It gives me great pleasure to begin my
statement by warmly congratulating Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon on his re-election to the post in which he
has carried out his duties with such effectiveness and
honesty. His contributions to the Organization, the
international community and the multilateral system
over these first five years are well known. We know
they will continue to be so in the years to come.
I would also like to congratulate the President of
the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly,
Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser. His
experience, ability and dedication are guarantees of
fruitful work.
I extend my best wishes to both as they exercise
their vital functions, and they will have Costa Rica’s
full support for their efforts in favour of peace,
security, democracy, disarmament, human rights,
respect for the rule of law, sustainable development,
mediation and the peaceful settlement of disputes.
I am also very pleased to welcome South Sudan
as a new Member of the Organization. I believe that its
people will enjoy a prosperous, peaceful and safe
future. The emergence of this new State is a testament
to what can be achieved, even in situations of endemic
violence, through serious negotiations between the
parties and international mediation.
The intense and invigorating, but still uncertain,
currents of political and social change that have swept
through North Africa and the Middle East this year are
proof of the universal force of democracy as an
aspiration, of free expression as an incentive, and of
respect for human dignity as the most urgent demand.
Our admiration for the peoples of those countries
is as great as our hope in their capacity to forge social
and political systems in peace, systems that are
tolerant, free and dynamic, in which people are
respected and whereby a country can be open to its
neighbours.
We also hope that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
will soon come to an end, with two sovereign and
democratic States living in peaceful coexistence.
From its deepest collective roots, Costa Rica fully
identifies with the principles of democracy, peace and
human rights. These are values that we share with the
immense majority of Central Americans.
Disrespect for those values, together with social
exclusion, the outrages of militarism and the deadly
echo of the Cold War, plunged much of Central
America into a series of intense conflicts for almost
four decades. After tens of thousands of deaths, our
region was able, through dialogue and mediation, to
overcome the worst manifestations of political
violence. In those overwhelming days, Costa Rica
made a decisive contribution by shaping and realizing
the Esquipulas Accords, which opened the door to
reconciliation.
Since then, progress has been slow and erratic.
Fifteen years ago, as part of that process, Central
American countries signed the Framework Treaty on
Democratic Security in Central America. But the time
that has elapsed since then has not sufficed to secure
the peace, liberty, democracy and development in the
region that we promised our peoples.
Even worse, we are now victims of a new and
terrible form of aggression. I am referring to the cold,
disastrous and fierce onslaught of transnational
organized crime. Such activities have generated
insecurity, weakened institutions, corrupted officials,
fostered addiction, cut short the lives of thousands of
young people, destroyed families and turned humble
single mothers into criminals. This scourge has eroded
the basic fabric of our society and has jeopardized the
very existence of the rule of law in some countries.
Today, I wish to repeat the comments I made on
22 June at the International Conference on Regional
Security in Central America, held recently in
Guatemala. Our region has fallen victim to a perverse
geopolitical situation. As Costa Rica is located between
the major production centres and the world’s largest
consumer market for drugs, we have become a target in
the dynamic of death that both create. We must bear the
burden of exponentially increasing material,
institutional and human costs. What are instances of
mere collateral damage for some of the main actors in
this conflict are, for the people of Central America,
extreme challenges and a source of deep wounds.
That is where our greatest frustration lies. That is
why we demand that the international community, in
particular the largest consumers of drugs and producers
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of the weapons that create violence, fully assume its
share of responsibility without further delay.
The International Conference on Regional
Security in Central America, which was attended by
the Presidents of all of the countries in the region, from
Mexico to Colombia, was a hopeful turning point.
There, we were able to coordinate our strategies.
There, we agreed on the need for a comprehensive
approach to violence that includes measures to
strengthen institutions and the rule of law, as well as
comprehensive initiatives to prevent and fight crime. In
addition, we were able to catch the attention of, and
obtain some promises from, the international
community.
Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether the
strategies can be translated into effective actions, or
whether we will have enough support from external
resources to drive them forward. Those resources are
not merely aid. They are a morally inescapable and, in
practical terms, indispensable form of compensation
that we need to make at least part of the investment
necessary to establish peace, stability and security.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has
insisted, quite rightly, on the need to promote
preventive diplomacy. I join in that call as President of
Costa Rica and as a citizen of Central America. I insist,
before the world, that we can wait no longer to act in
order to avoid an even greater tragedy in our region. It
is already late; to wait even longer will be tragic.
Preventive diplomacy demands political will. We
are approaching another moment in which it will be put
to the test. I refer to the upcoming United Conference
on the Arms Trade Treaty, which Costa Rica has
actively supported, along with other States. We need to
have the Conference produce a robust, comprehensive
and demanding instrument capable of effectively
controlling the flow of the death machines that provoke
all types of conflict.
Preventive diplomacy, in its deepest essence, also
means fostering democracy and human rights and
respecting the rule of law as the cornerstone of security
and international coexistence. Costa Rica knows it
well. Since we abolished the army in 1949, our only
lines of defence have been the deep civic beliefs of our
people, the strength of our institutions and the
instruments provided by the multilateral system. The
security of the 26 other disarmed democracies in the
world also depends on those defences. We deserve to
be heard and paid attention to.
A little less than a year ago, our faith in
international law and the instruments and institutions
that underpin it was put to the test. Last October,
Nicaraguan troops and civilians invaded and occupied
part of our national territory, in clear violation of our
sovereignty, the border treaties and international law.
After exhausting the possibilities of a suitable bilateral
agreement, we appealed to various forums of the
regional and international system. Our neighbour’s
Government rejected several of them. Finally, thanks to
urgent measures ordered by the International Court of
Justice, the Nicaraguan forces had to leave our
territory.
However, while we await the Court’s final ruling,
Nicaragua, ignoring the Court’s orders, has continued
specific provocations to and violations of the
provisional measures. Furthermore, it has threatened
other actions that could infringe on our territory. We
hope that that does not occur. But, if it were to, we will
vigorously reinstate our actions before the machinery
of the international system.
All that we request of the Organization and the
multilateral system in general is rapid and timely
consideration of possible aggressions. The
international community cannot make its preventive
action conditional on actual armed violence between
brothers. It should react not only in relation to the
quantity and scale of the explosive blasts, but to the
severity and persistence of the violations.
Otherwise, the message to the world would be
disastrous. It would imply that the shortest route for
mobilizing international diplomacy is that of blood. As
a country and as a people, we emphatically reject that
notion.
Based on our firm belief in the importance of the
rule of law, human rights and humanitarian law, I
informed the Assembly a year ago of our aspiration to
become a member of the Human Rights Council.
Today, I am grateful for the generous support that it
gave us in achieving that goal. We will remain faithful
to the promises made at the time and to the proposals
that we called for during the review of the Council in
Geneva and New York.
In particular, I urge Member States to support an
initiative whose time has come: the United Nations
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declaration on human rights education and training,
which Costa Rica supports together with a group of
like-minded countries. After its unanimous adoption by
the Council, it will soon be submitted to the General
Assembly. We are confident that it will receive similar
support.
When education, deterrence and other preventive
mechanisms are unable to avert the worst assaults on
human dignity, the international community faces other
obligations. Among them is the protection of civilians,
contained in the responsibility to protect. My country
recognizes that concept as a principle and guide for
action, whether preventive or reactive, on the basis of
legitimate and well-founded decisions. We hope that
such a concept, like human security, is very clearly
defined within the Organization.
Moreover, the fight for human rights requires that
perpetrators of crimes against humanity be held
accountable and punished. Today, the International
Criminal Court is the main multilateral mechanism for
achieving that goal. I reiterate our support of its
activities and urge all States Members of the United
Nations to ratify the Treaty of Rome. I also urge that
we should all, as Member States, be more active and
resolute in our support for the greater effectiveness,
relevance and significance of the United Nations;
hence, the importance of its reform process.
Costa Rica has joined and will continue to join
initiatives that push for the best possible changes.
Among other things, we will continue to work
constructively for the ongoing improvement of the
working methods of the Security Council, through the
Small Five group, and for a more representative
composition of that organ, in accordance with the
guidelines of Uniting for Consensus.
Costa Rica is a middle-income country. Thanks to
its commitment to democracy, peace, good governance,
the efficient use of international cooperation and its
investments in health and education, Costa Rica has
achieved high levels of human development. Together
with other States with similar characteristics, we
exemplify the success of international cooperation as a
key factor in achieving such results. However, we still
face serious challenges with regard to poverty, income
distribution, regional differences and the consequences
of the economic crisis and natural disasters, among
others.
We have been responsible, effective and ethical
partners. We have made progress in development, but
have still not been able to consolidate it to the point of
dispensing with international assistance. We still need
that assistance to fully secure our achievements. We
look forward to the support and understanding of donor
countries and the institutions of the United Nations, in
particular the United Nations Development
Programme. Our relative success should not be
penalized, but bolstered.
Costa Rica has focused on sustainable social and
environmental development. We have taken significant
steps to sustain our growth through clean energy and a
low-carbon economic model. Our goal is to become
one of the first carbon-neutral countries in the world,
and we are working diligently to achieve it.
On that path, in which every local action has
global links, we have confidence in the next
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Climate Change Conference, to be held in Durban at
the end of the year, and in the coming United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development, planned for
next year in Rio de Janeiro. However, we are also
concerned about the lack of progress made in earlier
negotiations.
I conclude these words by reiterating our deep
commitment to the principles set out in the Charter of
the United Nations. I am delighted that yesterday we
celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the International
Day of Peace, a Costa Rican initiative that was adopted
by consensus by Member States. It gives me even
greater pleasure that its theme this year is “Peace and
democracy: Make your voice heard”.
As national and international leaders, we should
always heed the voices of our peoples. We should
listen to them, respect them and incorporate them in
our initiatives. That is part of our democratic
responsibility, the basis of good governance, the seed
of meaningful change and the foundation of legitimacy.
As President of Costa Rica, a discrete, noble,
fraternal and free people, I promise not to relent in our
efforts to achieve a better country and a better world.