Eight years after Switzerland became a full Member of
the United Nations, we are delighted to see that the
presidency of this General Assembly at its sixty-fifth
session fell to the 2004 President of the Swiss
Confederation, Mr. Joseph Deiss, to whom we wish the
greatest success in his tenure.
In 1998, the twentieth special session of the
General Assembly was held to contribute to the
elimination or substantial reduction of the illegal
production of drugs and drug abuse by 2008. Ten years
later, at a follow-up review meeting supported by this
prestigious world body, the conclusion was reached
that little progress had been made regarding the
proposed goals and that there were therefore plenty of
reasons for the international community to be
concerned about the growing threat posed by the global
drug problem. It was determined that a new 10-year
plan was needed to cover the period until 2019, when
the General Assembly will have once again to convene
Member States in order to assess the outcome of
measures implemented to eliminate the most serious
threat to our citizens’ safety at the dawn of the twenty-
first century: transnational organized crime and illegal
drug trafficking.
Today, almost 250 million people between the
ages of 15 and 64 consume drugs worldwide. Although
that consumption extends to many regions around the
world, the highest concentration of users is found in
areas with the most pronounced economic and social
development, such as the United States, Western
Europe and Central Asia.
Drug consumption is harmful to health, causing
personality disorders that often lead to loss of will,
apathy and the development of pathological behaviour.
Furthermore, tens of thousands of people die every
year as a direct result of drug consumption, while
others, depending on the way these toxic substances
are consumed, are affected by diseases such as
HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.
Today, illegal drug trafficking constitutes a global
black market, a kind of underground or hidden
economy for the growth, manufacture, distribution and
sale of this merchandise in the form of marijuana,
opium, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and other
varieties of such substances and others. That market,
which is ruled like any other by the laws of supply and
demand, now amounts to the astronomical sum of
approximately $400 billion a year. That astronomical
sum means that the global drug trade is worth more
than the gross domestic product of 122 of the
184 countries that appear on the annual World Bank
economic index. Every year, the global drug market
generates more wealth than countries such as Chile,
Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Israel, South Africa and
Portugal. But, at the same time, it is more
economically powerful than many of the world’s
leading petroleum producing countries such as Kuwait,
Qatar, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
In pursuit of its goals of conquering markets and
accumulating wealth, transnational organized crime has
begun availing itself of a new type of unprecedented,
inhumane and cruel violence. Drug trafficking uses
kidnapping, contract killings, torture and beheadings
both in battles between drug trafficking groups and
against the people and institutions that confront them.
Drug trafficking sows fear and terror. It executes public
servants as well as ordinary citizens. It murders
journalists, teachers, doctors, students and housewives.
Drug trafficking knows no limits or borders; it knows
only horror, barbarism, bloodshed and crime.
It is so powerful that it influences and interferes
in vital areas of government, such as the armed forces,
the police, intelligence services and the justice system,
in its attempt to make State institutions serve its
macabre and sinister interests.
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In the face of all of this, some people are right to
wonder whether transnational organized crime and
illegal international drug trafficking can be defeated. Is
it really possible to tackle and defeat all that this form
of international crime entails?
Our response is: yes, it is possible. It is possible
to take it on and to defeat it. It is possible to reduce it
and to mitigate its harmful effects. However, to do so,
several elements need to be in place. First, we need
genuine commitment at the global level and authentic
and genuine political will at the level of national
Government.
We also need a paradigm change or a new
strategic vision that will focus our efforts to fight the
problem, not only on the supply side, as has
fundamentally been the case so far, but also on the
demand and consumption side.
It is imperative that we curb indiscriminate gun
sales and human trafficking. We need to implement
exchange and cooperation policies among the narcotics
producer, transit and consumer countries. We need to
introduce new technologies, strengthen intelligence
systems, better train and enhance the professionalism
of those in charge of ensuring public safety, design
prevention mechanisms, generate educational
opportunities, reduce poverty and create jobs, and get
communities involved in building protective networks
against crime.
We hope that, in 2019, when the General
Assembly convenes its member States to evaluate the
outcome of its new 10-year Plan of Action on
International Cooperation towards an Integrated and
Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem
(see resolution 64/182), we will be in a position to say,
for the sake of our families, our young people, our
societies and, ultimately, of humanity as a whole, “We
have prevailed. We have defeated the leading threat to
the security our peoples at the beginning of the twenty-
first century. We have beaten drugs.”
It is important also to note that the human and
material losses experienced as a result of natural
disasters in 2010 are a great cause for concern. To date,
we have seen 47 floods and landslides, affecting
countries as far apart as India and Brazil, China and
Colombia, Russia and Congo, Kazakhstan and
countries of East Africa, Mexico and Central America,
Pakistan, Yemen and the Sudan.
To date, there have been 12 hurricanes, cyclones
and typhoons, affecting countries such as Mexico,
India, the Solomon Islands and Madagascar. To date,
we have suffered eight serious droughts, followed by
fires, in Bolivia, California, the Caribbean, China,
Spain and Russia. To date, there have been seven
earthquakes, from the tragedy in Haiti to China, from
Tajikistan to Chile, and from Afghanistan to Mexico.
That does not include the volcanic eruptions —
these too made no distinction between rich and poor. In
the case of Iceland, the volcano led to the most serious
interruption of air traffic since the Second World War.
In addition, we need to take into account the numerous
cold snaps, avalanches and storms that have occurred
and their resultant epidemics — foremost among them,
cholera in Africa and dengue fever in Latin America
and the Caribbean.
As we can see, vulnerability to natural disasters
around the world is on the rise, and development levels
are falling quickly as a result. Most of these natural
disasters are caused by climate change or global
warming. It is therefore imperative that this world body
adopt, as soon as possible, guidelines to regulate the
emission of carbon dioxide and to protect the planet’s
biodiversity.
There is much work to be done around the world
to draw up and adopt policies and practices that will
enable us to prevent the impact of natural disasters. In
this context, it is crucial to incorporate risk
management into development and land-use planning.
We need to design and implement early warning
systems in coastal areas, cities at risk, schools and
hospitals. And we need urgently to re-equip critical
infrastructure to ensure that it is adequate to withstand
future catastrophes and to minimize human loss. Faced
with this situation, the Dominican Republic intends to
participate actively in the work of the Global Platform
for Disaster Risk Reduction, whose next meeting will
take place in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2011.
Likewise, with advisory assistance from the
United Nations Development Programme and New
York’s Columbia University, in October we will be
meeting with the ministers responsible for social policy
as well as the mayors of cities at greatest risk in order
to review ongoing activities in the integration and
planning of natural disaster risk management.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to
suggest, as we did during a visit to L’Aquila, Italy, that
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the United Nations system create a world alliance of
countries at risk in order to exchange experiences,
knowledge and ideas, and to pass along best practices
learned during catastrophes. We are convinced that this
would be a major contribution to the design and
implementation of measures that will help save lives
and minimize material damage.