Argentina, 2010

Most

of the speeches we have heard so far today and

yesterday have had three main focuses. One of them,

without a doubt, is the global economic crisis, its

impact and evolution and how to overcome it. Climate

change has been another focus. And, finally, the third

fundamental and very important topic has been the

maintenance of international peace and security.

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I believe that emerging countries, and Argentina

in particular, have a wealth of experience to share in

connection with these three topics, and that we need to

take a position. With respect to the global crisis, whose

impact has been felt in emerging countries despite the

fact that it actually originated in developed countries, it

must be pointed out that it was precisely the

developing countries that supported the economic

growth of the past decade and that will again reignite

and sustain economic growth and activity and thus

provide the means to overcome what is perhaps the

most significant economic crisis since 1930. And

Argentina, in this sense, was somewhat of a guinea pig

for the policies of the 1990s, when it was held up as a

model pupil while it was in reality ratcheting up

unsustainable levels of debt, producing neither goods

nor services, and actually experiencing a fall in job-

creation, finally collapsing in 2001 in a financial crisis

very similar to that which shook the world in the third

quarter of 2008.

The ground fell out from beneath Argentina in

2001. However, through the policies we pursued from

2003 onwards, we have been able to overcome that

crisis, which so closely resembled that which hit the

world in 2008. And we did so through our own efforts

and, crucially, with an economic and political strategy

that was not dictated by demands from the multilateral

credit institutions but was in line with our own

convictions and, crucially, our own interests.

In the eight years leading up to this bicentennial

year — this year, my country marks 200 years of

freedom — we have achieved the most significant

economic growth ever seen in our 200 years of history.

We managed to emerge from debt in a way never

before seen in our history. Since that sovereign default

of 2001, which was the greatest such default in history,

today Argentina has renegotiated 93 per cent of its total

debt with Argentine debt title-holders. And, moreover,

Argentina has achieved heretofore unknown inclusive

growth in the past year, following our application of

counter-cyclical measures throughout all of 2009 and

in late 2008. We have experienced growth in economic

activity of 9 per cent over the past 12 months. We

brought the unemployment rate back down to 7.9 per

cent. And we managed to continue reducing the rates of

poverty and extreme poverty, which are now at levels

never before seen in our country.

This is due essentially to counter-cyclical

economic management and to an understanding that

instruments such as the central bank, reserves, foreign

trade, production, employment generation and better

living standards, with a robust expansion in fiscal

spending, are exactly what has meant that the crisis

overwhelming developing countries has not had the

same impact it would have had at other times.

In this context, I wish to point out that we have

also promoted the intelligent use of our reserves, which

is something currently under discussion in all

multilateral bodies, in the world of economics and in

the context of the Group of 20. We have used our

reserves rationally because we believe that, in our case,

they are the result of a trade surplus — that is to say,

hard currency dollars — and should be applied to

paying down the debt rather than putting them into

capital markets, thereby resulting in double-digit debt

while we would be paid only 0.5 per cent interest for

our reserves. It would really have been senseless and

irrational for our country to go into double-digit debt

when in reality we had more than enough reserves, for

which we would be paid barely 0.5 per cent.

What I am trying to say is that our experience in

Argentina, as well as that of other emerging countries

— which, I wish to reiterate once again, are shoring up

economic growth — makes it incumbent upon the

Group of 20, as well as the Group of 77, where we will

also push for this, to carry out a rigorous reform of

international credit agencies, which have failed in their

fundamental purpose: to ensure a stable global

economy that produces jobs and well-being for the

inhabitants of the planet.

In that regard, we believe that it is truly urgent

for there to be global legislation in the area of vulture

funds, which basically move from one area of the

country to another in genuinely speculative ways and

have a pitiless impact on economies. We also believe

that there is a need to evaluate and legislate on risk-

rating agencies, which for instance rated Argentina’s

debt as highly risky when it reality the Argentine

Republic had been scrupulously paying its debt since

the first renegotiation, in 2005, without turning to

capital markets. Nevertheless, they have given much

higher rankings to countries that subsequently

demonstrated that they did not have the capacity to

address their debt because they had structural problems

in their economies, such as fiscal deficits, commercial

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deficits and reserve outflows — precisely the opposite

of what took place in Argentina.

We therefore believe in the need for global

re-engineering of multilateral funds — essentially in a

theoretical framework different from the one that the

world has experienced, namely, the Washington

Consensus. That Consensus has been exhausted by

failure, but has not been replaced by a new theoretical

framework that gives different roles to central banks,

as well as to States as instruments to promote counter-

cyclical fiscal measures that ensure something which,

in our opinion, is a central concern: employment

stability, rather than just currency stability.

We also sincerely believe that currencies should

not be protected solely from a monetary perspective;

on the contrary, we believe that the value of each

country’s currency is directly linked to the potential for

growth and wealth-generation capacity of each

country’s economy. It is also linked to the equitable

distribution of wealth, which should make societies

sustainable through a model that is not just economic

but also essentially political.

Climate change, which is very important and will

soon be addressed at the Cancun meeting, has also

been a central theme in all the interventions that have

been made from this rostrum. While it is well and good

to speak of that, we have not been able to reach an

agreement because, in fact, we are not being offered a

solution in this area that is just and equitable in terms

of who, and to what degree, should bear primary

responsibility for damage due to environmental

pollution. It is not fair that developing countries —

which, by paying a high price, have been able to

overcome high levels of poverty and social inequality

through economic growth — should be the ones that

have to assume responsibility for the environmental

legacy of developed countries, which for decades

contaminated the world and which should therefore be

the ones to shoulder this responsibility. Establishing

viable targets and goals that are in line with the need to

continue to grow the economy also require that we

seriously realign our goals in the area of global

warming.

With regard to the final focus, namely, building

international peace and security, we sincerely believe

that the resumption of dialogue between the State of

Israel and the Palestinian Authority is very good news

indeed when it comes to finally achieving what I

believe all of us have looked forward to for quite a

long time: that the State of Palestine will be seated as a

full member during the next session of the General

Assembly. We believe that will make an enormous

contribution to the maintenance of international peace

and security. I say this by virtue of our experience as a

country that has been a target and victim of

international terrorist groups. As the Assembly is

aware, in 1992 and 1994 my country was the victim of

two terrible terrorist attacks. The first was the blowing

up of the Israeli Embassy, and the second tragedy was

the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita

Argentina (AMIA).

In that regard, in 2007, my country’s then

President, Néstor Kirchner, requested the Islamic

Republic of Iran to agree to the extradition of Iranian

citizens whom the Argentine justice system had

accused of participation in carrying out that heinous

crime. I did the same as President in 2008 and 2009 —

to little effect, I must confess. I did so while

emphasizing that mine is a leading country in

respecting human rights and bringing to justice those

who commit crimes against humanity. I have also

underscored that we have a system that ensures due

process and the right to counsel and that does not

permit anyone to be tried or convicted in absentia. It is

for those reasons that we continue to make this request

for extradition. We have also emphasized that for any

Argentine citizens who believe that our country’s

justice system is not fair enough or does not enforce

the law, we are party to international conventions to

which they can turn, including such international

tribunals as the Inter-American Commission on Human

Rights. Despite the fact that we have guaranteed that

all these principles will continue to be respected in the

Argentine Republic, we have not yet achieved results.

I shall not on this occasion call for the fourth

time for something that will clearly not achieve results.

But I will propose to the Islamic Republic of Iran —

even if it has no faith in Argentine justice, as it has

said, because of prejudgement and insufficient

neutrality to carry out a trial — that a third country be

selected, through mutual agreement between our

countries, in which there are guarantees of due process

and where international observers and United Nations

representatives may participate to bring to trial the

terrible attack on AMIA in our country. I should also

like to say that we do not consider that attack as an

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attack on one community or one religion. For us, it was

an attack on all Argentines.

I am President of a country where we can

celebrate the Jewish New Year with the Jewish

community, as I did this year in my capacity as leader

of the country. We also celebrated the end of Ramadan

at an Islamic centre. We are a country of open-

mindedness because of our immigrant heritage, which

guarantees plurality and diversity for all.

There is a precedent for what we are proposing.

This precedent is not a capricious or fantastical legal

construction; it is the Lockerbie case. That is an

international precedent of a trial held in a third neutral

country that could provide guarantees for those who

fear they might not be judged impartially. In this

connection, I would like to clarify that the Argentine

Republic is not seeking guilty parties. All the Argentine

Government seeks is justice. Ultimately, anyone who

has committed a crime of such magnitude should be

punished.

Thus, we hope that the offer I make to the Islamic

Republic of Iran today before the General Assembly

will put an end to the pretext of non-neutrality and to

accusations of our complicity in withholding impartial

justice. I address this in particular to those who insist

that there can be no impartial justice. I believe that this

eloquent gesture has international precedents and will

allow us to resolve this situation and to channel this

dispute institutionally. We must do this if we wish to

feel truly part of the international community. We must

resolve this dispute in a framework of justice and

legality.

Finally, again in connection with security

concerns, we must once again, here in this Assembly,

demand respect for our sovereign rights over the

Malvinas Islands. We do not do so solely for historical

reasons. Our claim is absolutely up to date. The United

Kingdom has systematically refused to implement

universally binding General Assembly resolutions

calling for negotiations with the Argentine Republic on

the question of sovereignty.

But that is not all. Unilateral decisions have been

taken to exploit hydrocarbon resources on the islands.

There are two aspects to this exploitation. The first is

that it constitutes depredation of natural resources that

belong to us. It is unthinkable that territorial, historical

or legal sovereignty can be maintained over islands

that are 14,000 kilometres from the United Kingdom

and whose transplanted population sits on a continental

shelf that unquestionably belongs to the Argentine

Republic geographically, geologically and historically.

The second aspect is the risk of ecological

catastrophe. British Petroleum, operating off the coast

of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico, set off an

unprecedented ecological catastrophe. The lack of

oversight by our country or any other over what the

United Kingdom is doing in the Malvinas Islands has

mobilized us not only to defend the natural resources

of my country, but to seek to avert an ecological

catastrophe that could occur due to this total lack of

oversight.

Some may say that this has nothing to with

security. It has a great deal to do with security, because

one of the central problems of our globalized world is

the need to adapt the Security Council to our times. We

need a Security Council worthy of its name. England,

like other countries that have a permanent seat on the

Council, has used and misused its position. Resolutions

of the Council are applicable only to those countries

that do not have sufficient power or the right to a

permanent seat on the Council. The Council should be

reformed because it has never been able to maintain

international peace and security.

That is not simply because some seats are

permanent or because the world context has changed

since the San Francisco Charter created the Security

Council. The Security Council, with its permanent

members, was a Security Council where those who

were seated could, by pressing a red button, cause a

nuclear holocaust. That was the true reason for creating

a Council that could strike a balance between the

interests of a bipolar world and prevent a nuclear

holocaust.

That world no longer exists. Those who were

once irreconcilable enemies and rivals are now

associates, allies, friends or whatever anyone might

care to call them. What is certain is that those who can

unleash terrible conflict situations, tragedies and

international terrorism are not and never will be seated

there. Thus, the Security Council has lost its

effectiveness because it is not in line with today’s

world or the dangers besetting it. Quite the contrary,

the use and misuse of their dominant position by

members of the Council in certain countries have

provoked conflicts that cannot then be stifled by the

Council, much less by the Organization.

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We believe that the case of the Malvinas Islands

is very enlightening. The United Kingdom can do as it

likes because no one is compelling it to implement the

decisions of the Security Council, because it is a

permanent member and an important member of

NATO. In a world of double standards — where only

the developing and extremely weak countries are

compelled to abide by the international legal order

while those who can systematically violate it do so —

it is not possible to build peace, let alone maintain

international security, because such situations end up

creating the kind of insurmountable disputes and

differences we see every day.

I believe it important to note that the concepts of

security and peace can never be associated with

military matters alone. They must be essentially

associated with political values, equity, freedom and a

cause for which humankind has fought from the

beginning: equality.