I would first like to
briefly express my pleasure at seeing the representative
of Antigua and Barbuda, a country that is part of the
Caribbean and is very dear to Brazil and our region,
at the helm of the proceedings of this session of the
General Assembly. You can count on the permanent
support of my Government, Sir.
Before I begin my statement, I would also like
to voice the Brazilian Government’s and people’s
repudiation of the recent terrorist attack in Nairobi, and
to convey our condolences to and express our solidarity
with the families of the victims and the people and the
Government of Kenya. Wherever terrorism may occur
and wherever it originates, we will always condemn it
unequivocally and resolve firmly to deal with it. We
will never compromise with barbarity.
I would like to draw the Assembly’s attention to
an exceedingly important and serious matter. Recent
revelations concerning the activities of a global network
of electronic espionage have provoked indignation and
disgust in public opinion worldwide. For Brazil the
situation is particularly serious, since we have been a
specific target of that intrusion. Citizens’ personal data
has been indiscriminately targeted and intercepted.
Business information, often of major economic and even
strategic value, has been a focus of espionage activity.
And communications of Brazilian diplomatic missions,
including our Permanent Mission to the United Nations
and the Office of the President of the Republic itself,
have been subject to interception.
Such meddling in the lives and affairs of other
countries is a breach of international law and as such
is an affront to the principles that should govern
relations between them, and between friendly nations
in particular. A nation can never promote its own
sovereignty in a way that damages the sovereignty of
another. The right of one country’s citizens to security
can never be ensured by violating the fundamental
human and civil rights of those of another. It is even
worse when private companies support such espionage
activity. The argument that the illegal interception of
information and data is allegedly intended to protect
against terrorism is untenable.
Brazil knows how to protect itself. We repudiate
and fight terrorist groups; we do not give them shelter.
We are a democratic country surrounded by democratic,
peaceful countries that respect international law. We
have lived in peace with our neighbours for more than
140 years. Like many other Latin Americans, I have
fought arbitrary behaviour and censorship myself and
therefore cannot possibly fail to uncompromisingly
defend individuals’ right to privacy and the sovereignty
of my country.
Without the right to privacy there is no real
freedom of speech and opinion and therefore no genuine
democracy. Without respect for sovereignty there is
no basis for normal relations among nations. What we
have before us is a serious violation of human rights
and civil liberties through the invasion and capture of
confidential secret information pertaining to business
activities and, above all, a case of disrespect for the
national sovereignty of my country. We have registered
our protest with the Government of the United States
and we have demanded explanations, apologies and
guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated.
Friendly Governments and societies that seek
to build a truly strategic partnership, as in our case,
cannot possibly allow recurring illegal actions to take
place as if they constituted a normal, ordinary practice.
They are unacceptable. Brazil will redouble its efforts
to adopt legislation, technologies and mechanisms to
protect us adequately from the illegal interception of
communications and data. My Administration will
do everything within its reach and powers to defend
the human rights of all Brazilians and all the world’s
citizens, as well as to protect the fruits of the ingenuity
of Brazilian workers and companies.
The problem, however, goes beyond the bilateral
relationship of two countries. It affects the international
community itself and demands a response from it.
Information and telecommunication technologies
cannot become the new battlefield among States.
The time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent
cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war through
espionage, sabotage and attacks against the systems and
infrastructure of other countries. The United Nations
must play a leading role in the effort to properly regulate
the conduct of States with regard to those technologies.
It should also consider the importance of the Internet
and social networks as part of our efforts to build
democracy worldwide.
For that reason, Brazil will present proposals for
the establishment of a multilateral civil framework
for the governance and use of the Internet, as well
as measures to guarantee the effective protection
of the data and information that traverse it. We must
establish multilateral mechanisms for the worldwide
web that are capable of ensuring key principles. The
first is freedom of expression, individual privacy and
respect for human rights; secondly, multilateral, open
democratic governance, conducted with transparency
while stimulating collective creativity and the broad
participation of civil society, Governments and the
private sector; thirdly, the principle of universality,
which ensures social and human development along with
the construction of inclusive and non-discriminatory
societies; fourthly, cultural diversity, without the
imposition of beliefs, customs or values; and fifthly, the
neutrality of the web, which must be governed only by
technical and ethical criteria, rendering unacceptable
any restriction of it for political, commercial, religious
or any other purposes. Harnessing the full potential of
the Internet therefore requires responsible regulation
that will simultaneously guarantee the freedom of
expression, security and respect for human rights.
The choice of the post-2015 development agenda
as the theme for this session of the General Assembly
could not be more appropriate. The fight against
poverty, hunger and inequality constitutes the greatest
challenge of our time. For that reason, Brazil has
adopted a socially inclusive economic model based
on generating employment, strengthening small-
scale family agriculture, expanding credit, increasing
the worth of salaries and developing a vast social
protection network, particularly through our family
stipend programme. In addition to those achievements,
we have lifted 22 million Brazilians out of extreme
poverty in only two years through out plan to free
Brazil of extreme poverty. We have drastically reduced
child mortality. A recent UNICEF report indicates
that Brazil has achieved one of the most significant
reductions in the child mortality in the world.
Children are a top priority for Brazil. That is
reflected in our commitment to education. We are the
country that has most increased public investment in
education, according to the latest Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development report. We
have also just approved legislation that earmarks 75 per
cent of all petroleum revenue to education and 25 per
cent to health services.
In the debate on the post-2015 development
agenda we must focus on the results of the Rio de
Janeiro United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development as key drivers. The major step taken in
Rio de Janeiro was to place poverty at the very centre
of the sustainable development agenda. Poverty is
not a problem exclusive to developing countries, and
environmental protection is not a goal to achieve only
after poverty is overcome. The meaning of the post-
2015 agenda is the development of a world in which it is
possible to grow, to include, to conserve and to protect.
By promoting social mobility and overcoming extreme
poverty, as we are doing, we have created an immense
contingent of citizens with improved quality of life,
increased access to information and greater awareness
of their rights — citizens with new hopes, new desires
and new demands.
The demonstrations last June in Brazil were an
inseparable part of our process of building democracy
and of social change. My Administration did not repress
them; on the contrary, it listened to and understood the
voices from the streets. We listened and understood
because we ourselves came from the streets. We
ourselves came of age and developed through the great
struggles of Brazil. The street is our ground, our base.
The protesters did not ask for a return to the past.
Rather, they asked for further progress towards a future
of greater rights, more participation and more social
gains.
In Brazil, it was during this decade that we
experienced the greatest reduction in social inequality
in the past 50 years. It was during this decade that we
created a system of social protection that has allowed
us to nearly eradicate extreme poverty. We know all
too well that democracy generates the desire for more
democracy, that social inclusion creates demands for
further social inclusion, and that quality of life awakens
people’s yearning for even more quality of life. For us,
all the progress achieved thus far is just a beginning.
Our development strategy demands more, as desired by
all Brazilians.
It is not enough to listen. We must act. We must
transform this extraordinary energy into achievements
for everyone. I have therefore launched five major
pacts: a pact against corruption and for political
reform; a pact for urban mobility, geared towards
the improvement of public transportation and urban
reform; a pact for education, our great passport to the
future, which will be supported by royalties from oil
revenues and the petroleum social fund; a health pact
that provides for doctors to assist Brazilians in the
poorest and most remote regions of the country; and
a fiscal responsibility pact, to guarantee the economic
viability of this new stage in our history.
Although the most acute phase of the crisis is behind
us, the situation of the world economy remains fragile,
with unacceptable levels of unemployment. According
to statistics from the International Labor Organization,
there are more than 200 million unemployed people
throughout the world. That phenomenon affects
populations of both developed and developing countries.
This is the right time for us to strengthen the trends
for growth in the world’s economy, which is showing
signs of recovery. Emerging countries alone cannot
ensure the resumption of global growth. More than ever
before, it is necessary to engage in concerted action
in order to reduce unemployment and re-establish
momentum in international trade. We are all in the
same boat.
My country is restoring growth despite the impact
of the international crisis of the past few years. We
have relied on three key elements: first, a commitment
towards sound macroeconomic policies; secondly,
continuing and upholding successful social inclusion
policies; and thirdly, the adoption of measures aimed
at increasing our productivity, and therefore our
international competitiveness. We are committed to
stability and inflation-control, to improving the quality
of public spending and to upholding proper fiscal
performance.
We reiterate our support for a reform of the
International Monetary Fund. The governance of
the Fund should reflect the weight of emerging and
developing countries in the world economy. Delaying
such adaptive reform will further reduce the Fund’s
legitimacy and effectiveness.
The year 2015 will mark the seventieth anniversary
of the United Nations and the tenth anniversary of the
2005 World Summit. As such, it will be an occasion
for us to carry out the urgent reform that we have been
calling for since that first summit. We must avoid a
collective defeat of coming to 2015 without a Security
Council capable of fully exercising its responsibilities in
today’s world. The limited representation in the Security
Council, in view of the new challenges of the twenty-
first century, is a source of grave concern. Examples of
that concern include the huge difficulty in providing a
solution for the ongoing Syrian conflict and the state of
paralysis in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian question.
The recurrent polarization among permanent members
on important issues has led to a dangerous inaction. The
Council must be urgently endowed with voices that are
both independent and constructive. Only by expanding
the number of permanent and non-permanent members
of the Security Council and by including developing
countries in both categories will it be possible to
solve and overcome the current representativeness and
legitimacy deficits from which the Council suffers.
The general debate provides us with an opportunity
to reiterate the fundamental principles that guide my
country’s foreign policy and inform our stance on
pressing issues on today’s international agenda. We
guide ourselves and our actions through a defence of a
multilateral world governed by international law, where
the peaceful solution of conflicts holds sway and where
the pursuit of a fair and solidarity-based order prevails
both economically and socially.
The crisis in Syria has caused unrest and breeds a
sense of anger. Two and a half years of lives lost and
destruction have caused the greatest humanitarian
disaster of the century.
Brazil’s population of Syrian descent is an important
component of our nationality identity, Our country
is thus deeply involved with the plight of the Syrian
people. It is necessary to prevent the killing of innocent
people — women, children and the elderly — and to
silence weapons, whether they be conventional or
chemical or whether they be used by the Government
or by the rebels. There is no military way out. The
only solution is through negotiation, dialogue and
understanding.
Syria’s decision to accede to the Chemical Weapons
Convention and enforce it immediately was an important
development. As such, the measure is decisive for
overcoming the conflict and helps build a world free of
chemical weapons. I would like to stress that the use of
such weapons is heinous and unacceptable under any
circumstances. We therefore support the agreement
reached between the United States and the Russian
Federation to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons. It
is incumbent upon the Syrian Government to fulfil the
agreement in its entirety and do so in good faith and
in a spirit of cooperation. Under all circumstances and
in any case, we repudiate unilateral interventions in
violation of international law and without authorization
by the Security Council. Unilateral intervention would
only further worsen the lack of political stability in the
region and would increase human suffering.
Likewise, lasting peace between Israel and Palestine
has taken on a new and pressing dimension given the
sweeping changes that the Middle East is currently
undergoing. The time has come to meet the legitimate
Palestinian aspiration for an independent and sovereign
State. The time has also come for us to bring about a
broad international consensus for a two-State solution.
The current talks between Israelis and Palestinians
should yield practical and significant results in favour
of an agreement.
The history of the twentieth century shows that
abandoning the multilateral system is a prelude to
war, with the ensuing trail of human destitution and
devastation. The history of the twentieth century
also shows that promoting the multilateral system
bears fruit on the ethical, political and institutional
fronts. May I therefore renew an appeal for a broad,
vigorous convergence of political will that will uphold
and reinvigorate the multilateral system, of which the
United Nations is the main pillar.
When the United Nations was founded, the peoples
of the world rallied around the hope that humankind
would be able to overcome the wounds of the Second
World War and the hope that, yes, it would be possible
to build, from the rubble of destruction and massacre,
a new world of liberty, solidarity and prosperity. We all
have the responsibility not to let such a generous and
fruitful hope die.