The world is undergoing a time of change. A new era is dawning while humankind is still coping with the effects of a pandemic that killed 15 million people, exposing the inequality we face. Meanwhile, the climate crisis is subjecting our planet to all kinds of inclement events. Cyclones, tornadoes, unexpected floods or extensive droughts end up affecting millions of human beings in all latitudes of the planet. All of this is happening while a war drags on. claiming more human lives and unleashing an energy and food crisis of tremendous proportions.
As all those calamities are unfolding, we are witnessing an astonishing technological revolution. Robotization and the accelerated process of installation of artificial intelligence force us to rethink education, production processes and the preservation of work. How to address changes and harmonize interests in this new scenario in which we find ourselves is the real challenge we face.
In speaking before this House. I feel obliged to express myself with absolute candour. The world’s problems demand solutions. We have already spent a great deal of time diagnosing the problems. We cannot keep talking about them while walking on a razor’s edge. The risks of perpetuating that reality are very high.
We have gone halfway towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development knowing that, as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean points out. perhaps only a quarter of the goals will be achieved that year. That inability to envision a better future sows unease in a world that wants to develop and where the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet live.
It is impossible to seek to achieve an equitable future by promoting the continuity of the same logic that has generated the inequality in which we live. International financial engineering appears abusive and unchanging. How can we achieve sustainable development without financing to help us do so? The international financial system does not evince the will to adapt to a world that wants to recover lost equity. On the contrary, it seeks only to impose the same orthodox policies that have deepened inequality and misery in the world. The global financial architecture serves only to concentrate income in the very few and to marginalize vast regions of the world. It puts its money in speculation rather than in development. It promotes cheap labour rather than the dignity of work. There is no longer time for words. It is time to promote social justice in the world.
The International Monetary Fund cannot raise its interest rates every time the United States Federal Reserve raises its rates to contain inflation in that country. It cannot do so. and yet it does. In that context, it is shameful that to this very day it applies surcharges to many countries that are already finding it unbearable to carry the burden of external debt. Ironically. International Monetary Fund finances Ukraine in the middle of the war. and in the midst of that war it applies surcharges to the interest it charges. That is just astounding. We need a new framework for the treatment of sovereign debt that has development with social justice as its goal. Experience shows that when a people is suffocated under the eternal sentence of debt, its strength wanes, social crises are intensified and debts become uncollectible.
We are facing the challenge of feeding a growing world population in critical climatic conditions. Droughts or floods, tornadoes or hail — everything affects food production and supply. We know that from our own experience. Argentina lost more than 20 per cent of its total exports due to the worst drought in the past 100 years. No less than three points of its gross domestic product were wiped out. We also know today that an international food market intoxicated by financial speculation only facilitates greater income for a few and instability and misery for millions of human beings.
To find a long-term solution to the problem of food security, it is crucial that there be a fairer, more transparent, more equitable and more predictable international trade system for agricultural products. We must eliminate the distortions produced by subsidies and prohibit food from being the subject of financial speculation. Both discourage the investments needed to increase production to help meet growing global demand for food.
Argentina considers multilateralism to be the best tool to identify shared solutions to common problems. It reflects our vocation to act in solidarity and to cooperate in the search for collective well-being. Hegemonic proposals have served only to enhance mistrust, promote arms races and limit the possibilities of economic and scientific-technological cooperation.
In the current situation, as we know, the impact of more than a decade of accumulated crises have come together, ranging from the effects of the financial collapse of 2008 to the war unleashed by Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory. The effects of that war are visible. In addition to the terrible consequences in humanitarian terms, the armed dispute is generating historic levels of inflation on a global scale, with a special impact on the price of food and energy.
The current reality is also seeing the rise of tensions that are less addressed by public opinion, but that deeply affect international peace. As an example. I highlight Azerbaijan’s blockades in the Lachin corridor, which have been causing a humanitarian crisis that is once again punishing part of the Armenian people. Precisely today, as this meeting is being held, the media are reporting that Azerbaijan has launched military operations with the purpose of taking control of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The international community cannot remain passive in the face of such a reality. It must act preventively to avoid new ethnic, racial, religious or political persecutions. As we have always done, we continue to demand that the parties find the sanity that calls them to peace and that the multilateral organizations recover the strength that they seem to have lost to enforce international rules. The countries of the global South have historically shared many views on the international system and on the responsibility incumbent on multilateral organizations in matters of development, global peace and security, cooperation and decolonization.
I represent a country that this year is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its recovery of democracy — a country that has learned from its historical past to say “never again” to human rights violations and that has promoted as a State policy the right to memory, truth and justice. We are proud of these four decades of uninterrupted democracy, in which the promotion and protection of human rights have been a fundamental part of the path taken. Today UNESCO declared the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory — a clandestine detention, torture and extermination centre where the dictatorship perpetrated its greatest atrocities — a World Heritage Site. By actively preserving the memory that the deniers wish to hide, we will prevent that time of pain from being repeated. Faced with those crimes against humanity, our solution was not revenge but justice.
Precisely, because we know the horror involved in the disappearance of 30.000 human beings. I take this opportunity to reiterate the call for adherence to the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons against Forced Disappearances. We need more committed States so that this crime is completely eradicated. The challenge before us is to consolidate and advance the rights agenda, which means establishing democracies with greater equity and equality among its citizens.
Human rights are comprehensive and do not admit any type of regressivity. If there is regression, the cultists of authoritarianism win and hate speech proliferates. That is how democracies are delegitimized and the crisis of representation that is generated ends up putting the institutionality of the rule of law in check. Preserving the rule of law is a shared conviction on our continent. That is why we view current events in Guatemala with concern. The international community must activate the relevant mechanisms that ensure respect for the popular choice.
The climate crisis is a reality that has modified temperatures and atmospheric phenomena around the world, imposing restrictions and obstacles to development. It is imperative to resolve the problem without further delay by creating a fair, transparent and equitable multilateral environmental financing architecture, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
Argentina reaffirms its commitment to gender equality and diversity as an essential condition for growth and sustainable development at the national and international levels, with a human rights approach. We have developed regulatory frameworks and public policies to promote equality for all women and diversities. Currently, our country is executing its National Plan for Equality in Diversity.
As part of the integrationist vocation embodied in the South American Common Market and the Union of South American Nations, over these four years we have proposed resuming a path of integration with Latin America and the Caribbean and strengthening dialogue with all our partners through political coordination, with a solidarity and cooperative approach. As the construction of the European Union once was. the different integration bodies of Latin America and the Caribbean are a heritage that the region contributes to a humankind in search of peace, cooperation and justice.
Our region is facing a historic opportunity. It has the energy and food that the world demands. Our development depends on our having the ability to take advantage of those resources. We must work together to carry out infrastructure works that allow us to compete industrially from our region.
Argentina condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Terrorist acts pose a threat to peace, international security and human dignity. Terrorism must be combated within the framework of the rule of law and full respect for international law. Argentina has ratified its commitment to the Inter-American Convention against Terrorism and to most international instruments on terrorism, seeking to develop all the measures contained therein as the most effective way to end this threat.
For our part, we continue to fight against impunity, investigating the attacks that we suffered in 1992. at the Israeli Embassy, and in 1994. at the AMIA headquarters, which claimed the lives of 107 people and left hundreds injured. We want those responsible for such atrocious attacks to be identified, tried and convicted. Once again, we urge the Islamic Republic of Iran to cooperate with the Argentine judicial authorities to advance the investigation of the attack on AMIA. We also urge the international community to accompany us in our fight by refusing to receive or harbour any of the accused, even when they enjoy diplomatic immunity. We must remember that international arrest requests and Interpol red alerts have been issued against them.
Argentina firmly opposes the use of unilateral coercive measures and the adoption of discriminatory trade practices. The perpetuation of the blockade against Cuba is unacceptable. Year after year, the General Assembly demands by an overwhelming majority the need to end the blockade. Likewise, we request once again the exclusion of Cuba from the list of countries that allegedly sponsor international terrorism.
Similarly, the sanctions imposed by the United States on Venezuela must immediately cease. Its extension over time only hurts the living conditions of its inhabitants and has led to exile for millions of Venezuelans who have left their homeland looking for a better life.
I also want to reaffirm the legitimate and imprescriptible rights of sovereignty of the Argentine Republic over the Malvinas Islands. South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime area. They form an integral part of the Argentine national territory and have been illegally occupied by the United Kingdom for almost two centuries. In accordance with the resolutions of the General Assembly and its Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the way to resolve the colonial situation of the Islands is through sovereignty negotiations between Argentina and the United Kingdom. We regret that the United Kingdom continues to refuse to resume negotiations. We question its ongoing unilateral activities of exploration and exploitation of natural resources in the disputed area, in violation of resolution 31/49. as well as its military presence in the South Atlantic, a zone of peace.
Argentina maintains a firm commitment to the peaceful resolution to that anachronistic colonial situation. We have proposed to the United Kingdom a renewed bilateral agenda on the South Atlantic that involves a formal dialogue process that includes, of course, the issue linked to the resumption of negotiations on sovereignty. We also express our willingness to pursue the tasks involved in the identification of former combatants killed in the Islands, within the framework of the obligations arising from international humanitarian law and in order to provide a response and comfort to the families. Unfortunately, the United Kingdom has rejected our proposal.
Notwithstanding. Argentina reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to redouble his efforts, within the framework of his good offices, to bring both parties closer to the negotiating table.
The motto of the 2030 Agenda is “Leave no one behind”. May no one stray from the path of justice and development forever. We are convinced that it is a noble objective that is valid for individuals and peoples alike. But let us not turn it into a dead letter. When that happens, repentance serves no use. It does not repair damaged lives and lives without a future; much less does it restore lives lost.