Managua, 3 September 1999
Dear Friends,
It is a great honour for me to address the first ever meeting of the Executive of the Liberal International in Central America. I owe this honour, however, to a rather disappointing fact, namely the impossibility for Frits Bolkestein to attend this meeting.
He is indeed obliged to stay in Brussels, where he is going through hearings in the European Parliament, in order to obtain a vote of confidence for the new European Commission of which he will be a member.
LI President Bolkestein very much deplores his absence and asks for your understanding and forgiveness.
Those of you who met Frits Bolkestein , either during his extended visit to Central – and South America two years ago, or during an LI meeting, know that our president mot only speaks Spanish, but also takes a genuine interest in the political, cultural and economic fate of this great continent and its peoples.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our meeting in Managua is a highlight in the long lasting relationship between The Liberal International and liberalism in Central and Latin America.
True, the relationship took some time to start. Founded en 1947 in Oxford, Liberal International, had to wait until 1982 to register the first Central and Latin American affiliations.
Three years later we awarded the Prize for Freedom to Raúl Alfonsín, then president of Argentina. We do not regret having done so but we did feel a pang of disappointment when this recipient of our Prize for Freedom, personally brought his party into the Socialist International.
Well such things do happen.
Be thou as it may, I must recall that on 13 June 1985, the Federation Liberal Centro America y del Caribe (FELICA) was founded in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. FELICA applied for and obtained Observer Status in LI in 1989.
Unfortunately, FELICA declined in importance in the following years and finally ceased to exist.
In 1987 however, a group of Latin American Liberal parties met in Salvador of Bahia in Brazil. This meeting was to be the last of a renewed co-operation of liberals in the region.
In the meanwhile Liberal International awarded its 1981 Prize for Freedom to Domingo Laino from Paraguay, as recognition of his increasing endeavours to bring freedom, justice and development to his fellow countrymen.
In 1992 we awarded the Prize to Cuban Poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela. At the time of our decision, she was under house arrest and it took many months before she could come to collect her prize, a small, very small token recognition for her and many other women’s and men’s determination to always raise high the torch of individual freedom.
From then on the relationship intensified. Otto Graft Lambsdorff visited this continent in 1993, the first LI President to do so . His successors followed suit. David ´Lord´ Steel visited in 1994; Frits Bolkestein assisted by our present secretary general came in 1997. His visit brought him to Argentina, Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua y Paraguay. He was also present at the Salvador de Bahia meeting I just mentioned.
In May 1998, David Steel and Jan Weijers visited Paraguay on the eve of the elections.
Last summer, LI vice-president Carlos Gasóliba (from Catalunya in Spain) and Jan Weijers toured Central America, visiting Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras.
In February of this year, Julius Maaten, then Secretary General, visited Cuba to establish contact with Cuban opposition parties. Two Cuban Liberal parties have now joined our organisation. Their representatives have been denied exit visas by the Cuban authorities so that they cannot participate in this meeting. This is a shame. One wonders whether Fidel Castro and his administration correctly recognised how much they harm themselves by so curtailing the freedom of movement and freedom of expression of their citizens. A political regime that uses force, coercion, intimidation and harassment to subject its citizens, is more to lose their support.
The absence of our Cuban friends reminds us of what we Liberals from all over the world stand for: unalienable Human Rights, individual freedom, rule of law, democracy.
As it is said in the theme Resolution we adopted at our last Congress:
“The Liberal International reiterates its firm conviction that Human Rights have universal application and cannot and should not ever be qualified according to cultures, values, traditions, belief, gender, race, social condition or sexual preference”.
To make this tangible, we have started to organise meetings outside Europe: we have held executives in Washington-USA, Dakar-Senegal, Tel Aviv-Israel and now here.
We do this spite of the fact that such meetings are expensive for the hosting party, for the Liberal International and for the participant who fund their own travel and stay. So finally the Executive Committee is meeting in Central America, and more precisely in the capital city of Nicaragua. We do so at the invitation of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista.
We have accepted the invitation gladly because we have the highest regard for a party pledged to democracy and the rule of law. We also have the highest regard for His Excellency Dr Arnoldo Aleman, President of the Republic.
We were greatly honoured when President Aleman addressed our Fiftieth Anniversary Congress in Oxford, and we are glad to be able to make the return visit.
Our links with the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista and with President Aleman, are, however not the only reason for our presence here. We, the Presidency and the Bureau of Liberal International, have wanted to come to Nicaragua to mark our support for and solidarity with the Nicaraguans who have been spared catastrophes, first manmade ones and, just ten months ago, hurricane Mitch.
On behalf of Liberal International, I reiterate our condolences and compassion to all victims of the natural disaster and to their relatives. May they, with swifter help from the outside world, succeed in rebuilding their lives.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This short introduction is intended to make it clear that our meeting here in Nicaragua is not a chance meeting: it is the culminating point of a long relationship between ourselves , and sister parties in Central and Latin America, and like-minded individuals.
We hold their relationship dear, and we are satisfied to behold here so many representatives from this continent. I do not doubt that our work will be fruitful.
I thank you all for your kind attention.
Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck
Deputy President
Liberal International
