The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, held yesterday the traditional Christmas videoconference with the Spanish military units in humanitarian and peacekeeping missions abroad.
In his message, the head of the Executive expressed, on behalf of the Government and all the Spanish people, “recognition and gratitude” for the work carried out by these contingents, which perform “a fundamental task for international peace and stability, which are at the same time the best guarantee for the security, and also for the prosperity, of our country and of all our compatriots”. The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the Chief of Defense Staff (JEMAD), Teodoro López Calderón, also took part in the videoconference, together with the heads of seventeen Spanish peace and humanitarian missions.
The President highlighted the work carried out by the Armed Forces in 2021, who went “always with diligence wherever they were needed, whether it was to track down infected people in the pandemic, to deal with the effects of the storm Filomena or flooded areas, to collaborate in extinguishing fires or to help alleviate the damage of the volcano in La Palma”. In addition to these tasks on national territory, there is another one abroad which, “without being so mediatic”, is “essential for the protection of Spain and our national interests”.
In all of them, 9,221 military personnel -8,458 men and 763 women- have taken part during 2021. Regarding the deployment of the Armed Forces abroad, Pedro Sánchez stressed that “it is what allows us to preserve the responsibility acquired by Spain in the rest of the world”, through a task that reinforces “our international position, based on a firm commitment to multilateralism”.
In the review of the tasks of the Armed Forces abroad, the President stopped at the work carried out in Afghanistan, “where our Armed Forces -like those of other countries- ended their important mission after twenty long years” as a consequence of the change of regime. The President of the Government assured that the presence of Spanish units in that country has contributed “to peace and national reconstruction” and, although the departure of the international community from the country “was not as expected”, they should “feel proud of having made possible the repatriation of more than 2,300 Afghans, to whom we have given a new chance in life”.
In this sense, the head of the Executive expressed his conviction that the work carried out in these two decades, which he described as “necessary, useful and essential”, will eventually bear fruit. “The seed of democratic values, of freedom, among which we must highlight the respect for women, will germinate and bear fruit,” he said. Likewise, Sánchez had words of remembrance for “the 188 men and women who, in the fulfillment of their duty, gave their lives in defense of Spain and peace during these thirty-two years of missions abroad of our Armed Forces. Our memory will never abandon them”.
