Argentina, 2007

Allow

me at the outset to express my sincerest

congratulations to Mr. Srgjan Kerim on his assumption

of the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-

second session. Argentina welcomes the new

Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and expresses its

support for his efforts at the head of the United

Nations.

As in previous years, we have come to the

General Assembly with the aim of revitalizing this

world body and with the firm belief that this will

ensure the effectiveness of international law in settling

disputes, thus successfully dealing with any threats to

peace.

The world is facing problems. The only hope we

have of resolving them lies in respect for

multilateralism, support for local customs, observance

of international norms and conventions by all

countries, and, of course, the full realization of human

rights.

For each individual country, and for the world as

a whole, peace will be possible only if we promote

equality and work to combat poverty and

marginalization. The world cannot and must not be a

place where violations of human rights are everywhere.

Peaceful coexistence is strengthened and maintained

through true solidarity between nations based upon a

concept of humanity that goes beyond the purely

military or the predominantly unilateral.

Our international policy is based on the values of

representative democracy, sovereignty of the people,

respect for fundamental human rights, and the active

upholding of international peace and security. Those

principles are shared by the vast majority of the

Argentine people. They help to focus the Government’s

activities and are reflected in the decisions taken by the

Argentine Republic at the international level.

We firmly support the construction of more just

and equitable societies that distribute more equitably

the benefits of economic growth. We know that each

country must have the right to seek out its own

development model, without external pressure.

The past few years have been very testing for us.

Considerable efforts have been made to rescue a nation

that barely five years ago was in the throes of an

unprecedented social and economic crisis. At the time,

many people thought that recovery might be

impossible. But day by day, with a great deal of effort

and humility, we revived production in a country

burdened by a foreign debt that threatened our future

with its conditions and constraints.

Argentina — a developing country which once

demonstrated that it is truly possible to climb the social

ladder; a country of immigrants where workers once

succeeded in sending their children to university; a

country once without illiteracy and having almost

banished child mortality — had been reduced to a

country of workers demoralized by unemployment,

children begging in the streets instead of going to

school, and the elderly living off miniscule pensions

and becoming dependent on their children and

grandchildren.

Our country’s coffers had been emptied owing to

the rigid application of the rules of the International

Monetary Fund (IMF). As a corollary, there was

violence in the streets, and Argentina experienced an

institutional crisis, with presidents lasting only days.

For the first time, Argentina sent off its own children

into an unprecedented economic exile.

Today the Argentine State has won its autonomy

and itself administers the variables of its

macroeconomy as best it can in the current

international environment. It pursues a sound,

disciplined and predictable economic policy within a

stable and democratic framework.

Our capacity for revitalization has allowed us,

even without receiving funding, to begin cancelling our

net debt with international organizations. We have even

paid off in advance all of our debt with the IMF — an

IMF that supported and promoted Governments that

were self-supporting, adjusting and patching up their

budgets, but at the cost of increasing the poverty of

their people, promoting deindustrialization and

irresponsibly plunging the country into debt.

Faced with the incredulous criticism of the

promoters of orthodox prescriptions, Argentina, thanks

to cautious monetary policies, disciplined public

expenditures and a healthy budget surplus that enabled

it to face or mitigate potential foreign crises, has

reduced the debt and registered an annual growth rate

of 9 per cent during the past five years. This was the

strongest uninterrupted economic expansion of any in

the past 100 years.

Today we represent the empirical proof that there

is life after the Fund and also the certitude that other

paths can lead to development and integration. We

serve as a reminder of the unreliability of models that

claim to be universally valid and the revindication of

the right of countries to choose their own path,

benefiting from international experience while

prioritizing their national interests and circumstances

above any other interest. Our case provides proof that

the international economic architecture must be

reformed, in particular that of IMF. The Fund is an

exponent of an old world order that is no longer valid.

Our case demonstrates the need for change in the

multilateral financial institutions so that they can

cooperate in the development of the less-well-endowed

nations and help to fight poverty and generate true

options for progress.

We are thinking, not of economic growth as

defined by economic experts or historians, but of

growth that has a strong social component and an

emphasis on equity, where citizens are the focus of the

results. Whereas one fourth of the labour force

experienced the humiliation of being unemployed,

unemployment has been reduced to 7.8 per cent since

we have taken office. We are speaking, not about just

any sort of work, but about appropriate and decent

work of the kind we advocated at the most recent

summit meeting of the Americas, which was held in

our country.

Thanks to a productive policy that generates

added value and, in addition, appeals to private

enterprises to show social responsibility, we are

reindustrializing Argentina. The economic indicators

posted by our country today would have been

impossible were it not for the complementarity of

action between the State and the private sector.

Our sales to all destinations have doubled over

the past four years, with a 16 per cent annual growth

rate. Investments have improved substantially: gross

domestic fixed investment has increased for the past 17

consecutive quarters; the ratio of investment to GDP is

between 20 and 23 per cent — in stark contrast to the

level of 2002 when it was hardly more than 11 per

cent.

When faced with that crisis almost five years ago,

we felt compelled to maintain essential assistance

policies for the most vulnerable segments of our

population. We do not regret those policies, and today

we can state that the true solution to the serious social

problems affecting our country, and many others

around the world, lies in providing jobs, health care

and education.

In the area of health, Argentina has launched a

national policy that includes prescriptions for generic

drugs and the provision of essential medications free of

charge. It also strengthens maternity and child

programmes and everything that relates to primary

health care, in line with the goals of equity and

protection. This has enabled us to compensate in part

for the disastrous state of the public health sector a

short time ago.

Of course, education is an essential element for

renewing the social and moral fabric of the nation,

even though the time horizon for its effects to be felt is

longer than those of other public policies. In order to

remedy the tragic situation that signalled the

breakdown of society and the failure on the part of the

State to protect those who were most vulnerable, a new

law on national education was passed. It will again

focus on ensuring equality of opportunity through

guaranteed access to a quality education throughout the

territory that is linked to the labour market and

includes excellent training for teachers. Under the new

law, a deadline of 2010 has been set, by which time

6 per cent of the gross national product will be used to

finance education.

In this context of steady recovery, Argentina’s

foreign policy is being strengthened and expanded,

with a clear and decisive commitment to the national

interest. Regional integration is a priority. Over the

past two decades, through the Common Market of the

South (MERCOSUR), Argentina has strengthened its

commercial ties with the countries of the region. But

its trade relations go far beyond the region. In that

sense, multilateral negotiations within the World Trade

Organization are of particular importance because the

liberalization of our agricultural sector — in which our

country has clear competitive advantages — depends

on them, as does the adequate flexibility we need to

carry out our industrial policies.

More equitable and fairer rules in international

trade are of great importance to Argentina. We

therefore participate actively in multilateral economic

negotiations with the firm goal of achieving equity in

the norms that govern world trade and of reversing the

discrimination erected against our main products

through tariff barriers and other trade-distorting

instruments imposed by the developed countries.

Argentina will be present in all multilateral

forums, where we will participate to ensure more

equitable and democratic rules. Multilateralism is the

most effective instrument for winning the battle against

hunger, poverty, exclusion and environmental

degradation.

Everything I have said here is both cause and

consequence of institutional stability and respect for

the rule of law. The three pillars of the Argentine State

are making decisions to combat impunity and preserve

memory, truth, and justice. We have begun bringing to

justice those guilty of serious human rights violators.

Those who imagined themselves having escaped with

impunity are fiercely resisting justice and, in an

attempt to intimidate witnesses, have caused the

disappearance of one witness, Julio Lopez. They have

thereby sent a dark message to a society that is seeking

the truth about the crimes against humanity which they

committed, and that condemns such acts.

Unconditional respect for human rights is our

new national paradigm. In the past, we were known

throughout the world for violations of those rights;

today, as we strive to find the truth and to punish the

guilty, we also seek to defend those rights worldwide.

Argentina, the Mothers and Grandmothers of the

Plaza de Mayo in the monumental dignity of their

struggle, and the Argentine people have personally

suffered under the inefficiency of a broken multilateral

human rights system. Their sole comfort were the very

precious humanitarian gestures of individuals,

organizations and countries. While people were being

kidnapped, tortured and killed in my country, the

mechanisms established precisely to condemn and

prevent such horrors remained silent. It is in their

memory, so that this will never happen again, that we

support the new Human Rights Council and hope that it

will live up to the expectations of the international

community.

My Government has endorsed instruments of

great importance, including the International

Convention for the Protection of All Persons from

Enforced Disappearance, adopted by this Assembly on

20 December 2006, which we signed in Paris on

6 February. That instrument, along with the Convention

on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the

Optional Protocol of the Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against

Women, gives continuity and concrete form to a policy

that ascribes a central role to the promotion of human

rights.

In our public policy, we now focus on

environmental protection, but we know that there will

be no viable solution without cooperation among all

the countries of the world, the industrialized countries

in particular, because the nature of the problem is of a

global scale.

The issue of climate change should be of concern

to all Governments, because no corner of the planet is

unaffected by changes that have been identified as due

to human activity. The Secretary-General’s convening

of yesterday’s High-level Meeting was a timely

manifestation of the urgent need to strengthen

international cooperation as an effective and adequate

response to protect the environment and prevent the

unacceptable exportation of pollutants to the

developing countries.

One after the other, various diplomatic efforts to

halt the violence in the Middle East once and for all

have failed, but we cannot merely throw up our hands.

No military solution will lead to peace and the

tranquillity that all the peoples of the region so

desperately call for. The invasion of Iraq, which we

rejected at the time it occurred, is the tragic and painful

proof of the truth of our position. The Security Council

and the nations of the Quartet have the heavy

responsibility of accompanying and, if possible,

guiding a peace process that can succeed with courage

and great perseverance.

The Argentine Republic continues, year after

year, tirelessly to condemn the serious threat of

terrorism throughout the world. We believe that all acts

of terror are criminal and unjustifiable and that no

argument can justify them. Just as no nation of the

world is beyond their reach, the response must be a

joint effort of all nations, and especially this

Organization, to stop and eliminate this scourge. We

cannot tolerate the actions of those responsible for

terrorism or of those who defend, finance or protect

terrorists, be they individuals or countries.

Argentina has twice suffered terrorist attacks. The

Israeli embassy was attacked in 1992 and the AMIA

headquarters in 1994. Some 102 members of our

community, some of whose relatives are here with us

today, lost their lives. Those victims, united by terror to

those of this city, those of Madrid, those of London,

those of Bali, those of Istanbul and those of many other

places, impose upon us the moral mandate to respect

their memories and to commit all our energies to

hunting down, finding and prosecuting those

responsible.

Despite the difficulties that have arisen through

the passage of time, given that those attacks took place

13 and 15 years ago, respectively, and the subsequent

cover-ups, our interest and the justice system continue

to seek the truth, and we keep our memory of the

horror alive so that it will not recur.

In November last year, the Argentine justice

system called for international cooperation in the

apprehension of nine people suspected of having

initiated and planned the 18 July 1994 attack on AMIA,

and the Executive Committee of INTERPOL

unanimously recommended the apprehension of six

Iranian citizens and one Lebanese involved in the

affair. We call here for that recommendation to be

ratified during the November session of the

INTERPOL General Assembly.

In that context, we hope that the Islamic Republic

of Iran, in the context of applicable international law,

will accept and respect Argentina’s legal jurisdiction

and cooperate effectively with Argentine judges to

bring to justice those involved in these events. In that

respect, I wish to say here, at United Nations

Headquarters and before all the countries of the world,

that, unfortunately, the Islamic Republic of Iran has to

date failed to offer the required cooperation with the

Argentine justice system to resolve those issues.

We call on the Secretary-General and on all the

nations of the world to persuade the Islamic Republic

of Iran to allow the judicial process to move forward.

We do so with the sole aim of clarifying the facts and

bringing those responsible to justice. Respect for the

memory of our 102 victims requires justice to be

carried out. We request the Islamic Republic of Iran to

cooperate in the implementation of the norms of

international law to allow us to come to nothing more,

but nothing less than the truth.

Nations big and small, rich and poor, all

throughout the world will be highly vulnerable if we

fail to grasp that action against terrorism requires

urgent multilateral, intelligent and sustained action

firmly anchored in legitimacy, respect for individual

rights, proportional response and respect for

international public opinion.

Efforts to counter the proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction can count on the firm support and full

participation of the Argentine Republic.

My country is known for the active role it plays

in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Argentina

develops, consumes and exports nuclear energy for

peaceful purposes in the framework of the strictest

respect for the norms enshrined in the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the

non-proliferation regime in its broadest sense.

Efforts to prevent proliferation are ethically and

legally correlated to progress on disarmament. Indeed,

the legal instruments on which the prohibition of

weapons of mass destruction is based specifically on

the firm commitment not to develop new weapons of

terror and destruction in the understanding that those

who possess such weapons will proceed to their

gradual and effective elimination.

In recent years, we have seen disarmament

commitments permanently eroded. Nuclear arsenals

remain disproportionately large and nuclear

disarmament agreements are in stasis. It should come

as no surprise, then, that, given the situation, there are

those who question the legitimacy of pursuing

unilateral advocacy for non-proliferation while solemn

commitments in the area of disarmament are ignored.

Conventional weapons are responsible for the

deaths of millions of people around the world. Our

country has given a high priority to initiatives

associated with the conclusion of an arms trade treaty.

Domestically, we have initiated programmes for the

voluntary handover of firearms, the initial results of

which have been encouraging.

The reform of the Security Council is still

pending. We are hoping for a reform that will make this

central body more responsible, democratically

representative and dynamic. It will not, however,

achieve this objective by creating new privileged

categories. We trust that the ongoing process of

consultations will be successful so that the Council can

be adapted to today’s world.

Before concluding I wish to raise a matter of

continuing importance to the Argentine Republic: the

question of the Malvinas Islands, which include South

Georgia, South Sandwich and the maritime areas

surrounding those islands. This year, 174 years will

have passed since the British began to occupy this part

of Argentine national territory. Ever since that act of

force in 1833, my country has protested against this

illegal occupation and has demanded that the full

exercise of its sovereignty be restored.

We would also mention that 2007 marks the

twenty-fifth anniversary of the 1982 conflict in the

South Atlantic, a conflict unleashed by the military

dictatorship without the backing of the Argentine

people, who had always endeavoured to find a peaceful

solution to its legitimate sovereignty claim.

The General Assembly has dealt with this matter

on many occasions, both prior to and since 1982.

Starting in 1965, when the Assembly adopted

resolution 2065 (XX), the Organization has recognized,

year after year, the existence of a sovereignty dispute

between Argentina and the United Kingdom relating to

the question of the Malvinas Islands. It urged the two

Governments to negotiate, as soon as possible, a

peaceful, just and lasting solution to the dispute, taking

into account the relevant resolutions of United Nations

bodies and the interests of the people of the islands.

The ongoing and unrenounceable objective of

regaining the full exercise of Argentine sovereignty

over this part of our territory and the permanent

readiness of my country to resume negotiations aimed

at finding a solution to the dispute have been reflected

in our national Constitution.

It is incomprehensible to us that the United

Kingdom should be unwilling to negotiate this matter,

thereby violating the provisions of General Assembly

resolution 2065 (XX) and numerous similar

resolutions.

The time has come for the United Kingdom to

shoulder its responsibility and put an end to an

anachronism: the illegal occupation for clearly colonial

purposes of territory belonging to another State.

My Government vigorously rejects the British

claim on the establishment of maritime areas

surrounding the archipelagos. In particular, it rejects

the recently divulged intention of the United Kingdom

to make a submission to the Commission on the Limits

of the Continental Shelf — established by the United

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — relative

to the outer limits of the continental shelf of these

Argentine territories.

In this, my last message to the General Assembly

as the President of the people of Argentina, I wish to

reaffirm our profound conviction that it is only through

democracy, accompanied by freedom, social justice

and peace, that man can realize his full potential. This

Assembly of the peoples has a bounden duty to help

ensure that that will come to pass.