Today marks one year since I last appeared before the General Assembly (see A/77/PV.5) as the first female President of the Republic of Honduras, an event that emerged from the resistance in the streets and the fight against the coup d’etat that defeated the democratically elected president. Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales. My Government’s progress and results have already been recognized by the international community and financial organizations: greater economic growth, public finances salvaged through the elimination of corrupt trusts, a single treasury, fiscal discipline, the timely payment of the burdensome debt and decreased inflation and country risk. Together with the National Congress, we repealed the Secrets Law. an instrument of corruption of the previous regime. We repealed the Employment and Economic Development Zone Law. that divided the territory into 17 pieces and gave them to 25 economic groups. In terms of security, we have already achieved a significant reduction in extortion, homicides and violence through the Solution Against Crime programme, the intervention of detention centres and the state of emergency.
To my gratuitous detractors. I should also point out for the record that the greatest increase in the budget of the social sectors has been ordered, with a view to reducing poverty and promoting health, education and school meals for all children in primary school. We have also brought back the historic free tuition programme, fuel subsidies and free energy for the poorest, implemented massive bonuses for agricultural production, repaired 12.000 abandoned schools, ensured productive roads in all the municipalities of Honduras, repaired the road network and begun the construction of eight new hospitals.
In 2022. the previous President of Honduras was accused by the United States of conspiracy, of organizing the trafficking of thousands of tons of drugs for a decade, and of leading a criminal organization that included various figures from the underworld and State authorities, such as mayors, ministers, deputies, generals and police chiefs, some of whom have already been sentenced. Those assailants who took the State hostage now conspire against my Government. They are organized in an alliance of corrupt politicians and supposed civil society with the aim of stopping the proposed structural changes that the people ordered me to carry out at the polls. They are the same people who murdered Morazan. Today they oppose the approval of the Tax Justice Law and are boycotting the election of the new Attorney General to perpetuate the impunity to which they are accustomed and to hinder the arrival of the international commission to combat corruption and impunity.
It is impossible to understand the magnitude of the tragedy suffered by the majority of the Honduran people and the constant caravans of emigrants that arrive in the United States if we deny the 13 years of
dictatorship overseen by the international community, which multiplied the country’s debt by six and saw the country reach a 74 per cent poverty rate — the highest in the history of Honduras. The Honduran people, in their noble aspiration for justice, have vehemently mandated that I combat and dismantle the narco-State and the public-private corruption that looted and destroyed institutions, corrupted the popular will with electoral fraud and imposed State terrorism with death squads. Popular support has been demonstrated in the recent mobilizations of popular resistance at the national level, with hundreds of thousands of grateful men and women who have expressed their support for our fight for the return to the rule of law and the restitution of dignity to the Honduran people and the presidency of the Republic.
On Monday. 18 September, upon my arrival in New York, after participating in the Group of 77 and China summit in Havana. Cuba, in line with the commitment subscribed in my plan of Government and in accordance with the memorandum of understanding signed with the United Nations in 2022. I gave the Secretary-General the official proposal for an agreement to establish the International Commission Against Corruption and Impunity for Honduras, which is impartial, autonomous and independent with the capacity to investigate and prosecute cases of high-impact corruption networks and financial crimes. That is the only way to clean up a State where public institutions, the pirates of the political class and public-private partnerships have been infiltrated by organized crime.
Next year I will assume the pro tempore presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Central American Integration System (SICA). That includes all the great homeland dreamed up by the liberators and those of us who fought for the unity of South America, the Caribbean. Central America and Mexico.
Today I propose to open spaces for dialogue among us to formulate proposals to solve the challenges facing our region. We are not only one of the most unequal and poorest regions, but also one of the regions with the lowest economic growth and technological backwardness, which affects our ability to address the threats we are facing. Only by supporting each other will we be able to move forward.
We must not forget our brothers and sisters in Haiti. The humanitarian crisis of an oppressed and revolutionary nation deserves our full support and solidarity. At the third summit of the European Union and CELAC. held in July. I clearly stated Honduras’ views on international issues, which, as I have stated in the General Assembly, require an urgent solution.
And as for SICA and Central America. I would like to state how important it is to strengthen the integration process, which has seen sluggish development over the past 30 years. We must express therefore a genuine political will that allows us to advance the customs union, social and environmental policies and the safe transit of people and their goods.
Today the great economic interests are confronting each other in the war in Ukraine. In the end. the most affected are always the poorest countries and peoples of the world, who are suffering from inflation, food shortages and high fuel prices. The military industrial complex consumes the majority of the budgets of developed countries with trillions and trillions of dollars, but that is in contrast with the indifference and inability to contribute to humankind and to the protection of nature.
The world of Bretton Woods has hit rock bottom, and we must now recognize that at the current pace we will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and secure sufficient financing for climate adaptation. It is not an issue of taking steps, but of proposing changes to the economic system that require a deep commitment to humankind and nature.
There is no such invisible hand. There is no spillover. Practice teaches us that the application of global capitalism and the neoliberal model creates only misery, inequality and a crazy individualism of consumer societies in the face of enormous deprivation for billions of people. The war in Ukraine must come to an end. All humankind must to find a way to achieve peace. We cannot live with the permanent threat of a conflict that will put an end to our planet.
It is important to put an end to the practice of sanctions, piracy and the confiscation of the assets of one nation by another. We cannot talk about a civilized world when we live with the risk of being embargoed and having our reserves frozen in foreign banks, as is currently happening to Venezuela, whose assets have been confiscated, violating all the norms of international law.
The General Assembly every year demands the end of the blockade against Cuba, owing to it being an arbitrary and obsolete measure that is contrary to international law. violates the principle of respect for the self-determination of peoples and sacrifices a noble people who. despite the limitations imposed on them, continue to contribute to the world’s solidarity. We condemn the long and cruel blockade against Cuba and Venezuela. We also demand the removal of Cuba from the list of terrorist countries, as that is a distorted, bogus and capricious measure. Similarly, the unjust measures and sanctions against Nicaragua must be eliminated, because they are barriers that prevent us from normalizing our relations with that fraternal country.
I believe in a multipolar world, where exchange and cooperation for development is based on the principles of independence, sovereignty and non-interference. On the basis of those principles, a couple of months ago. I officially opened relations with the People’s Republic of China. Similarly, we have reached out to financial organizations and new initiatives for us. such as the Andean Development Corporation, of which we are already a member, and the administration of the New Development Bank of the BRICS group of countries — Brazil. Russia. India. China and South Africa.
I would like to reiterate, as I did at the CELAC- European Union summit, the vehement call for the freedom of Julian Assange, a faithful defender of free expression, a principle that we must all defend.
In defence of the indigenous peoples who fight for the land and the rivers. I am proud as a woman to convey the message of our comrade and martyr Berta Caceres. Wake up humankind. Time is running out.