I would
like to congratulate you, Ms. Al-Khalifa, on your
election as President of the General Assembly at this
session, since I believe it is very significant that a
woman has assumed that role, to promote gender
equality, which is a goal both of my Government and
of the United Nations.
On behalf of the Argentine Republic, we would
also like to congratulate the President of the General
Assembly at its sixtieth session, Mr. Jan Eliasson, for
the work he carried out, and to renew our recognition
of Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his role in action
promoting peace, multilateralism and the fight against
poverty.
We have come to the General Assembly in the
firm belief that the revitalization of this forum of
global representation is fundamental so that
international law can be the instrument of rationality
that will enable us to settle conflicts and combat the
threats to peace.
The international conduct of the Argentine
Republic is inspired by the values of representative
democracy, respect for fundamental human rights and
active defence of international peace and security.
Those principles, shared by the vast majority of the
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Argentine people, guide our administration and are the
basis of our foreign policy decisions.
In the field of human rights, in 2003, after more
than two decades of sustained democratic rule in
Argentina, we experienced a true paradigm shift. In
response to the mandates of the whole of society, the
three powers of the State adopted, within their
respective purviews, concurrent decisions against
impunity, preserving memory, truth and justice and
securing reparations.
The annulment by Congress of the laws that
accorded impunity for State-sponsored crimes of
terrorism, the ruling that those laws and pardons
granted by the courts in our country were
unconstitutional, and the reopening of over a thousand
court proceedings for crimes against humanity — some
of which have resulted in the conviction of those
responsible — constitute landmarks of that shift. It is
our conviction that democracy is strengthened with the
simultaneous fight against impunity and promotion of
full respect for the rule of law, without calling for
revenge.
With that experience, we have, since the
beginning of the reform of the United Nations system,
strongly supported incorporating human rights into the
hierarchy so as to raise the institutional level of their
treatment to that already given to development and to
the maintenance of international peace and security.
That determination led us to establish the Human
Rights Council, in whose creation Argentina
participated actively.
The first steps of that body have been positive,
having approved the text of the International
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance. That is an instrument of great
significance for our country, as it defines a crime
against humanity from which Argentina suffered
massively in the past, at a high cost to our society. We
have among us here today a representative of an
organization that was extremely involved with that
issue — one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,
Mrs. Marta Vázquez, who is accompanying our
delegation. We hope the General Assembly will adopt
that very important instrument quickly, during this
session.
Five years after the attacks that shocked this city
and the world, we would like to firmly condemn the
serious threat of global terrorism. Argentina considers
all acts of terrorism against innocent civilians to be
criminal and unjustifiable, and accepts no argument to
justify such methods.
The Argentine people suffered two atrocious
attacks in the 1990s against the Embassy of Israel and
the headquarters of the Asociación Mutual Israelita
Argentina. We are still struggling, in spite of the time
that has elapsed, to fully clarify the facts and punish
the culprits. We believe that, in order to face this
criminal threat successfully, we must carry out a
sustained multilateral and legitimate response. Respect
for human rights, international humanitarian law and
refugee law is essential, as are international
cooperation and legal assistance to effectively enforce
the norms against terrorism.
If, in facing down global terrorism, we resort to a
global violation of human rights, the only winner in
this fight shall be terrorism. We will advance firmly in
the fight against terrorism only if we frame it within
respect for local laws and international norms and
conventions. No complication can be an excuse for not
combating terrorism within the law.
Peace is built and maintained by understanding
the true concept of solidarity among nations from a
wider perspective than the purely military or the
predominantly unilateral. Nations big and small, rich
and poor, will be markedly vulnerable if we fail to
grasp that the fight against terrorism demands
sustained multilateral, intelligent action firmly based in
legitimacy, respect for fundamental rights,
proportionality of response and the support of
international public opinion.
We would like to express our concern regarding
the hostilities on the border between Israel and
Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of casualties, severe
damage to the civilian infrastructure and hundreds of
thousands of displaced persons. The violence must
stop. We need to address the causes at the heart of the
crisis, avoid the disproportionate use of force, and
understand that only negotiated political solutions can
hold in the long term. Argentina will continue to
support a fair solution to the Middle East problems
within the framework of resolution 1701 (2006).
We must understand that the world will move
closer to peace only insofar as it promotes equality and
struggles to eradicate poverty and exclusion. That is
true both for the global system and for each country
nationally.
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Argentina supports the building of societies that
are fairer, more equitable and with a better distribution
of the benefits of economic growth. We also believe
that each country has the right to search for its own
development model with no external conditionalities.
We not only aspire to generate sustainable growth; we
also want it to reach everyone. There must be
harmonized growth that translates into a balanced
income distribution, because we know that what is
needed is not development for a mere few, but the
development of the whole country.
In the region and in the Common Market of the
South, we want an efficient instrument to address
poverty and exclusion; we want the common good to
prevail over sectarian interests and to overcome
stagnation and the technology gap; and we want to
define a sustainable and productive development model
that valorizes our competitive advantages and fosters
our vast wealth in human and material resources.
The economic situation of the Republic is very
different from what it was when our Administration
began. We are achieving true structural change. That
includes uninterrupted growth at rates of between 8
and 9 per cent; the growing participation of investment
in the gross domestic product; record local savings
rates; the resurrection of local industry; a fiscal surplus
at historic levels; a clear expansion of our industrial
sales to the world; the systematic decrease of local and
external public debt; the preventive accumulation of
reserves; lesser external exposure; a marked drop in
unemployment; a strengthening of the income of wage
earners and retirees; and a significant fall of poverty
and destitution levels.
With a prudent monetary policy, an orderly fiscal
policy, a fiscal and commercial surplus, and a
responsible management of indebtedness, we are
increasingly reducing the vulnerability and uncertainty
that characterized the Argentine economy in the past.
Decent work, social inclusion, national production,
internal consumption and sustained growth have
allowed us to fulfil the goals of the Millennium
Declaration, although there is still a long way to go to
recover from the hell into which we had fallen.
We seek the integral sustainability of that
process, not only in its macroeconomic aspects, but
also guaranteeing social equity and a fairer distribution
of income through the reduction of poverty and
unemployment.
In implementing a national education plan with a
strong federal emphasis that highlights the challenge of
improving the quality of education, ensures the
growing funding of the public sector, and interacts with
the private sector, we seek also to achieve its strategic
sustainability.
We cannot but point out that these achievements
have not been supported by the International Monetary
Fund, which has denied us any kind of aid, and, it must
be said, that they are in many cases the result of
ignoring or even contradicting its recommendations
and conditionalities. We have sufficient empirical proof
of the failure of international financial organizations in
the promotion of development in less developed
countries. In many cases, their conditionalities have
actually had the opposite effect, hindering
development.
The world has changed and those organizations
have not. They still insist on jeopardizing advancement
with their misguided interference. That is why we
support, together with most countries, the reform of the
international financial architecture to make it more
effectual in assisting the progress of nations with fewer
resources. In noting the reluctance of international
financial organizations to effect any real change in
their policies, we feel it necessary to endorse such
change and to consider the creation of new
international financial instruments that would allow us
to fund development projects to fight poverty and
hunger in the world and generate true options for
progress.
Argentina is distressed to note the stagnation in
the negotiations of the Doha Round for the
development of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
It is imperative, within the current globalization
process — from which developing countries must
profit — to reach a successful and balanced result fully
consistent with the mandate of the Doha Declaration.
Thus, we reaffirm the need to reach a satisfactory
result in agriculture in this WTO round, including a
substantial reduction in domestic subsidies, the
elimination of export subsidies and ample access to the
markets of developed countries.
We are increasingly concerned to see the
deterioration of the global environment. We affirm that
there can be no double standards. The environment
must be protected in developed and in developing
countries, in rich countries and in poor, in the countries
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of the North and of the South, in the central and in the
peripheral countries.
In developing their industries, the more
industrialized countries have profited from a true
environmental subsidy from the rest of the countries
which today compromise, in their relative
backwardness, a true world environmental reserve.
That is why we cannot accept that those countries that
have achieved greater development — often at the
expense of the degradation of the environment and by
producing a severe global effect evident in climate
change — should seek to transfer to us the more
contaminating part of their industrial processes.
There can be no reliable solutions without the
concerted action of all countries of the world, insofar
as the nature of the problem is of a global scale. It is
unacceptable for the claims of the developing States to
go unnoticed. It is imperative to take the path of
solutions.
Our countries wish to receive investments and
present profitable opportunities in the energy,
transportation and infrastructure fields, and even in
sensitive sectors. Therein lies a strong foundation for
international collaboration, but we do not want
investors to undertake activities in our countries that
are prohibited in the industrialized countries just so
that they can improve the profits of shareholders by
creating the illusion of an allegedly less expensive
product by raising the costs of environmental pollution,
deteriorating health conditions and lowered life
expectancy.
On a different subject, we attach high importance
to our participation, together with other countries of
the region, in the United Nations Stabilization Mission
in Haiti. In our view, beyond the progress achieved in
the transition, the steady support and economic
assistance of the international community will continue
to be critical in the areas of security, the strengthening
of institutions, the fostering of political dialogue, the
protection of human rights, social inclusion, the
promotion of the rule of law, the creation of
administrative capacity and, above all, the promotion
of economic and social development through concrete
contributions.
We reiterate here our will to achieve peaceful
nuclear development under the verification of
international organizations. Argentina’s commitment to
disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear
weapons, our adherence to the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and our long-
standing practice in the field are known to all.
In conclusion, I wish to recall that the question of
the Malvinas Islands — which includes the Malvinas,
the South Georgias, the South Sandwich Islands and
the surrounding maritime area — has been under
consideration by the United Nations since 1965. The
General Assembly and its Special Committee of 24 on
Decolonization have defined this as a special case that
differs from traditional colonial situations in that it
involves a sovereignty dispute that must be resolved
through bilateral negotiations between my country and
the United Kingdom, in accordance with the provisions
of resolution 2065 (XX) and other relevant resolutions.
We must stress that the Government of the United
Kingdom persists in ignoring those General Assembly
resolutions. Nonetheless, I would like to reaffirm once
again my country’s readiness to engage in constructive
dialogue with the United Kingdom. We call upon the
United Kingdom to promptly heed the request of the
international community to resume negotiations.
In conclusion, we are firmly convinced that the
basis exists for international cooperation that can help
the world move towards peace. The tensions and
difficulties besetting humanity must not prevent us
from understanding the extent to which the
authoritarian notion that military might can provide
unilateral solutions to conflicts and threats is starting to
recede. That mistaken belief has led only to failure and
great suffering.
Only multilateral solutions, reached through the
arduous process of negotiation, despite their
limitations, can move us forward. In this context, the
United Nations has a fundamental role to play in
ensuring greater understanding among nations with a
view to creating a safe, peaceful and fairer world in the
years to come.