“I think that the President of the Republic, based on the options he naturally has, has made an option, an option to reaffirm all the ways that deep down have caused the war. I think that is not what serves the Portuguese people, much less the Ukrainian and Russian people,” said Paulo Raimundo.
The PCP leader addressed journalists on the second day of the Festa do Avante!, on the sidelines of a visit to the visual arts biennale.
Asked to clarify how the President of the Republic, with his visit to Ukraine, has fueled the war, Paulo Raimundo stated: “I did not say that he had fueled the war, what I said was that everything he said, all the points of view that he had, ultimately contributed to this path, which is a path of more guns, more ammunition, more destruction and, as a result, more deaths.”
“Not a word of peace, that’s what we need,” he criticized.
The president of the republic visited Ukraine last week and defended to President Volodymyr Zelensky that the future of that country will lie “in the European Union and in NATO”.
The PCP was the only party opposed to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa going to war in that country.
Today, the Communist General Secretary confirmed the party’s position: “We did not say that we disagree, what we said was very simple: if the visit of the President of the Republic to Ukraine contributes to the framing of the road to peace, then it makes sense, if it is involved in a dynamic of construction and incitement to war, then it is of no use”.
Paulo Raimundo stressed that the party’s position is “the position as always: for peace and to do everything to build peace”.
“It is a position that is gaining space and will conquer the majority space in Portuguese society, there is no doubt about it, because the people want peace, they do not want war,” he defended, considering it necessary that “the organs, in especially the organs of national sovereignty, invest in peace and not in war”.
The communist leader believed that “it is necessary to force all actors in the war to sit down at the table”, pointing out that the talks could be brokered by countries such as Brazil, China, India or even the Vatican, “who all that are susceptible to this and they are nations that have spoken out in the sense of “building peace”.
“I think it is not because of a lack of will that the war continues, I think it is because of the will of those who insist on war instruction, which is a disaster, especially for the Ukrainian people and for the Russian people. people, but with consequences for each of us, as we know it,” he defended.
“From the moment we have a considerable number of heads of state of countries of great importance who manage to speak two, three, four, five, a thousand times on this subject without using the phrase peace once, without opening a single path that When it comes to peace, I think this is proof that we are not going there,” he criticized.
Despite the criticism, the general secretary of the PCP indicated that the Festa do Avante! has opened its doors to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, but also to other political actors, such as former minister Pedro Nuno Santos, noting that both were already present in the communist ‘rentrée’ in other years.
The military offensive that Russia launched in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, triggered the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II (1939-1945), according to the latest UN data.
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – has been condemned by the international community at large, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and to impose on Russia from the political and political side. economic sanctions.
Source: DN
