“From Portugal’s point of view, [the abolition of the death penalty] has to be immediate”, Augusto Santos Silva said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 11th CPLP head of states’ conference that ended in Brasilia on Tuesday.
For Portugal, there are three essential conditions that Equatorial Guinea has to meet to be a member of the CPLP”: the ratification of the organisation’s articles, the abolition of the death penalty and the generalisation of teaching Portuguese in the country. Hardly anybody speaks Portuguese in this ‘Portuguese-speaking country’.
“We understand that the third demand may take longer, but the other two just depend on the authorities”, Santos Silva said.
In the final declaration signed at the Brasilia summit, Equatorial Guinea dragged its heels again by asking for ‘technical support’ to abolish the death penalty, which the other countries responded to “with satisfaction”.
Equatorial Guinea became a full member of the CPLP at the Dili summit in July 2014 at the insistence of Angola, on the condition that it abolish the death penalty and start teaching Portuguese in the former Spanish colony that no other reputable organisations want as a member.