the austerity policies that the troika set as a condition for a 110-billion dollar financial bailout for Portugal in 2011.

For the first time in 39 years, the gardens of the Belém presidential palace and the São Bento palace – the seat of parliament – in Lisbon were not open to the public on Apr. 25.

Lello said that was because President Aníbal Cavaco Silva and Prime Minister Passos Coelho wanted to prevent protest demonstrations in the gardens.

Antonio Costa Pinto, a professor of political science at the University of Lisbon, told local media that it was unacceptable for political institutions to “end up protecting themselves from the reactions of the people” on a symbolic date when “the fiesta of democracy is celebrated.”

But “politicians are not the only representatives of society,” playwright and journalist Fernando Sousa told IPS. In 1974, Sousa was a junior army officer who had just returned from Mozambique, where he was sent to fight in the former colony’s war of independence from Portuguese rule after he was drafted out of the university.

An active member of the left wing of the army during the revolutionary period, Sousa later went into journalism, and eventually wrote plays set in the colonial war of Mozambique.

In his “studio-refuge” in the Magoito district along the coast on the north side of Lisbon, he invited a group of friends over on the night of Wednesday Apr. 24. At midnight, everyone sang Grândola Vila Morena, the song that was the signal for the MFA captains’ armoured vehicles to advance on Lisbon on Apr. 25, 1974.

Sousa also presented a small collection of items recalling the Carnation Revolution.

Chatting with IPS, he did not conceal his disappointment that the hopes raised by the Carnation Revolution were not completely fulfilled. But he was upbeat nonetheless. “I might get old, but Apr. 25 never will,” he said.

Like many Portuguese of his generation, he is slightly bitter when he takes stock of the situation 39 years on because of the gap between “what was dreamt of and what was achieved.” He said this year’s Apr. 25 was “an anniversary where the sensation of a setback reigns.

“Looking at the ultra-liberal path taken by the government, I often think, why did we do Apr. 25? But I’m optimistic anyway because it’s necessary to believe that politics don’t only belong to politicians, but also to civil society, to women, men and children who are determined to build a new society.

“Apr. 25 meant a more just society, and not this nightmare that we are living today, with politicians who shunted us from the MFA to the IMF,” he said with irony.

Tradition was only maintained Thursday in the parade down Lisbon’s main artery, the Avenida da Liberdade, which was packed curb to curb with thousands of people led by Colonel Lourenço and the armoured vehicle in which Marcello Caetano, prime minister at the time of the coup, and the figurehead president Admiral Americo Thomaz were driven to the airport and expelled to Brazil 39 years ago.

Alberto da Ponte, a pensioner taking part in the march, told IPS that “the expectations and hopes that the people had in 1974 for a better life were frustrated by the (right-wing and socialist) political parties that alternated in power for 35 years and which were the ones who were to blame for taking us into the abyss of this democracy imposed according to their interests.”

At his side, textile worker Feliciano Dias Marinho said “the lesson that these nearly 40 years of democracy leave us is the alternation in power between the socialists and the right, who have led us into bankruptcy, and today the only thing we have is this switching back and forth between them, which should be replaced by true democracy.”

In the front rows of the march, university student Carlos Medina Abreu told IPS “I completely agree with the stance taken by Mario Soares and the ‘captains of April’, to not attend the ceremonies in parliament, because this regime is a farce of democracy, with actors who follow word for word the script written by the technocrats of the IMF and the EU.”

Luis Mendão, president of the Portuguese Group of Activists for Treatment for HIV/AIDS. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Mar 28 2013 (IPS)

In 1996, Luís Mendão was shocked to learn that he had contracted HIV/AIDS, and that the infection was advanced because of the late diagnosis. Racing against time, he began to put his affairs in order and to get ready to face his death.

However, after a year of treatment, he felt better and realised that his life was not about to end tomorrow. “I am still alive, but the cost would have been much less if I had known earlier,” he said in an interview with IPS at the Second Conference on HIV Infection in Hard to Reach Groups, held Monday and Tuesday Mar. 25-26 in Lisbon.

This is what makes him want to address the situation of undocumented immigrants, who because of red tape are prevented from having health tests and receiving treatment for illnesses like HIV/AIDS.

Today Mendão is the most visible face of the fight against HIV/AIDS in Portugal.

But the activist, who has a degree in biochemistry, “is not only seen as a reference point in Portugal, but is also the most dynamic activist in Europe and one of the most important internationally,” the co-chair of the EU HIV/AIDS Civil Society Forum, Anna Zakowicz, told IPS.

Mendão is head of the Pedro Santos Portuguese Group of Activists for HIV/AIDS Treatment (GAT), founded in 2001 to foment cooperation between people from different communities and organisations who are affected by the illness. He is also vice president of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG).

Q: You have often been cited as an example, not only in your own country but also abroad, of someone who did not hesitate to come out of the closet when being HIV-positive was still taboo. What can you tell us about this?

A: In September 1996, after a very difficult year in which I had little money and no work, my health suddenly collapsed. I was hospitalised for a week for tests. On the seventh day, the duty doctor told me the situation was very serious, my lungs were affected, my immune system was compromised and I had a complex and highly resistant anaemia.

It was AIDS, everything started to make sense – the overwhelming fatigue, the lung problem, my eyes, the virus infections, my loss of several kilos in weight.

For 10 years I had been doing the rounds of the health services being treated for molluscum virus skin infections (water warts), Herpes zoster (shingles), candidiasis (a yeast infection), and unexplained fatigue. Not once did anyone suggest an HIV test. I am still alive, but the cost would have been much less if I had known earlier on what I had. Take my advice: it is best to know.

Q: And that is when your battle for health began, and also for the law to guarantee access to treatment for all. Now, people who do not have health system user cards, like undocumented migrants, are being excluded. How can the state behave in this illegal way?

A: The 2001 law, which was regarded as a major humanitarian advance, establishes that anyone living in Portugal, even undocumented persons, have a right to use the National Health Service (SNS).

The law has not changed, but a stratagem is being used. Illegal immigrants are not denied an SNS card, but they are given an unnumbered card, which is rejected by the computer system, so that they cannot access health care treatment such as anti-AIDS therapy.

Q: The conference in Lisbon is aimed particularly at “men who have sex with men and sex workers.” Why is this?

A: In Portugal, a high proportion of men who have sex with men do so in secret and live in the closet. It is a situation that does not appear in medical records, because it is something they do not wish to talk about. As for sex workers, a large number of them are undocumented immigrants, which means they have no access to the SNS.

These two groups are considered by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) as fundamental in questions related to the virus, but there was very little information about the prevalence of infection and their problems need to be addressed, especially when it comes to the additional problems of immigrant rights.

The most vulnerable group is sex workers who are undocumented immigrants.

We are talking about people who, since they have no numbered health service cards, have to pay for tests and doctors’ visits, which in this poor and marginalised population effectively prevents detection, treatment and prevention of the illness.

Q: Is the economic and financial crisis bringing back street prostitution?

A: It has. Given the need to survive, the crisis has drawn some people in a difficult economic situation into the sex trade, despite the risk of HIV/AIDS. Many women have begun to work as prostitutes in the last two years, and others who had left this life have returned to it.

Ninety percent of sex workers are women, and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection is uneven, as street prostitutes are much more vulnerable to contracting and transmitting the virus than women who work in apartments.

Q: No doubt support for combating the epidemic has also been affected by the crisis.

A: There is a very serious problem with access to medication. At the moment the situation is just about covered, but it may spiral out of control at any time.

What we have found in our area, where the (antiretroviral) drugs are extremely expensive, is that new cases, especially among immigrants or Portuguese nationals who have returned to the country after living in Africa for many years, are rejected by many hospitals.

Then, for the last two years there has been no funding to support urgent new projects. For instance, state support for GAT has fallen from 70 percent to 30 percent of its total budget.

This is appalling, especially for Portugal, the country with the worst conditions in Western Europe for the four groups hit hardest by HIV/AIDS: homosexuals, sex workers, drug users and sub-Saharan immigrants.

Excerpt:

The huge impact of the economic crisis on male employment in Portugal has led to a sharp increase in the proportion of women who have become the main breadwinners in their families. But that has not translated into progress towards equality.

“Today there is more male unemployment than female, because the crisis has especially affected the civil construction industry,” said Anália Torres, a professor at the Technical University of Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences.

“With less economic activity in that industry, which traditionally employs men, the male unemployment rate has climbed, while in sectors that generally employ women, unemployment grew much less,” Torres said in an interview with IPS.

The European Commission expects unemployment in Portugal to reach 17.3 percent in 2013. But opposition parties and trade unions project a rate of 24 percent.

Professor Anália Torres at the Technical University of Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

The gap between the figures is explained by the thousands of people who have stopped registering at the government employment centres or have moved abroad, mainly to other European countries or to the former Portuguese colonies of Brazil, Angola, Mozambique or Macau.

Among those who only have a primary school education, “the woman always earns less than the man,” Torres said. “And as the educational level increases, the difference between the incomes of men and women grows. A woman with a doctorate earns much less than a man (with the same degree).”

In areas like education and health, where women earn 20 percent less than men, it is men who are most often laid off “because they are more expensive.”

Another factor that puts women in the position of bringing home the bacon “is that many remunerated activities carried out by women are in the informal economy, undeclared or unskilled work, such as cleaning or babysitting in the homes of the well-off,” the academic said.

In Portugal, the 1961-1974 colonial war in the country’s overseas territories in Africa – Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique – “led to large numbers of women replacing men (in the workplace),” Torres said.

Since then, “the idea of the working woman who helps support her family has remained in place,” she added.

During the war, Portugal maintained a permanent force of 220,000 military troops – an enormous figure compared to a population at the time of 8.8 million (10.6 million today).

In the 1960s, one million people from Portugal moved abroad for economic reasons or to avoid being sent to war in Africa. Women, Torres said, “took on a central role in a country with very few men of working age.”

Nevertheless, “the predominant sexism persisted, and men continue to make a show of unacceptable machismo today,” she said.

“By refusing to help do things around the home on the argument that ‘I am a man, I don’t do that kind of work’, which also causes serious domestic violence problems, men show that the sexist culture is still in place.”

Women are sometimes the target of violence, often with tragic results, because many men “base their masculinity on their wage-earning power, even though both men and women have been working and supporting the family for a long time now in Portugal,” Torres added.

Between January and November 2012, 30 women were killed in Portugal by their partners or ex-partners, according to UMAR, one of the largest women’s organisations in the country.

That makes Portugal the country with the largest number of femicides – gender-related murders – in the European Union, in proportion to the population.

But “working is also a kind of insurance against machismo, in the sense of women being aware that they are making a living and don’t need men,” Torres said.

Sociologist and researcher Sofia Aboim of the University of Lisbon’s Institute of Social Sciences said that in the last eight years, the proportion of couples in which the woman is the main breadwinner has risen from two to 16.5 percent.

It is “obvious” that many men “have suffered a strong blow to their self-esteem, because their masculinity is traditionally associated closely with supporting the family,” she wrote in the newspaper Público about the conclusions of a study on the subject.

Aboim said this situation was seen especially in couples with low levels of education and in older couples, especially between the ages of 51 and 65.

But Torres said discrimination against women is also deeply rooted among more educated segments of the population, even though “there are many women with excellent educations – teachers and professors, for instance.”

In general, “the highest-level posts are filled by men, even though, for example in the academic world, studies show that there is no difference in the production of research or articles. But women are not heads of institutes and are not on the boards of universities, with very few exceptions,” she said.

One big exception is the Centre for Judicial Studies, which provides training for future judges and prosecutors. Because the centre accepts lawyers on the basis of competitive examinations, “80 percent of those who have been accepted for training as magistrates in the last decade were women, because they scored higher than men.”

The problems plaguing Portugal affect everyone, “but in the crisis, women face greater difficulties, aggravated in cases in which their husbands are unemployed, because they still have to take everything on their shoulders.

“The worst thing about this government (of conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho) is its complete insensitivity and indifference towards the plight of the people,” Torres said.

This is especially serious in Portugal and other countries where sexism is predominant, she said, because “if a woman has work and her partner does not, she continues to do the housework, unlike what occurs in other places, where men participate in the housework when they are unemployed.”

Indignation in Portugal over rampant joblessness and cuts in wages, pensions and unemployment benefits, together with a growing tax burden, has given rise to innovative forms of protest capable of drawing large crowds.

The common denominator is non-violence. A mixture of ingenuity, humour and nostalgia for the good old days is the recipe that wide sectors of society are following to express their outrage in the face of the social and economic debacle.
In the conservative government’s year and a half in office, the unemployment rate has climbed from 11 to 16.9 percent, while GDP fell by 3.2 percent in 2012 and one-quarter of the population of 10.6 million are facing poverty and social exclusion.

Painting murals, which was popular three decades ago, is making a comeback.

Mural on Marquês da Fronteira Avenue in Lisbon. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

Hundreds of young people are using paint and the walls of urban buildings across the country as a form of protest against the neoliberal free market policies of the government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Democracy does not just mean voting every four years, they argue.

One example is Marquês da Fronteira Avenue, one of Lisbon’s main arteries, where dozens of people responded to a call by the Associação de Combate à Precariedade (Association to Combat Job Insecurity) and Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious Workers), gathering on Sunday Feb. 24 to paint huge murals about the crisis, in an atmosphere of festive solidarity.

On the murals, the two groups are also calling for people to come out for a demonstration on Saturday Mar. 2, without the involvement of political parties or trade unions.

Another novel form of protest arose in the public galleries of parliament on Feb. 15, when a group of people attending the debates, headed by well-known singer-songwriter Carlos Mendes, spontaneously began to sing “Grândola, Vila Morena,” a symbol of the peaceful Apr. 25, 1974 “carnation revolution” that overthrew the dictatorship that came to power in 1926.

“Grândola, Vila Morena” was used as a signal by a group of leftwing army captains to advance on Lisbon to oust Marcello Caetano, the successor to António de Oliveira Salazar and General Manuel Gomes da Costa. The three rulers were the heads of the longest European dictatorship of the 20th century (1926-1974).

The action in parliament was the result of “a group of activists on the day of the fortnightly plenary debate, who interrupted the prime minister’s speech by singing ‘Grândola’ at the very moment that the government party was making its point,” Mendes told IPS.

“It all took place in the context of actions planned to call people’s attention to the criminal austerity that is being imposed on us,” he said.

Mendes particularly stressed that “there were no insults or strong words; we simply sang, and the head of government had to stop speaking, drowned out by the chorus of voices singing ‘Grândola, Vila Morena’.”

In the two weeks that have passed since the protest in parliament, the prime minister and other government officials have been repeatedly interrupted in public by demonstrators singing the symbolic song, all around the country.

Another creative form of protest emerged three weeks ago, when the tax office began to receive electronic invoices in the name, and with the tax identification number, of Pedro Passos Coelho.

Previously cash register receipts served as automatic tax declarations for shopkeepers. Now the government is attempting to curb undeclared sales by shops and small businesses by providing a small tax rebate to customers who give their names and tax ID number.

But by the end of the third week of February, the tax office web site began to collapse under the flood of thousands of receipts with the prime minister’s name and tax identification number.

The protest operation was coordinated through the Facebook page “as faturas do coelho” (Coelho’s receipts), and now emails and text messages are also circulating the tax identification numbers of Finance Minister Vítor Gaspar, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Miguel Relvas and Justice Minister Paula Teixeira da Cruz.

The “as faturas do coelho” account is the result of “a much wider movement that goes far beyond a Facebook page,” one of the organisers told IPS.

Its members prefer not to identify themselves individually, because “there is no name behind this page, and therefore we do not make individual statements.”

The spokesperson explained that “the (Facebook) account does not personalise the operation, nor does it credit the inventor with particular merit, but rather credits all the citizens who make this creative protest every day, ultimately contributing also to combating the deficit.

“The Facebook page will continue to contribute humorously, so that the action will continue,” the spokesperson said, adding that cash registers in large shopping centres are becoming jammed by the excessive use of the ministers’ tax identification numbers, as in these malls “one out of every three customers is shopping in the name of the prime minister.”

It is “a movement that is much more representative of Portuguese citizens than the prime minister would have us believe,” the spokesperson said, even though “he is right to say that one tree does not make a forest.

“However we, the people who are up in arms in indignation, are increasingly the forest,” the spokesperson concluded.

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Feb 19 2013 (IPS)

Thousands of people marched through the streets of cities across Portugal “against exploitation and impoverishment” caused by the government’s austerity cuts, in a protest organised by the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), the country’s largest trade union.

Arménio Carlos: “Hunger is back in Portugal”. Credit: Mario Quiroz/IPS

“The European Union should not be an accomplice to neoliberal economic policies that treat people as objects and attack basic social benefits, to the point of negating the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” CGTP Secretary-General Arménio Carlos told IPS, while finalising details for the Jornada Nacional de Acçao e Luta (National Day of Action and Struggle) held Saturday.

The CGTP announced on Friday Feb. 15 that it would present a complaint against the Portuguese state before the International Labour Organisations (ILO) for violation of several conventions for the protection of collective bargaining and freedom of association.

Excerpts from the interview with Carlos follow.

Q: Are we seeing a substantive change in the system that used to guarantee what is known as “Social Europe”?

A: What is being called into question is a set of assumptions and principles upholding decent work, as defined by the ILO. One cannot play with people’s lives; they are not “guinea pigs” for neoliberal laboratories to test how far one can go, whether in Portugal, Greece, Spain or Ireland.

Our countries were viewed as of lesser importance, because of their economic and financial problems, but now it is becoming evident that the problems do not only apply to Portuguese, Greek or Irish people. They also affect Germany, the “engine” of Europe, which has entered a phase of economic stagnation. This ought to give those responsible for the EU pause for reflection.

Q: How will Portugal be able to pay its debt of 78 billion euros (equivalent to 110 billion dollars) owed to the EU-International Monetary Fund (IMF)-European Central Bank (ECB) troika?

A: Unless the loan is renegotiated, Portugal will not be able to pay and will become a financial colony.

Renegotiation does not mean evading repayment, it means negotiating suitable conditions in order to do so. But the lenders themselves are hampering the development of economic policies to allow repayment of the debt.

For example, the ECB is helping the financial sector by lending money at 0.7 percent interest and, in turn, banks are making credit available at eight percent to the state and to companies. This means the ECB is presently fomenting financial speculation.

Unemployment is still growing in Portugal and we have almost one million people without work, equivalent to a record figure of 16.9 percent, the third highest jobless rate in the EU, after Greece and Spain. The economic recession is going to continue this year. Tens of thousands of companies are going to close down or go bankrupt.

Q: Does this disheartening future mean that poverty will also increase?

A: Poverty and social exclusion are becoming generalised throughout Portugal, and we are also seeing the return of hunger in this country.

Thousands of children are hungry, and naturally that also means that their parents have also been hungry for some time, due to the neoliberal policy that is bleeding Portuguese people dry.

In addition to the widespread suffering it has caused, the country’s future is being called into question. It is a policy that does not solve problems, but exacerbates them.

Q: The two general strikes and various protest demonstrations in 2012 achieved enormous turnouts. Is that because the demands of the CGTP now go far beyond strictly trade union matters?

A: Reduction of purchasing power is affecting millions of people, and it can be seen at two levels.

First, because of inflation without adjustments in wages, on average over the last two years private sector workers have lost more than 10 percent of their purchasing power, while public sector workers have lost 25 percent or even 30 percent in some cases.

Second, the general state budget for 2013 will impose further income reductions through taxes, which will cause a fall of between six and seven percent in family incomes, so that one can only conclude that the purchasing power of workers will continue in free fall.

Meanwhile, enormous tax benefits are being granted to large economic and financial corporations, without any real effort to combat fraud and tax evasion. It is interesting to know, too, that these crimes cost about 25 percent of GDP.

That is where the problem should begin to be attacked, but it does not happen, because those economic and financial powers are practically untouchable.

The two general strikes and the big demonstrations in 2012, as well as Saturday’s protest, represent a snowballing movement, an unprecedented moment in which the vast majority of Portuguese people can express their discontent and indignation and demand an end to the policies imposed by the troika.

Q: What about labour rights?

A: The balance of labour laws between workers and employers has been further tipped in favour of the bosses, for instance, by reduction in overtime pay, easier dismissal, lower compensation payments and erosion of social protection, as well as an unprecedented attack on collective bargaining.

We are seeing deregulation of labour laws in favour of employers.

At present, miserable levels of compensation are being debated, that would put a Portuguese worker at the level of only 12 percent of an Irish or German worker and between 25 and 30 percent compared to a Spaniard. In addition to the recessionary spiral, in Portugal we have a declining spiral of civilisation.

Q: How far can this go?

A: For a government with a neoliberal viewpoint, there is no limit. They do not see people, they only see numbers and goals. At the end of the day, it is a settling of scores with the April Revolution (or Carnation Revolution, when army captains democratised Portugal in 1974), which brought in a collection of rights that gave value to work and dignity to people.

The government (of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho) remains stone-hearted in the presence of parents who have lost their jobs, children who are denied their right to work, parents whose social protections are withdrawn, children who are forced to emigrate, and elderly people who cannot afford to buy the medicines they need to survive.

Q: What does the CGTP propose?

A: We think that it is not enough to talk about growth. Growth is only possible with investments, more production, better income distribution and higher spending power. To us, these components are essential to solve the fundamental problem.

(END)

Excerpt:

Poverty in Portugal has risen to levels that were unimaginable a year ago despite the bleak outlook forecasted by the harsh measures imposed by the troika of creditors in exchange for the country’s financial bailout.

An eatery in Lisbon offers cheap “troika” lunches to weather the crisis. Credit: Katalin Muharay /IPS

Unable to pay their bills or even meet basic food needs, thousands of families are facing dire times and turning increasingly to charities for assistance. Many do so secretly, however, ashamed to admit they have to resort to such means to get by.

The phenomenon has become so widespread that the impoverished middle class is starting to be known as the “embarrassed poor”.

This new poverty, caused by unemployment and the inability to repay bank loans, is also driving up the number of suicides, according to reports by Caritas, Food Bank and other social solidarity organisations.

According to figures from the National Statistics Institute, in 2012 a fifth of all Portuguese were living on less than 478 dollars a month, well under the minimum wage established by law at 644 dollars a month and 14 salaries a year.

In June 2012, a year after the troika – comprised of the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) – stepped in with a bailout package, soup kitchens have sprung up across Lisbon, bringing back the “sopa dos pobres” served out by Catholic organisations to feed the poor in the 1950s.

Today long lines of people can again be seen queuing outside charity centres waiting to receive their only hot meal of the day.

Teachers around the country report alarming cases of middle-class children coming to school on an empty stomach, dizzy and even fainting from hunger, but trying to act normal so as not to be confused with poorer children.

Middle-class Portuguese people of all ages are finding it hard to accept the fact that their dream of attaining the upper middle-class status they had been working towards for the past two decades is slipping away.

Those efforts are, in fact, having the opposite effect, experts say. Buried under a mountain of unpayable debts, the middle class is sinking closer and closer to the lower class, which at 24.4 percent has increased two percentage points since 2009, in a population of 10.6 million.

According to the National Statistics Institute anyone with an income between 768 and 2,660 dollars a month is considered middle class, in a country where half the population earns less than 932 dollars. Officially, around 60 percent of the population falls within that definition.

“In Portugal, poverty is becoming part of the scenery,” João Pedro da Fonseca, a young unemployed electrician specialising in generators, told IPS.

After a decade on his own, enjoying a high standard of living, he had to move back in with his parents and depend on their meagre pensioner income, “with little hope of finding work” in his field.

Out of a job for nearly a year now and with no unemployment insurance, this 29-year-old Lisbon native believes “this is just the beginning of a long period of poverty, a terrible crisis that I’m not responsible for, caused by the usual powerful men.”

Marina Oliveira, a 26-year-old psychologist who has been unemployed for the past 13 months, told IPS that when a crisis hits — no matter where in the world — “poverty only comes calling at the doors of the most vulnerable.”

She survives thanks to her parents, who are helping her “until I can leave the country to follow my dreams, which sadly have become impossible in my country, where poverty is only going to get worse, as new measures are imposed to pay the troika back,” Oliveira said.

The troika granted the Portuguese government a total of 110 billion dollars to service the national debt, meet administration costs and, above all and despite great criticism, provide capital for its distressed banks.

Oliveira highlighted that other countries have also suffered “these crises imposed by the promoters of the consumerist dream, who never get stuck with the bill.”

“The most outrageous example of this is the United States, where some of the leading people responsible for the 2008 crisis, which later spread across the world, were invited by (President Barack) Obama to serve as advisers and consultants for his administration,” he said.

In “Portugal we have to live under the rules dictated by this enormously powerful troika, making us bow to a global financial system that is unscrupulous and completely heartless and that forces us to surrender our country to that pack of vultures that are the large banks.”

The latest statistics available indicate that in 2011 Portugal had a gross domestic product (GDP) of 214 billion dollars and its national purchasing power stood at 77.4 percent of the average purchasing power for the EU.

Preliminary data for 2012 reveal a drop of 2.9 percentage points in Portugal’s GDP, confirming the downward trend observed since the start of the crisis. From 2009 to the end of 2013 it will have dropped by a total of 7.4 percent, according to projections released by the Bank of Portugal on Jan. 15.

For the victims of the crisis, the last straw came on Jan. 10 with the IMF’s new recommendations.

In a document addressed to the Portuguese government, the IMF called for greater austerity, which is certain to affect an already besieged middle class that in 18 months lost almost 25 percent of its purchasing power.

The IMF recommends a new package of measures, with additional cuts in pensions and wages, in particular in sectors such as education, health and law enforcement.

It also recommends raising public hospital fees, firing 14,000 teachers, placing 50,000 elementary teachers in a mandatory relocation scheme and privatising public education.

In his Jan. 22 opinion column, featured in the Público de Lisboa newspaper, analyst José Vítor Malheiros noted that this policy of drastic cuts is applied “only to social areas, never affecting the benefits of the (wealthiest) one percent”, and it is aimed at “pleasing creditors and perpetuating Portugal’s dependence on the financial system”.

Among the many waiting in line at a Lisbon Employment Centre, a man in his forties told IPS that he comes to the centre every day in the hope of finding “any job they can offer me, because I have a 12-year-old daughter and we’re both going hungry.”

He agreed to talk to IPS but asked to remain anonymous “because I’d like to speak frankly and, if I give you my name, they’ll never give me a job.”

He also refused to give his profession or trade, merely noting, “I was foolish enough to think that a university degree would guarantee a decent future. But here I am, willing to take any job.”

“Portugal has been gripped by fear, a fear that’s spreading thanks to outrageous policies. And those who are lucky to still have a job are bending over backwards to please their bosses, afraid they’ll be fired and will have to join the ranks of the new poor.”

The writer has just confirmed he had recorded the interview and taken notes of the conference, but he incurred in a regrettable error confusing António Soares (Toni Tcheca) with Emílio Krafft Kosta. This is of course completely unprofessional, and we have erased both versions of the story, in Spanish and English. Please accept our sincere apologies.

Harvesting flor de sal in Castro Marim. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
CASTRO MARIM, Portugal , Sep 24 2012 (IPS)

A promising alternative in Portugal’s profoundly depressed domestic market are incentives for traditional exports which, due to their high quality or uniqueness, do not face fierce foreign competition. “Flor de sal”, the country’s premium hand-harvested sea salt, is one of these products.

Many economists, including those who support the right-wing government, recommend incentives for sales of fine products for which Portugal is known, such as footwear, oranges, cork, wine and sea salt.

The crème de la crème of sea salt – known as flor de sal in Portuguese and as the caviar of salts in English – is used by chefs in the world’s finest restaurants. It is the very top layer of salt harvested on the coast.

The harvesting process is one example of a traditional activity that is making a comeback, as a successful alternative in the face of this country’s severe economic crisis.

IPS visited the salt flats at Castro Marim, 330 km from Lisbon, in the southern region of Algarve.

Jorge Filipe Raiado, the owner and manager of the small but highly-respected company Salmarim, found his business niche when he began to produce and export flor de sal, which is much more profitable than common table salt.

Sea salt is generally only harvested during the summer months. “The expansion of exports is essentially driven by chefs, who demand top-quality products for their dishes, such as flor de sal,” Raiado told IPS.

The recession, which is being felt throughout most of Europe, has hit Portugal and neighbouring Spain – this country’s main trading partner – especially hard.

But Raiado says that in his line of business, “the crisis has not been felt much.”

“It’s true that there’s a crisis, and maybe without the current difficulties we would have more customers. But it’s also true that we are growing, mainly because of our exports.”

The caviar of salts

What exactly is flor de sal? IPS asked. “When milk boils, there is a difference in temperature between the liquid and the air, and a thin skin of cream forms, which easily disintegrates if you squeeze it between your fingers. Flor de sal is exactly the same thing,” Raiado explained.

These tiny salt crystals, which form a crust on the surface of the water, are raked by hand every day, so that only the freshest, uppermost crystals are harvested using artisanal methods. They are then dried in the sun, and no bleaching, mechanical processes or chemicals are involved. Although they feel dry, they contain a minute amount of moisture.

Raiado said flor de sal does not change the taste of food, but produces an “explosion of flavours,” unlike bland table salt.

One kilo of flor de sal costs around 25 dollars in Portugal. But it can fetch up to 130 dollars abroad, which makes exporting it to Spain, France, Poland, Germany, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Hungary – the principal importers of this country’s flor de sal – a lucrative business.

The main competitor in the production of flor de sal is France, where it is known as fleur de sel.

In 2010, the last year for which data is available, Portugal produced 44,574 tonnes of sea salt.

Salmarim’s sales are not large-scale – eight tons of flor de sal a year. But thanks to Raiado’s creativity and tenacity in finding a way out of the crisis, his business has frequently been cited as an example of success in the face of adversity.

The internationally-renowned chefs who use gourmet brands of flor de sal are the best advertisement for the product.

Today, Hungarian caviar is packed using flor de sal purchased from Salmarim.

Raiado said that while his product may be more expensive, its advantages lie in the fact that it is produced in the salt pans in the Castro Marim Nature Reserve, “which guarantees a traditional product that is of better quality than the refined industrial salt produced by the competition.”

The crisis drags on

Sea salt is one of the export success stories that are helping to buffer the effects of the global recession in Portugal, which is suffering its worst economic crisis since the return to democracy in 1974, after 48 years of dictatorship.

According to Justice Ministry statistics released in July, 10,379 companies closed their doors in the first half of the year – 33 percent more than in the same period in 2011.

Since Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho took office 15 months ago, his conservative government has done everything in its power to follow the dictates of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

In exchange for a 110 billion dollar bailout for Portugal, the so-called “troika” of creditors required austerity measures such as steep wage cuts, sharp tax hikes, and a reduction in employers’ social security contributions and an increase in workers’ contributions, on the argument that Portugal had to become more competitive by offering cheap labour.

This strategy of “increasing poverty in order to compete can only exist in the heads of dogmatic economists,” Rui Tavares, a Green member of the European Parliament, wrote in an op-ed published Monday Sept. 17 in the Publico daily newspaper.

All the projections by the EU, the IMF and the Passos Coelho administration have failed, and the economy is still in a downward spiral, with a 15.8 percent unemployment rate, the highest-ever in Portugal.

In 2011, exports represented 35 percent of Portugal’s GDP, according to a study by the Banco do Espirito Santo released early this year. They are expected to account for 37 percent of GDP this year.

Figures from the Banco de Portugal and the National Statistics Institute (INE) indicate that in the first seven months of the year, exports of goods and service totalled 48.5 billion dollars, 6.5 percent more than in the same period in 2011 – the best performance in five years.

In the first seven months of 2011, the trade deficit amounted to 8.5 percent of GDP. But in the first seven months of this year, it dropped to 1.8 percent. The last time Portugal had no trade deficit was 70 years ago.

Raiado’s company is small, which means it does not by itself have an influence yet on employment or the deficit. But it is growing, and it shows that traditional and gourmet exports are worth their salt in times of crisis.

Resting in Bairro Alto, without fear of being arrested. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Aug 1 2012 (IPS)

Portugal was traditionally one of the European countries with the lowest levels of drug use, until the 1980s and 1990s, when problematic drug abuse, especially of heroin, became a major problem.

A law adopted in 2001 by this conservative Catholic country abolished all criminal penalties for the personal use and possession of drugs, and managed to reduce drug abuse, while removing a barrier that kept addicts from seeking treatment: fear of being reported to the police.

The prevalence of heroin use in the 16 to 18 year age group fell from 2.5 percent in 1999 to 1.8 percent in 2005, according to the study “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal; Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies”, published by the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank, in 2009.

And the overall prevalence of drug use in the 15 to 19 year category dropped from 10.8 percent to 8.6 percent between 2001 and 2007, according to a major survey.

But the decriminalisation of drug use is just part of a broader set of policies, aimed at reducing both supply and demand, and including measures of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and social reinsertion, Dr. João Castel-Branco Goulão, the architect of the reform of Portugal’s drug policy and the president of the country’s Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, told IPS.

Perhaps the biggest stride forward was in the area of drug addiction-related damage, like the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In 2000, contagion among intravenous drug users accounted for 52 percent of all new cases of HIV. By 2009, that proportion had plunged to 16 percent.

This result was largely due to harm reduction measures, such as the distribution to heroin users of kits containing a needle and syringe, rubbing alcohol, and a condom, in exchange for used syringes.

“Portugal has given the world a powerful example of how a national drug policy can work to everyone’s benefit,” Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Institute’s Global Drug Policy programme, wrote in the foreword to a study published in June 2011, which points to the same downward trend in drug use.

The results of a wider study on drug use in the general population will be released in November, said Goulão.

The reform did not legalise consumption, but decriminalised possession of small amounts of illicit drugs – defined as what is needed for 10 days of personal use – which is not punishable by prison, and does not generate a police record.

Instead, those caught for possession and use of drugs ranging from marijuana to heroin or LSD are brought before three-person administrative panels known as ‘committees to dissuade drug addiction’, made up of lawyers, judges and health care or social services workers, which decide whether to recommend treatment, a small fine, or no penalty, based on a health perspective.

Dealers and traffickers are still arrested and jailed.

“Punitive measures on their own, no matter how harsh, cannot bring down consumption,” former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003) said on a 2011 visit to Lisbon as chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.

The road taken by Portugal is praiseworthy because of its innovative nature, its scope, and the coherence of the national policy in a country with a deeply-rooted conservative tradition, he added.

Portugal had begun to be held up as an example two years earlier, when the Cato Institute described its decriminalisation policy as “a resounding success.”

The world has been seeking alternatives to the failed war on drugs, whose objectives were reflected in the first international instrument in the area, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, adopted in 1961.

In Portugal, once the fear of being prosecuted for possession of drugs was removed, thousands of people, especially the young, began to turn to the network of treatment centres – public or private – created in the framework of the legal reform.

Lost hopes

Drug addicts can still be seen roaming around Bairro Alto, the Bohemian centre of Lisbon’s night life, and Casal Ventoso, the biggest open-air market for drugs in all of Europe a decade ago. And the economic crisis shaking the country could once again swell their ranks.

Two addicts in their late 30s agreed to talk to IPS about their experiences, on the condition that they would not be identified or photographed.

“Carlos”, a car mechanic, had quit using cocaine over a decade ago. “But a year ago, when the garage cut staff because of the crisis, I was the first one laid off, which is the same thing that happened to several old fellow travellers who had gone through rehabilitation.

“We are on the front line when it comes to being fired,” he said.

With his life collapsing around him, “I started to sink into darkness; I didn’t want to see or talk to anybody, and I couldn’t sleep at night, and had nightmares. I stuck it out for less than two months before I returned to Casal Ventoso.

“I have spent almost all of my unemployment subsidy on drugs, ignoring what could happen to me in the future. How could things get worse? Only if I lose my life, because I’ve already lost the rest: friends, home, family, and if the unemployment subsidy runs out, money as well,” he said.

Agostinho, who agreed to give his first name, is an old friend of Carlos, who he had last seen eight years ago “because he didn’t want to hang out with bad company,” he joked with a broad smile, pointing a finger at his friend.

“I started methadone treatment 10 years ago, but after six months it wasn’t working, and I had no other choice than to keep living this life,” he said.

He said he consumes “anything I can get for a good price,” and survives on the tips he is given by drivers who he helps find a parking spot in the centre of congested Lisbon.

Although the law does not enable the police to arrest drug addicts, “they continue to mistreat us, because in their eyes, the ‘parking helpers’ are drug addicts, and hence dangerous criminals.”

But the statistics show that the number of robberies and muggings committed by drug users has not risen. On the contrary, the rates of several kinds of crime have gone down in this Southern European country, despite the economic recession.

Agostinho said everything he earns “goes right into drugs, and it’s not enough. So at night I go to the home of my widowed mother, she feeds me, and – why not admit it – sometimes I lift some money she has stashed away, or some object to sell. She knows it, and accepts it. In the end, I’m the only thing she has left in her life.”

*This story is the second of a two-part series on Portugal’s drug decriminalisation policy.

The success achieved is not solely due to the decriminalisation of drug consumption, says Goulão. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

Portugal’s anti-drug policies have been gaining international visibility since this country began to publish the results of its 2001 decision to eliminate all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs.

Portugal’s drug decriminalisation policy is cited as an example by experts and personalities around the world who have joined a global campaign against the United Nations prohibition-oriented anti-drug approach.

The architect of Portugal’s policy, which crystallised a struggle that began in the late 1970s, was Dr. João Castel-Branco Goulão, president of this country’s Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction and chairman of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

Decriminalisation of drug consumption, still opposed by political sectors like the right, was made possible by “favourable public opinion…it arose from society,” where virtually every family had a member or friend with a drug abuse problem, Goulão told IPS in an interview in his office.

Q: Consuming drugs in Portugal is still prohibited…

A: Yes. But it is no longer criminally punishable: people are not prosecuted in court for it, and it doesn’t go on their police record. And they are no longer sent to prison, but are fined in administrative tribunals that we call ‘committees to dissuade drug addiction’, which have the authority to levy fines and have the particularity of analysing cases of drug users from a health perspective.

Q: Is Portugal’s legislation in line with international agreements on drugs?

A: When we conceived of the decriminalisation, the framework that the government put in place was determined by the U.N. conventions. Decriminalisation keeps penalties in the administrative sphere, which is in line with the requirements of the conventions.

Q: The success of this policy is increasingly cited in the rest of the world. When did that start to happen?

A: There was a great deal of curiosity at the start. Afterwards, since there were no results to show yet, interest waned. Only since 2009, when an international report was published, did interest begin to expand greatly again, and this has translated into frequent visits by politicians, doctors, experts and journalists from around the world.

But the success is not solely due to the decriminalisation. It is the result of a set of policies that target reduction of both supply and demand, including measures of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and social reinsertion.

Q: What were the origins of this process?

A: Before the 1974 democratising revolution, we had practically no drug problem. We were a society completely isolated by the dictatorship (1926-1974) from everything that was happening in the world. Young people couldn’t leave the country, except when they were sent to the colonial war in Africa (1961-1974), and at the same time we were not a very attractive destination for young people from other countries.

While other societies gradually learned how to live with drugs, we didn’t have that opportunity.

Suddenly, everything changed with the revolution. On one hand, thousands of soldiers and colonists came back from Africa, many of whom already had a drug habit, and they brought tons of substances to Portugal.

On the other hand, drug consumption was associated with the idea of freedom, and there was frenzied, widespread experimentation. They didn’t bring these products back with them to sell, but to share with their friends. However, criminal organisations swiftly appeared to exploit the new market.

We didn’t understand the difference between soft drugs and heroin, for example. The first campaigns in the 1970s were atrocious, with messages like “drugs, madness, death.”

Everything became more complicated with the appearance of HIV/AIDS in the following decade, which made drug consumption the most pressing problem in Portugal, with one or more generations completely devastated by addiction and by diseases transmitted by syringe, high levels of drug-related crime, and huge public visibility of the problem.

Q: At the start, the response by the state was basically a law enforcement approach.

A: Because it became a crime-related issue. The first response, the establishment of centres for studying the problem and treating addicts, did not emerge in the area of public health, but in the sphere of the Justice Ministry.

In this context, the first private-sector responses emerged, some of which were extremely profitable, with people getting rich on the back of this phenomenon. And drug consumers became victims, first exploited by traffickers and dealers, and later by the treatment centres.

Q: When did the change begin?

A: The Health Ministry’s first rehabilitation centres were set up in 1986 and 1987, and after that, a national network of treatment centres was set up to respond to the problem.

In 1997, I became the national director of the network of treatment centres. The next year, a commission of 10 experts and I produced a report that indicated directions in which to move with respect to policies of prevention, treatment, harm reduction and social reinsertion. One of our premises is that drug abusers are ill, not criminals, and that they need help.

So we proposed the decriminalisation of consumption, a reform that was debated in parliament in 2000, when the left-wing majority approved it despite opposition from the right. It was signed into law in 2001.

Treating drug users as people who are sick, rather than as criminals, resonated with Portuguese society, because the phenomenon cut across all sectors: it was almost impossible to find a family that didn’t have a problem with a son or daughter, nephew or niece, or cousin, and the families knew they weren’t criminals, but people who needed support.

That social sentiment in favour of decriminalisation was something that arose from society.

Q: What are the most significant achievements?

A: The most disorganised groups of users are gradually starting to approach the treatment centres. People used to be afraid to contact them, for fear of being reported to the police. But today they come spontaneously, and they don’t have any problem identifying themselves.

The use of almost all illegal substances has been reduced among the youngest segments of the population. There has been a drastic fall in intravenous drug use, and in consequence, in the spread of AIDS. And drug-related crime has also gone down.

Q: The economic crisis, rise in unemployment and lack of a future for the young: are these a cause for concern about a new rise in drug addiction?

A: Some alarm signals have appeared, with the crisis. People consuming out of desperation is a problem that has reappeared – that is, people who aren’t seeking pleasure, but relief from their troubles, through drugs and alcohol.

Many of our old patients who had managed to return to normal life and find jobs, for example, are among the most vulnerable.

As unemployment climbs, they are the first people who are discarded, and when that happens, they see the world that they were building collapse like a house of cards. Relapse frequently occurs in these cases.

*This story is the first of a two-part series on the Portuguese model of decriminalisation of drugs.

Excerpt:

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Apr 25 2012 (IPS)

For the first time in 38 years, the former soldiers and officers who opened the doors to democracy in Portugal did not take part in the official celebration of the Carnation Revolution, which toppled Europe’s longest dictatorship in 1974.

The officers instead called a protest against the economic crisis and the austerity measures adopted by the government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. The march down the Avenida da Liberdade ended with a demonstration that filled the huge Praça do Rossio, Lisbon’s main square.

Wednesday’s protest was supported by former socialist president Mario Soares (1985-1995), considered the “patriarch” of Portuguese democracy, who also declined the place of honour he traditionally occupies in the legislature, as a former head of state.

Retired colonel Vasco Lourenço, who was commander of the army forces in Lisbon during the coup, explained that the former officers did not participate in the official ceremony because “the political line followed by the current political leaders no longer reflects the democratic regime that was the heir to Apr. 25, 1974, as outlined in the constitution.”

Lourenço heads the 25th of April Association, made up of retired and active-duty members of the military who played a role in the coup that overthrew the dictatorship that governed Portugal with an iron fist from 1926 to 1974.

Over the past few months, the officers who led the Carnation Revolution – named for the flowers that people put in the barrels of the soldiers’ guns after the coup – have been criticising the government for destroying nearly all of the achievements of that historic event.

The so-called “captains of April” boycotted the ceremony in parliament but did not fail to commemorate the revolution, which marked not only the end of the 48-year extreme-right isolationist dictatorship but also of Portugal’s nearly 560-year colonial empire.

In the space of just a few hours 38 years ago, the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA – Armed Forces Movement) – a revolutionary movement led by 144 left-wing junior officers tired of the colonial wars raging at the time in Portugal’s “overseas provinces” – removed the heads of the armed forces and made way for democracy by calling for elections for a constituent assembly.

Since then, Portugal had not experienced the kind of social unrest seen today, a reaction to the tough austerity measures adopted by the conservative government of Passos Coelho to reduce the fiscal deficit, a condition imposed by the “troika” of creditors – the International Monetary fund (IMF), the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) – that approved a 110-billion dollar financial bailout for Portugal in 2011.

The policies have included pay and pension cuts, across-the-board tax hikes, an end to essentially free universal public healthcare, increased rates for natural gas, electricity, fuel, transport, and vehicle licenses, and a rise in monthly tuition fees for students.

A reform of the labour code that is making its way through parliament will also make it easier to hire and fire workers, eliminate the holiday bonus salaries, limit unemployment benefits, reduce the number of public holidays, cut overtime pay, allow a longer workday, and slash the number of vacation days.

In his speech to thousands of protesters, Lourenço said “the government does not serve the elected officials but the voters, and therefore cannot sell the country to the economic and financial powers-that-be.”

“Elected officials no longer represent Portuguese society (when they try to) legitimate the dictatorship of the markets, because the people did not give parliament the power to hand over that authority,” the retired officer told the demonstrators, many of whom were older people who personally lived through the Carnation Revolution.

Lourenço added that due to the draconian measures imposed by the troika, Portugal “is now a protectorate” that follows the dictates of “Merkozy” – an allusion to the real power-holders in the EU: the government of Germany led by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French government headed by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“We aren’t boasting of being the saviours of the nation, but we do say the military knows how to stand firm in the defence of its people,” he said.

For his part, Soares said that thanks to the April Revolution, “everything changed and there is no comparison to the past of poverty, war and dictatorship, in which Portugal was ‘gloriously alone’ (a famous phrase of dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar) during 48 years of cruelty.”

The pluralist democracy ushered in by the revolution “had a great influence in the establishment of many democracies, especially in Spain, Greece and Latin America, without excluding our beloved Brazil, which at that time was also dominated by a dictatorship (1964-1985),” he added.

However, “we are now experiencing a crisis that came from outside, from the United States and from the rest of Europe, which has a great deal to do with the current incapacity of many leaders on this continent, who blindly believe in austerity policies and are not concerned about the exponential growth of unemployment or the paralysis of economies in recession,” he said.

Soares explained to IPS that his stance in the protest held on this year’s anniversary was “of solidarity with the April heroes” at a time when the government of Passos Coelho is “destroying social achievements like social security, education and healthcare by means of privatisation and the limiting of the rights of the Portuguese.”

The former president said the austerity policies are leading to the “impoverishment of millions of Portuguese…(which) is not leading us anywhere, or more precisely, is leading us from bad to worse every year.”

By Mario Queiroz and - -
LISBON, Mar 19 2012 (IPS)

This winter the mortality rate in Portugal has grown alarmingly, to a level far higher than the seasonal averages of previous years. And the brunt of the death toll is being borne by low-income elderly people.

The General Directorate of Health (DGS) reported that 11,600 people died in February, 1,600 more than in the same month in previous years. Most of the victims were over 75.

Public health experts say the record number of deaths is associated with the economic crisis and the draconian cuts in public spending made as a condition for the multi-billion dollar bailout of Portugal in 2011.

Free access to public health services, one of the major achievements of the Apr. 25, 1974 “Carnation Revolution” that ushered in democracy after a 48-year dictatorship, is in danger.

In September 2011, Health Minister Paulo Macedo reported that one-third of the country’s public hospitals were insolvent.

And under the terms set by the “troika” that granted the 110 billion dollar bailout – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and the European Central Bank (ECB) – the government agreed to cut healthcare spending by at least five percent in 2012.

Explanations for the rise in fatalities vary. According to the DGS, they are the result of the unusually cold weather and seasonal diseases.

But many doctors maintain that the increased number of deaths is also due to the growing inability of people to afford an adequate diet and proper healthcare.

Ana Filgueiras, head of the NGO Cidadãos do Mundo and coordinator of its mutual assistance programme for the youngest and oldest members of the community, commented on the situation in an interview with IPS.

“The significant rise in preventable deaths is due to a perverse combination of factors that are not new, but arose simultaneously and took elderly people, especially the poorest, by surprise,” she said.

She explained that in Portugal “there are large areas devoid of people of working age, which isolates older people, and especially the poorest among them, in conditions of basic survival and scant access to health services.”

This winter was particularly cold and dry, “bringing together the conditions that aggravate respiratory problems, to which the older population is particularly vulnerable. In addition, seriously reduced incomes this year meant they could not heat their homes to a minimally acceptable level.”

Filgueiras does not accept the government’s explanation, which blames the excess deaths on the flu.

“This year there were fewer flu cases, especially of the aggressive viral strains we have had in recent years, like influenza A-H1N1 (‘swine flu’),” so all the indications are that “real difficulties caused by the present crisis are preventing poor elderly people from paying for transport, fees and medicines to look after their health.”

“This combination of factors is really what has caused the deaths of older citizens,” the activist said.

Dr. Jaime Teixeira Mendes, a member of the board at Santa María Hospital, the country’s biggest, sees things in a similar light.

“The cold wave and the flu epidemic in our country are doubtless responsible for the higher mortality over the past month,” he told IPS in early March.

However, the doctor said these elements alone “cannot explain the figures, because there have been years in which the number of flu cases registered was similar, but the difference is that now there are enough flu vaccines, and this year more people were vaccinated.”

He quoted a World Health Organisation (WHO) study that “indicates the existence of a scientifically proven relationship between the social and economic conditions of a population, and its health.”

It is the austerity measures implemented in Portugal “that are responsible for the nutritional deficit, caused by higher food prices, bad housing conditions, and the absence of heating because of higher electricity prices,” he said.

Added to these are “difficulties in access to healthcare, because of hikes in transport costs and hospital fees, which have been proved by public health experts to be causes of higher mortality among the elderly,” Teixeira Mendes concluded.

On Mar. 3, the newspaper O Correio da Manhã quoted elderly patients who summed up the dilemma faced by Portugal’s poor: “We can buy food or medicine, but not both.”

Over the last two weeks, the Lisbon daily Público has devoted several pages to reporting on the precarious situation of the poor, who make up one-quarter of Portugal’s 10.6 million people.

The main focus has been on the difficult conditions faced by the elderly, and medical experts interviewed by the newspaper all related the rise in the mortality rate to the crisis and the cuts in public spending on health demanded by the IMF, EU and ECB.

Mario Jorge Santos, the head of the Portuguese Association of Public Health Physicians (AMSP), said the rise in mortality among older people was also due to soaring price hikes for electricity and gas.

Many elderly people, who are the most vulnerable to hypothermia, have tried to make their paltry pensions stretch farther by cutting down on heating.

According to the head of AMSP, poverty levels affect peak mortality rates, “whether by hindering access to healthcare or by making it impossible for people to keep warm.”

Santos said the rise of mortality in Portugal partly reflects “the decline in household incomes and the increase in patients’ fees,” which affect access to healthcare.

The AMSP states that raising hospital fees during a period of worsening economic conditions adds to the burden on healthcare services and, therefore, increases the death rate.

Francisco Vieira, a columnist for the newspaper Notícias Ribeirinhas, deplored the fact that many people “do not have adequate living standards, do not have effective healthcare, are not eating properly, are not heating their homes or wrapping up warmly, do not go out, do not socialise, do not smile and have no hope – a set of circumstances that can kill. Can anyone doubt this?”

Excerpt:

The flood of economic woes devastating Greece and Portugal are evidence that the German prescription imposed by a troika of multilateral creditors is not working, and that both countries are heading into a blind alley, says economics professor Mario Olivares.

“National debt and fiscal deficit problems can only be overcome by economic growth,” Olivares, a Portuguese academic, told IPS.

The harsh austerity programmes prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB) are dragging Greece and Portugal into a downward economic spiral.

In these two southern European countries, and more recently in Spain and Italy as well, “growth and investment are being sacrificed, creating an alarming increase in unemployment,” said Olivares, head of the economics department at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG) of the Technical University of Lisbon.

“There is colossal pressure on the Greek economy, which has already seen a fall in GDP far greater than forecast, due to an adjustment model that isn’t working because, in spite of wage cuts, exports are not increasing,” he said.

The crisis in Spain, Portugal and Greece, “with cuts in consumption and public spending, as well as slower growth in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Belgium, change the scenario, because the expected increase in exports is not happening,” Olivares stressed.

In the case of Portugal, public accounts are being regulated with iron discipline in order to meet the fiscal deficit goals demanded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Olivares describes as “master of the EU” in contrast with the weakness of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.

Economic analysts agree that the wage cuts, longer working hours, cancellation of several public holidays and tax hikes have led people in Portugal to spend less and save more, not to create a solid foundation for stability, but to sink further into poverty.

The recession deepened in the last quarter of 2011 because of contraction in household consumption and only modest investment, factors that brought about a 2.7 percent fall in GDP that quarter, and an annual average shrinkage of 1.5 percent of GDP with respect to 2010, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The INE report predicted that “acceleration of the recession in the last three months of 2011 will set a trend that will also blight 2012, during which we expect a new fall in private consumption.”

The most recent estimates forecast a three percent drop in Portugal’s GDP this year.

A crucial factor is that Portugal’s 20 largest companies invested 23 percent less in 2011 than in 2010, which severely affected economic growth and produced drastic job losses.

In its report released Feb. 15, INE said unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2011 reached 14 percent, the highest jobless rate in Portugal since records began to be kept. Youth unemployment is even worse, at 35.4 percent.

But the situation is much worse than the official figures suggest, as INE recognises only 770,000 unemployed persons within an economically active population of nearly 5.6 million – a figure that only includes unemployed persons who were available for work, and actively seeking work, during the survey period.

It does not include those who have given up looking for a job, nor people with part-time jobs.

Thus, the real number is almost 1.3 million people out of work, which gives an estimated unemployment rate of 22.6 percent.

Given the fear of contagion of the crisis in the rest of the EU and other parts of the world, IPS consulted Professor Andrés Malamud, who holds a doctorate in social and political sciences and is a research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. Like Olivares, Malamud is not at all optimistic about the future.

“In the best-case scenario, the European economy is going to stagnate for several years. The most probable outlook is simply recession, accompanied by social unrest, political radicalisation and institutional fragmentation, with some countries leaving the eurozone and even the EU itself,” said Malamud.

Asked what repercussions such a situation might have in Latin America, he said it would depend on “how far the European economy falls, and whether China has a soft or a hard landing (gentler or more abrupt deceleration of growth).”

Malamud contrasted Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America, “which is adjusting quickly and preparing itself for the shake-up, with  Argentina, which is making tardy, inept adjustments that are unacknowledged in official discourse, as the government talks of ‘fine tuning’ the economy, not ‘adjustment.'”

Olivares, for his part, told IPS that “the European economy is feeling the effects of austerity, with several countries in recession, subjected to concrete austerity plans by the troika or of their own free will, because of higher interest rates on sovereign debt bonds.”

Credit rating agencies “are continuing to lower their ratings of countries and companies, which can be interpreted as a lack of confidence in the fundamental solution for the debt problem in countries in southern Europe, but also as a sign of sluggish economies.”

The repercussions that will be felt in the global economy and particularly in Latin America “have been, so far, a contribution to increased turmoil in financial markets, which in any case have benefited by speculation on sovereign debt bonds,” he said.
Latin America “is at a unique juncture since the 2009 crisis, as the region has gradually shifted its trade towards the Asia Pacific area.”

The region has plumped “primarily for China, its top trading partner at the moment, and has also received enormous amounts of investment from the Asian giant, so that the impact of a European recession can be faced with greater peace of mind,” Olivares concluded.

The underground economy in Portugal is booming thanks to the steep increases in taxation and prices demanded by a “troika” of international creditors to address the country’s economic crisis.

In May 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and the European Central Bank (ECB) loaned Portugal the equivalent of 103 billion dollars as a financial rescue package.

In return, the troika imposed draconian conditions on middle- and lower-income sectors of the population, and headed by the IMF took on a supervisory role over this southern European country’s economy.

Sheer survival instinct among those most affected by the austerity measures is driving them further into the parallel economy, which according to recent official figures amounted to 24.8 percent of GDP in 2010.

And it is continuing to grow, owing to the severe economic crisis from which there seems to be no way out, a study from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto concludes.

There are still no statistics for 2011, but economists who have analysed the situation and made their findings public concur that the informal economy grew last year, and is expected to grow again in 2012.

The rise of the informal economy mirrors the ongoing decline of the formal economy, amid rumours of a probable new tax hike that has still not been confirmed or denied by the rightwing government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

Rising prices, taxes, social security contributions and unemployment, along with cuts in social benefits and health care, are the main drivers behind the flight to the underground economy.

Activities in the parallel economy are not registered in the statistics tracking the country’s wealth. One-quarter of economic production is left out of Portugal’s GDP, which is nominally 223.7 billion dollars a year, says the University of Porto study, released this month.

The underground economy generates more than 52.6 billion dollars a year – half the amount of the international troika’s bailout plan.

The study indicates that the size of the unreported economy in Portugal is larger than average for the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) countries, where it varies between 16 and 18 percent of GDP.

Portugal has the third largest underground economy relative to GDP in the EU, after Italy and Greece.

What all three countries have in common, and helps to explain the state of their economies, is high indirect taxation, high direct taxes on consumption and high unemployment, the study says.

Therefore, market competition between businesses is distorted and there is greater uncertainty about the stabilisation of the economy, it says.

In 1970, when the first studies were done on the black economy, its activities had a value of 9.3 percent of GDP. By 2010 it had grown to 24.8 percent of GDP – a gain of 15.5 percentage points in four decades.

Detailed analysis of the data leads to the conclusion that if taxes were paid in the parallel economy, Portugal’s fiscal deficit, which was 9.1 percent of GDP in 2010, would have been reduced to 2.9 percent of GDP.

Portugal’s deficit was the fourth largest within the eurozone, after Ireland, Greece and Spain.

Leaving tax revenue aside, simply adding the underground economy to the country’s declared GDP would have resulted in a deficit of 6.9 percent of GDP, 2.2 percentage points less than the 9.1 percent reported.

The distortion of economic statistics arising from the black economy has a negative impact, including downgrading by financial rating agencies like Moody’s, Fitch Ratings and Standard and Poor’s, which grade the viability of government bonds issued on the international market, based on official economic information.

All three agencies have consigned Portugal to the lowest grade, explaining that their recommendations are based on the oversized sovereign debt, which is 83 percent of GDP.

This, they say, is too high and they forecast that Portugal will not be able to pay it. Their verdict hampers new debt title issues from Lisbon, and when it does issue bonds, the interest rates are exorbitant.

Unmoved by these considerations, however, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to dodge taxes, especially value added tax (VAT) which was raised from 18 to 23 percent over the past three years.

What business can earn a profit margin of 23 percent? is the question SMEs raise.

Few or none, they reply for themselves, so they pin their chances of survival on evading VAT completely, or only declaring half the value of their real business transactions. The same thing happens among independent workers and in the construction trade or repair services.

For their part, independent health professionals ask, when it is time for payment, “With or without an invoice?” and most often their fee is paid in cash, leaving no trace.

A very well-known dentist from Estoril, a city close to Lisbon, told IPS, “The only people who ask me for legal receipts are those who are already paying high premiums for private health insurance.”

Two or three years ago one had to make an appointment to see this dentist at least a month in advance. “Now, the waiting time is only two or three days, because people only go to the dentist when they can’t stand the pain any more,” he said.

Car mechanic Reginaldo Godoy held a similar view, as he complained to IPS that “business is very bad.”

“Previously, customers would try to keep their cars in good condition, having the brakes or the steering checked regularly. Now they only come when they have no alternative, like when they have been in a crash, or the engine isn’t working at all,” he said.

The crisis has also caused the government to redouble efforts to raise revenue, resorting to innovative solutions like huge vehicle inspection operations by the police.

A short trip to the supermarket frequently pits the car owner against a massive deployment of police at roundabouts, where they check drivers’ licenses, car registration, and the contents of trunks, in the hope of catching them in breach of some law.

Meanwhile, in neighbourhoods a long way from the big cities and in rural villages, citizens are complaining to the media that there is a dire shortage of law enforcement agents to deal with the surge in burglaries and muggings.

The Interior Ministry reported this month, with considerable satisfaction, that in 2011 police collected 105 million dollars in fines from car drivers.

The death of the president of Guinea-Bissau, Malam Bacai Sanhá, could usher in a replay of the military uprisings that have set an unmistakable seal of instability on the political life of this small West African country.

Activists from Guinea-Bissau at an event in Lisbon to raise awareness about the situation in the country. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

In the most recent military uprising, on Dec. 26, rebels led by the navy chief, Rear Admiral José Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Júnior and the armed forces chief, General Antonio Indjai.

From his sickbed in the Val de Grâce military hospital in Paris, where he was admitted Nov. 24, 2011, Sanhá exerted his influence through a taped declaration; the rebels were imprisoned and the attempted coup was aborted.

The general view of analysts in Portugal is that the demise of the late head of state brings to the forefront, once again, concerns about the stability of Guinea-Bissau.

The stability of the country is repeatedly jeopardised by military officers who are former guerrilla fighters for the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), and who 22 years after the birth of multiparty democracy still refuse to accept its rules.

The rule of law has been even less observed over the last decade, during which Guinea-Bissau has become, in practice, Africa’s first narco-state, according to experts.

South American drug traffickers have set up operational headquarters and safe houses in its territory, the analysts say, as a way-stage for shipments of cocaine in transit to countries of the European Union.

They say members of the military, judges, police and politicians are in collusion with the traffickers and have allowed the sparsely guarded coasts in this country of 36,125 square kilometres and 1.5 million people to become the main stopover for cocaine between its point of origin in the Andean region of South America and its destination in Portugal and Spain, whose coasts constitute the EU’s southwestern border.

For the South American drug lords, Guinea-Bissau is a paradise. Most of them, the experts say, are Colombians who quickly learn Portuguese, because of its similarity to Spanish, and Brazilians, who feel at home in this country with which they share a language.

Another factor favouring the impunity enjoyed by organised crime is the violence that has always prevailed in this tiny country between Senegal and Guinea, which the World Bank ranks among the 10 nations with the worst quality of life, alongside Chad, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger, Madagascar, Bangladesh, Burundi, Laos and Pakistan.

Against this backdrop, Sanhá, elected in 2009 as president for a five-year term, was viewed as a kind of “moral reserve” of the nation.

In his youth, Sanhá took up arms as a volunteer in the war of independence against Portugal, under the command of Amílcar Cabral, the founder of the PAIGC, who was regarded as the father of the nation.

He fought the Portuguese army in a bloody war that ended with Guinea-Bissau’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1973, recognised by Lisbon a year later after the “carnation revolution” in which army captains overthrew the dictatorship that had ruled Portugal since 1926.

Fernando Ka, the president of the Guinean Association for Social Solidarity (AGSS), which provides support for Guinean migrant communities abroad, told IPS that the chronic violence that characterises Guinea-Bissau could reemerge now, not only because of the struggle for power, “but as a result of the immense corruption of the political class, which is becoming richer and richer.”

According to Ka, a lawyer and activist with dual Guinean and Portuguese nationality, “as long as the country lacks a real development policy that generates wealth for a population impoverished to unimaginable extremes, we cannot be surprised at the proliferation of international mafias with local partners and the consequent prolongation of a seemingly endless violence.”

In fact Guinea-Bissau has a long record of violence, coups, failed uprisings and instability in the armed services dating from 1980 when the army, commanded by João Bernardo Vieira, the legendary “Comandante Nino” of the independence war, overthrew then president Luis Cabral.

Between 1983 and 1993 the government was prey to several conspiracies and in 1986 the vice president, Paulo Correia, and five other people in high places, were executed for treason.

In 1998 the country plunged into civil war and a military junta, headed by Brigadier General Ansumane Mané, deposed President Nino Vieira, who fled to Portugal.

Mané declined to take power, and called elections. In May 1999, an electoral victory propelled President Kumba Ialá into office.

But the peace did not last. By order of Ialá, Mané was gunned down for alleged rebellion, and in September 2003 there was another coup d’état, led this time by General Verissimo Correia Seabra.

Correia Seabra was killed the following year during a mutiny of soldiers protesting about back pay owed them for serving on African Union peace missions.

Nino Vieira returned from Portugal in 2005, won the elections and took office as president. But he was assassinated Mar. 2, 2009 – the day after the chief of the armed forces joint staff, Tagma Na Waie, a longtime rival of Vieira’s, was killed by a bomb.

Another coup attempt took place Apr. 1, 2011, this time against Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, who was detained by the rebels but later released, after strong pressure from Sanhá and threats by international donors to cut off aid to the country.

The influential Lisbon daily Público devoted its Tuesday Jan. 10 editorial to Sanhá’s death, under the title “Waning Hope in Bissau”.

“There are justifiable fears that the death of Malam Bacai Sanhá will exacerbate instability in the country, because the truth is that Guinea-Bissau has still not battled firmly against the seeds of violence, personified in the army, which has never accepted civilian control,” the editorial stated.

It went on to deplore “the latent coup mentality, together with the lack of structures that could give the country a minimum basis for progress, that are stifling Bissau with nightmarish power, and the death of Malam Bacai Sanhá only helps to thicken the nightmare like a heavy shadow.”

The late president’s political action was focused on getting his country off the list of so-called “failed states”, a struggle that he took up with all his energy since he was sworn into office, in spite of his already precarious state of health.

But his time ran out. The last major battle of the former PAIGC guerrilla was against illness. He was finally defeated Jan. 9, at the age of 64, by diabetes and heart failure.

By - - and Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 29 2011 (IPS)

Hounded by the economic crisis that shows no signs of letting up and by political leaders of all stripes, Portugal’s conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho sent out an unprecedented message to his fellow citizens: emigrate.

A wave of indignation was triggered when Passos Coelho, in the face of the growing unemployment that is hitting young people and educators extremely hard, suggested to teachers on Dec. 18 that as an alternative they could move to Portuguese-speaking countries like Brazil or Angola.

The next day, several ministers applauded the prime minister’s remarks, saying his suggestion was a valid solution, especially for teachers.

But the governments of Angola and Brazil quickly responded, saying they had no immediate need for teachers.

Surveys indicate that young people between the ages of 25 and 34 are the most interested in moving abroad.

João Peixoto, a researcher at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), told the Público newspaper that in order to emigrate, “it’s not enough for things to be bad here; it’s also necessary for us to have a place to go.”

The decision to leave one’s country “is not easy, it’s painful and difficult, and people don’t emigrate just because some political leader says they should,” said Peixoto, who described Passos Coelho’s remarks as “odd for a prime minister to make.”

Ana Maria Gomes, a member of the European Parliament, told IPS that when she heard what he said, “I felt furious, because that is the last thing a prime minister should say.

“Worse than feeling impotent is giving up, because no matter how complicated things are, we can and must pull out of this, because we have qualified young people, the result of the investment in education made over the last few decades,” said Gomes, one of the most prominent leaders of the so-called left wing of the Socialist Party.

Passos Coelho has accepted the impositions of the “troika” of creditors – the EU, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – and of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, “without even trying to negotiate anything to benefit Portugal’s people,” Gomes said.

In her view, the conservative government “has put aside the development of a strategy of economic growth and job creation, and is focusing only on financial austerity measures,” with the aim of paying off the 110 billion dollar financial bailout granted by the troika.

“But without economic growth or jobs, it will be impossible to pay off the debt,” the lawmaker said.

“The strategy of the right is to convince people that solutions cannot be found and that they must resign themselves to living outside what one secretary of state called the ‘comfort zone’,” she added.

Fernando Gomes, president of the Council of Portuguese Communities, an independent body that advises the government on migration issues, criticised the prime minister’s remarks as “embarrassing for the country’s international political image.”

Emigration figures continue to climb, although no precise statistics are available because within the EU there is no requirement to register the cross-border movement of European citizens.

But the estimate is that some 120,000 Portuguese moved abroad in 2011, continuing “the growing tendency of the last few years,” the secretary of state of foreign relations for Portuguese communities, José Cesário, said on Tuesday Dec. 27.

The most significant flow has been to Brazil, which has been a constant destination for the Portuguese for centuries, even after the South American giant declared independence in 1822.

According to Brazil’s National Secretariat of Justice, the number of applications for permanent residence filed by people from Portugal rose from 276,703 to 328,856 between December 2010 and June 2011 – apart from the numerous temporary work, study and research visas that were issued.

And according to the latest available figures, from 2010, 91,900 Portuguese citizens are living in Angola, Portugal’s biggest former colony in Africa.

Sociologist Manuel Villaverde Cabral, vice-chancellor of the University of Lisbon, said that Portugal’s modest development has historically been due to its empire, in first place; then remittances from Portuguese citizens living abroad; and finally, EU structural funds.

Portugal has been a country of emigrants since the 15th century, which has affected it throughout its history.

Up to the 16th century, the Portuguese mainly headed to the coastal areas of North Africa, and to island colonies in the Atlantic – the Azores, Madeira, Sao Tomé e Príncipe, Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, when it was still a Portuguese colony.

But after the discovery of the sea route to India, in 1498, Portuguese emigration began to expand towards the east, until the late 18th century, when the flow shifted heavily towards the until then nearly forgotten Brazil.

And in the modern era, 1.5 million Portuguese emigrated between 1960 and 1974, with the outflow falling later to 230,000 between 1974 and 1988.

Portugal’s leaders “are becoming a laughing stock, starting with the prime minister, when he suggested that emigration was a way to deal with the crisis,” said a Dec. 20 editorial in Público.

If skilled workers and professionals continue to leave, the situation in this country “will be even more miserable,” and “the government’s incredible message leaves floating in the air the idea that Portugal is not worth it,” the editorial added.

Excerpt:

By - - and Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Dec 22 2011 (IPS)

The most far-reaching programme of privatisation of state enterprises in the history of Portugal kicked off Thursday with the sale of almost all of the state’s shares in the Energias de Portugal (EDP) utility to China’s Three Gorges Corp.

The Chinese company paid 3.5 billion dollars for a 21 percent stake, beating out Germany’s E.ON and Brazil’s Eletrobras and Cemeg, and making it the largest shareholder. The state was left with less than four percent of the shares in the power company.

Three Gorges’ victory in the bidding for EDP will open Portugal’s doors to Chinese financial institutions, making more credit available in Portugal, as the giant Chinese corporation promised Lisbon.

The privatisation of public enterprises is one of the conditions Portugal agreed to under the 110 billion dollar bailout agreed in May.

The government of conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has thus begun to sell off state assets under the austerity programme agreed with the “troika” of international creditors: the EU, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

Besides the massive privatisation plan, the bailout package signed by the government of then socialist prime minister José Socrates and the right, which took power a month later, was conditional on austerity measures like a more flexible labour market making it cheaper and easier to fire workers, major spending cuts, a freeze on wages and pensions, tax hikes, cuts in unemployment benefits and income tax benefits and deductions, and an increase in the value-added tax.

Besides selling off the state’s remaining shares in EDP, a company that brings in major profits, the government must privatise the highly lucrative national airport authority – Aeroportos de Portugal (ANA) – and is to complete the sale of Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP) – the national airline – by the end of 2012.

The IMF, EU and ECB are more flexible with respect to the deadline for the sale of the state’s shares in the GALP oil company and in the Red Eléctrica Nacional (REN) power-grid company, agreeing that they can be sold off “when market conditions improve.”

But according to the established timeframe, the government must begin privatising the national postal service, CTT, in the second half of 2012, and should complete the process by early 2013.

The Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted Tuesday from the revised memorandum of understanding with the “troika”, which refers to “plans for the partial sale of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) and Aguas de Portugal (the water company), and for the sale of concessions in public transport from Lisbon to Porto, after the restructuring of companies in those cities has been completed.”

Parpública, Portugal’s holding company for state-owned enterprises, will begin to be dismantled in 2013, when the government is to have completed most of the privatisations, according to the new version of the memorandum of understanding.

Privatisations will begin to look more and more attractive to investors when certain measures go into effect in 2012: a half-hour longer workday, vacations cut from 25 to 22 working days a year, cuts in salaries and benefits, the elimination of holiday bonuses equivalent to two extra monthly salaries a year, and the elimination of a bonus given to the most diligent workers: three extra days off a year.

The secretary general of the powerful CGTP central union, Manuel Carvalho da Silva, said “we have a government that behaves as if the country were under occupation by foreign powers…and the workers are facing a monstrosity…that shows that the government has stopped governing for the country’s citizens and is now governing for economic and financial groups” – a situation he described as “social terrorism.”

Portugal’s privatisation agenda has no precedent in the EU – not even in conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s Britain (1979 -1990).

Earlier this year, economy Professor Mario Gomes told IPS that “we are embarking on an ultra-liberal programme similar to the reforms that some South American dictatorships carried out in the 1970s and 1980s, although they did it in a gradual manner.”

For his part, Ignacio Ramonet, editor-in-chief of the Le Monde Diplomatique monthly newspaper, wrote in an editorial this month that the EU “is the last territory in the world where the brutality of capitalism is cushioned by social protection policies – what we call the welfare state.”

But, he added, the welfare state is tottering because “the markets no longer tolerate it and want to demolish it…That is the strategic mission of the technocrats who have taken the reins of government, thanks to a new method of taking power: the financial coup d’etat, which is presented, moreover, as compatible with democracy.”

Under the 1973 to 1990 dictatorship of late General Augusto Pinochet, Chile became the first country in the world to put into practice the unadulterated economic theories of Milton Friedman from the Chicago School of Economics, based on a free market and strict monetary policy.

When asked about the editorial in Le Monde Diplomatique, José Cademartori, the last economy minister of the government of socialist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), told IPS “I agree with Ramonet.

“But what he and other critics fail to say is that the European bourgeoisie want to liquidate or reduce to a minimum the benefits of the welfare system, to favour privatisations, lower their costs, and increase their profits.

“In the face of fierce competition from China and other countries that have lower labour costs, they rightly fear that in 20 years or less, Europe will lose its influence in the world,” he said.

What they want to do, he added, is impose “Chilean dictatorship-style neoliberalism, even if it means years of suffering for the poor and middle classes.”

Cademartori said the bourgeoisie in Europe understand that “this is the right moment to do it quickly, when the trade unions and leftist parties are weakened, disconcerted or divided, before protesters organise and react, and, if necessary, put an end to democracies to ensure change. There is a great deal at stake here.”

Excerpt:

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Nov 22 2011 (IPS)

Roma leaders are alarmed at the growing discrimination faced by their people in Europe, especially because of the anti-gypsy stance taken by many political parties, which blame the ethnic minority group for a wide range of social ills.

Lydia Gall, lawyer for the European Roma Rights Centre. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

On a two-day visit to Lisbon this week, Dezideriu Gergely, executive director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), and the group’s legal adviser, Lydia Gall, spoke out against the terrible housing conditions faced in Portugal by the Roma, also known as gypsies or Romani.

The most overtly anti-gypsy policies are seen in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Slovakia, Gall said. But, the activist added, in terms of the housing situation, “Portugal is not so different from those countries.”

Gergely, citing in particular the cases of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, said that “what we have found is that in many countries, the situation of the Romani communities is getting worse instead of better.”

In many European countries, “there are parties that have identified the gypsies as the target of their attacks, through increasingly aggressive and dangerous language – and not only the extreme right but also conservative and centrist parties,” he added.

“This political rhetoric has tried to make the Romani scapegoats for a series of social problems, generally blaming gypsies for these problems – and what is most dangerous is that this idea has been taking root in public opinion,” Gergely said.

He pointed with special concern to the cases of Italy and France, which he said show that these situations “are not limited to the countries of central and eastern Europe, but are also seen in western Europe, where we have seen political action that targets gypsies.”

Italy declared a state of emergency “to deal with what they call ‘the immigration problem’, but which fundamentally focuses on gypsies, and in France they deport Romani people from Bulgaria and Romania.”

Gall spent five years researching conditions of the Roma people in Portugal, where she verified reports about the appalling housing situation and the construction of walls to separate housing projects mainly populated by gypsies from the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Although no nationwide sociological and geographical studies have been carried out on the Roma community in Portugal, the “Health and Roma Community, Analysis of the Situation in Europe” project estimates that there are 33,500 Romani people in this southern European country of 10.6 million people.

In response to a question from IPS on the differences between the situation of the Roma in Portugal and in the other countries she mentioned, Gall acknowledged that the hostile attitude towards gypsies that is common in many other countries is not frequently seen in Portuguese society.

But with respect to housing conditions, she said the situation is similar to the rest of Europe.

“The Romani communities in Portugal often live in separate neighbourhoods, in poorly constructed homes far below the average standards of housing for the rest of the population, in poor hygienic conditions, distant from urban centres and without means of transportation, which limits the children’s educational possibilities.”

In April 2010, the ERRC filed a complaint accusing the Portuguese government of failing to live up to its human rights obligations under the revised European Social Charter.

The ERRC said re-housing programmes that were at least indirectly discriminatory had failed to integrate the Roma and often resulted in segregation and inadequately-sized substandard dwellings in areas with poor infrastructure and limited or no access to public services.

In its decision on the housing conditions of Roma people in Portugal, published Nov. 7, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) ruled that this country has violated gypsies’ right to adequate housing, the right of their families to social, legal and economic protection, and their right to protection against poverty and social exclusion.

The resolution emphasised “the precarious and difficult housing conditions for a large part of the Roma community; the high number of Roma families that live in segregated settings, whether in unregulated encampments or as a result of re-housing by the authorities in the outskirts of cities; (and) the inadequacy of re-housing programmes for the Roma community in terms of their family composition, cultural habits and ways of life.”

Gall pointed out that in Portugal, things have become so extreme that walls have been built to separate the Roma from the rest of the population, and they often live in areas without drinking water, hidden away behind hills, and without access to roads.

Humidity and mould problems in poorly-built housing also cause “serious health impacts,” the activist said, mentioning cases like children aged four or five with respiratory problems.

She mentioned the extreme case of Beja, 180 km south of Lisbon, where social housing was built “with a separation wall, far from the urban centre and near a dog pound, whose sewage containing animal excrement runs through the housing project, with obvious consequences for the health of the inhabitants.”

Another worrisome case is that of Rio Maior, 85 km north of Lisbon, “where 14 gypsy families were placed in precarious wooden houses, on top of a hazardous coal mine and separated from the rest of the population by a dense forest,” Gall said.

She also mentioned gypsies living in slums, such as in the case of Bragança in the extreme north of the country, where “a community was kicked out of its camp by the authorities, who told them they could live in the garbage dump.”

In Vidigueira, 160 km south of Lisbon, there is a community living behind medieval ruins and “the police cut off their only source of clean water.”

“These are some of the examples that we documented in our complaint about Portugal,” the lawyer said.

However, Gergely said, the case of Portugal is just one illustration of “the European Union’s lack of policies aimed at the social inclusion of Romani communities which, when they do exist, often have the opposite effect.”

He cited the case of Romania, “which builds segregated schools for gypsies, in their neighbourhoods.”

“The situation in both eastern and western Europe is alarming, but we also see that both the EU and the (47-member) Council of Europe are making efforts to address the problem,” said Gergely.

“The countries have a late December deadline to propose strategies for solving the problems of their respective Romani communities,” the activist said.

“The EU says it has a budget of 26 billion euros (35 billion dollars) for social inclusion, of which only 30 percent is used in member states’ programmes, but we don’t know what part is earmarked for the inclusion of the Romani people,” he said.

At the end of their presentation, Gergely sent out the following message: “We know the problems and their solutions, we have the necessary tools, and there is money for this. The only thing lacking is political will.”

Excerpt:

By Mario Queiroz and - -
LISBON, Nov 14 2011 (IPS)

A European Union economic forecast for 2012 indicates Portugal is the EU country that will grow the least.

The document raises questions about the effectiveness of measures prescribed in May by the “troika” of the International Monetary fund (IMF), the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB) as the conditions for a 110-billion dollar financial bailout for Portugal under a three-year agreement.

The health of Portugal’s public finances has begun to improve, but the economy is showing worrying signs of weakening. The population is suffering from the austerity measures, and it is estimated that the middle class will lose 20 percent of its purchasing power in 2012.

Portugal’s parliament approved the first reading of the 2012 budget bill on Friday Nov. 11, providing for sweeping cuts in education and health spending, steep tax hikes, and the suspension of civil servants’ year-end and holiday bonuses. The final vote on the budget is due Nov. 29.

The economic forecast released Nov. 10 by the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, says Portugal’s economy will shrink by 1.9 percent this year, and by three percent in 2012 – the steepest recession expected among the 27 countries of the bloc, greater even than Greece’s expected GDP reduction of 2.8 percent in 2012.

Portugal’s economy contracted for a fourth straight quarter in the three months through September, the National Statistics Institute reported Monday, Nov. 14, with GDP falling 1.7 percent from a year earlier. The country’s economic expansion has averaged less than 1 percent a year for the past decade.

Portuguese public debt is forecast to grow from the current level of 101.6 percent of GDP to 111.6 percent in 2012.

More bad news for the economy next year is that unemployment is set to rise from the current 12.6 percent to 13.6 percent, while inflation is expected to reach three percent.

However there is some good news from the financial sector for the IMF, the EU and the international markets, but not for the Portuguese people, who will only be able to rebuild their shattered standard of living through structural spending, according to leftwing opposition critics.

While the conditions imposed by the IMF and the EU have relegated Portugal to the last place in Europe according to every indicator of growth, Ireland, which did not accept the same conditions, is expected to post GDP growth of 1.6 percent in 2012.

Portugal’s fiscal deficit is expected to fall to 5.8 percent of GDP this year, and is projected to meet the target of 4.5 percent next year, as promised to the troika under the bailout agreement.

Hostage to the EU

Asked by IPS about the consequences of the conservative government’s economic decisions, economics professor Mario Gómez Olivares of the Technical University of Lisbon said “the country’s situation is deteriorating because the authorities are taking structural measures, like reducing the state’s share of GDP from the current level of 48 percent, to 40 or 42 percent.”

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho decided “to cut wages in order to boost competitiveness by about 30 percent, and improve trade and services deficits to manageable levels of six or seven percent, half their present levels, which Ireland did not have to do as it has a trade surplus,” said Gómez Olivares.

As for private investment, the government’s forecast of 2.8 percent growth “is overly optimistic and will lead to more wage cuts, and probably withdrawal of benefits from private sector employees,” as has already happened to civil servants.

Some economists argue that Portugal could adopt an approach similar to Argentina’s, but in Gómez Olivares’ view the comparison makes no sense.

“Argentina gained a measure of economic independence when it freed itself from the dollar peg; it devalued its currency (the peso) and began to export again, substituting imports and diversifying its export markets, none of which are options for Portugal,” he said.

“Portugal does not have its own currency; its market is basically European, with a strong euro that is not very competitive outside of the EU, which means that its recovery depends on the EU’s,” he said.

In conclusion, Gómez Olivares painted a gloomy future scenario, in which the pretext of increasing competitiveness may be used to “further reduce wages, which is known to fuel recession.”

The government’s policies “have the effect of seriously contracting family consumption, and over and above the loss of available income, they could provoke social panic,” the academic warned.

Contingent on Greece?

Praise for Passos Coelho from those who approve of the swingeing cuts in public spending is voiced almost every day.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of the Eurogroup, a monthly meeting of eurozone finance ministers, denied press predictions that Lisbon would require a further 35 billion dollars in aid.

“I don’t think Portugal needs a larger,” said Juncker. He added that there may be some “technical adjustments” for the implementation of the programme, but not a revaluation, because Portugal is showing that “the goals are being met.”

The IMF and the EU both maintain that only a collapse of Greece would cause Portugal to request more aid.

IMF adviser Estela Barbot acknowledged “we have to be open to all the possibilities,” but insisted that “we must wait and see what happens in Greece.”

Amadeu Altajaf, European Commission spokesman for economic affairs, said Portugal was “sufficiently financed” and “a gradual return to market confidence is hoped for.”

Positive assessments of Portugal by EU leaders “open the doors to new financing” if the country continues to comply strictly with the bailout conditions, he said.

In August, after positive evaluation of the Portuguese government’s actions, the troika transferred 16 billion dollars, and a further tranche of 11.6 billion dollars is expected in under two weeks’ time, when experts sent by the creditors finish the second assessment.

In spite of the country’s evidence of good behaviour provided to the IMF and the EU, Altafaj said “some things are beyond Portugal’s control,” like the performance of the Greek economy.

Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva took the opportunity of his visit to U.S. President Barack Obama to stress the distance between Portugal and Greece on this issue.

Ending his meeting with Obama on Wednesday Nov. 9 in Washington, the Portuguese president said his country is fully complying with the bailout agreement and will “continue to have the support of international institutions.”

Excerpt:

The severe financial and economic problems in Portugal are driving many women to desperation and pushing them into prostitution as a last resort to support their families.

Xana, a typist before the crisis, now works as a prostitute. Credit: Mario Queiroz/IPS

The decision to sell one’s body cannot be taken lightly. But for many mothers the alternative is to condemn their children to hunger, which is why “increasing numbers of women in their thirties, who are victims of the crisis, are resorting to prostitution,” said Inês Fontinha, head of the Associação O Ninho (Nest Association).

Fontinha, who has spent the past 40 years of her life working with prostitutes, said that never before had the situation in the country been so serious. Added to this situation is the fear that is natural in novices to the game, many of whom are divorced, or married and plying their trade behind their husbands’ backs.

She said, “A few days ago, a woman told me: ‘When my apartment doorbell rings, I tremble to think it might be someone I know, and if it is, what on earth would I do?'”

These inexperienced women are also afraid on a daily basis of falling victim to human trafficking networks, often controlled by the so-called “Eastern mafias”, in comparison with which the local pimps seem almost harmless.

In Europe, these rings are generally made up of Kosovars, Albanians, Russians, Ukrainians and Rumanians. In order to beat the competition they use brutal methods like cutting the women with razors, and carrying out sensational murders of their pimps to send a clear message and mark their territory.

Up until 2010, according to Portuguese NGOs, there were 28,000 sex workers in this country of 10.6 million people. Half of them were born in Portugal, and the other half were mainly Brazilians, Rumanians, Bulgarians and Nigerians, who were usually victims of human trafficking rings.

Fontinha said in an interview on the Lisbon radio station TSF and the private television channel SIC that “the constant anxiety because of the crisis is driving more and more women, and also men, into prostitution. For instance in Coimbra, 190 km north of Lisbon and capital of the country’s Centro region, 400 new people are working in prostitution this year.”

Alexandra Oliveira, who launched her book “Caminhar na Vida: a Prostituição de Rua e a Reação Social” (Walking in Life: Street Prostitution and Social Reactions) Thursday Oct. 13, says prostitution is a choice usually made after a traumatic event.

Oliveira, a researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences at the University of Oporto, did her doctoral thesis on the world of prostitution in that city, the second largest in the country, 330 km north of Lisbon and the capital of the Norte region.

“Prostitution should be legalised to make it socially acceptable,” she said, adding that it is still “highly stigmatised.”

Oliveira studied prostitution in the streets of Oporto for six years, using the ethnographic method in which the researcher goes into the field and learns about what is going on by questioning, listening and observing the practitioners, to analyse their behaviour from their point of view.

Her findings indicate that most sex workers, especially streetwalkers, come from the lower socioeconomic strata, have little formal education or professional training, and are from poor backgrounds.

The incidence of drug abuse is high: the main goal of 30 percent of prostitutes is to earn money to support their habit. The level of addiction has apparently changed markedly since 2009, when the effects of the global crisis began to be felt in Portugal.

To fight the crisis, drastic cuts have been made in public spending and social subsidies, in a far from promising outlook for the anaemic economy.

The fiscal adjustment plan has included the most swingeing cuts in public expenditure in the last 50 years, with the associated social costs of higher unemployment and climbing poverty, which had been brought down after the fall of the 1926-1974 dictatorship.

What causes a woman to become a sex worker? IPS asked two women who took up the life because of the crisis.

Pamela and Xana (their working names) said they are only in it for the money, but emphasised that, as Pamela said, “It’s not at all an easy job.”

“Lots of people mistakenly say that women who prostitute themselves do it for sexual pleasure, but they have no idea why we do what we do,” said Xana, a 29-year-old divorcée from Lisbon with two children she has to “feed, clothe and educate.”

Pamela and her partner also split up. “From one day to the next he left home, and when a woman is left on her own with two children and the bills mounting up every day, life becomes pretty grim,” said Pamela, who worked in the textile industry up to a year ago.

After several attempts to get a job, “nothing worked out,” she said. The unemployment rate currently stands at 13 percent, according to official figures, and between 17 and 18 percent according to the trade unions. “That’s why I ended up resorting to prostitution,” she said.

Both Xana’s and Pamela’s families are unaware of their activities. Most sex workers lead a double life that their relatives do not know about.

IPS asked if the women knew how families reacted when they found out what their women relatives were doing. “According to some of the women I know, reactions vary,” said Xana, a former office worker in Lisbon.

One woman, Xana said, “confessed to her parents what she was doing, and they became furious and said they would never accept it. But in other cases I know, their families accepted the idea, because they had a vested interest and expected to receive some money.”

As for the sex itself, both women stated that they themselves set the rules, defining very clearly what was acceptable and what they were not prepared to do.

“We always insist on condoms. It doesn’t matter if a client offers more money to have unprotected sex, we won’t agree,” said Pamela.

Can one be happy in such a life? was IPS’ final question.

Xana answered for both of them, with Pamela nodding agreement. “When you are constantly judged and condemned, naturally you don’t feel very good…If our line of work was regarded in the same way as any other profession, I think we would feel better about what we do.”

Voters in crisis-stricken Portugal will go to the ballot boxes next Sunday to choose not a government, but something more like delegates who will administer decisions already taken by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

The new government that will emerge from the Jun. 5 early elections has already been described by analysts as a “board of administrators” delegated by the troika that approved the country’s financial rescue plan.

The IMF, the European Commission – the executive arm of the EU – and the European Central Bank (ECB) are the trio that in early May granted a bailout package of 78 billion euros (116 billion dollars) to stave off bankruptcy in Portugal.

The fragility of the Portuguese economy had already been acknowledged early this year, when the socialist government of Prime Minister José Sócrates introduced the fourth edition of a stringent “stability and growth programme”.

However, the austerity plan, which included even tougher measures than the first three versions, was rejected in parliament Mar. 23 by the opposition, prompting Sócrates’ resignation and conservative Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva’s call for early elections.

Portugal is facing serious problems on four fronts: financial, economic and social, as well as a poorly functioning justice system. The agreement with the IMF and the EU will address the first two problems, the elections will set the direction for the third, but there is much scepticism about the fourth, because of the absolute power enjoyed by judges and public prosecutors.

In contrast with the previous election campaign which returned Sócrates to his second term of office in October 2009, this time no promises for a better life are being made at the debates and party rallies.

Across the country, the Socialist Party (PS) headed by Sócrates and the conservative Social Democratic Party (PSD) led by Pedro Passos Coelho say they want to discuss the pressing problems faced by Portugal’s voters.

But this has not happened so far in either of their campaigns, which are entering the final stretch with the candidates neck and neck, each with roughly 33 percent support in the polls.

If Sunday’s election results reflect the polling data, in order to form a government both Passos Coelho and Sócrates would have to seek the support of the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), led by Paulo Portas, the most rightwing party in the Portuguese parliament, which is running third in the polls with 13.4 percent of voting intentions.

The CDS, PS and PSD accepted the conditions imposed by the troika, while the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the Left Bloc (BE), which have a combined 15 to 16 percent support in the polls, rejected them out of hand.

The bailout is conditional on austerity measures that will include a massive privatisation plan, a more flexible labour market that will make it cheaper and easier to fire workers, significant public spending cuts, a freeze on wages and pensions, and tax hikes.

Other measures are cuts in unemployment benefits and income tax benefits and deductions, an increase in value-added tax, and temporary elimination of holiday bonuses, equivalent to two extra monthly salaries a year.

Voters in general were expecting a debate on the harsh measures to be introduced in the short, medium and long term. However, only the PCP and BE have felt free to address these issues, while the three larger parties have stuck to praising their leaders and rehashing past achievements.

Since Sócrates was elected secretary general of the party in 2004, the PS has adopted a clearly neoliberal economic line. During the campaign, Sócrates has argued that Passos Coelho’s programme is different from his own because it proposes even more drastic measures than the IMF itself.

Even Portas attacked the PSD over the weekend, accusing Passos Coelho of being more rightwing than the CDS in social questions.

Writer José Luis Peixoto and playwright Miguel Castro Caldas asked, with irony, “What will our vote be worth on June 5, when there is already a ‘troikan horse’ deciding the race?”

Vasco de Graça Moura, a lawyer and poet, wrote in an opinion column Monday in the Lisbon newspaper Diário de Notícias: “The forthcoming elections are among the most intense, decisive and close-run ever; the country is going through a painful crisis and is longing for sound, lucid leadership that will help it recover.

However, he also posed several questions in a critical tone, in spite of being a well-known member of the PSD: “How relevant are these elections going to be? Hasn’t our future already been decided by creditors like the IMF? Is it even worth voting?”

The campaign speeches lack “any reference to the measures agreed with the troika in the memorandum. One would infer that the parties that signed it came to a gentlemen’s agreement to keep up the pretence and the noise level during the campaign so that any discussion of the measures is avoided,” Graça Moura said.

Another pressing concern among voters that has been ignored by the three main parties is corruption and the dire state of the justice system.

At the end of a meeting of the local Amnesty International chapter Grupo 19 in Sintra, 20 kilometres from Lisbon, the head of the Bar Association, Antonio Marinho Pinto, told IPS that the problems in the justice system prevent a real attack on corruption.

He criticised “the ease with which those with power and money can escape the law,” in a country that would not be in its present crisis if wealthy individuals and companies paid their taxes.

The Portuguese justice system “is mediaeval, boundless in power, power for its own sake, and has not the slightest consideration for persons; there is a frenzy of criminal investigations, serving the need to produce suspects for crimes that are widely covered by the media,” he said.

Marinho Pinto said the situation is “extremely serious,” given that Portugal will not have fully repaid its debt until around 2080. “People who have not even been born yet will still be paying for this bailout,” he concluded.

By Mario Queiroz
COIMBRA, Portugal, Mar 9 2011 (IPS)

Bruno Gonçalves wears many hats: he is municipal mediator in this city in central Portugal, a leader of the NGO SOS-Racismo, author of a book on integration in schools, and a human rights activist — but, he stresses, “I never stop being a gypsy.”

Portuguese gypsy Bruno Gonçalves. Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

In this interview with IPS, Gonçalves said he would also soon don a new hat: at the age of 35, after working hard to complete his secondary school education, he will become a student of sociology at university in September.

A resident of Coimbra, 190 km north of Lisbon, Gonçalves is one of 15 municipal mediators in a project run by the High Commission for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue (ACIDI) set up to fight social exclusion.

The 50,000 gypsies living in this South European country of 10.6 million people are one of the groups suffering discrimination.

Gypsies, or Romani people, were originally from northern India and began to migrate to Europe and North Africa around 1,000 years ago. The largest Romani or Roma communities are in Eastern and Central Europe, Russia and other former Soviet Union countries, with significant numbers in Western Europe and smaller numbers scattered throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and the Americas.

The word gypsy — and derivations in other languages, like zigeuner, gitan, gitano, tsigane, cygan or cigano — came from an old misconception that they were from Egypt.

The Romani people have long suffered discrimination and persecution, which peaked during World War II, when 250,000 to 500,000 perished in Nazi concentration camps.

In Portugal, the first literary reference to Romani people, known locally as “calé”, dates to 1510. A 1526 decree issued under King João III banned the entrance of gypsies into the kingdom and ordered those who already lived there to leave. The first recorded deportation of gypsies to Brazil, a Portuguese colony, took place in 1574. Entire groups were sent to Brazil and to Portugal’s African colonies during the colonial period.

Q: Is it important for people in Portugal to be familiar with the history of your people? A: A better understanding of our history and culture can help generate a new dynamic between gypsies and non-gypsies, based on ties of mutual respect and appreciation, and can help fight preconceptions and stereotypes that are still alive and well.

But Portugal has a lot of work to do, especially in terms of providing skills training that would enable gypsies to fully exercise their rights as citizens, by finding a job and earning a year-round wage, for example.

Q: A task that is part of your job as a mediator. Can you tell me about your experience in this position? A: It has been very complicated. As a mediator, I have felt the frustration of sending many Portuguese gypsies to apply for a job, and yes they’re allowed to apply, but in the private labour market, the doors slam shut because they are gypsies.

If we don’t have employment opportunities, aren’t they pushing us into marginalisation?

Q: Even though discrimination is expressly prohibited in the constitution… A: Yes, that’s true, but this is a subtle racism, which makes it very difficult to bring a case to court. Our constitution does not permit people to be treated as second-class citizens, but it is very hard to prove a case of discrimination. It’s not easy to eradicate negative ideas about gypsies, and experience shows me that changing these mentalities will be an enormous task.

Q: In comparative terms, how would you describe the situation of gypsies in Portugal and other European countries? A: Compared to some countries like Italy or France, or Hungary, where the extreme right has even been killing gypsies, this is a bit like ‘a little corner of heaven’.

But although racism here is subtle, it is widespread. Verbal violence, direct racism, which is especially seen in Hungary and Italy, doesn’t occur so much in Portugal. But subtle racism sometimes hurts more than overt racism.

To rent a house, for instance, I have difficulties because of my physical appearance, but now that I’m with my wife that no longer happens because she doesn’t look like a gypsy.

Q: What is your view on generalisations about gypsies? A: There is a tendency to magnify the stereotypes, throwing all of us in the same bag. If a gypsy misbehaves, it shouldn’t be seen as a collective thing, but that is what most of Portuguese society tends to do.

Q: Something that also happens in the case of people from Africa. A: Yes, but it’s different in the case of gypsies. Even though people say ‘gypsies haven’t integrated in society’ in five centuries, we have adapted to everything in Portugal. But one very different aspect is that we gypsies insist on not losing our identity.

By contrast, when Portuguese-speaking Africans move here, if they aren’t already assimilated, they allow themselves to assimilate, they behave more like mainstream society, and are thus much more accepted than we are.

Q: The terminology or language used by the media does not seem to contribute to the fight to eradicate the stigma against gypsies. A: It would help a great deal if Portuguese journalists would live up to their duty and respect the press law, which says, in article 8, that race and nationality cannot be mentioned. But they continue to do so, and if the media regulatory authority would act, many people would already have been prosecuted.

What a number of reporters are doing by repeating generalisations is further building up the wall of intolerance.

Q: At a Feb. 25 seminar on “social inclusion of gypsies in Portugal and the EU”, three categories of calés were mentioned: totally integrated, relatively integrated and far removed from integration. Do you agree with that classification? A: I agree that there are gypsies who have achieved integration, but often by means of economic clout. Today, the person who has money has everything. But there are very few of these, a grain of sand in a huge dune.

However, in the full exercise of citizenship, it shouldn’t be up to an individual gypsy to win integration; society should also offer it, but truly, not in a hypocritical manner.

Working on behalf of gypsies is one thing, and working with gypsies is something else. I want to work with both non-gypsies and gypsies. It is often said ‘we have the mediators’, but we, the mediators, are frequently manipulated.

Q: By your colleagues? A: Pretty sounding words are used, but on the ground that’s not how it is. The reality is different. When they say they consider us their equals and colleagues, that’s not exactly true. We are always seen as gypsies, in every context. And the truth is that I am, in all cases, Portuguese citizen Bruno Gonçalves, a mediator — but that doesn’t mean I ever stop being a gypsy.

Excerpt:

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Jan 4 2011 (IPS)

Despite the global economic crisis that has hit Europe especially hard, Portugal’s official development aid to its former colonies will not decline this year, although “unfortunately no increase is expected either.”

Manuel Correia Credit: Katalin Muharay/IPS

The guarantee that this aid will not be reduced in 2011 was expressed to IPS in this interview with university professor Manuel Correia, president of the Portuguese Institute for Development Support (IPAD), which handles 15 percent of Portugal’s aid to the developing South.

Q: In this time of crisis, which has particularly affected Portugal, has development aid suffered less than other sectors? A: The crisis has affected donors in different ways. They have become increasingly demanding in terms of requiring accountability, because at times like these we must explain very well to taxpayers where we are spending their money.

Portugal’s official development aid (ODA) fell from 0.27 percent of GDP in 2009 to 0.23 percent in 2010.

It would be easy to speculate that the financial crisis was responsible for that drop, but there has been no reduction in the 525 million dollars in aid handled by IPAD, although unfortunately no increase is expected either.

Q: So the outlook for 2011 is not grim. A: The financial crisis has had little impact on the funds that Portugal dedicates to cooperation. For 2011, independently of budget restrictions, the funds earmarked for IPAD are the same as in 2010.

In the case of IPAD, many funds are obligatory contributions, to the European Development Fund, World Bank, African Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, among others.

It is hard to imagine any impact on technical and military cooperation, which in some countries, such as East Timor, takes on considerable importance. IPAD is in a position to apply for delegated cooperation programmes (in which donors entrust part of their development funds to another donor) to design and manage cooperation programmes with funds that the EU provides to different countries.

Q: Could you specify what kind of assistance and cooperation you’re talking about? Because in many cases aid is conditional on contracts that benefit the donor country. A: It must be kept in mind that everything we do is in accordance with national anti-poverty plans. It’s true that they ask us for more than we can give, but the options for taking action are always in line with the development strategy of each country.

There are also emerging countries, principally China, that do not want any strings attached.

Q: In what areas is Portuguese aid focused? A: Our greatest emphasis is on education. If you combine education and training at different levels and through the broadest range of ministries, you will see the fundamental objective of our development aid. In this framework, the training of teachers in different countries is one of the essential elements today.

Our aid ranges from vocational-technical to university education. In health, we primarily invest in training at all levels.

In Angola, in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, we created a centre for research on endemic diseases. Portugal has participated in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, reaching a contribution of 2.5 million dollars in 2010.

In agriculture, we provide aid in Timor, where we have one of Portugal’s most representative cooperation projects, and in Angola and Guinea Bissau we participate with small projects.

Q: How is that aid distributed? A: Mozambique, Cape Verde and East Timor are in first place, closely followed by Guinea Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe. The case of Angola is unique, because we are in a phase in which the projects are now being co-financed at a level of 50 percent.

Q: Is the issue of corruption taken into account when development funds are allotted? A: Generally, the funds are spent through technical cooperation in the area of training and education, and in the case of bigger projects, through a coordination cell that controls how the money is spent, in the best possible manner.

Although the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD/DAC) has advised Portugal to provide cash grants to the different countries it cooperates with, in the last DAC exam in November, they willingly accepted our response that the varying levels of development do not yet allow a generalisation of that practice.

For that reason, the level of corruption is low and often nonexistent.

Q: Considering the huge economic potential of Brazil, the world’s largest Portuguese-speaking country, have joint aid projects for Portuguese-speaking African nations and Timor been considered? A: We are still in a phase of much talk and little action. There have been attempts by both countries, but except in the case of the language, where Brazilian teachers help teach a masters programme in the Portuguese language, very little is done in general.

This is not the time to reflect on this, but one day we will have to understand why the Portuguese and Brazilians talk so much and do so little together.

Excerpt:

“They are a heartache,” admitted Portugal’s Prime Minister José Sócrates about the draconian economic measures his government approved in a bid — with dubious effectiveness — to calm the financial markets and recover lost credibility.

The socialist leader underscored that his country is experiencing “the worst crisis in 80 years,” in explaining the moves to increase taxes and reduce the social safety net, with which he hopes to contain the fiscal deficit at 4.6 percent in 2011.

But many observers doubt that the sacrifices are enough for the European and international financial entities, or the markets.

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos presented a new package of measures on Oct. 16 for 2011 and warned that “the country could lose independence if it is unable to convince the international markets,” which would mean the formal entry of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) onto the scene.

The wave of social unrest taking place in Portugal can be compared to 1983, when the country’s public finances forced an IMF intervention, which in turn resulted in extremely harsh economic measures.

Another parallel is the fact that the two rival labour confederations convened a general strike for Nov. 24 — the first such cooperation in a protest since 1983.

According to assessments from most analysts here, the recommendations that the IMF has already begun issuing — without Portugal having requested assistance — include a “general budget” for next year that is even more restrictive than the government’s, and would particularly affect the most vulnerable segments of the population.

The budget guidelines that the legislative Assembly would have to approve include a tax hike averaging 20 percent — the highest in 27 years.

It also includes a salary reduction for public employees of 3.5 to 10 percent; new cuts in aid to poor families and taxes on retirement pay, among other unprecedented actions aimed at reducing public spending by 15.7 billion dollars and boosting state revenues.

The government is focussing on a quick reduction of the deficit, which surpassed 9.4 percent in 2009, and reached 7.3 percent this year, with the goal of cutting it down to 4.6 percent in 2011, and the hope — unrealistic, say analysts — of shrinking it to three percent in 2012.

Some additional figures explain the financial quagmire in which Portugal now finds itself. Currently, its public debt is 223 billion dollars, about the same as its gross domestic product (GDP) for 2009, which totalled 232.6 billion dollars.

Just to repay that debt, Portugal would need to come up with 39.2 billion dollars in 2011 — equivalent to its annual education budget.

In April, the IMF listed Portugal as the final member of the “club” of 10 highest-risk countries in the world in terms of public debt.

The possibility that the IMF may once again impose its rules is alarming to the political left, from the Marxists (who represent 19 percent of the electorate), to the “leftist wing” of the Socialist Party (PS), to the left’s “historic representatives,” whose main face is former president Mário Soares (1985- 1995).

The budget “that was forced on us by the European Central Bank (ECB) is especially hard for the Portuguese, in particular for those with lower incomes,” Soares told IPS.

When the general budget plan became known “it turned into a time bomb, which will have unforeseeable consequences in the social arena,” he added.

He blamed the situation on “the markets, which are insatiable, resulting from the neoliberal ideology, which transformed the markets so that nobody knows what they are, nor who commands them, and which have been placed at the centre of everything –of societies, of politics, of ethics and of the people themselves.”

“The Portuguese parties and labour unions aware of this situation, whether supporting the government or from the opposition, should join their European counterparts to create a movement of opinion against the ‘economicist’ practices of the ECB and the European Commission,” the executive arm of the European Union, he said.

A vast movement like that is needed, “before the revolts by young people, the unemployed, or simply those who feel the injustice of the restrictions, turn into violent, uncontrollable or desperate actions, as it seems is the case in France,” concluded Soares.

In an interview with TSF-Radio Jornal, Tiago Caiado Guerreiro, one of Portugal’s best-known economists and an expert in fiscal matters, described the tax measures as “brutal increases that have repercussions on goods of primary necessity.”

The average Value Added Tax (VAT) will rise from 21 to 23 percent, but with higher rates in some sectors “that are absolutely immoral, like jumping from six to 23 percent” for some foods, said Guerreiro.

By staking all bets on controlling the deficit, the government’s planned general budget fixes economic growth at just 0.2 percent for 2011, compared to the already limited growth of 1.3 percent this year, and open unemployment at 10.8 percent.

Local analysts believe the Portuguese will suffer more, comparatively, than the Greek or the Irish, with similarly severe crises. That is because the per capita GDP of Ireland is 41,000 dollars, Greece’s is 31,000, while Portugal’s is just 21,700 dollars.

Mario Gómez Olivares, economics professor at the University of Lisbon, told IPS that in light of these data, “I can say that Portugal has the worst social conditions of the three countries for withstanding the storm.”

He based his opinion “on both the distribution of wealth and the blind measures on tax percentages, which dramatically affect the poorest.”

“With the per capita GDP measured in purchasing parity, which is much lower in Portugal, the impact will be most notable in the decline in available income for the middle class and in the even poorer strata,” concluded the professor.

Contributing to national discontent were French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in a recent joint declaration proposed rescinding the right to vote in the EU of countries with excessive deficits.

Columnist and historian Rui Tavares, an independent member of the European Parliament, wrote in the Público newspaper of Lisbon on Monday, Oct. 25, that the proposal is “a whim of Germany, and dangerous on top of that.”

“Those people don’t understand anything about democracy and seem intent on removing all meaning from the word,” he said in reference to Merkel and Sarkozy. “Federalism without democracy is not federalism, it’s usurpation,” Tavares concludes in his column.

The Sócrates government, a minority in the Portuguese legislative Assembly, now has the complicated task of trying to find allies for the general budget and its harsh measures.