In the name of the Nicaraguan people and of
Comrade President Commander Daniel Ortega
Saavedra, I convey my warmest brotherly greetings to
you, Sir, and to each and every one of the peoples and
Governments represented in the General Assembly.
As the shadows of apocalyptic threats darken the
world stage, we begin to doubt the capacity for reason
and the strength of the most noble sentiments of human
beings to face up to the serious problems confronting
humanity. Various types of information are
manipulated by the global communications media in
order to continually discredit the independence efforts
of the Governments of the South. They disseminate the
idea that humanity is impotent in the face of the
present state of disaster and that we must prepare for
the worst. Furthermore, what is worse is that they tell
us that no one is responsible and that it is a faceless
disaster, seeking thus to exonerate the industrialized
countries of the North.
However, we know full well that the underlying
cause of the serious crises we are experiencing is the
nature of the system of economic, political and social
relations established by global capitalism and the effort
to have that system accepted as a universal paradigm.
In this regard, the poor countries, which are
referred to by the euphemism “developing countries”,
can strip away the masks of those who — driven by
greed, selfishness and the desire for absolute power in
the name of manifest destiny or of divine reason —
have brought humankind to the brink of extinction.
Nicaragua, which has experienced the pain and
injustice of war first-hand, is against war. We do not
accept the failure of reason. We do not accept war as
the obligatory language among peoples. Nicaragua
rejects war as a solution to conflicts between States.
We reject war as a means for appropriating the planet’s
natural resources or for imposing the hegemony of a
few over the majority of the world’s nations. War will
never lead to solutions partial or full, much less
definitive. The invasion of Iraq by foreign troops under
false pretexts has brought neither peace nor stability to
that country. On the contrary, it has left that country in
ruins and failed to bring greater stability to the region.
The war in Afghanistan has become a dead end
for the occupiers. At the same time, it has also had
negative effects on its neighbours. Security Council
resolution 1929 (2010), which imposes new sanctions
on the Islamic Republic of Iran, has only served to
increase the possibility of a large-scale military
conflict with unforeseeable consequences. The war
games on the Korean peninsula increase tensions in
that region, jeopardizing the gains achieved between
the two Koreas. Neither Europe nor the Persian Gulf
has escaped the expanding zone of militarization.
Similarly, the establishment of military bases and the
deployment of naval and air power on Latin American
soil threaten the political stability of our nations.
“Among individuals, as among nations, respect
for the rights of others is peace”. This saying of Benito
Juárez, President of Mexico and the first indigenous
president in the Americas, clearly reflects the
conception of and will for peace among the peoples of
the world. This apothegm should guide our
Organization, and in particular the Security Council,
ensuring that their actions adhere strictly to the
purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Moreover, Nicaragua believes that there is a close
relation between disarmament and development. Our
commitment to security includes a commitment to the
promotion of human rights, which we interpret as
10-55128 30
tantamount to sustainable development centred on the
human being and implemented in an environment of
good governance with direct citizen participation and
social equality, which are indispensable to real
development.
From our point of view, the resources freed up as
a result of disarmament efforts should be directed to
ensuring the attainment of the national social
development goals of each of our countries. One only
has to take a brief glance at the trillions of dollars
spent on war to realize how many human problems
could be solved with these funds, alleviating the pain
caused by poverty and exclusion. The global economic
and financial crisis has had little or no effect on global
military spending.
Nicaragua remains actively committed to the
cause of general and complete disarmament. Nicaragua
believes that only a climate of fundamental trust and
solidarity can guarantee strict compliance with arms
control and disarmament accords with a view to
attaining complete disarmament — and especially
nuclear disarmament — as the only option for
achieving real and lasting world peace. Nicaragua
supports the inalienable right of the parties to the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to
use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and without
discrimination. Nicaragua encourages actions to
promote the exchange of material resources, equipment
and technology for the peaceful use of nuclear energy
in order to guarantee the sustainable economic
development of every nation and the world.
Precisely because of this belief, Nicaragua
demands that neither Iran nor any other nation be taken
to task for developing nuclear programmes for peaceful
purposes. It is possible to build trust based on dialogue
and negotiation. In this context, Nicaragua joins the
general support expressed for the tripartite declaration
of Brazil, Turkey and Iran, which constitutes an
alternative for promoting regional and world peace.
That which was a warning yesterday is today a
reality. The present international context is leading to a
global political crisis. The entire political model
constructed and articulated around the paradigm of
neo-liberalism, globalization and the free market is in
question. At the global level, we need more decisive
action to affirm multilateralism as the new paradigm.
Such multilateralism must listen to the voices of
peoples living in extreme poverty and
underdevelopment. It must take the new political
realities into account and effectively democratize the
world order, beginning with this Organization,
including the Security Council and the United Nations
as a whole; re-establish the representational and
democratic rights of its 192 Member States; and
identify the rights and obligations that are common to
all States without undermining their sovereignty,
independence and self-determination, regardless of
their size.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, this trend is
manifest in the process of integration and unity taking
place among our peoples. We have already made the
historic decision to create the Latin American and
Caribbean Community of States, whose
institutionalization will begin next year and conclude
in 2012. This is further and unquestionable proof of the
profound changes taking place in the world.
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our
America has become the vanguard of this process of
change. The struggle against intervention of all kinds,
including military intervention, and for the
maintenance and re-establishment of peace is an
essential component of the Alliance’s action in its
relations with the world, and strengthens its capacity to
guarantee the national sovereignty of its peoples.
Nicaragua joins the brotherly people of Puerto
Rico in waving the flag of its independence which has
been unjustly trampled. The criminal economic
blockade by the Government of the United States of
America against the brotherly people and Government
of heroic Cuba must stop immediately, and the five
Cuban heroes, counter-terrorism combatants
imprisoned in United States jails, must be released
now.
We express our solidarity with the brotherly
people of Argentina in their demand for sovereignty
over the Malvinas Islands and with the brotherly
people of the Democratic Arab Saharan Republic in
their quest to be recognized as an independent State.
The war and State terrorism against the people of
Palestine must immediately cease. All Security Council
and General Assembly resolutions concerning Israel
must be respected and complied with. We must tie the
hands of those who fan the flames of hatred and war
and are capable of attacking a humanitarian flotilla —
an act that has been denounced by the Human Rights
Council commission of inquiry.
31 10-55128
We salute the invitation extended by the
international community to Taiwan to participate in the
work of some United Nations specialized agencies
directly related to the well-being of the 23 million
Taiwanese. In this regard, we call on the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
and the International Civil Aviation Organization to
adopt a similar position.
Never before have we had so much information
or, I hope, been so conscious of the severity of the
environmental crisis affecting our planet. Our
awareness of the gravity of the situation makes it
indispensable that we forge a coalition of forces based
on the common values and inspiring principles that
serve as the ethical foundation and catalyst for
practices to promote a sustainable way of life. The
Earth, with its minerals and sources of energy; with its
land, water, forests and marine life; with its ecosystems
and micro-organisms, must be recognized as our
supreme and universal benefactor and an integral part
of humankind, and not only as a source of survival.
Global capitalism, with its logic of competition
and unlimited growth and its unsustainable modes of
production and consumption, separates human beings
from nature and establishes a relationship of dominion
over it. This situation must change and be restored to
the right track before it is too late for us all.
The meeting in Copenhagen demonstrated the
power of the interests that block decisive action on
climate change and the rights of Mother Earth. It left
us with the unpleasant feeling that we had wasted our
time and that those who impede the urgent solutions
needed to address the critical state of Mother Earth are
uncommitted to change. With our eyes fixed on hope,
we continue to promote our commitments based on the
fundamental principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities. These should be proportional to the
greenhouse gas emissions accumulated since the onset
of the Industrial Revolution and not since last year.
Those who have historically caused the damage should
assume most of the responsibility.
In that hope, Nicaragua was the first country of
the world to have signed the Universal Declaration of
the Rights of Mother Earth, and calls on all the
countries of the world to sign it. It was also in that
hope that Nicaragua signed the People’s Agreement
adopted in Cochabamba in April during the World
People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights
of Mother Earth. It is in that hope that Nicaragua trusts
that, when we arrive in Cancún, we will be united in
seeking agreements that will at least partially reverse
the harm, and in taking a path that re-establishes the
lost or gravely endangered balance between humankind
and Mother Earth.
Although it is proclaimed without much support
that the worst of the global economic and financial
crisis is behind us, its most serious effects remain and
continue to greatly affect our peoples. We should not
continue to accept the imposition of economic models
based on the pillage and exploitation of our riches.
For all of those reasons, Nicaragua and most of
the Latin American nations are dedicated to building an
alternative model of economic sovereignty, a sphere of
interdependence and solidarity that will enable us to
face global capitalism’s profound crisis and to recover
our capacity to determine our own paths to
development. We reaffirm that the development
strategies of each country are their own responsibility,
that they should have national ownership and
leadership, and that foreign cooperation should be in
line with the strategies, plans and objectives of the
country that receives it.
In connection with the urgent need to create a
new model, we reiterate our support for the outcome of
the Conference on the World Financial and Economic
Crisis and Its Impact on Development of June 2009
(resolution 63/303, annex). There can be no economic
recovery or balance in the inequality with the present
model, which concentrates the income and wealth
among and within nations.
All of this should take place in a framework of
mutual respect, devoid of punitive political conditions
against our peoples that would block and stifle the
development of the countries of the South.
Besides the hundreds of millions of people in the
world who suffer from hunger, we have before us the
terrifying reality that in developing countries,
10.9 million children under the age of five die every
year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause
60 per cent of those deaths. The cost of malnutrition to
national economic development is estimated at
between $20 and $30 billion per year. That intolerable
situation must stop. The developed countries must
fulfil their commitments to eliminate the suffering of
millions of human beings.
10-55128 32
Nicaragua reaffirms its decision to confront, with
the means available to it and in the context of its
national sovereignty, the different forms of
transnational organized crime, which have become a
permanent threat to domestic and international security.
Similarly, Nicaragua reiterates its position of
combating terrorism in all its forms and whatever their
source.
There are several processes that are hampering
necessary and urgent changes. The most prominent is
the suppression of information — not saying anything
in order to perpetuate ignorance. And when
information is made available, it is distorted and
always against the peoples’ interests and their
legitimate aspirations and experiences, thus converting
lies into truths and vice versa, converting a smile into a
sneer, words into noise and an objective fact into
virtual reality.
The universal citizen is witness, through global
communication, to a real war for truth and freedom,
forced to confront a permanent, slanderous campaign
against change, against hope and against the proper
evolution of history. That campaign has far-reaching
implications and has the goal of destroying the process
of direct popular democracy and of the profound and
revolutionary social transformations that are taking
place in our countries as a result of the triumph of
revolutionary political forces, as is the case in
Nicaragua with the Sandinista Front. We must
denounce the campaign waged by hegemonic and
selfish interests in a few countries in an attempt to
undermine the legitimacy of our political system and
our people’s Government.
Nicaragua proclaims its right to live in peace and
to combat the poverty, illiteracy, hunger and
malnutrition generated by historic exclusion and the
imposition of an economic and political model that is
alien to our reality. Nicaragua declares its dignity,
sovereignty, self-determination, respect, unity and
solidarity with all the peoples of the Earth, as
guaranteed by the United Nations Charter. Nicaragua is
working to develop a social awareness of solidarity
identified with the ideals of humankind, justice,
freedom and democracy for all, without exception.
From this forum, Nicaragua makes a vehement
call for world peace, for the survival of the human
species, for the dignified future of the noblest
aspirations of men and women. That is the only
possible future.