Português
Three decades
have passed since the night of 11 November 1975, when national independence
was proclaimed. The greatest dream of all Angolans, to be free
and masters of their own destiny, was realised on that day.
The liberation struggle that led to that historic moment lasted
for about fourteen years, during which there were many acts of great
courage, companionship, solidarity and comradeship.
Our thoughts at this
time turn to all those who sacrificed their lives or dedicated their
lives to the noble cause of independence, because they will live on
forever in our hearts and in the memory of the Angolan people.
Outstanding among them was Dr António
Agostinho Neto, for the decisive role he played and the inspiring
and mobilising undertaking he led. He was, without any doubt,
the paramount figure in the liberation struggle, who everyone now
remembers with a sense of loss.
He was also the person who continued
the resistance advocated in the past by the great heroes of our
people like Jinga Mbandi, Katiavala, Ndunduma, Ekuikui, Mandume and
so many others.
In his memory and in the memory
of all the anonymous heroes who laid down their lives for our Angolan
homeland, let us observe a minute of silence.
After national independence
had been proclaimed, the instituted government was faced with the
need to organise the state and society. A political and
economic system based on a single party and centralised leadership
was then established, as well as legislative, executive and judicial
bodies for construction and maintaining political, economic and social
order, seeking to further the general and fundamental interests of
the people.
There were, at the start,
positive results, like the reorganisation of the public administration
inherited from colonialism, the expansion of the oil industry, the
attendance explosion in the education system, ensuring access to knowledge
and personnel training, the establishment of a basic health care system
and the organising of capable defence and security forces, as well
as making Angola a part of the concert of nations with a policy of
active solidarity with national liberation movements, particularly
those of Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
However, the climate of great external
hostility, war, aggression and internal armed conflict in which national
independence was proclaimed continued in ever more serious forms.
The
high level of public expenditure, owing to the costs of defence and
security, resulted in big budget deficits, which were paid for with
money issued by the National Bank without counterpart funds, causing
persistent galloping inflation.
The economic system
no longer generated wealth, because it was exhausted. The political
system was no longer in keeping with the wishes and aspirations of
all sections of society.
In order to deal with this difficult
and complex situation, the government undertook a series of domestic
political and economic reforms to guarantee regional security, achieve
internal stability and create conditions for economic recovery and
development.
It established a multi-party system,
adopted a market economy, opened the way for the activity of civic,
professional and cultural associations, and set out a political and
diplomatic agenda for achieving regional and internal peace through
dialogue and negotiation.
The results were positive. We
improved our military position in the field and in 1988 successfully
negotiated the New York peace agreements with
apartheid South Africa, mediated by the United States.
We thus guaranteed security in south-western
Africa and conditions for the independence of
Namibia, which had a positive impact on the changes
that later took place in
South Africa
itself.
We once again improved out
position in the field and concluded the Bicesse Accord, on the basis
of which we held the first multi-party elections in Angola.
Because the war did not end, we
again sought peace, and Angolans, without any external interference,
achieved definitive peace on 4 April 2002.
An independent and free Angola,
master of its destiny, was the dream realised in 1975. An Angola in
conditions of peace and democracy was the dream that became a reality
in 2002. A united and prosperous Angola in which everyone
lives well is the dream that we can realise! That
is the new course we have started out on.
We therefore need to
define the road we are going to follow, the speed at which we will
go and the partners with whom we will share interests, with reciprocal
advantages. We
also have to be able to determine with the requisite flexibility
the role of each internal factor in the process – the state,
the public administration, political parties, companies, organised
civil society and so forth.
In this era of globalisation, in
which every country is a market within a global market, in which
information, the values of a universal culture and the norms of
western civilisation are disseminated without boundaries, those who
are incapable of administrating their market and preserving the values
of their identity, transforming them into a contribution to the global
process, will become ineffective.
The government established a medium-
and long-term Rehabilitation and Development Strategy and, on this
basis, drew up an Intercalary Programme for 2005-2006.
I therefore
appeal to all institutions, all groups and individuals, to acquaint
themselves with this programme and to participate in an organised
manner in carrying it out, so that we may achieve positive results
when its implementation is reviewed by the National Assembly in mid-2007.
What do we want to achieve
through this programme? The answer is simple.
In the first place, we
want to consolidate peace and the democratic process. True peace
must be based on justice and the balanced sharing out of national
revenue. It must also
be based on respect for ones fellow people, respect for differences
of opinion and tolerance. The natural differences between
people should not be used to divide or create any kinds of separation. On
the contrary, they enrich our common heritage and consolidate national
identity in multi-ethnic and cultural diversity. In this
same process, there is no contradiction between general and specific
criteria or principles, because they are complementary.
Social solidarity also enriches
and strengthens the peace and national reconciliation process.
The
government will continue to see to the reintegration into society
and production of former soldiers and their families. The same attention
will be paid to displaced persons and refugees, who are returning to
their home areas. By
the end of the first six months of 2005, about half the former Unita
soldiers and their families were reintegrated, totalling more than
400,000 people. The government needs the support of civil society
and its partners in the international community to continue this
operation.
At the same time, assistance
will be given in 2006 to 35,000 physically handicapped people. This
number will progressively grow over the ensuing years until all are
covered.
Peace, national reconciliation,
freedom and social stability are essential to consolidating our democracy.
Angola can
pride itself on having no prisoners of conscience. There is
no citizen detained for his or her opinions in the country. Everyone
is free to express his or her ideas and make whatever criticisms are
deemed opportune, provided the rights of other citizens are not violated.
The
situation in the country today permits us to envisage the holding
of the next elections with optimism. We
are creating the material, institutional and psychological conditions
for them to be free, transparent and with a high level of participation,
without any constraints or pressures of any kind.
Parties and coalitions
of parties must compete freely and on an equal footing, in accordance
with the law. I ask them to convey messages of tolerance and
respect for the norms of civic behaviour to their members and supporters. I
also ask voters to be equal to this major event, participating and
voting in an orderly and peaceful manner.
In the second place,
through the Intercalary Programme we want to lay the foundations for
building a self-sustaining economy based on three principles:
- Maintaining the stability of the
national currency and of prices;
- Rehabilitating all facilities destroyed
during the war and developing them;
- Ensuring
the recovery of production and increasing the domestic supply of
goods and services.
The times of chronic monetary instability
and high and uncontrolled prices are indeed long past.
Price
and currency stability is one of our great achievements in recent
years. It can be
said that it has ushered in a new era of the predictability and confidence
essential to new public and private investment and economic growth.
Gross Domestic Product
grew 11.7 percent in 2004 and our forecast for 2005 shows a growth
rate of more than 10 percent. Our population will grow about 3 percent
a year. In order to eradicate poverty, we must make efforts
to ensure that economic growth is in two digit figures for many years
to come.
In the immediate future
we shall continue to grant micro-credits and distribute working implements,
seeds and other agricultural inputs to peasants, particularly rural
women, to help to improve the living standards of families and combat
hunger and poverty.
The government will endeavour to
maintain and strengthen macroeconomic stability, thereby protecting
the purchasing power of workers’ wages, creating conditions
to consolidate and diversify the financial system and increasing
national and foreign private investment essentially in production.
In this effort to consolidate
macroeconomic stability and relaunch productive economic activity,
the government will be heedful of the failings and imperfections of
the market. It
will therefore create conditions for healthy and balanced competition
between economic operators, so as to prevent price fixing mechanisms
from being undermined.
Similarly, the government will not
renounce the ideal, so dear to the precursors of our national liberation
struggle, of creating a more just and supportive society, using
taxation policy to promote the redistribution of revenue for the benefit
of the neediest strata.
In the government’s view,
creating a climate of healthy competition between economic operators
is not incompatible with transitional measures to protect and strengthen
the capability of national entrepreneurs. It will therefore
take such action.
In implementing its programme, the
government will pay redoubled attention to good management in the
public realm and the transparency of government action, in short,
to good governance.
There was massive destruction
of material property during the war. The aggression of foreign
armies alone caused destruction assessed by the United Nations in
1990 to have amounted to US$20 billion. This amount must have
doubled in 2001.
We have a three-year sub-programme
of mine clearance and restoring facilities and social equipment
destroyed in the war.
We think that our programme
could be a catalyst for our economy, since it will permit the free
movement of people and goods and involves a great volume of investments
that will open the way for national entrepreneurs and for the employment
of a great deal of manpower, absorbing many people who are now unemployed. Hundreds
of thousands of new jobs will be created, creating new work opportunities
for the youth.
Because there has been no international
donor conference to support the reconstruction of Angola,
for reasons independent of our volition, the necessary funds will
be found by incurring a controlled foreign debt and mobilising private
investment.
In the third place, the government programme seeks
to ensure the development of the human resources the country needs.
In
the colonial past, Angolans were excluded from political decision-making
centres and could not practise any kind of profession. Personnel
training was very limited. The
illiteracy rate was more than 95 percent.
Immediately after the proclamation
of independence, there was an explosion in school attendance; we
attained the figure of 1.6 million pupils, which is three times the
number of pupils there were in 1974, the last year of the colonial
regime.
The inherited network of schools
became insufficient and there was a fall in the number of teachers
and the amount of teaching materials available.
Thwarting the government’s
efforts, 1,300 primary and secondary schools and 16 vocational institutes
were destroyed in the war, while another 1,500 schools were left
in a seriously deteriorated state.
Even so, over these thirty years
the country has educated 9,418 high-level personnel, 6,536 at home
and 2,282 abroad, and more than 20,000 medical workers.
From early schooling
to higher education, there are currently 4,880,350 students, 4,707,900
of them in primary schools and 131,230 in secondary schools. The target
is to triple the number of pupils and students in secondary and higher
education. Educating
and training Angolans at all levels will be the touchstone of the
development we are engaged in.
We want to carry through the significant
reforms in progress in the education system, to make it better suited
to the pressing needs of our medium- and long-term development. For
this, we have to lay the human and material foundations, through
the training and further training of teachers and technical personnel,
for producing the administrators and managers of school establishments.
We need to make an extra effort to ensure that, from their earliest
school years, pupils start to familiarise themselves with the new
information technology, and that some of our higher institutes of
science and technology and the universities transform themselves into
catalysts of applied scientific research.
The government’s great emphasis will be on education and health,
as essential factors in human development and ones that can contribute
to increased wealth and social wellbeing.
Civic, moral and patriotic education, combined with academic, technical
and vocational training, given from the earliest years until the completion
of education, will guarantee the coming into being of the kind of
Angolan men and women we need to build a better Angola for all.
In the area of health, we need to train more personnel, so as to
provide better care for the whole population. There are currently
1,659 doctors in the medical association, 1,053 of whom were educated
in Angola after independence. In
any case, this number represents only one doctor for every 10,000
inhabitants, though 13 for that number of people would be ideal, in
order to be able to provide satisfactory medical care even in the
most remote and inhospitable parts of the country.
In order to improve health care nationally, we plan to establish
new health centres in the major municipalities. Within the framework
of cooperation with China,
we also plan to rehabilitate most of the provincial hospitals and
refit them with the most modern medical and surgical equipment. This
effort must be accompanied by personnel training, because if these
new units are to function normally we will need a large number of
nurses, nursing assistants, doctors and hospital managers.
Sport, which has given the Angolan people cause for much happiness
in the areas of women’s handball, basketball and football, needs
greater attention, support and expansion. We are in the world
championships in these sports. Now we must do all we can to
ensure that, in future, we have among the best teams in the world.
In the fourth place, the government’s Intercalary Programme
is aimed at restoring state administration throughout the country
and regulating land use.
State power has been restored throughout the country and what is
now needed is to create the indispensable conditions, in material,
technical and remunerative terms, for local administration to be well
run in the interests of the people.
The government will continue to promote reflection and studies on
the basis on which local government, particularly autonomous local
government, should be organised and run, until a law on local government
is passed.
At the same time, efforts will be stepped up to finalise the National
Territorial Plan, which will determine the most rational spatial distribution
of population centres and infrastructure, ensuring the best
use of our economic potentials and correcting regional imbalances.
It is within this context that master plans will also be drawn up
for the modernisation and development of our cities, whose financial,
banking, commercial, legal and other institutions can serve as a springboard
or driving force of our development.
We have shown the world that the Republic
of Angola, despite the external aggression
and permanent destabilisation to which it was subjected, is a peaceful
country. Today it has relations of friendship and cooperation
with nearly all the countries in the world. It will continue
to be a factor for peace and regional and world security, and a fair
partner ready to share interests and cooperate on the basis of reciprocal
advantages in building an ever better world for everyone.
On this memorable date, we cannot fail to express our gratitude
and appreciation to all the countries, individuals and peoples who
supported us in the struggle to win independence and peace.
They are many, but I cannot fail to mention Cuba, whose sons also shed their blood here in
the defence of our sovereignty.
To the delegations present here, particularly the heads of state
and government, I express my thanks for having agreed to share this
unforgettable moment with us.
I also thank the President of the Supreme Court who yesterday, on
behalf of the deputies and on your behalf, gave me the Peace and National
Concord Award.
May the memory and example of those who sacrificed themselves and
died for the achievement and consolidation of our national independence
live forever!
LONG LIVE 11 NOVEMBER!
LONG LIVE NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE!
LONG LIVE THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE!
LONG LIVE ANGOLA!
