Madam President, may I tell you how happy Paraguay
is to see you presiding over the sixty-first session of
the General Assembly. Your personal and professional
qualities ensure the success of this session.
I wish to reiterate what I said at the earlier
summit meeting. For Paraguay, peace and security,
development with social justice, democracy and human
rights are the fundamental pillars on which the world
must be based, because they are interconnected
principles that mutually strengthen each other. We
cannot consider ourselves to be in an airtight
compartment, because if pride of place is given to one
over another, this Assembly will not be a pluralistic,
representative body. Rather, the single-voiced will of
Powers will continue to be imposed on others.
My delegation thanks the Secretary-General,
Mr. Kofi Annan, for his detailed annual report on the
work of the Organization (A/61/1). Ideally, the
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Secretary-General would not travel only to those places
where barbaric warfare is destroying cities and killing
innocent, defenceless people. Perhaps something would
change if he were also to go to see the vast universe of
poverty and social exclusion resulting from worldwide,
profoundly unjust disorder, and then propose solutions.
We urgently need to build a global partnership of
solidarity to supplement the efforts made by our
countries. Only in this way will we be able to deal with
the problems of poverty, hunger and the lack of access
to education and health care. Clearly, every country is
responsible for achieving its own economic and social
development by applying the proper policies to
mobilize domestic resources. But those national efforts
should be supplemented by explicit commitments by
the developed countries to promote and facilitate
access to international markets and more balance in
economic relations and in the price of products.
The experience of developed countries
themselves shows that, without external cooperation,
they would have had difficulty in prospering or in
restructuring their economies.
The reciprocal increase in production and trade is
a driving force for development. However, the trend
towards more concentrated productive expansion and
insufficient participation in the benefits of world trade
condemn the majority of countries to marginalization
from development. For this reason, Paraguay calls once
again for the right of all nations to more even-handed,
equitable treatment, including the right to build a new
form of solidarity among States which are capable of
promoting progress on a global scale.
Agricultural subsidies, protectionism, the lack of
technology transfers and the distortions in international
trade, together with ethnocentric control of
information, knowledge and science, postpone
development and punish countries on the periphery
with a pre-modern and wasted life. Because of those
recurrent circumstances, we are convinced that the
tariffs and non-tariff barriers that are applied not only
by developed countries but also by our own regional
partners must be removed. Only in that way can we
quickly overcome asymmetries and unjust
discrimination.
Society expects more of democracy and of
politicians. It expects the system that guarantees liberty
and equality before the law also to be a system which
promotes and ensures the well-being of all and puts an
end to exclusion. Unfortunately, this basic conception
of politics is not reflected in the behaviour of many
actors. In practice, petty interests, selfishness and party
faction are considered more important and have greater
priority than the interests of the nation. Democracy as
government in the service of the common good is being
bastardized. That gives rise to the lack of prestige and
devaluation of politics and democracy, particularly in
Latin America.
This erratic direction that politics is taking must
be corrected in countries which do not have a
democratic tradition: we have only just built low-
quality democracy, a pseudo-democracy laced with
conspiracies against good governance and the exercise
of power based on legitimacy and the will of the
majority of the people.
In any event, in Paraguay, we are making a great
effort. School attendance is showing exponential
growth. Educational reform, now extended to higher
education, has practically universalized basic
education. The secondary school population is
following the same trend, while university enrolment
has doubled through the institutionalization of equal
opportunities and conditions. According to the United
Nations itself, Paraguay is in a position to achieve, for
example, the Millennium Development Goal related to
education. One of our key objectives here is to gain
certification of zero illiteracy for our country by 2008.
Together with improving and significantly
expanding public and private health-care services, our
environmental policy is recovering the great ecological
sustainability which characterized Paraguay. This is
taking place in the midst of silent agrarian reform. In
addition to the massive purchase of land for orphan
peasants — which is still insufficient to alleviate the
unfair distribution of land in Paraguay — we are
implementing a policy aimed at rural settlement and
increased production and productivity as a way of
giving fresh significance to peasant life, its
sustainability and its dignity.
Positive action is also taking place with a view to
modernizing the State through simplification,
transparency and making its services effective. We are
seeking to improve public safety, combat corruption
and eradicate piracy, drug trafficking and smuggling. If
one looks at the crime index, Paraguay has one of the
lowest rates. Nevertheless, we are obliged to improve
legal security, and to do that we must implement a
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policy of professional qualification and establish ethics
in the judicial system.
Development financing continues to be limited in
terms of fulfilling national development plans and
programmes, both those which are the result of
international mobilization and those which result from
the domestic mobilization of financial resources. This
situation reflects the viability of various projects which
are directed towards expanding productive
employment, improving basic social services,
education and adapting productive infrastructure and
other areas of action which are essential for
development.
We are aware that the main task begins within our
countries. It is we who bear the main responsibility.
However, with the increase in domestic savings, good
macroeconomic policies and a predictable country, we
in Paraguay are reducing poverty and are moving
towards development. Therefore, our country continues
to focus on rationalizing public expenditure and on
social and productive investment. This fiscal discipline
makes us worthy of increased support from
international financial institutions. But what we need in
Latin America, as the President of our sister Republic
of Bolivia said earlier today, are markets and partners,
not bosses or others who would continue to seize the
wealth and natural resources of the peoples of our
region.
On the subject of human rights, we welcome the
fact that, through a process of focused consultations,
the General Assembly, in March, adopted resolution
60/251, which established the Human Rights Council.
That Council will have a mechanism for the periodic
and universal review of States’ compliance with their
obligations in this important area, a review based on
dialogue and cooperation. What we want is that the
criteria for assessing human rights be applied in the
same way and using the same principles both to
developing countries and to developed countries. The
assessment of human rights would thus not affect only
developing countries and countries with emerging
economies, which are making great efforts at
institution-building and at consolidating democracy
and freedom.
The fight against terrorism should unite people
who love liberty and seek respect for human rights and
the rule of law. While it is true that fundamentalism of
all kinds is anachronistic and dangerous, terrorism
should not be the only item on the international
agenda, excluding or relegating to the back burner the
equally crucial debate on poverty and development in
countries with peripheral capitalism and those with
emerging economies. Civilization means respect for
diversity and differences. Combating terrorism thus
requires that any repressive action be carried out within
the jurisdiction of international law and not through
mere administrative procedures.
With regard to the question of the representation
in the United Nations of the 23 million inhabitants of
Taiwan, Paraguay, consistent with the position it has
long held, confirms its support in favour of their
admission to the United Nations. Their inclusion is
consistent with the principle of universality embodied
in our Charter, as well as with the norms of
international law.
To address the problems and conflicts now facing
the international community, it is necessary to create a
multipolar world and to make it function. The
equilibrium of our twenty-first-century universe replete
with uncertainty, depends on multipolarity. For that
reason, my country and the Common Market of the
South (MERCOSUR) place their hopes on that
approach, and in particular on the reform of the
Security Council. It is shameful that what occurs in the
Council should be seen as more important than the
United Nations as an Organization which promotes a
culture of peace, global development and the
universalization of science and technology.
In Latin America, as was said by my friend the
President of our sister Republic of Bolivia, we have a
culture of peace and brotherhood. We seek harmony
with our fellow human beings and with nature.
Unfortunately, at other times in our history, we have
experienced warfare — not because our peoples
wanted it, but because of manipulation by imperialists
thirsting to destroy our wealth and fragment our
peoples. We have put that history behind us. Today we
look to the future to see how we in our region can pool
our efforts to deal with poverty and recover our
peoples’ political, economic and cultural sovereignty.
In addition, the hierarchy and institutional
structure of the United Nations depend on a world
where equilibrium prevails, ensuring fairness in
decisions and action. We do not need sermons about
education for peace and the megamillions spent on the
arms build-up. We are not naïve and were offended to
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see that in 2004 alone, the super-Powers spent sums of
money on rearming that could have put an end to
poverty and ignorance in the world.
Certainly military belligerence, which is so
destructive and so threatening, is not unrelated to the
scandalous rise in the price of oil today, which is
causing insecurity, economic slowdown and stagnation
in the developing countries. Inequality for our peoples
should not mean that we must take bread out of the
mouths of the poor in order to waste millions of dollars
on fratricidal weapons.
Over and above the events that threaten world
peace are the daily lives of people. In our region, life is
good only for the minority and miserable for the
majority.
Therefore, we urgently need a United Nations
that makes a contribution to the development, well-
being and freedom of all peoples. Likewise, it is our
duty to build an entirely prosperous, fair and united
society so that the countenances of our citizens reflect
their happy lives. May God illuminate our path, so that
there can be brotherhood among all nations and
individuals, and so that our history can truly embark on
the path of peace.