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"Crer e Querer para Vencer"
750 Km2 of Portuguese territory illegally occupied and colonized by Spain: OLIVENÇA e JUROMENHA
Other Links:
Grupo dos Amigos de Olivença
Forum Olivença
OLIVENÇA: A Frontier Problem
A Covered Up Conflict
On 13 February 1995, at the inauguration of the monument erected at Villa Nueva del Fresno to Humberto Delgado, his excellency the President of the Republic when underlining that the monument to the unlucky general represented "a sign of reconciliation between the two Iberian peoples", affirmed once more, the paramount importance of Portuguese national unity, touching on the exceptional fact of Portugal finding itself among the few countries in Europe without border problems. A simple truth apparently, if it weren't for the 'accident' of the Alameda de los Malos Passos, the place where Humberto Delgado was found dead, scarcely a few kilometres from the Olivença territory, an area of 750 km2, over which a border dispute has continued for nearly two centuries.
In fact, 100 frontier posts continue not placed from the confluence of the rivers Caia and Guadiana, where lies border post number 800, up to the mouth of the river Cuncos, where is erected the post number 901; it's not predictable that in the short term, the impasse will be overcome that blocks the defining of sovereignty over the disputed area, in view of Spanish intransigence to return Olivença, and the inaction of the Portuguese government to see that the law is obeyed and this Alentejan land is incorporated under our administration.
The Position of the Portuguese State
The national institutions of sovereignty rarely refer to the Olivença problem, exempting themselves from the moral responsibility of publishing in the Portuguese public media the existence of this border dispute. In agreeing to stay silent about this matter, those responsible for the Portuguese State have obtained their aspiration of extinguishing from the national conscience an obstacle to the narrowing of the relations between the Iberian countries. The ignorance of the Olivença problem which has deepened almost in a general way throughout the country led recently, to the bizarre situation that a Portuguese ministerial office being ignorant of the border dispute had taken a decision that another ministerial office had to block; a situation that should deserve profound reflection about the lack of internal communication among the several State departments.
Even though the affirmations are scarce by those responsible for our diplomacy, it is clear the principle that Portugal does not recognise Spanish sovereignty over the Olivença territory. In the last seven years we know of two public testimonies by our diplomacy with regard to our right of title of sovereignty over the region of Olivença that make it sufficiently clear to understand the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1998 the Portuguese ambassador Carlos Empis Wemans, our representative on the Portuguese/Spanish International Commission of Limits declared to the (Portuguese newspaper) 'Diário de Lisboa': "Portugal has never officially recognised the situation. Olivença from a legal point of view continues to be ours. As for concerning arranged contacts by Spain about problems in the area we will always reply that 'de jure' it is Portuguese".
More recently, this position has been reaffirmed concerning the Ajuda bridge, a Manueline work, destroyed at the beginning of the XVIII century during the War of the Succession and it has remained impassable to our day, making the link difficult over the Guadiana between Elvas and Olivença, today the 'de facto' border but not the juridicially accepted common border between Spain and Portugal. In 1990, the then Prime Minister Cavaco Silva agreed at the Iberian Summit the reconstruction of the Ajuda bridge, as a cross border project, as it had been negociated by the Regional Planning Secretary of State Isabel Mota and by her opposite number José Borrell. Four years later, in 1994, at the beginning of March, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, presided by Durão Barroso, cancelled the agreement, blocking the execution of the work. The Portuguese ambassador Pinto Soares, our representative on the Commision of Limits refused to discuss the dossier about the bridge, affirming that "the Portuguese government cannot be involved in any project that involves recognition of the border line in a place in which there is no agreement about it. To participate in this enterprise", he explained to the 'Publico' a news source from the Necessidades Palace, "would be equivalent to recognising Spanish sovereignty over Olivença".
The cunning way in which Spain pretended to obtain the recognition of its illegal occupation of Olivença ended by transforming it in a clear affirmation of our rights over the territory. As the Portuguese government considers the Olivença territory included in its space of sovereignty, the Ministry of Foreign Afairs succeeded imposing on Spain in having the work done exclusively by Portugal and not as a type of joint cross border enterprise. The silent way that the peninsular states like to deal with Olivença's dispute led to the final agreement being discussed at the Iberian Summit in Porto in November 1994, without the press receiving the great echoes of friction and hurt that the problem stirred up.
The Force of Right and the Imperative of Politics
The demands of sovereignty that Portugal claims over the Olivença territory did not suffer any serious controversy being founded on the truth of the facts and the principle of right. The only document that Spain uses to claim possession of Olivença is completely null and void and of no juridicial value, constituting on the contrary, sufficient reason for the Portuguese State to claim the restitution of the territory. The Treaty of Badajoz of 1801 was not a treaty about frontiers. It constituted merely a treaty of peace, imposed, for that matter by force, guaranteeing Spain possession of Olivença while none of its steadfast rules were put into question by either side. The causes for the nullity of the Treaty of Badajoz are various, making it unnecessary to have an inventory of all of them in great detail. According to what is expressely written, the Treaty of Badajoz would lose all its juridicial value if the peace was violated by any of its signatories; which was to happen with the Spanish-French invasion (of Portugal) that followed the notorious Treaty of Fontainbleu of 1807.
If a solid juridicial foundation did not exist as a base for the Portuguese claims, we would have recognised Spanish sovereignty over Olivença long ago, avoiding therefore a constant raising of animosities between the Iberian states as it seems periodically to be corroborated while documents are revealed to the public by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of both countries.
Being an impregnable argument of our international rights, the Portuguese State has, along two centuries, taken initiatives with the view to the restitution of the Olivença territory. Various international treaties and bilateral contacts between the peninsular states have allowed several times to move forward the process for the return of the disputed area, without, until now, the transfer of sovereignty having materialised. The International Commision of Limits, an organisation in which problems of the demarcation of frontiers are resolved, has been the privileged place, in our time, for Portugal to demand the fulfilling of the sealed agreements and which Spain has always exempted itself by weaving/hatching compromising plots of greater interests to our diplomacy. To avoid Spain making use of a possible implied recognition of the Guadiana border, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated our territorial claims over the Olivença territory, making it a priority in the Commission of Limits. And so it succeeded several times, as in 1952, 1958, 1959, and 1968. In 1974, the International Commision of Limits having met in Madrid and the issue of Olivença being broached, the Spanish delegates proposed that the problem be handed for study to a consultation jury of that organisation. Even being Spanish, the consultation jury recognised the legitimate rights that Portugal possesses to claim Olivença, a fact of fundamental importance to our claims, the more so for it became an agreement registered as such.
Twice this century, Portuguese claims were going to be raised in International organisations. The first time when the Peace Conference was convened in 1919 at the end of the 1st World War. The second time, during Salazar's government, at the time when the ambassador Franco Nogueira was in charge at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The reasons for political compromises overode the juridicial problem, imposing a situation of convenience to delay the solution of the conflict and to subject the people of Portugal to the insult of seeing captive a parcel of inalienable national territory.
Today with the Iberian countries together part of the European Union, it constitutes a guarantee for a peaceful solution and fairness to both sides in the dispute. We hope that Spain does not use it as blackmail the building of the Alqueva dam and the impact it makes to the Guadiana waters, forcing us to a new delay a claim sufficiently clear, but once and for all, to return to us, what is by history and legal right that which belongs to us without challenge. It would not be the first time the the Spanish government resorted to subterfuge and to injurious ploys to ignore all the agreements and commitments it has already made. Spain should at least show the highest respect for the way it was treated during the Spanish civil war, at a time when only dignity and self-restraint, prevented the Portuguese government from sending the light infantry regiment no. 8 stationed at Elvas to take back Olivença and liberate its people who with a sign of loyalty to the Lusitanian homeland hoisted there the Portuguese flag.
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