16 October 2001
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Allow me first of all to express to you, on behalf of my delegation and on my own behalf my sincerest thanks for the warm and fraternal welcome extended to us since our arrival in your great country, symbol of fully restored dignity and peacefully assumed diversity.
My visit to South Africa comes naturally as a continuation of our traditional relations of solidarity, which draw their foundations from our shared culture of resistance and our common fight against colonialism and apartheid. It also derives for our shared vision of a united and prosperous Africa finally relieved from the devils of division and poverty.
My presence in this illustrious Assembly allows me to address directly the representatives of a country, which has made the values of freedom, democracy and tolerance the mainstays of a "multiracial" society, which serves as an example for communities where different ethnic groups, multiple confessions and varied traditions cohabit.
Among you, sit freedom fighters, which have striven for the emergence of a new South Africa reconciled with herself. I would like to take this opportunity to pay a deserved tribute to them, as I can say I have been associated, modestly as a matter of fact, to their fight and claim part of their success.
The Algerian people, who has supported you in your just struggle, is today proud to see you beside him to take part in Africa and in the world in mankind´s struggle for peace and justice.
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Counci of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Algeria has undergone in the recent years an extremely difficult period market by a tragedy, which has threatened its security and its stability. The terrorist violence, which has developed throughout the country, has reached unsuspected peaks, which unfortunately, have not arisen, at that time, the interest and the reaction of the international opinion.
While fully mobilizing to overcome it and restore peace and security, we have initiated a project of political renewal and economic recovery, in a process of civil concord which was massively adopted by the people and which allowed Algeria to resume progressively her unity and her stability and to boost both the political life on a democratic basis and the economic activity according to a liberal pattern.
I can tell you that the past ten year of terrorism have been very costly to Algeria as we count by tens of thousands the number of dead, by close to one million the number of victims and by more than one billion dinars the cost of material damage we suffered. All this constitutes a macabre as well as disastrous balance sheet, which we have decided to assume with all our determination.
While opting for civil concord, the Algerian people has shown an in deniable maturity and proven his ability to take the greatest challenges relying on his ancestral values of tolerance, openness and conviviality.
One of the tangible results of the process of civil concord has been to allow Algeria to release energies and resources, which are now devoted to economic and social development. These efforts fall within a stabilized macro-economic framework and stem from a large programme initiated by the State to stimulate the economic activity. They already find expression in a diversified and qualitatively promising economic revival.
Hence emerged the perspective of a transition from an unbalanced and unstable economy to an economy whose mutation is discernible through the increasing place and dynamism of the private sector in many fields and in particular in agriculture, food industries, consumer goods and services.
The recovery plan gives a stressed priority to the human and social dimension of development, as it aims at the creation of hundred thousand jobs, the promotion of social housing, the densification of communication networks, the improving of living conditions in rural areas and the expansion of the access to quality education and health structures.
This is to say that Algeria, bruised by ten years of violence and destruction, counts on the future and considers it with courage, trust and hope. It enjoys indeed a large potential of growth relying at first hand on the huge natural resources concealed in the Algerian substratum. This potential relies also on the important human resources developed by Algeria since its independence. The density and the quality of its economic and social physical infrastructures are also an important asset to ensure the success of the economic recovery plan, which we have already started to put into practice.
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our recovery endeavor appeared also at the international level where we aimed at allowing Algeria to resume her place and renew the friendship and alliances which were in her traditions and which somehow slackened during the period of unrest undergone by our country. Our efforts are beginning to give results and it is my pleasure to be able to say today that the rapprochement between Algeria and South Africa, the multiform co-operation in which they re engaged and the notable role played by their leaders at the African level and in the world constitute the indisputable evidence that Algeria is standing still, that she is faithful to her principals and promises and that, resting on your sympathy and your understanding, she is still able to bring an important contribution to the evolution our continent and the happiness of its peoples.
As far as we are concerned, you and us, and beyond the feelings of fraternity we are buoyed up with, our two counties, their economies and their potentialities, offer a large field for the development of complementarities n all the sectors of activity.
The initiative we have undertaken last year to set up a high commission of co-operation has already allowed to set up an appropriate legal framework to the development of mutually profitable partnership between our two countries.
This framework will favour the launching of bilateral co-operation programmes and the conclusion of economic and trade contracts.
The evaluation made by our Ministers of Foreign Affairs, in last July and during a bilateral multisectorial meeting in September 2001 in Algiers, has identified new possibilities of intensifying our co-operation. Some of them have already been exploited. Others are maturing.
The efforts made by our two countries in order to build mutually favourable partnership have thus led to appreciable initial results and should encourage a greater mobilization of our economic entrepreneurs, paving the way to new achievements.
The meeting of the second session of the Binational Commission, which will be held from tomorrow in Pretoria, will be an important step in this evolution.
It will give the necessary political impulse, which with your support and that of the Algerian Parliament, will allow to completer legal framework of co-operation which have initiated in Algiers and define new thrusts of partnership to make our relations an example of inter African co-operation.
Concurrently to the holding of this Binational Commission, we have taken the decision to offer the businessmen of both countries a consultation forum on co-operation and business opportunities.
This forum, which is presently held in Pretoria will be an opportunity for the economic entrepreneurs of the two countries to continue the consultations they have started in Algiers during the two previous forums and, I hope, to conclude may partnership agreements.
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Algeria and South Africa, which have identical approaches on international problems, are determined to pursue their joint action to speed up the scheme of African integration and advocate the interests and preoccupations of the continent at the international level.
To this effect, Algeria and South Africa have initiated with Nigeria, Senegal and Egypt and endeavour for the Continent´s renewal. It will allow Africa to take the challenges facing her at the political, economic and social plans. This initiative which has gained support of all the African countries during the last OAU Summit in Lusaka, and which has also gained the support of the G8 during the Genoa Summit, appears today as the operational framework for the Continent´s durable exit from the state of under-development and marginalization.
The European Union, on her side, has shown her interest in implementing the New African Initiative. This is why we went to Brussels on October 10th, the President M´Beki, myself and the other heads of State associated to the Initiative, in order to study what will be the form of the European participation in the achievement of our projects. But the basic feature of the New African Initiative lies in the fact it has been conceived by the Africans themselves, on their participation and eventually on their sacrifices.
The New Initiative aims first of all ensuring the Continent´s stability and security, through the settlement of the ongoing national and regional conflicts which compromise all development efforts. Besides, our countries share the same vision as to the necessary efforts for the settlement of conflicts in Africa and their prevention. This initiative aims also at mobilizing all the factors, which may contribute to the socio-economic development of Africa and the fight against poverty and HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has taken the extent of a world scourge. It aims finally at integrating effectively Africa in process off globalization whose present evolution could marginalize us and end finally with the exclusion of Africa at the international level.
Also, our two countries are fully engaged in consultations aimed at defining the ways and means to ensure a fast and orderly transition of the OAU towards the African Union, so that the First Summit of the African Union which will be held in your country, will be the sign of a fresh start and an eloquent symbol of the African renaissance.
The dignity of Africa, which is the first conditions of her consideration and her respect by the rest of the international community, can rely only on the freedom of her peoples and the free determination of their fate. This situation is unfortunately not achieved yet, as the Western Sahara is still unable to express its opinion on its future. It will certainly be the duty of the United Nations Organization to remain faithful to its principals and its commitments, but the rest of the world community, and in particular all the African countries, should do all they can in order to impose the triumph of the wisdom and the implementation of the settlement Plan already adopted by the Security Council.
Furthermore, while the ongoing peace processes in the region of all the Great Lakes have entered a promising but yet precarious phase, it is our duty to combine our efforts to establish the irreversibility of these processes and help lead them to their end.
It is with as much preoccupation that our two countries are attached to a fair and global solution of the Middle East problem whose central issue is the Palestinian problem. Such a solution comes necessarily through the establishing of the national rights of the Palestinian people to his independent stat with EI Qods Echarif as capital city and restitution of the other Arab occupied territories.
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The world we live in today is confronted with many global challenges the most destructive of which is the scourge of terrorism. At the very time I am talking to you, large scope military operations are taking place or envisaged which find their expression in massive bombings of the territory of Afghanistan. This situation may further aggravate and escape any control through potential excesses when, as its is the case now, the enemy to annihilate seems elusive and impossible to locate with precision and certainty. However, we support actions undertaken in this struggle against terrorism, for which we have vainly called for the international community, which unfortunately did pay attention to our warnings only when the richest and the most powerful societies were victims of this scourge.
The barbarous attacks, which, on last Semptember 11th hit the United States of America, have been condemned unequivocally by Algeria who, may be more than other countries, has felt the tragedy of the victims and the distress of their families. So it is all natural that we are ready to join the international community for a collective consulted and strong action to clear the world of this danger which threatens the whole mankind.
This repressive action is made necessary by the damage already recorded, in the human lives and in material losses, and we agree to it unreservedly. However, it must go along with a serious study on the means to prevent the burst and development of terrorism of national or international nature, because this phenomenon has roots which must be determined and eradicated, while trying first of all to make our world a place governed by justice and equity, where men and peoples enjoy their freedom and their dignity.
Mrs Speaker,
Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces,
Distinguished Members of Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You have honoured me by receiving me here and by allowing me to address the elected representative of the South African people to whom I would like to express our admiration and our wishes of happiness and prosperity. Your welcome has profoundly moved us, by its warmth and its spontaneity and I would like to express to you all our gratitude. Finally, I want to convey to you all the consideration of the Algerian people for your country, for all the great militants who have illustrated your march towards splendor and freedom and for your leaders who are not only our personal friends, but who do honour to your country and to the whole Africa continent.
I thank you for your kind attention.