Panama

I should like to say how pleased the Government of Panama is at your election, Madam, to preside over the sixty-first session of the General Assembly. Your illustrious professional record and your extraordinary action in defence of women’s rights lead us to believe that you will guide us in an exemplary manner. I also congratulate the Secretary-General on his encouraging words yesterday. The ovation that ensued bears witness to the Assembly’s gratitude for his efforts over 10 years of heading the Secretariat. Over the past few years we have dedicated considerable effort and time to the task of reforming the United Nations. We are doing this for one simple reason: we want it to work better. That aspiration is based on a profound conviction that the Organization is indispensable for humanity. Those who criticize the Organization must be honest when they wonder what the world would be like without the United Nations and its specialized agencies. Those who govern are examined on a daily basis by their peoples and sometimes they are criticized very severely, but nobody suggests that there should not be a government. We want governments to be better because they are necessary, just as we want the United Nations to be better because it is equally necessary. We do not want to imagine a world without a United Nations. That is why at the Summit in September last year, as the culmination of long debate and tremendous collective effort, we agreed on a series of reforms for the United Nations machinery. What is at stake today is not just the fate of a single initiative, but, rather, the effectiveness of the United Nations in complying with the purposes and principles of the Charter. The General Assembly has acted with diligence, and we are proud in particular of the decision to create a Human Rights Council, whose establishment should strengthen respect for human rights and spread their promotion globally. Panama, born closely linked to international affairs, continues to be committed to strengthening human rights throughout the world. It is in this field that we see the greatest paradox: where the United Nations has made the most progress is where there remains the most progress still to be made. Before its inception human rights violations were almost ignored. Today the denunciations made at the United Nations have a tremendous deterrent power, so those violations do not continue to be perpetrated. At the same time, it is true that there have been horrendous violations during the life of the United Nations, but no one can deny that the reality and consequences are very different from the situation that prevailed only a few decades ago. The United Nations and its specialized agencies have the important task of coordinating efforts to protect the millions of human beings living in poverty. Poverty is the daily denial of man’s fundamental rights. While genocide causes indignation and is emphatically rejected by the international community, there should be the same indignation over poverty, as it afflicts a 06-52879 4 large part of the world’s population. Governments have a moral obligation to help people and communities living below the poverty line. Economic growth rates are deceptive, and almost offensive, if there is no direct relief for those who have less and who, without assistance, have no chance of breaking out of the vicious circle of poverty. Within the reforms to the Organization now being debated, we should, in order more effectively to address poverty in the world, give greater weight and authority to the General Assembly to adopt measures of universal scope, not resolutions, repeated year after year, with no binding power. Similarly, I should like to address the need to expand the Security Council so that it truly represents today’s world and not the world as it was 60 years ago. Not to reform the Security Council would be detrimental to its purposes. A Council that is not representative cannot be as legitimate or effective. However, although there is consensus about the need to reform, how to reform has provoked more disunity than agreement. From Panama’s perspective, geographical representation is an important factor to be considered, but it cannot be the only one. A member of the Security Council does not sit on the Council to represent itself or the geographic region to which it belongs; it represents all Member States, which have entrusted it with this responsibility because it has shown the commitment and capacity to further the effort to maintain international peace and security. It is time now to look at this topic with different eyes. The facts that are developing continuously in the Middle East, and the fact that terrorist attacks continue to occur throughout the world, show that it is crucial to strengthen the Security Council as soon as possible through a process of reform that includes a moderate expansion of the membership while the Council remains legitimate in the eyes of the rest of the international community. Strengthening the organs of the United Nations, and more particularly the Security Council, will make it possible for events such as those in Lebanon to be met with a prompt and effective response. If the Organization had had the required instruments to act robustly with legitimacy, we could have put an early end to the confrontations; in fact, they could have been avoided entirely if we had had an adequate preventive force. The rapid escalation of the conflict has highlighted the imperative need to resolve the Middle East crisis so that Jews, Muslims and Christians can coexist in peace, as they do in Panama and many other parts of the world. There are tested ways to promote confidence among parties, to reconcile positions and to achieve consensus. The use of arms can help some people to gain some short-term objectives but the atmosphere is poisoned and there cannot be peaceful coexistence among neighbours, families and peoples that geography has placed so close to one another. It is obvious from every perspective that a solution to the conflict requires the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories, establishment of the Palestine State and recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a State. All the countries in the region must have sufficient guarantees that conflicts will not be resolved through force and that no territory can be used to attack a neighbour. Peace in the Middle East has to be built by each and every State with the resolute support of the international community. Our vision is the same for other regions of the world where a high degree of political tension still prevails and endangers the peace. Peaceful solutions cannot be postponed, for there is always the risk of violent confrontations of unsuspected dimensions that we will all deplore. I should like to draw attention to a significant event that will take place in my country in the next few weeks and will have an impact on world trade. On 22 October there will be a referendum to decide whether the Panama Canal should be expanded. The historic and emotional dimension of the canal for the Panamanian people means that its expansion is the only decision of the legislature and the Executive that needs a referendum for confirmation. The Panama Canal links the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It is therefore the best route for the transport of goods between different continents, between two countries in the American continent, and even between two coasts in a single country. Five per cent of world maritime trade passes through the Panama Canal. The percentage varies from one country to another: 3.5 per cent of an economy the size of China’s; 16 per cent of the United States foreign trade; and 35 per cent of Chile’s trade. The fact is that the future of the Panama Canal affects the international community as a whole. Only seven years ago the canal was run by the United States. After a long and complex negotiation that included a special meeting of the Security Council 5 06-52879 in Panama — one of only two times that that body has met outside New York Headquarters — it reverted to Panama on the last day of the twentieth century. Since then Panama has administered the canal with efficiency and safety, and it is now about to decide whether to take the tremendous step of expanding the canal to enhance its capacity and allow larger ships to use it. The United Nations has always been involved in Panama’s fate, the fate of the canal. It was on the agenda when it was a continuing source of conflict between Panama and the United States. It supported the Universal Congress on the canal in 1997 and finally it welcomed the canal’s orderly transfer to Panamanian jurisdiction. That is why Panama once again wishes to draw the General Assembly’s attention to the canal and to reiterate its gratitude to the Non-Aligned Movement, because last week the Heads of State and Government adopted a declaration recognizing the efficient administration of the Panama Canal and expressing their support for the initiative to expand its present capacity. The canal is the most important resource for my country’s development and is a valuable strategic avenue at the service of trade and communications for the entire world. In my country there is full awareness that our geographic position is our major asset, but that its exploitation involves responsibilities towards the international community. That is why, while we welcome international recognition of the manner in which we have been administering the canal, we also wish to tell the world body that the Panama Canal will continue to be managed so as to be efficient, neutral and safe, for the benefit of all ships in the world, flying every flag.