It is an
honour for me to represent my country, Guatemala, in
this high international forum. It is an honour for me to
represent a people who have fought for their well-being
and freedom for decades, specifically the past 54 years.
My Administration is an expression of precisely that
desire, because, after all those years, governmental
actions are now being prioritized around the human
person, the concepts of solidarity and social cohesion
and, especially, in the 254 days since I took office,
attention to the poorest and most marginalized among
our population, in particular the 23 indigenous peoples
that constitute our nation.
First, I should like to commend Mr. Miguel
d’Escoto Brockmann, whom we, with much Central
American pride, see presiding over the General
Assembly at its present session, following in the
footsteps of a fellow Guatemalan, Mr. Emilio Arenales
Catalán. I know that Miguel’s experience and life
example will ensure the success of this session.
I also wish to thank the United Nations for
assisting Guatemala in its peace process and for
following up on it with the United Nations Verification
Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and, most
recently, with the presence of the International
Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a
unique mechanism that will help us combat
impunity — indeed, we are the only country to have
such a mechanism.
Participating in the present session of the
Assembly are world leaders who will be remembered
in 10 or 20 years’ time for having had the wisdom to
emerge from the present crisis — a crisis regarding
which, in certain areas and at certain times, there has
been a marked absence of global solidarity. I join
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann in his appeal for
solidarity. I believe that the great remedy for this crisis
is global solidarity. We have globalized trade and
information, but we have not gained the wisdom to
globalize humanity or to globalize labour to ensure that
migrants are not treated as criminals and that — like
products, trade and money — they have freedom of
movement across borders. Our migrants seek nothing
more than the opportunities offered by globalization
and the opening of borders. It was that very opening
that worsened their poverty and encouraged them to
abandon their communities.
That is why I am making a special appeal and
proposal to the Secretary-General that we no longer try
to resolve the problem of migration bilaterally; rather,
we must do so as a bloc. For example, I should like to
propose that the United Nations create a forum
composed of former Presidents of countries of origin
and countries receiving great numbers of migrants,
such as the brotherly countries of El Salvador,
Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.
Together, in six months’ time, we could formulate a
specific proposal to finally put an end to a situation
that is a scourge for so many families, so many
Guatemalans and many other nations.
I should also like to discuss the scourges of drug
trafficking and organized crime, which greatly afflict
our populations. Only 254 days after taking office, our
Government has begun a comprehensive process of
reforming the security forces. We have changed the
high command of the army and the entire command of
the national police so that we can fight impunity
together with CICIG and the United Nations system.
Thus, Guatemala can finally achieve the true, firm and
lasting peace for which, with such hope, we signed an
agreement here on 29 December 1996.
Everything that happens in the outside world
affects us. Foreign manipulation and speculation
related to oil and food affects us. As my good friend
President Saca of El Salvador said earlier, our
countries are accomplishing their national tasks. In 254
days, my Government has, through social cohesion,
returned to the people of Guatemala what belongs to
them under their Constitution: free education and
health care — totally free, as stipulated in the
Constitution. We have broken a paradigm. In
Guatemala, it used to be forbidden to get sick after
5 p.m., because the country’s health clinics closed at
that time. Today, 52 municipalities out of a total of 333
already have comprehensive health services. In
addition, 300,000 children now have renovated schools
with teachers, desks and all the necessary equipment.
With determination, we can do what is required,
but we need solidarity among everyone. We need and
participate in Central American solidarity, which
enables us to tell the world that the free market works.
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We have had a common market for 50 years, and we
know that it works. But we also know that that
common market requires social solidarity among
ourselves.
I have always believed that solidarity is not
giving what one has left over, but rather giving what
someone else needs; it is very easy to give what one
has left over. Giving what someone else needs requires
will and solidarity. We are aware of — and have heard
our colleagues’ statements about — this international
crisis, but there is a much deeper crisis. The crises that
the world’s leaders must face are the crisis of hunger,
the crisis of discrimination and the crisis of poverty. It
is the crisis of hunger that all the Governments present
here today are fighting against, but that is also a global
issue. We in Guatemala are a people of maize, but a
few years ago they said it was bad business to plant
maize and destroyed the production systems. Today,
Guatemala imports maize.
I believe that now is the time for solidarity and
true global security. Perhaps civil security is the easiest
to achieve, despite the fact that my country is complex.
Sovereignty of food, sovereignty of health, sovereignty
of knowledge — these are more difficult to achieve.
We have planned to achieve solidarity,
productivity, a regional spirit and governance. We have
established a system of national dialogue that is
enabling all the country’s social sectors to come to the
negotiating table, to arrive at a true national
understanding and to begin rebuilding a country that,
for 54 years, was afflicted by marginalization, the cold
war, hunger and bad Governments.
I am convinced that new times have come for
Latin America. I am convinced that all our Latin
American summits and meetings herald new times. We
have our differences and individual characteristics, but
Latin America has begun to look north, south and to
the centre, to the Caribbean, and we see a continent
with the possibility of stronger unity, of stronger
horizontal South-South cooperation and North-South
cooperation. Our neighbours, our dear Central
America — we are peoples rooted in the region who
want a strong and united Central America.
This Assembly could take a momentous turn for
our future as a planet. Of course we are concerned by
climate change, but we have to maintain our Mayan
biosphere so that others can breathe while our
communities are dying of hunger. That is solidarity. We
give oxygen, but we receive technology. We give
oxygen, but we receive solidarity. We give oxygen, and
we receive the understanding of countries that we
deserve a better fate on the basis of this international
solidarity.
We have also promoted tax reform. It is no secret
for many that tax reform in Guatemala meant problems
and coups d’état. But now we have tax reform, with a
good level of consensus. There is also commitment to
transparency and to the quality of expenditures. In only
254 days 7 per cent of the national budget was directed
to the poor, money that used to be and today would
have been spent entirely on other things and without
reference to the poor. Seven towns have begun to lower
their maternal mortality indicators. Health centres are
packed, because they now provide services and they
are open. There are significantly more children in
schools in the 45 towns that are priorities. This can be
done, if there is the determination to do it.
Our security is perhaps the greatest while El
Salvador, Colombia and Mexico are more successful in
fighting drug trafficking. Guatemala pays the bills.
That is why in this brief time I wish to thank my
neighbours, Colombia, for the support that they have
given us so that we can confront drug trafficking and
organized crime on a regional scale. Our young people
should not have to pay for the weaknesses of others.
Our unassuming people and our indigenous people
should not have to pay for the vices of others. I believe
that if we work regionally things will go better.
I should like to acknowledge and reiterate our
gratitude to the United Nations system for the peace in
Guatemala that was sought during the eight years of
negotiations, in which I had the honour to take part. Its
follow-up with the United Nations Mission for the
Verification of Human Rights and of Compliance with
the Commitments of the Comprehensive Agreement on
Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and now
with the presence of the International Commission
against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) makes it easier
for us to take the difficult road towards the integration
and development of Guatemala and towards equity in
Guatemala.
I should like to share with members that the
programmes for social cohesion that were learned and
developed in Guatemala, but also acquired in friendly
countries, are yielding results. The “My Family Makes
Progress” programme is now affecting 40,000 families,
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and the young people are going to school and to health
facilities. The “Shopping Bag Solidarity” programme is
yielding results in the urban areas, and “Open Schools”
is reducing delinquency in the areas of higher risk in
Guatemala City.
If we had the courage to globalize the economy
we would now have the challenge, and almost the
obligation, to globalize all of mankind. Such
globalization would lead to comprehensive, global
solidarity; it could be the way to save our planet. It
could be that we save it by combining our successes
and trying to avoid our errors.