Let
me begin by sending a warm greeting to Mr. Ali
Abdussalam Treki, President of the Assembly, on
behalf of a country 35 times smaller than his native
Libya and infinitely different in scenery and
geography. Instead of desert sandstorms we have
torrential rains. We know not the waves of the
Mediterranean, but the capricious tides of the
Caribbean. Its dunes are our forests, its mosques our
cathedrals. But I believe that such differences are at the
very heart of the United Nations. Aristotle posited that
things are distinguished by what they look like. Here,
within this haven, nations are similar precisely in that
they are distinct, because each is irreplaceable in the
vast catalogue of the planet. From the far reaches of
this variety that makes us brothers, I wish him the
greatest success in this Assembly.
Twenty-three years ago, I spoke for the first time
at this rostrum — a rock of reason amidst seas of
insanity. At that time, I came here bearing the cries of
millions of Central Americans who sought a peaceful
solution to the civil wars that were lacerating our
region. I came to ask powerful nations to stop the flow
of arms fuelling the procession of coffins in our
territories, and I came to defend the right of the
peoples of Latin America to build their own destiny
freely and democratically.
The second time I visited this Hall, I came
seeking support for the peace plan that the Presidents
of Central America had signed. In those days, no one
thought that little Central America would defy the
world and choose life in the face of all threats. No one
thought that we would have the strength to confront the
Powers of the cold war and find our own solution to all
our problems. No one thought that we would be able to
sow the seeds of democracy in our lands and go on to
work for the human development of our peoples. We
gave the pessimists and the sceptics a lesson. We
refuted with dreams the nightmares that many
prophesied for us. Today, I come here to recognize the
distance we have travelled and to warn of the risk of
backsliding.
Since the last time I spoke before this Assembly,
a Central American nation has seen the demon of the
coup d’état awaken once again. Our region’s armies
have received nearly $60 billion to combat imaginary
enemies, while our peoples have struggled empty-
handed against the economic crisis. Some leaders have
defied democratic rules in the most imaginative ways,
while everything that was wrong with our continent has
carried on the same, or worse. Poverty has continued to
afflict more than a third of our inhabitants. One in
three young Latin Americans still has never seen a
high-school classroom. Hundreds of thousands of
people have died of preventable diseases. The toll of
violent death in some of our countries has exceeded
those of countries at war, despite the fact that, with the
exception of Colombia, there are no armed conflicts in
our region. And millions of trees have been felled in
territories responsible among them for two thirds of the
worldwide forest cover loss in the twenty-first century.
This scenario is not a hopeful one. For those of us
from Latin America, it is difficult not to feel that we
are always rescuing our future from the clutches of our
past, and that we are always trying to take off on a
runway where some foolish person spilled oil, long
ago. We have not achieved greater development. We
have not made our democracy stronger. We have not
driven from our reality the shadow of militarism and
oppression. These problems recur endemically, to
varying degrees, in the majority of developing
nations — the very nations that will to a large extent
bear the weight of the course of humanity over the next
50 years.
It is the developing nations that will shoulder the
worst of the struggle against global warming, that will
carry the heaviest burden of population growth on the
planet, and that will be responsible for accelerating the
growth of a global economy to which the rich cannot
contribute much more than they already generate. We
do not yet know how the leading role we have been
given will play out. Our success or failure will depend
on whether we have the courage to take on at least
15 09-52425
three fundamental challenges: the strengthening of our
democracies, the encouragement of human development
for our peoples through the reduction of military
spending and cross-border arms trafficking, and the
creation of a new international order for the transfer of
aid, information and technology to combat climate
change.
Developing nations, and middle-income nations
in particular, live simultaneously in the medieval and
postmodern eras. In our race to emulate the
experiences of developed countries, we have skipped
past fundamental steps. There is no doubt that one of
these steps is the patient construction of democratic
institutions, on which developed countries have spent
centuries, while we, if we have been lucky, have spent
decades.
As a result, beyond superficial appearances, we
lack a true civic culture. We have democratic structures
that in many cases are no more than empty shells. We
have free elections, but lack the open social forum to
allow all citizens freely to make political or ideological
contribution. We have formal separation of powers, but
in many places power remains a single monopoly
disguised in multiple public entities. We have rule of
law, but the reach of the law is tested every day by
Governments incapable of applying it, when not
determined actually to weaken it. We have political
constitutions and international treaties that reaffirm our
belief in democratic values, but populations still prone
to toss those values aside for material gain.
Paraphrasing the great Argentinean writer Jorge
Luis Borges, we can say that most inhabitants of
developing countries do not identify with the State,
which seems to them an abstract concept, removed
from their immediate concerns. That is why they allow
a Government to end before its constitutional period
has elapsed or to continue in power beyond that period.
That is why they expect the Government to offer social
welfare and public services, but do not recognize the
reciprocal obligations of citizens.
That is why they prefer caudillos to political
parties, messianic leaders to democratic institutions.
That is why they boycott the approval of new taxes in
countries whose tax burden is half or even a third of
that of developed countries. That is why they so easily
fall for a discourse that blames national problems on
others instead of assuming responsibility for designing
mechanisms that confront them. And this is the best-
case scenario, because in the worst there is no
democracy at all.
As long as we continue on this path, placing our
hopes in developing nations will be like pouring water
into a sack. As long as we fail to dedicate more
international attention, and more international aid, to
strengthening and perfecting democracies in this world,
we will watch again and again as our countries try to
take off on a slippery runway.
This challenge is even more urgent in the face of
an arms race that, year by year, moves $1.3 trillion
globally. The combination of strong armies and weak
democracies has proved harmful in every corner of the
planet, and above all in Latin America, which, during
the second half of the twentieth century was a
showcase of dictatorial horrors, fuelled by the
existence of an omnipresent military apparatus. I will
never tire of repeating it: in Latin America, and in a
substantial portion of the developing world, armies
have served no purpose other than to carry out coups
d’état. They have not protected the people; they have
oppressed them. They have not safeguarded liberties;
they have trampled on them. They have not guaranteed
respect for the will of the people; they have mocked it.
What is the threat to our nations? What, for
example, is the great enemy of Latin America that
compels it to waste $165 million a day on weapons and
soldiers? I assure the Assembly that such threats are far
less significant than that posed by the mosquito that
carries malaria, for instance. They are less significant
than the threat posed by the lack of opportunity that
pushes our young people into crime. They are less
significant than the threat posed by the drug cartels and
street gangs that survive thanks to an unrestricted
market for small arms and light weapons.
And so what we have to do is order our priorities.
Costa Rica was the first country to abolish its army and
declare peace on the world. Thanks to that visionary
decision, thanks to the liberating army of Commander
José Figueres, who renounced arms forever, we have
the opportunity today to invest our resources in things
that matter. And while we know that not every nation is
ready to take such a radical step, we believe that a
gradual and progressive reduction in military spending
is not only a good strategy for allocating resources, but
also a moral imperative for developing nations.
For this reason I ask the Assembly once more to
make the Costa Rica Consensus a reality. This
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initiative would create mechanisms for forgiving
foreign debt and using international financial resources
to support those poor and middle-income developing
countries that are investing more in environmental
protection, education, health, housing and sustainable
development for their people and less in arms and
soldiers. And I also ask the Assembly to approve an
arms trade treaty, which is known to this Organization,
and which seeks to prohibit the transfer of arms to
States, groups or individuals when sufficient reason
exists to believe that those arms will be used to
undermine human rights or international law. I assure
members that these two initiatives will make us safer,
and certainly more developed, than the costly
machinery of death that currently consumes our
budgets.
What is more, spending on arms deprives us not
only of economic resources. Above all, it deprives us
of human resources. At this moment, the greatest
arsenal of genius in the world is working on refining
the weaponry and defence systems of a few nations.
That is not where this genius should be. Its place is in
the laboratories where medicines are being created that
will be accessible to all humankind. Its place is in the
classrooms where the leaders of tomorrow are being
formed. Its place is in the Governments that need help
in protecting their harvests, their cities and their
populations from the effects of global warming.
We have included sustainable development in the
Costa Rica Consensus because we believe there is a
connection between arms and the protection of the
environment. This is, first, because arms and wars
generate more environmental devastation and pollution
than any productive activity; and secondly, because the
very existence of military spending constitutes, in and
of itself, a negation of resources available to combat
global warming. Every armoured helicopter, every
tank, every nuclear submarine represents, in practice,
forests that are not protected, technologies that are not
becoming less costly and adaptations that are not being
made.
Only a few weeks remain before the Climate
Change Conference in Copenhagen, where every
country will have to undertake commitments much
greater than today’s. My small nation, Costa Rica, will
attend the conference with its head held high, because
unilaterally, and at great sacrifice, we have set
ourselves goals that are ever more challenging. We
have launched an initiative called Peace with Nature,
through which we propose, among other things, to
become a carbon-neutral country by the year 2021.
This is possible, in large part, thanks to the nearly four
decades we have spent protecting our land, replanting
our forests and safeguarding our natural species — and
also because, at the same time that we abolished our
army, we created pioneering institutions devoted to the
search for renewable energy sources. Today, more than
95 per cent of our electricity comes from water or
wind, from the depths of the Earth or the rays of the
sun.
Infinite challenges remain, for Costa Rica as for
any other middle-income country. The world’s rich
nations, which developed in the most unsustainable
way possible, cannot now place limits that choke the
development expectations of every other country.
Efforts must be directed instead at forming a global
platform that allows us to transfer international aid,
information and technology efficiently from one nation
to another; a platform that will only make sense if the
member States of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development increase their official
development aid, which today stands at $120 billion
per year. When it comes to mitigating and adapting
ourselves to global warming the world must share, not
compete.
These three challenges — strengthening
democracies, reducing military spending and
cooperating to confront climate change — perhaps
constitute the most ambitious agenda humanity has
ever had to take on. Neither I, nor my Government, nor
Costa Rica, will ignore this historic call; for we simply
cannot fail. We cannot falter. We cannot turn back
when we are standing at the vanguard of 6.8 billion
human beings.
Like Adam and Eve, we are still living in a
heavenly Paradise minutes before being expelled due
to our own arrogance. Our sense of responsibility, our
humility and our courage will determine whether we
waste our opportunity on Earth and squander the
miracle of life that has brought us heartbreak and pain
yet has also allowed us to know happiness. The
greatest of the Costa Rican poets, Jorge Debravo, said
that hope is as strong as bone and more powerful than
imagination or memory. May that still-present hope
give us the strength to embark on the last journey of an
unsustainable civilization and the first of a civilization
that will survive and outlast us all.