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Archive - Archive 2004 - July 2013

Brazil acts on Seychelles' call regarding Somalia |11 September 2012

Brazil acts on Seychelles' call regarding Somalia

 

The Brazilian delegation in talks with Vice-President Faure Monday

The country sent its ambassador Francisco Carlos Luz – who is based in Tanzania – and naval Captain and military attaché Paulo Demby Corrêa – who is based in South Africa, to discuss with Seychelles how Brazil can be involved in trying to solve Somalia’s internal crises in the long run, and to help Seychelles in the fight against piracy.

Ambassador Carlos Luz – who is that country’s representative for Tanzania, Comoros and Seychelles – together with Capt Corrêa met and held talks with Vice-President Danny Faure at State House on the issues Monday.

Their massive South American nation is the world’s fifth largest country in terms of size and population.

 It has 194 million people, ranking it only after China, India, the US and Indonesia.

Mr Luz said piracy is a global problem which does not affect only the countries of this region.

“We are here on a fact-finding mission.

 Brazil is acting on a letter that President James Michel sent last November to our President Dilma Rousseff who has decided to send me and our military attaché in South Africa to verify the possibilities of cooperation,” said Mr Luz.

He said Mr Michel asked for support for Seychelles in the anti-piracy effort and to fight for a durable solution to the Somalia crises within the United Nations’ systems and with all the stakeholders involved in finding a solution for this crisis.

He said his country is already greatly involved with Somalia’s humanitarian efforts.

“Last year we donated 60,000 tonnes of food to the Somali Transitional Government to help mitigate the food crises in that country and we are also involved in all the main conferences trying to solve the crisis there.

“We are here to see what is now needed and in which ways Brazil can help,” he said.

Captain Corrêa said anti-piracy efforts are important to Brazil and all the countries, “not only in the Indian Ocean.

 Our country is quite concerned about this problem because piracy affects everybody.”

He hinted that measures may include training and seeking opportunities like boosting command and control systems and intelligence gathering.
“The Brazilian navy in particular and the Brazilian army as a whole can work with the Seychelles People’s Defence Forces,” he said.

“While here I will also have meetings with Seychelles military authorities starting tomorrow (today),” he said.

Mr Luz recalled that Mr Faure was in Brazil for the Rio+20 conference in July last year and Tourism and Culture Minister Alain St Ange  just returned from Brazil where possibilities of tapping from the five million tourists who travel from there every year.

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