Exactly
eight years ago, in this same context and from this
same rostrum, the President of my country, Néstor
Carlos Kirchner, addressed the Assembly, four years
after having assumed the presidency of the Argentine
Republic with only 22 per cent of the vote. Given the
situation of the Argentine Republic — which had fallen
into default in 2001, where about a quarter of the
population was unemployed and levels of destitution
and poverty had exceeded 50 per cent — he stated that
the multilateral credit institutions needed reform,
particularly the International Monetary Fund, as did the
political bodies of this honourable Organization.
President Kirchner made five speeches to the
General Assembly, and I have made four. This is my
fourth statement as President of the Republic. In each
of our addresses we have made the same calls to a
world that has changed significantly since 2003, when
the Argentine Republic was cast as a black sheep gone
astray and which found itself in default because of a
continued failure to fulfil its obligations. In reality, we
were victims, used as guinea pigs in the experiments of
the 1990s and neoliberal policies.
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Much has happened since then, when Argentina
defaulted on the largest debt — at least, so far — in the
history of humanity, $160 billion. Over the past eight
years, Argentina has restructured its debt, reducing it
from 160 per cent to less than 30 per cent of gross
domestic product (GDP). The rates of poverty and
indigence have been reduced to single digits, and we
must continue that fight. Our unemployment rate is
among the lowest, and we have completed the most
significant cycle of economic growth in our 200 years
of history.
Among the emerging countries of our region,
Latin America, Argentina has had the leading growth
rate and is regularly paying its debt without turning to
capital markets. I am not going to list all of the
numbers, but they are very compelling. In 2003, we
spent 2 per cent of GDP on education and 5 per cent on
debt payments. Today, Argentina devotes 6.47 per cent
of its GDP to education and spends 2 per cent to debt
payment.
The situation in the world is quite different. Many
regions and countries have severe problems. Argentina
does not pretend to be a model or an example for
anyone, but we do wish to reaffirm the need to
formulate clear rules with regard to the transfer of
capital in the area of financial speculation. Many
speakers before me, and doubtless many more to come
will do the same, have complained about financial
commodity speculation, especially in the food sector.
When we compare the growth of global financial
stocks to global GDP — what all of the citizens and
businesses of the world produce in goods and services — it
becomes clear why we are facing a world where
speculation is out of control, careening from one side
to the other and from one country or region to another,
affecting currencies, economies and the daily lives of
citizens, destroying jobs and preventing people from
obtaining a dignified education and health care.
If we look at the relationship between global
GDP and financial stocks in the 1980s, we see that it
was a one-to-one relationship. There was a financial
stock that was exactly equal to the goods and services
being produced by the world. From the 1990s, figures
skyrocketed. In 2008 total financial stocks, total
financial activity in the world, reached 3.6 times the
global GDP. This meant a tremendous gap between
what we produce and what is in what I call the “enter
key” economy. I call it that because, if we go looking
for these shares, they are mere keystrokes transferring
numbers from one place to another, from one currency
to another, producing unparalleled market volatility
and recurrent crises whereby exchanges go up and
down on a daily basis. This not only destroys
thousands of jobs but also generates immense profits
that someone is pocketing.
We would like to reiterate once again, in the light
of our own experience — and I reiterate once again
that I do not want to set up a model — the need for
multilateral credit organizations to work extremely
hard on regulating the global movement of capital and
financial speculation. If this does not happen, it will be
impossible to achieve that ever elusive market stability,
and as a result, the economies of both emerging
countries, which have been sustaining the growth of
the global economic activity, and developed countries
alike will be overwhelmed.
It is crucial that this message be understood,
because today we may see speculation on food;
yesterday, it was on oil, and tomorrow, it could be on
little candies, if that would be profitable and beneficial
to the moving of this capital, which gets transferred
from one side of the world to the other without any
control or regulation whatsoever.
Here I must say that, as a member of the Group of
20 at the London meeting — when it was decided to
inject an enormous amount of financial resources into
the financial sector that was experiencing problems —
I maintained that it was necessary to guarantee that
those resources being injected into the financial world
could later return to the real economy, the concrete
economy, to be able to generate employment, products
and services.
Unfortunately, we continue to find ourselves in
the same situation, because other than the changes that
I would describe as purely cosmetic, we have gone no
further with the necessary regulation.
Moreover, the credit ratings agencies — which
bear a great deal of the responsibility for much of what
has happened — rate Argentina, for example, as a
marginal economy. Until very recently, they
categorized economies on the brink of default higher
than that of Argentina. Therefore, transparent
regulation of the ratings agencies is needed, as they
bear a great responsibility for the crisis we are
currently seeing in various regions — which will, of
course, have an impact on all countries.
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It is regrettable that we have been asking for the
reform, reorganization and modification of the
multilateral credit bodies for so long now. Indeed, we
believe that this task should already have been begun,
already formulated, in order to avoid precisely what we
are experiencing now. For some people it is just a
matter of numbers on the stock market, but for others
they signal the destruction of the hopes of a lifetime.
As I was saying to a colleague the other day
during a visit to Europe, economic crises always end
up impacting the political system. There cannot be a
serious economic crisis, in which millions of people
fall into poverty and lose their jobs, homes, education
and health, without that also signalling profound
political transformation. And when such political
transformation results in further serious economic
crises, the result is experiences that I will not go into
now. Totalitarianism often came out of crises. The
twentieth century produced crises that were not
adequately solved by political means.
I call once again for the reform of this important
Organization, which represents multilateralism —
something we have always consistently defended. We
need a more pluralistic and diverse world, and to make
political bodies such as the United Nations, and
crucially the Security Council, more democratic.
We do not agree on the need to expand the
number of permanent members; on the contrary, we
believe that the permanent member category should be
eliminated. The right to veto also should be eliminated,
as it really prevents the Security Council from carrying
out the true functions that it had in the bipolar world in
which it was originally conceived. At that time, the
right to veto was necessary, because in that bipolar
world, with the fear of a nuclear holocaust, that right
gave to Council members the balance necessary to
ensure the security of humankind. Today, that balance
is broken. Permanent seats and the right to veto are not
about defending security or universal stability; rather,
they are often about the position of Council members
exercising their right.
In my most recent statement before the Assembly
(see A/65/PV.14), I believe I concluded by expressing
my hope that this year Palestine would be become the
194th Member of the concert of the United Nations.
My country, Argentina, like most South American
nations, has recognized the State of Palestine.
I sincerely believe that blocking the entry of
Palestine could perhaps be seen by some as benefiting
the State of Israel. But allow me to say to Assembly
members, on the authority we have as a country that
has suffered from the scourge of international
terrorism, that to prevent Palestine from becoming a
member of this Assembly means to continue providing
alibis to those who engage in international terrorism
and who in that repudiation find precisely one of the
false arguments they use to justify their crimes.
I believe that the non-inclusion of Palestine this
year, far from providing greater security and stability
in the world, will bring about greater insecurity and
conditions that are utterly unfavourable to what should
be the prestige of a body that should represent the
interests of all citizens of the world.
For that reason, I ask that God will enlighten
those who must make this historic and structural
decision of global significance so that greater balance
can be achieved and so that this year Palestine will be
able to take its seat number 194. I am sure that if we
succeed in that endeavour we will help to create a
world that is not only safer, but more just.
I would like to make another point, one linked to
the situation that we have been describing, with regard
to what is shown by the injustice of certain
countries — five, to be exact — on the Security
Council having veto rights. Once again, we have come
to the heart of the United Nations to raise an issue that
is just as vital, and not only to Argentines.
The question of sovereignty over the Malvinas
Islands is also a trial by fire for this body in terms of
whether it is possible for it to comply with a policy that
is essentially multilateral and under which all members
are obliged to accept the resolutions of this Assembly.
Ten General Assembly resolutions have invited
the United Kingdom and my country to sit down to
negotiate and discuss our sovereignty. Bear in mind
that Argentina is not asking for those resolutions to be
implemented in terms of recognizing sovereignty. No,
it is simply asking for compliance with some of the
provisions of the 10 United Nations resolutions on the
matter.
Perhaps we could also list the 29 resolutions of
the Special Political and Decolonization Committee
and the 11 resolutions and 8 declarations of the
Organization of American States, as well as the
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resolutions of various forums — Ibero-American
forums, the Union of South American Nations, the
Common Market of the South, meetings of the Arab
and African countries — and the entire world. Through
such resolutions and declarations, all of them have
been demanding that this issue be addressed. The
United Kingdom has systematically refused to do so
and has obviously used its status as a veto-wielding
member of the Security Council to that end.
The year 2013 will mark the passage of 180 years
since the Argentines were expelled by force of arms
from our Malvinas Islands. Next year will mark
30 years since an incident — which the United
Kingdom took advantage of — that was committed by
the most terrible dictatorship in memory, of which we
Argentines were ourselves victims.
I am proud to be the Government that has set an
example for the world in terms of human rights and the
prosecution of those responsible for committing crimes
and acts of genocide. That is why I believe that
focusing on that incident is nothing other than one of
the many excuses given to justify non-compliance with
United Nations resolutions. What is worse, I ask all of
those who see themselves in the mirror of a future
world in which natural resources will be necessary, to
see how our natural resources, our fisheries and our
petroleum resources, are being stolen and illegally
seized by those who have no right to do so. Obviously,
I do not feel it necessary to emphasize the fact that no
one can lay claim to an overseas territory that is more
than 14,000 kilometres away. That is clearly an illegal
occupation.
Once again, we call upon the United Kingdom to
comply with the resolutions of the United Nations.
Recently, there have been genuine provocations,
including missile tests in May and July, which were
denounced before the International Maritime
Organization, which also suffered one of those attacks.
Once again, I reiterate to this Assembly and to the
United Kingdom Argentina’s interest in dialogue. It is
true that much time has passed, however. We state
here, before this Assembly, that we will wait for a
reasonable period of time, but if nothing transpires, we
will be forced to begin reviewing the provisional
understandings that are still in effect. We emphasize in
particular that the question of sovereignty must be
included in those understandings.
Members may ask what I am referring to here. It
is the joint statement and exchange of letters of 14 July
1999 on resuming a regular weekly LAN Chile flight
between Punta Arenas and the Malvinas Islands with
two monthly stopovers, one in each direction, in Río
Gallegos.
Argentina has no intention of exacerbating the
situation for any party, but it is also fair that this
Assembly and the United Kingdom be aware that there
must be compliance with the resolutions. We cannot
wait 180 years, or 30 years, just as Palestine cannot be
making pilgrimages over the decades to find a place in
the world. Still less can the Argentines wait to reclaim
the territory that legitimately belongs to us.
I cannot conclude without referring to an issue
that has been mentioned in all of the statements that
President Kirchner and I have delivered here since
2003. A few moments ago, when I spoke of the
question of Palestine, my authority to do so — if
indeed it gives us authority, as such — is derived from
the fact that we are one of the only two countries in the
Americas that have been the target of international
terrorism.
This happened on two occasions. In 1992, there
was the explosion at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos
Aires, and in 1994, there was the blast at the Argentine
Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), which is one of
the most important mutual associations in Argentina. I
stress not that it is a Jewish association, but that it is an
Argentine association. This was an attack on Argentina.
I am demanding, on the basis of the requirements
of Argentine justice, that the Islamic Republic of Iran
submit to the legal authority and in particular allow for
those who have been accused of some level of
participation in the AMIA attack to be brought to
justice.
Last year, we proposed here that if they did not
trust our country’s justice system, we could take the
approach that was taken for the Lockerbie case: we
could choose a court from a third country, by mutual
agreement, in order for that court to be able to provide
the only thing that we are demanding — that is, justice.
We insist on this because it is a universal demand. It
does not have to do with political positions. This word,
justice, is in the Talmud, the Bible and the Koran, and,
for those who do not believe in anything, I am sure it is
in their country’s constitution.
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The Government of Argentina received, on
16 July, a message from the Foreign Ministry of Iran
stating that it intended to cooperate in initiating a
constructive dialogue with Argentina in order to help
us get at the truth with respect to the brutal attack
against the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association of
18 July 1994. The message that we received from Iran,
although signifying a change of attitude on the part of
the Government, does not satisfy our demands, which,
as I said quite clearly, are for justice.
However, it is an offer of dialogue that Argentina
cannot and must not reject. We are here calling for
dialogue with the United Kingdom and dialogue among
all the parties that make up this body. My country does
this on the basis of its commitment to fulfilling its
obligation to resolve controversies through peaceful
means. This attitude has characterized our country
throughout our history. This means that in one sense,
Argentina must put aside the requirements arising from
our national justice system with respect to prosecuting
the presumed perpetrators of these attacks. In another
sense, we cannot do this, as this is up to judges and
public prosecutors.
What we would like to say, however, is that we
think that this dialogue must be constructive. It must be
a sincere dialogue and must achieve results in order to
be credible and therefore not be understood as just a
delay tactic or a distraction.
I will conclude my statement. Sometimes, I think
of everything that has happened to Argentines. These
things have happened to many countries at various
times, but they have all happened to us, in our country,
during our history. We have had the worst economic
and social disaster in living memory. We still have
today a Power exercising a colonial influence in our
country. International terrorism has twice made us the
target of its attacks. So, if we think of it, it is as if all of
the problems and all of the tragedies and miseries of
this world decided to focus on one single country.
Our capacity to recover, in terms of the economy,
our tireless and never-ending fight to recover what is
ours, our never-ending demand for justice for the
victims of the attacks, and the strength that we have
drawn from all of these tragedies give me the
confidence and certainty that this is the path we have
chosen: that of achieving growth along with social
inclusion for our fellow citizens. It is the path of
ensuring that there is unlimited respect for human
rights, with trials carried out for the sake of
remembrance, truth and justice. It is the path that
ensures that today, as the President of all Argentines, I
can be accompanied here by family members of
victims of the AMIA attack. They have confidence that
the Government will continue to do what it has always
done, which is to defend the values of truth and justice.
That is what gives me great hope that God will
shed light on the path of all those who have to make
decisions, not with a view to elections but with a view
to the destiny of the world in upcoming decades. That
is why I would like to greet everyone today who has
taken the floor or who will take the floor and thank the
entire Assembly for the support that they have each
given, in all of these causes, to my country, the
Argentine Republic.