Panama

On behalf of the President of the Republic of Panama, Mireya Elisa Moscoso Rodr'guez, and on my own behalf, I extend my warmest congratulations to Mr. Hunte on his election as President of the General Assembly at this session. The delegation of Panama is deeply gratified that he has been appointed to guide our debates, because he represents here the commitment of developing countries, and in particular those of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, to multilateral efforts to achieve peace, respect for human rights, and sustainable development. Stability and security, in their broadest sense, are things to which all humanity aspires. We will never achieve these objectives, however, if, in attempting to shape this new world, we counter the aspirations of our peoples or attempt to base it on the systematic development of grand military alliances. Human security, which is sought by all States, large and small, depends exclusively on our dedication to the collective security architecture that we have concentrated in the United Nations. Our duty, then, is to defend and strengthen at all costs our Organization’s objectives and purposes, in particular the integrity and authority of our international legal system. The world has been through an extraordinary experience this year, one that was hotly debated and the fallout from which is still far from clear. It is not too much to say that the trepidations over the events in Iraq that were felt here in the United Nations and beyond have had a number of repercussions both on the internal work of this Organization and on the conduct of international relations. Nevertheless, Panama is convinced that the differences that were aired in the Security Council are a clear demonstration that it has functioned as it should; that the diversity of opinions and approaches that exist in the world were aired there without reservations; and that, although differences remained at the end of the process, it had the marginal benefit of highlighting the measurement and control requirements that must be taken into account in the Security Council. Apart from these differences, the Security Council acted appropriately in establishing a pragmatic relationship with the occupying Powers in Iraq by means of resolution 1483 (2003) of May 22. In addition, our Organization is demonstrating that it has an irreplaceable role to play in the humanitarian field, just as it has in the political, diplomatic, economic and financial spheres. The shocking slaughter that took place in Baghdad on 19 August and the killings of 22 September — painful acts of terrorism that took the lives of many national and international civil servants of the United Nations, including Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello — must move us to consider and adopt urgent measures to ensure that the international community takes concerted action as soon as possible towards the reconstruction of Iraq. To all their colleagues and to the great United Nations family, we express the most sincere condolences of Mireya Moscoso, President of Panama, her Government and the people of Panama. During the Millennium Summit, Panama asked Member States, among other things, to return to the original spirit of the United Nations Charter. Consistent with that request, we hope that all of us will accept the obligation to reconcile ourselves with the general interests of the international community and to avoid acting solely in light of our particular strategic, military or political interests. We repeat that request today, and call attention to the urgent need for strengthening the multilateral system as the guarantee of stability and security, which are fundamental for peaceful coexistence. Today, perhaps more than ever before, we must tackle the task of reforming our Organization so that the General Assembly can fulfil its proper function as the principal political body, and the Security Council can have a greater capacity to deal with the new challenges that the end of the cold war has brought with it. To achieve this objective, Panama stresses the contents of the Declaration on the Strengthening of the United Nations and Security Council Reform, adopted at the Eleventh Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Rio Group, which met at Asunci n, Paraguay, in August 1997, calling upon Member States of the United Nations to correct the present imbalances in the composition of the Security Council, improve its decision-making mechanisms, and bring greater transparency to the conduct of its work. 21 We firmly believe that an extremely important element in this and other tasks facing us is the announcement by the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, that he will establish a high-level panel comprising eminent personalities from all regions of the world. Panama and the world congratulate him on having proposed this initiative. We also wish to have the General Assembly become the forum in which to seek a solution to the problem between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. As Panama has noted on previous occasions, Taiwan has, in a sense, been left hanging in time and space, protected and yet unprotected. Recently, in response to the need to combat the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, the World Health Organization was able to provide direct and effective assistance to Taiwan without violating or weakening the fundamental elements of the positions of the parties to that controversy. We believe that the United Nations system could act in several ways to help the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan resolve their dispute in a peaceful way, while we fulfil our most cherished objective of responding, without exception, to the social needs of humanity. Last July we held here the first Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the 2001 Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. We are still quite far from achieving our objectives, both nationally and internationally, but we believe that that biennial meeting injected new vigour into the efforts that we must all make to keep our commitments. We repeat our position, put forward at that meeting, that the purposes and code of conduct put before Member States in the first two articles of the Charter must be crucial for securing peace and understanding among the nations of the world. We would also stress that the massive clandestine trafficking in small arms and light weapons, which fuels internal conflicts, dictatorships, guerrilla movements and international terrorism, can only be blocked through close international cooperation. With equal determination, we must pursue the networks of traffickers in narcotics and diamonds, which use bogus firms and banks, thrive by corrupting public officials and are constantly working to destroy our societies. In a follow-up to the Monterrey Summit, we in the countries of the South renew our call for creating a more just and efficient financial system, for eliminating the inequities of globalization and financing for development, and for raising the depressed prices of our raw materials and other export products. As we have stated on previous occasions, there is also an urgent need to agree on the proper mechanisms for forestalling financial crises and finding a solution to unsustainable external debt burdens, in accordance with resolution 57/240. We now approach the High-level Dialogue on Financing for Development, which will be held in this city on 29 and 30 October 2003. We must seize this opportunity to reinvigorate this part of our activity, and to review the progress achieved in ensuring effective Secretariat support, pursuant to resolution 57/273. At the second meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee to consider proposals for a comprehensive and integral international convention to promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, it was decided to create a working group to prepare and submit a draft text for negotiation among Member States and accredited observers. Panama’s position is represented in the Declaration of Quito of 11 April 2003, which, in brief, called for promoting and protecting the rights and dignity of the 600 million persons living with disabilities around the world, the great majority of whom suffer constantly from poverty and lack of understanding. The international convention that we seek, as noted in the Declaration, must reflect “the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and the principle of non-discrimination.” These concepts are thoroughly established in the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international human rights agreements and other related instruments. It is timely to refer here to the persistent and growing worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic. Latin American and Caribbean countries, too, are confronted with a serious situation in this area. The Pan American Health Organization met in Washington on 11 June to address this issue, and noted that the demographic and social impact of HIV/AIDS in our region threatens to undermine the ability to carry out development projects. We therefore call on the United Nations system to make available to Latin America and the Caribbean adequate resources to prevent this scourge. As is well 22 known, our region today has some 2.5 million people suffering from this terrible disease. It is clear that the moral and technical presence of the United Nations is essential in efforts to eradicate political, racial and religious intolerance, and in support of negotiations for pacification, reunification, self-determination and reconstruction, in order to ensure that the peoples concerned can enjoy the benefits of development. Having said this, I urge our Organization to find expeditious ways of helping those who are committed to the so-called road map for resolving the conflict between Palestine and Israel to secure the active cooperation of the countries of the region and of the Governments of Israel and the Palestine National Authority, so as to overcome the current scepticism over any imminent possibility of seeing the two peoples living in peace, within secure boundaries, as two sovereign States. Ensuring that that urgent task is carried out successfully will require the ongoing participation of all of the neighbouring States. They must demonstrate a joint willingness to become guarantors of the stability and security of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and guardians of strict adherence to the Charter of the United Nations and to Security Council resolutions. I would like to conclude by referring briefly to the International Criminal Court. With the election of its Judges and Prosecutor, the Court has become a reality. We recognize the concern that has been aroused, particularly among the States parties to the Rome Statute, by the fact that the Security Council, in its resolution 1487 (2003), renewed for one year the provisions of resolution 1422 (2002) with regard to immunity in cases relating to peacekeeping operations, as well as by the fact that bilateral immunity agreements have been negotiated separately by several countries on the basis of article 98 of the Statute. Panama, a firm supporter of the International Criminal Court, believes that these pragmatic agreements are a response to a temporary situation, and that they cannot and must not detract from the purposes and objectives of the Rome Statute. As States parties, we cannot shrink from the obligations imposed by our domestic jurisdictions in matters relating to war crimes, and we are therefore convinced that the political concerns and suspicions of today will disappear as it becomes apparent that persons who commit monstrous crimes against humanity can never be shielded by any State or protected by dreams of impunity. Any State that holds to a different interpretation on this point will be swimming against the tide of human progress and international law.