It is
a great honour to participate in the General Assembly
and a great privilege to greet Members on behalf of the
people and the Government of Cape Verde.
I address the Assembly in the Cape Verdean
language, the Creole of Cape Verde. I believe this is
the first time Cape Verdean Creole is used in United
Nations General Assembly. I do it to share with the
Assembly this piece of authentic world heritage, born
on the threshold of the fifteenth century. Linguistic
experts consider it the oldest Creole of Euro-African
origin and the oldest within the Atlantic context.
I use it also because language is culture, history
and memory. All languages are expressions of
thoughts, knowledge and practices. Languages are no
doubt an expression of civilization. Therefore,
speaking in the Creole of Cape Verde, in this most
important Hall, at a meeting of heads of State and
Government, is a reference to our conviction that the
Creole identity is of anthropological value for all
humanity. It is a way of highlighting our Cape
Verdeanship: our soul and the way of being, the ethos
and pathos of Cape Verde, which is the result of the
intersection of various peoples of the world. The
language is, in and of itself, a synthesis of the meeting
of civilizations. By using it, I also pay vibrant tribute
to Aristides Pereira, the first President of Cape Verde
and a great African fighter for freedom and human
dignity, who recently passed away.
The central theme of this Assembly session — the
role of mediation in the settlement of disputes by
peaceful means — is a crucial and imperative theme
for the world. It reflects the identity, the way of being
and lifestyle of Cape Verdeans. As subscribers to the
purposes and principles of the United Nations, we
believe that peace and human rights are the key factors
in the construction of sovereignty, democratic rule of
law and sustainable development. Therefore, mediators
are required to position and approach matters within
the universal matrix of peace and human rights as the
highest priorities of all States Members of the United
Nations.
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In addition, we consider it crucial to take an
approach focused on the prevention and control of
non-communicable diseases worldwide, especially in
the context of the challenges faced by developing
countries.
Let me offer a few special words regarding the
development of themes such as desertification, land
degradation and drought in the context of sustainable
development and poverty eradication in preparation for
the United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development, scheduled for June 2012, which we
strongly and actively support.
One of the most decisive actions taken by
independent Cape Verde, soon after 1975, was
reforestation, along with orographic correction and the
mobilization of water. As a small island developing
State at the crossroads of two large regions — the
Sahel and Macaronesia — and suffering the effects of
the most stringent climatic randomness of one region
and the oceanic isolation of the other, Cape Verde is
conscious of the importance of the green as well as the
blue economy to the objective of sustainable
development.
We need the United Nations to work out our part
in preventing climate change and food and water
shortages. We count on the United Nations and all
countries of this great General Assembly to converge
both bilaterally and multilaterally towards the green
economy and sustainable development. Therefore, in
Cape Verde there is an ongoing and ambitious
programme for covering 50 per cent of national energy
needs through renewable sources by 2020.
Despite remarkable and positive changes — some
of which have been internationally recognized, such as
our graduation to middle-income country status and
being on the path towards full achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals — I would still like to
take this opportunity to better acquaint the General
Assembly with my country.
Cape Verde, with its ten islands in the middle of
the Atlantic, strategically positioned in the corridor and
the cross-Atlantic flow, is not only a strong partner for
global security, geostrategic interests and world trade,
but is also an active and useful member of the
international community in the fight against trafficking
and related crime. The vast oceanic region of Cape
Verde is an important space for security in the
promotion of regional peace and prosperity and in the
affirmation of an international coalition to fight illicit
transnational crime.
Some may wonder, “What country is this?” Some
think of it as the nation of Amilcar Cabral; others see it
as the country of Cesaria Evora. Cape Verde is a land
that was once an important entrepôt and trans-shipment
base for the African slave trade, for both Europe and
the Americas. Its oldest city — Ribeira Grande, or the
Cidade Velha — was named a World Heritage by
UNESCO in 2009.
Cape Verde is a State that encourages other States
to remember, through memory, history and human
rights, the international slave routes, just as we
remember the Holocaust, another of the heights of
human barbarism. In Cape Verde we can defy our
lusophone partners in the Community of Portuguese-
speaking Countries and our African partners and the
entire world to reaffirm our commitment against
barbarism, dictatorship, colonialism and disrespect for
human rights through the promotion of the candidacy
of the Tarrafal concentration camp on the island of
Santiago as a World Heritage site.
Those who know us know that we are a country
concerned with development. We do not settle for
being middle-income country. We need the partnership
with the international community to fulfil our destiny.
In Cape Verde’s transformational agenda, we
have identified five pillars of our country’s growth and
poverty reduction strategy: promotion of effective
governance, strengthening human development,
confronting the structural and social challenges arising
from competitiveness, and investment in infrastructure
for improving social cohesion.
Cape Verde is developing a foreign policy that
favours democracy, justice, peace, cooperation and
sustainable development. We look at the planet as the
home of all, respecting the sovereignty and will of the
people while emphasizing the global convergence in
the core of humankind. We are therefore concerned
about hunger in the Horn of Africa. We are concerned
that thousands of children die in Africa every day from
hunger. I am concerned that that does not motivate a
stronger international intervention, since the
dictatorship of hunger is the worst of dictatorships.
We urge the United Nations to be more effective
and to make a concerted effort to reverse the image of
that human tragedy in East Africa. We must therefore
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eradicate the geopolitics of hunger. We all need to take
the paradigm of zero hunger in the world.
We are also concerned about wars and tensions
that thrive a little everywhere but are now more
localized and of more intense in Africa, the Middle
East and Asia — to the delight of the dealers in misery,
those who invest in the war industry and in the
suffering of millions of human beings, especially
children, women and the elderly. We must reach a
global consensus that security, peace and stability arise
from the economic and social development of States
and peoples. We must deconstruct war, conflict and
tension between countries and peoples and ensure the
commitment of the sixty-sixth session of the General
Assembly towards that noble goal. We must reiterate
that mediation is essential to settle disputes, whether in
Africa or in the rest of the world.
The global economic crisis is acute. In large
countries it shows signs of settling and in poor
countries it is amplified. If the crisis is global, it
requires global responses against recessionary policies,
such as the protection of domestic markets, and the war
against unfairly priced imports. It also requires global
positions that converge towards social inclusion as a
way to reduce the impact of the economic crisis.
We reiterate our firm position of respect for
international laws, the principles of non-interference in
internal affairs and the sovereignty of peoples and
nations. We do not support double standards for similar
cases, as if peoples and nations were not equal and
deserving of the same treatment, as stated in the United
Nations Charter.
Before concluding, I must emphasize our position
in favour of expanding the reform model of global
governance by the United Nations, allowing, among
the many benefits, small States to have a greater voice
in the decision-making process of the international
system. Cape Verde unequivocally supports an increase
in the number of permanent members of the Security
Council, in the belief that the world is no longer as it
was at the end of the Second World War, nor does it
resemble that of the end of the Cold War.