PORTUGAL’S PRESIDENT Cavaco Silva said last week that the crime wave engulfing the country in recent months is “very serious”.
Returning from holidays in the Alentejo, the President indirectly warned the government that it had to come up with “an adequate strategy” to deal with the problem.
The warning was given in Odemira after the President inaugurated a Continuous Care Unit which has been up and running since April this year.
Unlike the government and some security forces, Cavaco Silva refused to play down the string of armed bank robberies, security van hold-ups, car jackings and other organised crimes which have swept through Portugal in recent months.
The President said that the state needed to create measures that would “enforce and guarantee the security of people and their belongings.”
The Head of State also said that the “criminals wouldn’t go unpunished”, while at the same time calling on the Portuguese to put their “trust” in the security forces and police investigators.
“We need to concentrate the means and forces to develop an adequate strategy to confront the situation in which the country is going through,” he said.
He also said that the government needs to develop a strategy in order “to save Portugal’s image as a safe country”.
“I don’t wish to not show my support and solidarity for our police forces that fight crime,” he added.
Strategies
Asked about the performance of the current Minister of Internal Administration, Rui Pereira, following widespread calls for his dismissal, Cavaco Silva said simply that it was necessary to “adapt strategies in the fight against violent crime.”
“All of us feel that crime has risen significantly recently and there isn’t a single day that goes by without news of some assault or violent crime,” he added.
In parliament, the ultra-conservative CDS-PP party called for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the escalating crime and violence in the country.
It called for the creation of a Permanent Extraordinary Security Commission to deal with “growing violent crime” which has been rejected by the governing PS Party.
The communist PCP party also blamed the government of José Sócrates for the crime wave, saying it was a direct result of the “deteriorating economic and social situation in the country.”
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