Chile

In the firm conviction that democracy is the memory of the future, nine days ago. Chile commemorated 50 years since the coup d’etat of 11 September 1973. an event that violently ripped apart our way of life, bringing death, persecution, pain and misery to my nation. The images of the bombing of the presidential palace. La Moneda. and the immolation of the constitutional president of Chile. Salvador Allende, as well as the evidence that the United States Administration, under President Nixon at the time, had conspired from the outset to promote the failure of the Chilean Government, shocked the democratic conscience of the world. While some countries were betting at that time on the destabilization of both fragile and more robust democracies, there were also multilateral organizations such as the United Nations that played a fundamental role in the defence of human rights and democracy. From the outset, they were committed to defending those who were most vulnerable and suffering in Latin America, including in Chile and throughout the world. For that reason, we owe the United Nations, as well as several of the countries present here, an enormous debt of infinite gratitude. There were thousands who anonymously helped those persecuted and saved lives, demonstrating a solidarity with the victims of the dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet that still moves us to this day. Since then, our country has come a long way. As Chileans, we are proud to have been able to unite to recover democracy, restore the Republic and rebuild the path towards the expansion of the rights and fundamental freedoms conquered by the founders of our homeland. Chile is a country that loves and promotes peace, and it is that characteristic of our identity that brings me to address the Assembly. Fifty years after the tragedy I described, we have faced our pain head-on. confronting it with initiatives such as the Rettig Commission, the Valech Commission and now our national search plan. Chile is a country that is making progress because we have learned lessons from our past, reliving it in order to be able to build a better future. From the lessons we have learned, we are able to devote ourselves to the challenges of the present. I would say that the main lesson learned — as I am sure most of us would agree, having listened to the preceding speakers — is that issues pertaining to democracy must always be resolved with more democracy, never less, and that a coup d’etat is never inevitable. Democracy always offers alternatives. We have also learned that human rights provide an inalienable ethical basis for political action, and that human rights have no political undertones and must be promoted and defended at all times and in all places. All violations of human rights must be unequivocally condemned, regardless of the Government responsible. That is a principle that we have upheld and will continue to uphold, especially as members of the Human Rights Council. We have also learned through our history that democracy is fragile — it is not guaranteed forever — and therefore we must take care of it; violence is not acceptable as a form of political action in democracy; and dialogue between those who think differently must always prevail, which also applies to relations between countries. That is why I wish to reaffirm Chile’s profound inclination towards multilateralism and mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes. We have also learned something I deem important to stress in times of polarization, namely, that when we manage to unite in the pursuit of common objectives, we can move forward pluralistically for the benefit of our peoples. While it is true that, as anyone following the debate in our country can see. there is still great divergence in Chile, there is also great consensus. That is how the five living former Presidents — one of whom is a woman — and myself came to sign a commitment to the future for democracy and human rights. We also invited other State leaders to join us. Even in the most critical political moments, we are capable of coming together. Government and opposition, to find ways out of an impasse and to prioritize our people over our legitimate differences. That is how together — and I underscore, together — as Government and opposition we are building the path towards being able to meet the demands of our people. The generations that came before us took on the responsibility of making our nations independent; establishing democracies, fundamental freedoms and universal human rights; and progressively advancing in the conquest of social rights. My generation — one that was not yet born at the time of the 1973 coup d’etat — has the no less difficult task of consolidating and defending many of those legacies, while at the same time facing new threats and challenges with optimism. Today I wish to raise three urgent tasks to address that, in my homeland, we humbly believe coincide with much of what has been spoken about in this Hall today. First, our most urgent task is to safeguard democracy. We must stop the advance of intolerance and authoritarianism, and we must resolutely confront, in an institutional and uncomplicated manner, the disinformation that is corroding our democracies. At the same time, we must defend the advances in the rights of minorities, as well as of those who are not a minority but the majority, such as women, whose advances and rights are threatened by sectarianism and fanaticism of various kinds. We must address the root causes of the dissatisfaction that democracy generates, because we note with concern that the loss or fragility of democracy today may not be expressed in the coups d’etat of the twentieth century, but rather in new forms, some of which may even have the appearance of a majority. Why is democracy today not satisfying the yearnings of peoples who urgently want and need greater security, greater equality and a way out of poverty? Democracy must be able to deliver results — we must focus very strongly on that. When institutions are slow to respond or fail to do so in a clear and timely manner, the challenges of corruption, organized crime and multiple inequalities corrode our institutions, and therefore the population ceases to trust them. Therefore, caring for democracy means taking charge of the frustrations, desires and needs of citizens; channelling our resources to address the challenges of our time; moving forward with concrete actions for greater freedom, prosperity, social justice and sustainability; and always putting the collective interest ahead of individual ones, particularly the individual interests of those who have the most power — namely us. as leaders. In that sense, we also defend unrestricted respect for human rights as a means of civilizational progress, regardless of the Government in power. That is why I feel it is my duty, as we have stated in other international forums, to denounce before this Hall and the world the persecution that anyone who thinks differently from the Government under the dictatorial Ortega and Murillo regime in Nicaragua is currently experiencing. In that country, not only are dissenters banned from taking part in elections, but they are persecuted and deprived of their nationality. Their homes are raided and they are stripped of their political rights. Meanwhile, we all need to recognize that any solution must be arrived at as a result of multilateral dialogue. We must therefore state clearly that the imposition of unilateral sanctions does not contribute to a solution. From our standpoint, the sanctions imposed against Venezuela today do not serve to improve the living conditions of the Venezuelan people. We are convinced that the United States must lift the sanctions that it has imposed against Venezuela in order to ensure that free elections, with all the necessary safeguards for all segments of the population, can be held. The same must be said of the sanctions that have been in place for so long against Cuba. I want to be very clear: declaring that Cuba is a country that promotes terrorism is false, and we are angered by that. We urge the United States to take the line of the Obama Administration, which removed Cuba from that list. It has now been put back on that list three years in a row. and for all the years it has been on the list, it is not the Government of Cuba that has suffered but the Cuban people, who do not deserve it. At the same time. I feel obliged to speak out on two conflicts, from two different times, that are tearing humankind apart. There are some present here who might legitimately wonder why Chile would discuss conflicts happening in countries so far from its own. It is because we feel the pain of humankind as a whole and we should not remain silent when we see. for example, the illegal occupation of Palestine and the denial of the opportunity for a Palestinian Government to be formed. There is a wall that divides its citizens. We recognize the right to exist of both States. Palestine and Israel, and that is why. from this rostrum, we call for respect for international law. A more recent conflict in which we also see the ambiguities that tend to emerge when events of a geopolitical nature occur, and which we must clearly and explicitly condemn, is the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. On that point, we are convinced that the invading Government and the invaded people cannot share the same level of blame or responsibility for a conflict of that nature. Peace can be achieved only guaranteeing respect for the territorial integrity of nations. We say that as a small, or rather medium-sized, country from the South. We know that countries such as ours have only international law on which to depend for our defence in potential future conflicts. Today it is Ukraine; tomorrow it could be any one of us. Knowing that, we cannot close our eyes. Neither can we allow ourselves to be ambiguous in the condemnation of what, from our perspective, is an illegal war of aggression. The second topic that requires urgent action, and for which we also do not share equal responsibility, is the crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. We are all aware of the analysis and its conclusions. Almost all the leaders at this rostrum have spoken on the topic. These are the problems of today, not tomorrow. In my country, we have faced forest fires and floods. We know that many States here, in particular the most vulnerable — those that have contributed the least to global warming and have burned the least fossil fuels — are the ones that have suffered the most from the climate crisis. That is why we are making the same appeal that we made earlier this morning at the high-level panel on this topic. We call for rapid action to accelerate the energy transition, change our consumption patterns and establish new rules and institutions that will allow us to meet those demands. In our country, we have made progress in that direction under various leaders and Governments. We have 43 per cent protected marine areas and 22 per cent protected land areas. We have adopted a biodiversity protection law and have committed to reaching carbon neutral status by 2050 at the latest. We hope to reach that milestone even earlier. Climate change means that we face increasingly frequent and more complex challenges. Right now. we are suffering from a very severe drought. At the same time, there have been rains that led to the flooding of areas no longer used to life-giving water, as well as forest fires. We are suffering a wide range of phenomena that have a direct impact on the most vulnerable. We understand that the same problems are happening elsewhere in the world. There were devastating floods recently in Libya, which the President and the Secretary-General both mentioned in their addresses yesterday. There is what happened in Pakistan last year. There was drought in Argentina. Central America and the Horn of Africa. Those are just a few examples that should move us to action now. We need to do more. I call in a responsible way on the countries with the most industrial activity to assume their full moral responsibility — not just to be more environmentally respectful but also to show greater solidarity with those who are suffering most, such as the small Pacific island nations and those of Oceania. Central America and the Caribbean that are suffering the most devastating effects of climate change. We are not responsible for the damage caused by the climate crisis or its biases. Chile is putting all of its weight behind environmental agreements. Among other agreements, last year we supported the Americas for the Protection of the Ocean coalition, and this year we signed the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction. I reiterate to the General Assembly our willingness and commitment to having Valparaiso, the historic gateway to America and the pearl of the Pacific, serve as the headquarters for the secretariat of the Agreement. States can count on Chile for its proper development and contribution to a more sustainable, fairer and more equitable development. I turn finally to the third challenge, which is related to technological change and can only be compared to the industrial revolution of the mid-eighteenth century. It will drastically change how we relate to one another and our ways of thinking, producing and working. Only a few days ago. a mother in a small town in Spain reported a group of young boys who used artificial intelligence to remove the clothing of their female classmates, harming their honour as well as their right to themselves, their integrity and their privacy. All technological developments throughout the history of humankind have been a major opportunity to create fairer societies; however, if we get it wrong, they can also be the source of new injustices. In that context, we are all obliged to create multilateral consensus and an ethical framework for the development and use of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence. We need a framework that takes the human rights perspective into account in technological research and development. with a view to protecting and promoting the dignity and the rights of peoples and individuals, as well as sustainable development needs. There is no doubt that societies must make progress, but we must do it in a responsible way. That is why we must understand and better manage the opportunities offered by technologies for our benefit, before they become a threat and further entrench existing inequalities. That is. for example, what we have been doing in Chile since we established the Congress on the Future, and I am certain that everyone here has similar initiatives in their own countries. Humbly, but also proudly. I can say that my country today serves as a Latin American benchmark for the future of artificial intelligence, and we will work tirelessly in that direction. Democracy is memory and future. That underlies our view that technological development must be a tool for unity, not division, and one that promotes the empowerment of all of society, addresses the phenomenon of disinformation, supports the most vulnerable sectors and does not further entrench inequalities at the national and global levels. I wish to conclude by saying that the challenges we face require audacious and collective solutions, because none of us — not even the most powerful country in the world — can tackle those challenges in isolation. The phenomena of the climate crisis, migration and pandemics have neither borders nor flags. Because they affect all countries of the world, this forum, the General Assembly, must rise to the challenge and honour the calls made yesterday by the Secretary-General. Mr. Antonio Guterres, with respect to reforming global governance in terms of its political and financial aspects. It is either reform or a descent into barbarism. We are for reform, and we can say to the Secretary-General that he has our support in reforming not only the Security Council but also the financial institutions that were born out of the Bretton Woods consensus. I underscore that democracy is memory and future, and the role of the General Assembly will be decisive on the path to a better world. Because we have learned from our past, and in my capacity as a representative of new generations. I am optimistic about what is to come in our future, because throughout its more than 70 years of history the General Assembly has shown that, even in the most difficult moments, it is possible for humankind to strike agreements on the path towards civilized cooperation and coexistence. States will always be able to count on Chile to promote and to defend human rights, multilateralism and democracy, and to build together a sustainable future and a world free of poverty with greater social equality.