Intervention of the Undersecretary of Fishing in the inauguration of monument to the combatants of the War of Ultramar

Integral text of the intervention of the regional undersecretary of Fishing, Marcelo Pamplona, in the inauguration, on Sunday in the Parish of Guadalupe, Graciosa Island, of a monument in memory of the combatants of the War of Ultramar:

“First of all I would like transmitting, in the name of the president of the Government of the Azores, that it honors us much to participate in this symbolic ceremony organized by the League of the Combatants, in these beautiful Parish of Guadalupe of the Graciosa Island.

A word of greeting also to all the combatants, ex-combatants, their families and their friends present in this ceremony.

This is a ceremony that aims to pay a fair tribute to Eduíno Tomás Bettencourt and to the other combatants of Graciosa, who died in result of having participated in the theater of War of Ultramar.

With this memorial, which ceremony of inauguration occurs today, it is intended to perpetuate, also, in our memory, that there were other more difficult and not very distant times, which turned in the sacrifice of the Azoreans' life, in distant places of our Region, result of a spirit of mission on behalf of a national project.

A word also to pay tribute to all the Portuguese combatants who demonstrated identical degree of sacrifice, having paid with the life the price of the mission in which they were implicated.

In this era marked by the globalization, where our frontiers stop being quite definite, where the symbols, the patrimony and the cultural traditions are confused very often or misrepresented, we should always have recalled our own identity and our historical past, to secure our present and to guarantee our future.

It is in moments like this that we remind ourselves of the importance of preserving the memory of the Azoreans who did our history, to recall to the current and future generations that there was a history that led to our current identity.

In the perpetuation of this memorial, I also want to remember today the important role that the Azores fulfilled like last redoubt of the Nation when of the Spanish occupation and in the struggles between liberal and absolutist. Therefore, we affirmed here and we are Portugal, with great pledge and pride, but here we also are a Region, with people, with an own culture that matters to preserve.

I would like leaving a word of esteem to all the ex-combatants as well as to their families, which suffered very much when of their presence in military campaign. Today, we still find many in situations of risk and social vulnerability and there are these that are urgent to support and to comfort.

But there are values shared by all you that are the cement of the cohesion. I think about the solidarity that is shown in the support to the most discriminated and that has been one of the biggest preoccupations of the league of the combatants. Therefore, I hope so that the development of the projects to which it is proposed there will reach its objectives.

I finish paying a fair and felt tribute to all who are still implicated in the defense of values like the volunteers, the citizenship, the culture, the history, the solidarity, the social inclusion and the defense of the dignity of the alive combatants and the constant honor to the dead combatants.

To all be well.”