The Government of Honduras extends its warmest
congratulations to Mr. Ashe on his election to preside
over the proceedings of the General Assembly, and we
wish him every success.
I am grateful for the honour that the President of
Honduras conferred upon me by asking me to represent
him in this world forum. As we come to the close of our
term in office, we in the Administration of President
Porfirio Lobo Sosa note with satisfaction that we have
laid the foundation for national unity and reconciliation.
We have successfully overcome the severe political
crisis that affected Honduras during the previous
Government, and Honduras now looks forward to new
general elections in November.
The Government of President Lobo Sosa has
normalized relations with the international community.
We have secured ties of close cooperation with more than
a hundred friendly countries, restored foreign credit
and shown the world that we are a country that lives up
to its democratic and peaceful calling. Today, Honduras
is a member of the principal international and regional
organizations. Our membership in major forums has
given us access to new markets, opportunities for
investment and employment and helped to strengthen
our energy sector.
As part of the process of unity and reconciliation,
the President of the Republic created a Government
of National Integration, with the participation of all
the political parties that took part in the last electoral
process. Fortunately, that participation continues
today and will continue through the end of the present
constitutional term. Accordingly, I wish to mention that,
as part of the process of healing the wounds of the 2009
political crisis and building the future together, we have
successfully adopted by consensus a long-term country
vision and a national plan from which our Government
programme is derived. That shared vision is being
implemented through a major national agreement
for economic growth with social equity between the
Government of President Lobo Sosa, trade unions,
business owners, workers, farmers and civil society. I
believe that Honduras and the world should welcome
those efforts, together with the spirit of dialogue and
commitment of all sectors of Honduran society, which
have shown that collective interests come well before
individual interests.
Today, we are reaping the benefits of that major
national agreement. We have had successes in the small
and medium-sized enterprise sector, social protection
programmes, the establishment of a transparent budget
and foreign trade. Democratic participation has also
been strengthened because of the interaction of all
sectors in our economic and social council, which is
a forum that has made it possible for mechanisms for
dialogue and conflict prevention to work.
We are pleased to state that our Government will be
handing over to the incoming Administration a series of
principles that should serve as a basis for consolidating
social policies. Those principles were discussed
and agreed upon between the Government and civil
society in order to ensure a solid foundation and the
sustainability of social institutions in the country.
Our country and our democratic institutions have
suffered the onslaught of external aggression, which
has led to violence and insecurity. I am referring to
drug trafficking and various forms of transnational
organized crime. With all the measures adopted to
combat crime, last year the Government of President
Lobo Sosa was able to halt the rise of the homicide
rate, and this year we have seen a reduction in that
rate. That has been achieved through the adoption by
the National Congress of an entirely new legal and
institutional framework, which was lacking before. We
have undertaken a reform of the security and justice
system. For the first time, we have adopted procedures
to certify judicial officials, using confidence-testing
measures. We have also adopted a tax to strengthen
citizen safety. To the extent possible, we are providing
training for the security and defence institutions. We
have implemented a national policy to prevent violence
against children and youth, and we have promoted and
protected human rights.
And yet, while halting the spiral of violence is a
positive sign, it is insufficient, given the high level of
criminal activity that had been reached. Our commitment
to combat crime will be upheld until the very last day of
our mandate. However, it is very important to sustain
those efforts. The new Government will have to do so
with a firm hand. It will have to continue to strengthen
security and justice institutions, which is a medium- to
long-term task. Combating global crime requires a more
decisive and more effective international and regional
effort, in which drug-producing and drug-consuming
countries assume the shared and differentiated
responsibility that they bear in this wave of violence.
Today, I reaffirm Honduras’s commitment to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to
life and the respect for human dignity. We recognize
that the protection of human rights is the very essence
of democracy. During our administration, we created
a Secretary of State for Justice and Human Rights
and strengthened the role of the Special Prosecutor
for Human Rights. We established institutions for
combating torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment, and we enacted a law combating human
trafficking and introducing a public human rights
policy and a national plan of action for human rights.
We now require presidential candidates to sign the
human rights pact.
It is fundamentally important to Honduras that
we continue working towards meeting the Millennium
Development Goals, with which we have made
significant progress. Food and nutrition security is a
national priority for President Porfirio Lobo Sosa’s
Government, and we have focused efforts to eradicate
hunger through various food and nutrition security
programmes targeting the most vulnerable people and
the neediest areas of the country.
Through its recognition of the multidimensional
and multisectoral nature of the food and nutrition
security issue, the Government of our Republic reduced
the population suffering from malnutrition by 21 per
cent between 2010 and 2012, meeting and exceeding its
target for the Millennium Development Goals. As an
example of our multisectoral approach and to ensure
the sustainability of our programmes, I am pleased to
announce the launch of a Government initiative, the
Partnership for the Dry Corridor. The Partnership,
which has the support of the international community,
targets those suffering from poverty and hunger in our
country’s most vulnerable area.
Concerning education, I should emphasize that
Honduras has seen a significant increase in the number
of 5-year-olds entering the pre-school system. It is
roughly triple what we expected. Our Government
has been deeply committed to reforming the national
education system. The new legal framework requires
a broad participatory process involving parents,
communities and teachers. The proposal that President
Lobo made here in the General Assembly last year,
when he said that classrooms must never be closed (see
A/67/PV.6, p. 49), has led to a considerable increase in
the number of school days for children in Honduras.
That has resulted in an improvement in the quality of
education, and as a nation we are very optimistic about
it.
As to gender equality and the empowerment of
women, we have made progress in implementing
a gender equality system, created with a view to
promoting, encouraging and institutionalizing gender-
equity policies and improving equality of opportunity
between men and women. With regard to the reduction
of under-five mortality and improving maternal health,
our Government approved a public policy for the holistic
development of infants and a comprehensive care
strategy for children in the community. The strategy
has been internationally recognized, because it has
improved maternal health conditions before, during and
after delivery and has thus lowered the mortality risk
and increased the number of births in medical centres.
Similarly, it is important to emphasize the efforts
we have made to reduce infant morbidity and mortality
associated with diseases that are preventable through
vaccination; our broad immunization programme has
achieved more than 90 per cent coverage for vaccines
required for children under the age of 2. With regard
respect to HIV/AIDS, our Government has increased
the national budget for prevention and care and has
financed almost 100 per cent of the antiretroviral
treatment.
Concerning the delimitation of maritime space
in the Pacific Ocean, and specifically the situation
in the Gulf of Fonseca, a historic bay that Honduras
shares in a co-sovereignty regime with El Salvador
and Nicaragua, my Government wishes to reiterate its
respect for the decision that the International Court of
Justice handed down on 11 September 1992. We also
affirm our commitment to including a comprehensive
cooperation agreement under the auspices of a
tri-national commission of coastal States, which
develops conservation and protection programmes for
the environment in the Gulf and the improvement of
living conditions for neighbouring communities. It is
an opportune moment to recall that it was in October
2012 that Honduras first asked the Security Council
to authorize the Secretary-General to provide all
necessary support for constituting that authority, and I
take this opportunity to repeat our request. I thank the
European Union for its cooperation in developing this
zone, which has great economic potential.
I would like to emphasize the importance that all
coastal States attach to the decisions of the International
Court of Justice. We wish to avoid making any territorial
or maritime claims that would distance us further from
the big picture, which is to make the Pacific Ocean and
the Gulf of Fonseca a zone of cooperation and peace.
But given the understanding and neighbourliness
we possess, we have concluded, based on equitable
principles, the necessary agreements regarding the
maritime impact on the Pacific Ocean. Honduras has
already made proposals that we are prepared to discuss
with our fraternal neighbours.
I wish to underscore the fact that our Government
has defined a strategy for a governmental transition
for 2013-2014, whose primary objective is to ensure
an orderly and structured handover, so as to avoid the
vacuums and delays in planning that have traditionally
accompanied a change of Government. It is essential
to ensure the sustainability of public policies beyond
the life of our Administration, so that we can achieve
long-term planning that benefits the Honduran people.
In November we will hold general elections with the
participation of nine political parties, including a strong
female presence in the election process. Honduras’s
electoral authorities, which function independently, are
making every possible effort to ensure that the general
elections are free and transparent. On behalf of the
people of Honduras, I would like to ask all friendly
nations to support our electoral process. All States are
welcome to witness it.
I hope sincerely that, during its sixty-eighth session,
the General Assembly will meet the expectations of
Member States, and I take this opportunity to express
my thanks, on behalf of the people and Government
of Honduras, for the solidarity that the international
community has shown to the Administration of
President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.