Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Prime Minister of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, defended today that Portuguese should now be a working language at the United Nations, considering that it is “a great challenge” that all Portuguese-speaking countries must overcome.
PM of Cape Verde argues that Portuguese should already be a working language at the UN
The Prime Minister of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, defended today that Portuguese should now be a working language at the United Nations, considering that it is “a great challenge” that all Portuguese-speaking countries must overcome.
Speaking to the Lusa agency on the sidelines of the opening session of the XI Meeting of Portuguese Language Writers, in the city of Praia, the Cape Verdean capital, the head of Government considered that “it is time to ensure that implementation costs are not an obstacle to the Portuguese language in the community of Nations”.
“I believe that one day we will get there because the justifications have always been financial, economic, but we have to overcome it”, he said, admitting that it is “a big debate and a big challenge”.
Ulisses Correia e Silva recalled the challenge that was launched in the speech of the Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the UN General Assembly, last September, noting that it is a fair ambition because “there are millions of speakers with a lot of diversity”.
Asked about the role of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) in this objective, the Prime Minister of Cape Verde considered that, as a representative of the different Portuguese-speaking countries, the organization “must also carry out this joint fight”.
In the opening session of the meeting of writers, whose theme in this edition is “The Portuguese language, expression of freedom, democracy and municipal development”, the president of the International Institute of Portuguese Language (IILP), João Neves, said that literary creation contributes to Portuguese “gaining meaning”.
The official considered that “literature contributes to human formation” because its connection to language promotes “the formation of critical citizens”, thus allowing “an exercise of fuller citizenship”.
Also speaking at the opening session of the event, the secretary general of the Union of Portuguese Speaking Capital Cities (UCCLA), Vítor Ramalho, justified the holding of the last meetings in Cape Verde for its cultural heritage and praised the “terrible determination” of the Cape Verdeans. -Verdians “to be what they are”.
After the opening session, a tribute was paid to Cape Verdean writer David Hopffer Almada.
During the event, the winners of the 8th edition of the UCCLA-CMLisboa Literary Revelation Award – New Talents, New Works in the Portuguese Language, awarded ‘ex aequo’ to André Bazzoni Bueno (Brazil) and Leonel Barbosa (Portugal) were also presented. .
The XI edition of the Meetings of Portuguese Language Writers, which ends on Friday, features a tribute to Amílcar Cabral, who led the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
In this edition, Cabral’s “current thinking” will be debated, within the scope of the 100th anniversary of his birth, which falls in 2024, and, on Friday, the president of the Amílcar Cabral Foundation, the former head of state, Verdiano Pedro Pires, will give an intervention on the legacy of the historic leader.
The Meetings of Portuguese Language Writers were initiated by UCCLA in 2010, to enhance culture, disseminate and promote literature from Portuguese-speaking countries and exchange experiences between writers.
In the XI edition, writers Jacques dos Santos (Angola), António Baptista, Fátima Fernandes, Felisberto Vieira, José António dos Reis, José Maria Semedo, Lúcia Cardoso, Madalena Neves, Odair Varela, Vera Duarte and Vlademiro Furtado (Cape Verde) participate. , Amadú Dafé (Guinea-Bissau), Sheila Khan (Mozambique) José Pedro Castanheira, José Pires Laranjeira and Leonel Barbosa (Portugal), Olinda Beja (São Tomé and Príncipe) and Pedro Casteleiro (Galicia).
The meetings will be attended by the Cape Verdean President, José Maria Neves, at the end.
UCCLA organizes the meetings together with Praia City Council, with the support of the Academia Cabo-Verdiana de Letras and the Sociedade Cabo-Verdiana de Autores and SPA – Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores. The Week with Lusa
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