Colombia

Mr. President, as I address the Assembly for the first time as President of Colombia, I should like to offer you, on behalf of my Government, our warmest congratulations on being elected to guide our debates during this session. A few weeks ago, the most important democratic elections in Colombia’s recent history took place. Despite the problems that have besieged our nation in the last few years, our institutional structure has faced one of the sternest tests ever and has again shown that it is solid. In June, more than 12 million people — one of the highest electoral turnouts in the history of the Republic — expressed their free, spontaneous and conscious choice. Today, Colombia is looking towards new horizons. We have restored confidence in our country. We have started the changes which will enable us to face our internal problems with determination and which will win us a more positive and dynamic place in the international community. Our most urgent task will be to build for peace. That is the unshakable commitment of my Government and the heartfelt desire of all of the Colombian people. We are aware that any process designed to root out the causes of conflict for all time will be highly complex. But all our efforts will be dedicated to this noble goal, and we will strive for it tirelessly. It is for this reason that I have personally taken the lead in building peace. We are working hard on the preparation of an agenda for this purpose. We are convinced that representatives of all sectors of society should play a part, and that at the end of the road we will find a guiding light that will lead our country again to peaceful coexistence. Peace in Colombia will also be founded on a clear strategy for economic development and a bold policy for social justice. Only in this way will it be possible to forge a fruitful and lasting peace. As we travel the road to peace the support of the international community will complement our own efforts. We will advocate respect for fundamental rights and full application of international humanitarian law among all those involved in conflict. We will learn from the valuable experiences of other countries in the solution of internal conflicts, and we will adopt whatever is applicable and appropriate to our own situation. Peace in Colombia will demand very substantial investments in social sectors and infrastructure in the zones of conflict. For this, we will create a “Peace Fund”. A significant portion of the money required will come from internal sources. We will also be looking for contributions from the international community, from which we have already received expressions of encouragement, solidarity and interest. All these actions will be part of what we have termed “diplomacy for peace”. It will be diplomacy with social and economic content. It will be diplomacy expressed in investment and in the mobilization of human, technical and financial resources, so that our peace will have a firm and lasting foundation. The achievement of peace in Colombia will be an important initial contribution to the liberation of mankind from one of the twentieth century’s greatest evils: the global problem of illicit drugs. To the extent that we can find agricultural alternatives for our peasant farmers, with fair prices for their products at home and abroad, they will become less dependent on illicit crops. The support of the international community will be crucial in this. The eradication of illicit crops will be one of the central elements of the peace talks that we intend to undertake with the groups engaged in armed conflict. It is true that the end of East-West confrontation brought into being a system of international relations based on détente and on a decline in the role that military power had played during the cold war. The spectre of a nuclear cataclysm seemed to have vanished, and all humanity embraced new hopes for the future. It was thought that the end of the cold war would be the salvation of the many countries and the millions of people who had been forgotten in the midst of tensions and feuds between the two superpowers. But now, almost 10 years later, those initial expectations are far from becoming a reality. Ethnic and religious rivalries, regional confrontations and grave new threats to peace have emerged. I must say most clearly that my Government and the people of Colombia absolutely reject all kinds and modes of terrorism, whatever their origin or motive. There can be no truce with terrorism. All States must fight together to defeat it. This is surely one of our greatest challenges. Corruption is buffeting democracy in a growing number of countries and is becoming a cause of political and social breakdown. Illicit drugs continue to be one of the worst scourges of today’s society, bringing irreparable harm to the new generations and, therefore, to the future of humanity. Human rights are still not properly respected. Women are still the target of abuse and discrimination. Children are the victims of disgraceful practices. Fifty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the more vulnerable groups often have no access to the protection that States are obliged to provide for them. Unsustainable consumer and production practices still continue. The planet’s natural resources are being depleted, its biological wealth is being looted, and our rivers and oceans are being contaminated. Poverty continues to affect huge segments of society. Economic growth in some countries and the prosperity of some levels of society contrast dramatically with the marginalization suffered by the majority of the world’s population. This situation is occurring in an international environment in which the right to development is 2 indissolubly linked to the existence of a favourable international climate. We are going through the most serious financial crisis since the end of the cold war, but there does not yet seem to be sufficient clarity and political will to face it and overcome it. All Latin America has voiced its concern at the gravity of the crisis. Its origins are outside our region, in which countries have made structural reforms to achieve healthy economies that will enable them to meet the social expectations of their peoples. We are aware of the risk of a world recession, and we consider it essential that the more developed countries, the Group of Seven and the international financial organs adopt suitable measures to prevent any new collapse. Such a disaster would irreversibly affect the developing countries first. The measures should enable the financial markets to recover their stability and provide a rapid solution to the current crisis in the world economy that has caused so much concern. Among the proposals which Colombia made at the San Francisco Conference and which were included in the United Nations Charter, there are two I would now like to mention, because they belong to the common heritage of our foreign policy: first, compliance in good faith with the obligations assumed by the Member States of the United Nations, as an underlying assumption for the validity of its universal action; and secondly, recognition of the role played by regional arrangements and agencies in the maintenance of peace, in international security as an integrated concept and in the peaceful settlement of disputes between States. Colombia believes that universalism and regionalism are complementary and should support each other harmoniously. Therefore, one of the aims of our diplomacy is to strengthen the regional agencies within the concept of universalism. It is thus essential that we join our efforts to regain the momentum achieved on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the United Nations, so that the Organization will be revitalized and ready for the beginning of a new millennium. The various levels of action required are all based on the credibility of the multilateralism which the United Nations embodies and the trust which our peoples have in it. Some support the approval of certain reforms that the experience of this period of history and the changes on the world scene have in themselves made imperative. The United Nations cannot be expected to possess magic formulas that we ourselves do not have for solving problems and situations that concern us all, within the context of the interdependence and internationalization characteristic of our times. But we certainly need to adapt them to this moment in history, when we face such wide horizons and colossal challenges. We need something of the idealism and pragmatic spirit which could be inspired by solidarity among the human race. The reasons for the creation of the United Nations not only remain intact, but also have rapidly even become more relevant in the second half of the twentieth century. The principles which inspired its creation have become so important that any action taken unilaterally or by a group of States turns out to be inadequate or limited in effect. Therefore, it will be useful to identify what we can do to make the proposed reforms truly worthwhile. One must seek a genuine consensus for the agenda of priorities for the new millennium. Colombia is ready to help reconcile existing disputes. This is not a question of a simple, formal agreement or of a quest for utopian reform, but of a meeting of wills and a methodical and open-minded consensus regarding proposals which are designed to bring us closer to an era of greater justice and balance. We must eliminate the contradiction in which more responsibilities, actions and programmes are demanded from the United Nations while at the same time some States fail to meet their obligations or do not show any willingness to increase their contribution in proportion to their capacity. Without doubt, the United Nations must be properly funded. The adaptation of structures, regulations and modes of operation means that the Organization must have the personnel and the funds it needs, through efficient and exemplary management. Cooperation for development must receive a massive injection to save it from decline, and this must be in accordance with the text and spirit of the Charter and of countless commitments, within an overall concept that includes encouragement of respect for human, individual, social, economic and cultural rights. My Government has a policy of encouraging broader participation by the new actors on the international stage, such as non-governmental organizations and the private sector. New sources of funding for certain social, development and humanitarian programmes should be sought, which should extend the scope of action of the 3 United Nations and ensure that it continues to steer the common course of international solidarity. We need multilateralism with social content, in which the human being is the central priority and in which development is the guiding principle in decisions. I stand before you to appeal to all nations to contribute to the burial of the post-cold-war period, to see it as no more than an interregnum, and to open the door wide to an era of creative and more humane multilateralism. The original principles of the Organization are of course still valid, but we need to make some adjustments. We need to reconsider certain modes of international action and heed the voices of the peoples who desire development and fight for it in the midst of difficulty and conflict. We need to strengthen communication and dialogue between North and South and to correct unreasonable imbalances. We believe that the time has come to make an objective review of the present state of negotiations for the reform of the Organization, in order to ensure that social and economic matters are properly related to the legitimate aspirations of developing nations. There must be instruments to encourage rapport between the organs originating from the San Francisco Charter and those institutions born at Bretton Woods. We know that the responses of individual nations or groups of States are insufficient. Therefore, there is an even more urgent need to coordinate global responses through vigorous multilateralism. There is an obvious dichotomy between de facto globalization, science and technology, instantaneous communications and the world market, on the one hand, and, on the hand, the absence of genuine social order and human advancement. We must revive an authentic and productive North- South dialogue, based on a concept of solidarity which is more substantial than declarations or good intentions and which is expressed in specific action. It must take account of the needs of the more vulnerable groups and of those excluded from progress. It must replace the logic of confrontation and of the division between poor and rich countries with the logic of cooperation, shared responsibility and solidarity inspired by justice as the golden rule of multilateralism. His Holiness Pope John Paul II summed up this position perfectly on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, when, addressing this same Assembly, he urged us to unite our efforts to build a civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice and liberty, to overcome the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century. We firmly believe that the Charter and all the institutions of the international system must promote dynamic cooperation, each enriching the shared universal heritage with its own particular character. The United Nations must not be merely a forum for the sovereign expression of States. It must be the place for negotiation and synthesis in the political, cultural, social and economic life of the nations. It is reassuring to see that the grand designs that inspired the Charter remain valid. It is now our task to maintain them and to interpret the new situations that arise in the course of history. We know, for example, that conflicts within States are conceptually different from the old wars between States. We have a greater understanding of the link between peace and development and of the way in which politics and socioeconomic interests are related. We believe that it is appropriate to consolidate a minimum international order and to replace violence and terrorism with peace and coexistence, which should then thrive naturally through multilateralism. Colombia encourages the efforts undertaken in arms control, with the systematic quest for disarmament as the ultimate goal, and supports the priority allocation of world and regional resources to development. We believe that it is therefore essential to make progress in the control and gradual elimination of weapons of mass destruction and to exercise effective control over the illegal arms trade, to which thousands of men, women and children fall victim daily throughout the world, and especially in the developing countries. We need a realistic and methodical strategy to secure peace in our time and in the coming century. We need to promote monitoring mechanisms for treaty compliance, the negotiated solution of conflicts and the creation of nuclear-free zones with effective verification systems. In this respect, the United Nations will need to perfect early- warning systems to evaluate events so that its actions will be efficient and genuinely preventive. I have come here today to reaffirm Colombia’s unbroken tradition as a nation devoted to the great 4 principles that underpin the very existence of the United Nations. We are prepared to offer, with thoughtful optimism, our support for the achievement of its purposes and its reforms. We believe it would be useful to review and appraise the results of the various summits held in recent years, so that we may follow up their results and plans of action. This will serve both as a gauge of their effectiveness and as the central element of the analysis of the coordination of the various institutions of the United Nations system as a whole. Our people rightly demand more effective action and less empty rhetoric. We cannot betray billions of human beings who yearn for a world at peace, with democracy and freedom, and above all just, united and equitable.