The Portuguese Non-governmental Development Organization is suspending its consultant observer status at the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) following its acceptance of Equatorial Guinea as a full member, Lusa reported.
Addressed to the Executive Secretary of the CPLP and circulated among the ambassadors of CPLP member States and other consultant observers, the letter asserts that the platform’s next General Assembly would debate and “vote on a proposal for definitive withdrawal as a consultant observer” from the Portuguese commonwealth.
“The CPLP is not — nor can it become — a business club in which the strictly economic interests of an elite overwhelm the human rights and the dignity of the many,” said the platform’s letter signed by its president Pedro Krupenski.
According to Krupenski’s letter the observers, “profoundly regret the unanimous deliberation on the membership of Equatorial Guinea as a full member of the CPLP” alleging that the decision defied the CPLP’s own statutes in terms of its commitment to human rights and democracy.
The letter then continued by underpinning its opposition to Equatorial Guinea and listing reasons including the “arbitrary execution of its citizens” and being “at the top of the list of the most corrupt countries in the world” in addition to its grotesque wealth distortions with the country’s status as the third largest African oil producer still seeing 80% of its people live in abject poverty.
Equatorial Guinea was admitted as full member of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) at the organization’s 10th summit held July 22-23, in Dili, East Timor, expanding the organization from nine to ten members, with the membership of Equatorial Guinea.
The CPLP heads of State and/or government representatives from Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste elected their host Taur Matan Ruak as president of the CPLP for the next two years.
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