General Assembly Session 56 meeting 47

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by the President of the Republic of Guatemala.

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I have the honour to welcome to the United Nations His Excellency Mr. Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, President of the Republic of Guatemala, and to invite him to address the Assembly.

President Portillo Cabrera (Guatemala)

Let me first condemn the monstrous attack on the people and the Government of our host country. In condemning it in the strongest possible terms, we declare ourselves in full solidarity with the people and the Government of the United States, the families of each and every one of the victims, whatever his or her nationality, and the residents of this great city of New York. We also associate ourselves unreservedly with the resolutions adopted last month by the Assembly and the Security Council. We will carry on in our commitment to the elimination of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

Before taking up our Government programme and the fulfilment of the Peace Agreements, and our position on certain of the items on the agenda for this session, I wish to warmly congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly. I have no doubt that your well-proven capabilities and your recognized wisdom will enable you to bring our deliberations to a fully successful outcome.

I wish further to join the representatives who have taken the floor before me in commending the Secretary-General of our Organization, Mr. Kofi Annan for his wise leadership. We hail his well-deserved re-election and rejoice at the recognition that both he and the Organization have received, through the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.

I come, like many of those gathered here, from a small country that mirrors the grave problems facing today's world. Today we still do not enjoy the major benefits of the great scientific and technological advances, and we still suffer from great social inequalities. Ours is a small country that is doing its best to attain peace and democracy -- a country that believes in the rewards of economic freedom, but also in social justice. It is a country that has opened itself up to the world, although the world has perhaps not opened itself up reciprocally in the same way. It is a country that works and produces by making great efforts but that, in the present circumstances, is receiving less and less for those efforts.

In this context, our contribution to world peace and democracy is diminished to the same extent that inequality, social injustice and poverty imperil our peace and our democracy.

Today the struggle against terrorism is the struggle against inequality in international economic relations; it is the struggle against ignorance, injustice, discrimination, intolerance, exclusion and poverty. There will be no peace if we do not eradicate these scourges. A peace that goes hand in hand with inequality, poverty and injustice is a bad peace. And let us not forget that a bad peace is worse than war.

We are making strenuous efforts to advance in implementing our own Peace Agreements, which coincide with our Government programme. The time that has elapsed since I addressed the Millennium Summit has witnessed intensive activities. I can point to significant progress, but I must also admit to some setbacks, which are due primarily to an unfavourable international environment, which has affected the economy in an extremely adverse way. I draw attention to this situation, because full compliance with the commitments contained in the Peace Agreements would be far easier in a context of economic growth than in the framework of serious fiscal restrictions and increasing demands on the Government.

On a different matter, I would like to comment briefly on the United Nations presence in Guatemala. I wish to reiterate how much we appreciate the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA). We trust that its mandate will be extended until the end of 2003 so that we can in a progressive and orderly way transfer its functions both to national institutions and, wherever possible, to the United Nations programmes and agencies.

As far as our international relations are concerned, I would like to mention the significant progress made in the process of finding a peaceful resolution to the historical dispute between ourselves and Belize. In keeping with the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes between States, we have confirmed with deeds our commitment to dialogue as the way of settling disputes. The commission of facilitators appointed last year, within the framework of the regional organization to which both States belong, the Organization of American States, will soon submit its report. Its fundamental aim is to work out and prepare courses of action to make progress in resolving the dispute.

We reiterate our firm support for Central American integration and our commitment to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Our Government has supported major initiatives in the area of regional and subregional integration, and is working hard to overcome problems left over from age-old border disputes in Central America.

As to our position on other international conflicts, we voice the hope that the differences or divisions that persist between fraternal peoples in the Middle East, Asia and Africa will yield to resolution peacefully through dialogue. I also wish to take this opportunity to reiterate before this Assembly our concern over the situation of the 23 million citizens of the Republic of China on Taiwan, whose aspiration to be represented in international organizations has not yet been fully satisfied. The Central American countries in general, and Guatemala in particular, believe they could indeed make a positive contribution to peace and democracy in the world.

I would now like to comment briefly on our views regarding the principal issues with which this Assembly will have to deal at the current session. First, I reiterate our full support for the United Nations as the supreme expression of multilateralism. We are convinced that the United Nations will have a crucial role to play in the twenty-first century. It is our view that the Millennium Declaration that our heads of State and Government issued a year ago offers the right agenda for our priorities and for the steps to be taken to attain the goals set.

Second, we agree that it is necessary to adapt the Organization to the exigencies of globalization and to this post-cold-war era. It is up to us, the Member Governments, to further this process of adaptation in various areas, such as intergovernmental forums, the efficiency and efficacy of the Secretariat, the setting of priorities in shaping the programme of activities and the financial strengthening of the Organization.

Third, of the pending reforms, the one that has received the most attention is that concerning the Security Council. One cannot but be frustrated at the limited progress made in this area at previous sessions of the General Assembly. Now more than ever before we must redouble our efforts to endow that body with greater efficacy, broader representativity and more transparency in its working procedures. To achieve these objectives, we advocate, inter alia, an increase in the number of Council members, as well as a very sparse use of the veto power. We also believe that now more than ever before it is necessary that the Security Council's work be monitored by the General Assembly.

Fourth, deeply shocked by the events that occurred in this country on 11 September, we reiterate our full and complete opposition to terrorism, and we will support any collective action by the international community to combat this scourge. As a matter of fact, we are already working to comply with the spirit and the letter of the undertakings embodied in Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), within the parameters of a democratic society that aspires to guarantee the human rights of its members.

Fifth, we advocate the strengthening of the General Assembly, and we congratulate the President of its fifty-fifth session on his initiative to revitalize its working methods and procedures. We trust that this action will continue under the current presidency and that it will extend to the wider task of reforming the Assembly, in pursuance of the aims of the Millennium Declaration.

Sixth, we are convinced of the need to strengthen our collective capacity to prevent and resolve conflicts, both between States and at the national level. We believe that the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations provides an adequate basis for achieving this purpose.

Seventh, as regards general disarmament, we insist on the need for progress towards the total elimination of nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons, the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, and the use of anti-personnel mines and other explosive devices. In this connection, we support all concrete actions by the United Nations to accomplish these aims, including those that look to the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones in all regions of the world. As regards the control of illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, we are of the view that the results of the Conference held last July to deal with this problem, while positive if allowance is made for this being the first step taken at the global level to deal with the matter, are nevertheless inadequate.

Eighth, we offer our full support for and active participation in the principal meetings scheduled for the years ahead, among which I wish to highlight the International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Monterrey, Mexico, next March, as well as the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg.

Ninth, in a world characterized by ever greater interdependence, multilateral diplomacy plays a crucial role in the fight against environmental degradation. Guatemala, as a party to the main international treaties relating to the environment, reiterates its commitment to the maintenance of ecological balance.

Finally, we consider that the United Nations should continue devoting itself to what we call the great unfinished business of the twentieth century -- namely, the elimination of world poverty. Together with the multilateral financial agencies, our Organization should play a crucial role in ensuring that the benefits of globalization are widely shared among all countries, not only among a few of them; this requires action at the level of each country and at the international level.

President Portillo Cabrera (Guatemala)

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