The CIA gives encouragement to the groups who want to see the Spanish city
of Olivenza returned to Portugal
La Razón
26 de septiembre de 2003
http://www.larazon.es/ediciones/anteriores/2003-09-26/noticias/noti_nac10.htm
Montánchez /P.
Canales - Madrid. -
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The CIA gives encouragement to the groups who want to see the Spanish city
of Olivenza returned to Portugal
The US has placed the Portuguese claim to Olivenza at the same level as
that of Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla.
The CIA in its annual yearbook for 2003 of the situation in the world, has
considered the Portuguese claim over Olivenza, in Badajoz, to be at the same
level of an international conflict as Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla, and gives
encouragement to the Portuguese movements who demand the return of that
border city with Portugal, and causing for the first time great surprise
to the average Spanish diplomat. The report of the United States
Intelligence Agency is
based on the fact that Portugal has never explicitly recognized the town
as being Spanish.
The North American Intelligence Service yearbook makes the disclosure that
in fact Portugal has never recognized the "Spanishness" of Olivenza. This
frontier town that for several centuries held an important strategic value,
belongs to Spain since 1801, after a span of nearly 600 years, when by the
Treaty of Alcanices 1230 (sic) the Kingdom of Castile lost it in favour of
its neighbour.
Portugal has claimed Olivenza in the last 200 years based on the fact that the
town was seized by a Franco-Spanish military coalition of King Carlos IV and
Napoleon. Since 1952, during Salazar's dictatorship, Lisbon has maintained
its demand alive that the municipality of Olivenza should be returned. For
that purpose, an "International Commission of Limits" was created by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
although successive Portuguese governments have delayed for political
reasons to make concrete claims. In all its military and geographic maps of
an administrative character, the border line in the aera of Olivenza is
missing.
In fact, the markers 801 to 900 that delimit the 20 (sic)kilometers of
frontier are non-existent.
In the bilateral agreements of 1864 and 1926 between Spain and
Portugal, which officially fix the frontier of both countries, the
adjoining boundaries are interrupted in the area that is claimed by Lisbon.
The annual report "The World Fact Book 2003" published in September (sic) by
the US Central Intelligence Agency, places Olivenza at the same level of
international conflict as the Spanish claim to Gibraltar, or Morocco's claim
to the towns of Ceuta and Melilla. The government of the US "has given
oxygen to the Portuguese patriotic movemnets" official sources have pointed
out to "La Razon". Particularly with regard to the «Grupo dos Amigos de
Olivenza", founded in 1944, and the «Comité
de Olivenza Portuguesa» created in 1988. The same sources calculate that
behind these movements are found others, like Portuguese pressure groups in the
military.
The Spanish diplomacy has been taken by surprise by the inclusion of
Olivenza in the CIA's annual report. The government of Jose Maria Aznar did
not expect "a strategic ally" as the US to let drop a deep charge that could
have grave consequences if it should escape the control of the diplomacy.
The North American espionage manual gives the impression that it has
re-emphasized in the last few years the idea that the Moroccan claim over
Ceuta and Melilla constitutes the seed of an "international conflict",
something that Spain has never accepted.
The decisive support by president Aznar in the war campaign against Sadam
Hussain, appears not to have been reciprocated, judjing by the sources
contacted, which Spanish diplomacy considers an "unfriendly act" by Washington.
Moreover the fact has been overlooked that the President of Portugal, Jorge
Sampaio, offered the Azores Archipelago on the occasion last July, for
holding the Summit between Bush, Blair and Aznar, which was decisive for
military
intervention in Iraq.
To close sources to the Spanish Intelligence Service, for the CIA to include
in the same packet Olivenza, Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla, it cannot be
considered a "careless mistake". The North American espionage network know
very well the Portuguese dossier since the Agency became actively interested
about the consequences of the "Carnation Revolution" in 1974 and the following
political situation in which the US feared that Portugal might fall under the
influence of the Soviet Bloc. The American Intelligence has since dedicated "a
special attention" to the Portuguese military.
With this 2003 report, the CIA has opened the door for intervention by Morocco
as the protagonist of conflict in the region. It cannot go by unnoticed that
the high level meetings between the chief leaders of Portuguese and
Moroccan diplomacy (Antonio Martins da Cruz and Mohammed
Benaissa have given express support to Mohamed VI's, claim over Ceuta and
Melilla. At the time of the diplomatic meetings a reciprocal gesture would
be expected.
Olivenza has been involved in political conflict since the reconquest of
Badajoz from the Moors by King Alfonso IX. Years later, in 1230, it changed
into Portuguese hands by the Treaty of Alcanices. The valido of King Carlos
IV, Manuel Godoy, reconquered the town in 1801, in the so called "War of the
Oranges". The Congress of Vienna (1815) asked Spain to return Olivenza to
Portugal. The Spanish Crown has never admitted this as an inevitable duty.
DISPUTE OF OLIVENZA
http://www.olivenca-net.com/forum/indicei.htm
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