It has been barely two weeks since I initiated in
Guatemala an electoral process that will conclude on
14 January, when I will have the honour to bestow the
presidential sash on the person elected democratically
by my people. That event will have two consequences:
first, representative democracy will be strengthened
further in Guatemala, based on an electoral process that
even international observers have described as very
satisfactory.
Secondly, this is my last appearance before the
General Assembly, an occasion which I take advantage
of in order to attest my support to the United Nations
and to greet our new Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-
moon, and the outgoing President of the General
Assembly, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, and the
incoming President, Mr. Srgjan Kerim.
Now that we have only a few months before
handing over power in Guatemala, I wanted to give a
brief account of the main accomplishments of my
administration, within the framework of what we
consider a successful history, despite the problems that
continue to besiege us. After overcoming an internal
conflict that lasted four long decades, this story reflects
success not only for Guatemala but also for the United
Nations, the Organization that is so closely tied to our
Peace Accords. It is precisely those agreements that
encompass our main objectives, namely strengthening
the State’s democratic institutions, promoting
economic and social development, fighting against
poverty and social exclusion, fully respecting human
rights and building a multicultural, multiethnic and
multilingual Nation.
Allow me to reveal some of the accomplishments
of the past years. First, one of the successes of our
administration was improving the quality of public
management through the creation or strengthening of
public institutions, the articulation of coherent policy
programmes combined with specific actions and in
many instances, updated legislation. It would be
tedious to enumerate the multiple areas revamped,
including diverse subjects such as food security, the
energy sector, administrative and financial
decentralization, governmental administration, the
revenue administration, trafficking of persons and
assistance to immigrants the last subject is so dear
to our concerns.
At the same time, we have progressed in
strengthening and creating new democratic
mechanisms control institutions, invigorating the
direction of ministries as well as enhancing result-
oriented management, while all along integrating the
main political aims with planning and budgets. In that
context, we have built a State where public expenditure
and biddings are subject to civil society scrutiny.
Having instituted the “Guatecompras” programme and
making it mandatory for the public sector, we have
reinforced the commitment to work with transparency
in all areas of government.
Secondly, in the last four years we have also
achieved an economic recovery within a framework of
a solid financial stability. We exceeded growth rates of
3.5 per cent in the biennium 2004-2005 by attaining
5 per cent in 2006 and 5.6 per cent in 2007. The overall
poverty index fell five percentage points between the
years 2000 and 2006, from 56 per cent of the
population to 51 per cent, respectively. We
acknowledge that ratio is still unacceptably high but
the achievement of that reduction must inspire us to
continue fighting to fulfil in Guatemala one of the main
Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.
For that reason, public policy was redirected
completely towards rural development, where the main
social underdevelopment and poverty are concentrated.
One of the sources of the increasing dynamism of
our economy has been the export sector, whether to
Central America or to the rest of the world. All that
effort has been impelled by our National Agenda for
Competitiveness 2005-2015, and it has been
complemented by a marked increase in investment in
infrastructure, mainly in the rural areas. The
commitment to reach better levels of competitiveness
was also translated into the construction of a new
international airport and the remodelling of six more,
along with qualitative and quantitative improvements
to seaports, as well as the rehabilitation, paving and
extension of over 2,100 kilometres of roads throughout
the country.
Thirdly, we have given an enormous impulse to
social expenditure, particularly those destined for
education, health and housing. The goals set forth in
the Peace Accords of assigning 4.8 per cent of gross
domestic product to social expenditures have been
surpassed to reach 5.7 per cent in 2006, approximately
twice the proportion of ten years ago.
Thanks to that redirection of policy and the
strengthening of institutional reforms, particularly in
education, the principal social indicators have begun to
show significant improvements. For example, the net
rate of school attendance at the primary level was
raised from 72.6 per cent in 1997 to 95.5 per cent in
2006. At the same time, we achieved a higher rate of
health coverage, thanks to the strategy adopted, under
which another 4.1 million Guatemalans can access that
essential service.
Fourthly, in the area of the inclusion of
indigenous peoples, Guatemala enacted the Public
Policy for Coexistence and the Elimination of Racism,
under the aegis of the Presidential Commission Against
Discrimination. Also, we have incorporated
multicultural criteria into public policies, planning and
projects; we have strengthened bilingual and
intercultural education and we have instituted an
affirmative action policy in order to increase the
proportion of indigenous civil employees in the public
sector.
Fifthly, during my administration a human rights
approach was promoted in all public sector policies
and during the past four years more public policies
regarding human rights were enacted than during all
the previous governments. In that context, allow me to
mention just one aspect: the right of reparations
violations has been acknowledged for victims of
human rights and for that purpose we devised a
National Plan of Compensation with a duration of
13 years in order to respond to all claims.
Finally, we addressed the issue of citizen security
in an integral manner, a social phenomena conditioned
by multiple economic, social, political and cultural
factors, while at the same time insisting on the full
observance of human rights. We recognize that there is
still much to do in that area, but in practice definite and
significant advances have been attained. To address
new national and regional challenges that have arisen
in regard to citizen insecurity and organized crime, my
administration concentrated its efforts on strengthening
public institutions and building democratic
governance.
I must state that many of these policies should be
conceived as State policies rather than those of a
particular Government. In this regard, we have put into
place a transition programme so as to transfer to the
new democratically elected authorities, after the second
round of elections to be held on 4 November, all the
information deemed most relevant to facilitate the
administration of the new Government.
Logically, our foreign policy was also inspired by
the same principles and values as our domestic policy,
which I have already outlined. Perhaps the area in
which we have best managed to promote these
objectives is here in the United Nations, which has
worked with us in the negotiation, implementation and
follow-up to our peace accords. We have tried to repay
that support in a modest way with our contribution to
peacekeeping operations in various parts of the world,
particularly in our sister nation of Haiti, as well as
through our active presence in various United Nations
forums.
Given the circumstances, it is in our interest to
preserve, to strengthen and to adapt to modern times
our Organization, the United Nations, whose ideals we
value so much. The United Nations occupies a special
place in our foreign policy. We value it not only for its
past role the United Nations Verification Mission in
Guatemala left the country at the end of 2004 but
also for its continued contributions. In 2006, an office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which
works with and advises and counsels the State, was
established. This month, September, a new concerted
effort is being made between Guatemala and the United
Nations with the collaboration of a group of friendly
nations, through the creation of an International
Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG),
whose objective is to improve our investigation
capacities and the arraignment and prosecution of
criminal activities in our country. This is an
unprecedented collaboration between a Member State
and the United Nations, with a view to combating
impunity, and particularly transnational crime, an
endeavour that will surely yield very tangible benefits
for my country and valuable experience for the United
Nations.
We also reiterate our commitment to the Central
American integration process, which has produced
remarkable advances in the last four years. We are very
close to securing our integration process by means of
putting in place a customs union, and we are also
embarking on a negotiation process with the European
Union aimed at securing an association agreement.
Reviewing some of the other items on our
agenda, on Monday of this week I had the privilege to
take part in the high-level event on climate change,
where I added our voice of alarm at the irreversible
harm that we are causing ourselves owing to global
greenhouse emissions. The amount of scientific data
proving this phenomenon is unquestionable, and
Guatemala has not been spared its effects. But we also
have the scientific means to mitigate, and even reverse,
recent tendencies, which requires a shared but
differentiated effort on the part of all of us. The United
Nations offers unparalleled forums in which to tackle
this common threat. It is as serious a threat to humanity
as are wars with weapons of mass destruction, or
transnational terrorism.
I would like in the last part of my speech to talk
about some of the items on the General Assembly’s
agenda. I have the following specific comments. As a
multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country, we
are proud to have worked hand in hand with other
countries in the negotiations that led to the recent
adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
As a member of the Human Rights Council, we
have actively participated in its process of institution-
building. We believe that the greatest challenge that the
Council has to confront is to finalize that building
process and to set in motion the universal, periodic
review mechanism. Guatemala will be one of the first
countries to be reviewed.
We are pleased at the holding of the first annual
ministerial examination of the Economic and Social
Council, aimed at appraising the progress achieved in
fulfilling the targets and the objectives of development,
as well as the launching of the Development
Cooperation Forum. We support any reform and
reorientation of the Organization that will enhance its
ability to deliver results, coherence and efficiency. We
take note of what has already been done in the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, as well as the
Secretary-General’s ideas for reforming the
Department of Political Affairs. We are concerned,
however, that the issues of reform relating to the
development agenda agreed at the World Summit of
2005 are not being accorded the same priority.
Also, as a country that was a principal actor in
the Financing for Development conference of 2002, we
believe that the dialogue scheduled for 23 and
24 October will afford an opportunity to review the
current achievements of its goals and to implement the
undertakings set forth in the Monterrey Consensus.
In our capacity as a middle-income country, we
were pleased at the holding of the Intergovernmental
Conference of Middle-Income Countries last March in
Spain, and we are committed to the success of the
second such meeting to be convened in El Salvador in
October.
We continue to await the much-discussed reform
of the Security Council, and we note the advances
attained during the last session of the Assembly, when
we were closer than ever before to a process of
intergovernmental negotiation. We trust that during this
session those efforts will be pursued.
As I have said, this is the last occasion on which I
shall come before the Assembly as President of
Guatemala. I therefore reiterate my deep gratitude to
the United Nations and to all its Member States for
their support for our work and our initiatives during the
four years of my mandate.