Jardim advocates Separatism

Weeks before the Party Congress where his leadership is being challenged, Jardim ups the stakes and presents a global motion which calls for the separation of Madeira from Portugal... if the region is not granted greater (?) autonomy.

Jardim has always used the threat of separatism for pure demagogery, saying he did not advocate it but that the policies of his enemies in Lisbon and their 'attacks' on Madeira were stoking up separatist sentiments. He promised to take Lisbon's 'colonial' policies to the UN and so on.

His threats have always been part of a political ploy to stir emotions and Jardim himself has never taken these arguments at face value. The difference is this time, in desperation, he has gone beyond insinuating a separatist threat, to actually advocating the possibility of independence.

...But the threat is carried out without conviction and confidence. It is a written threat, lost in pages of a long motion, not one of his violent rants. The front page headline in the Jornal is revealing of his loss of direction. The separatist threat is relegated to a small headline at the bottom of the page, while the main headline is the increase in banana production!

Jornal's veiled bomb threat to Journalists

The Jornal da Madeira issued a veiled bomb threat to the journalists Tolentino Nobrega of the Publico and Lilia Bernardes of the Lisbon Diário de Notícias.

The threat came in the anonymous daily cartoon Boca Pequena, which is often used by President Jardim to send messages promising retaliations, expropriations and inciting violence against particular targets. Once the threats have been carried out, they are complimented by a 'you had been warned message' in a follow-up cartoon.

In this cartoon, published on the 2nd of May, one character accused the two journalists of writing things against Madeira, the other replied that they would have to escape to the mainland 'after John's birthday'. The latter was the codeword for the FLAMA separatist terrorist movement's blowing up of the regional radio station in 1975.

The reference is common knowledge to all those who lived through this period, particularly to people such as Tolentino, who himself escaped a car bomb attack in those dark years of Jardim's rise to power.

Operation 'Cuba Livre'

The Public Prosecutor's Office carried out a search operation on the Madeira Government Building in charge of public construction works on Monday. The building was sealed off by Police all day while the search ensued. The raid is part of an investigation into Madeira's debt.

Lisbon papers reported that a further 2 billion Euro hole was found in unreported debt, including works that had already been carried out, but had simply never been billed as the government had requested builders not issue the bills until given the OK. The Regional Secretary of Finance has denied all  reports of unreported debt - he also denied the 6 billion Euro debt in the first half of 2010, which he was later unable to hide. 

Reacting to the news, Bertie's Party Youth leader, José Pedro Pereira MP, better know as Mijinhas (for having pissed on a Police car) , called for Madeirans to revolt and declare independence: 

'Along the years we have seen successive national governments, of all [political] colors, launch constant attacks on the Autonomous Region of Madeira. They are filled with envy and hatred due to the development we have attained! I think the next revolution will be the revolt of the Madeirans, to tell the Portuguese Republic that if they carry on along this path of constantly attacking Madeira, it will be better for us to fight for independence! ' - now who does that remind one of?

Jardim's Justice, Part 3

‘Political Police’?

If his references to his friends, the Blandys, are laughable, more worrying are his statements about the Investigative Police. Are they merely a form of political opportunism, or does Jardim try to intimidate it and condition its performance?

The accusation that the Investigative Police acts as a ‘colonial occupation force’ were not limited to the Lobo case, they were repeated in 2005, when the Golden Whistle investigation [over football corruption] reached Madeira. ‘I don’t understand how these things always happen at election time’, said Jardim. ‘If the Investigative Police adopts the behavior of a political police in Madeira, it will suffer the consequences’. Going back in time to 1999, Jardim accused the director of the Investigative Police of trying to influence the municipal elections for having stated that the Regional Government had for a long time denied the reality of pedophilia in Madeira. Jardim said he would not admit that the police ‘just because they are under wing of the Republic’ should take on the nature of a ‘political or colonial police’. And he went on ‘the issue will be brought up in the Government meeting, and if we understand that the gentleman heading the Police Department has usurped his functions, he will be denounced through the normal hierarchy, beginning with the Minister of the Republic, who should call attention to the fact that the peripheral services of the state are not meant to enter politics’. The director of the Investigative Police did not rise to the provocation; the fact is that news about pedophilia in Madeira had always been automatically attributed to ‘campaigns against Madeira’.

Jardim used exactly the same terms in 1997, in reaction to the visit of the Werkgroep Morkhoven, which came to Madeira to deliver proof that linked Madeirans to a Belgian pedophile ring. In this very context, the Regional Counsel of Jardim’s party, the PSD Madeira, in a press release, referred to terrible campaigns being mounted against Madeira ‘which nurture separatism, namely against the person of the President of the Regional Government.’

Jardim threatens political crisis

President Jardim has threatened not to sign the agreement with the national government to help pay off the Madeira debt (an accumulated a debt of 6 billion Euro), saying that the current plan is not feasible. Taking absolutely no responsibility for the current financial situation, his government has instead opted to incite the population against the Portuguese Government.

The Secretary of finance made a statement this week saying that he did not pay the pharmacies in order to give priority to EU funded programs, an absurd excuse seeing that the debt to the pharmacies has been accumulated over many years.

The Forum for Autonomy, a pro-independence association (essentially a shadow of the now defunct separatist terrorist group, FLAMA), an organization headed by PSD members and Jardim by, himself has called for a referendum on the independence of Madeira.

The belligerent tone was earlier set by Guilherme Silva (PSD), vice president of the Portuguese Parliament, who called for Madeirans to ‘resist’ against the national government (also PSD).

The threat of separatism has been used on many occasions by Jardim to blackmail the various national governments. Sources close to Jardim say that, should the Portuguese government not capitulate, he intends to create a national crisis to bring down the government.

Jardim, whose Party voted down requests by opposition Parties to debate the austerity measures in the regional parliament, has announced he will be holding meeting on the 20^th of January to explain the measures to his own Party grass roots.

Guilherme Silva threatens a revolt in Madeira

Guilherme Silva, Vice-President of the National Parliament, threatened that if the budget alterations tabled by the Madeira PSD are not approved in the national parliament ‘we will revolt once more. Madeira has revolted against continental oppression in the past and can do so again’.

Such rhetoric is typical of the PSD Madeira, which never assumes any responsibilities for its mistakes and blames everything on Madeira’s external and internal ‘enemies’. Jardim often incites the population to violence and insinuates that the Madeira separatist movement may resurge.

Silva was one of the four national MPs elected for the PSD in Madeira and is widely seen as Jardim’s ‘fixer’ in the mainland. He forgets, however, that the oppression in Madeira comes from the Jardim Government and not from the mainland and that any revolt is likely to be against the party he represents.

Independence flags hoisted on the 1st of July

About 50 flags of the Madeira Liberation Front (FLAMA) were hoisted all round the island to celebrate Madeira day (dia da Região). FLAMA, which between 1974 and 78 used terrorist actions such as car bombs to promote the independence of Madeira, has long thought to be extinct. Its former political leaders said as much, last year, denying any involvement of FLAMA in a similar flag-hoisting action. 

The flag-hoisting was used by Jardim to send Lisbon the message that it risks encouraging the growth of FLAMA if it does not accede to the Madeiran people's demands (i.e. his own). Jardim has always used the phantom of this terrorist movement to scare national governments into giving in to his demands and it is more than likely that elements of the ruling PSD party are behind this latest action. 

PSD parliamentarians are the driving force behind the organization Forum for Autonomy, which shares an almost identical acronym: FAMA. The forum issues 'on-demand' statements in favor of independence.