Argentina, 2014

I address

the General Assembly at a very special moment, not

only for the world but also for my country. I would

like to begin by reflecting on the words with which

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened this sixty-

ninth session of the General Assembly. He went over

many of the problems, tragedies and calamities that are

unsettling the world today, and I think, if I remember

correctly, that he literally confirmed that the turmoil,

as he defined it, that is upsetting the world today is

endangering multilateralism.

I sincerely believe that most of the problems that

the planet has today economically and financially, with

respect to terrorism and security, in terms of force and

territorial integrity, of war and peace, are the result

of the exact opposite: the absence of an effective,

practical and democratic multilateralism. That is why,

I would like to begin today in particular by thanking

and congratulating the General Assembly for adopting

resolution 68/304, on 9 September, by which it finally

decided by a wide majority of 124 votes to dedicate

itself to drafting a multilateral convention which will

be a regulatory legal framework for restructuring the

sovereign debts of all countries, a task that we needed

to take on.

I have been coming to the General Assembly since

2003, first as a Senator, and then, starting in 2007, as

President. We always came calling for reform of the

Security Council and of the International Monetary

Fund. Our point of departure was the experience we had

in my country, the Argentine Republic. Today, I would

go so far as to say in this international context that my

country, the Argentine Republic, is a triple leading

case in terms of economics and finance, terrorism and

security, and force and territorial integrity.

The first area is the economic and financial crisis

that spread throughout the world starting in 2008,

which persists to this day and which is beginning to

threaten emerging economies whose greater economic

growth we have supported over the past decade. The

2008 crisis was experienced by my country in 2001,

when the largest default on sovereign debt in living

memory occurred. At the time, the Argentine Republic

had accrued debt representing 160 per cent of the gross

domestic product, with the consent of multilateral

organizations, because when one is speaking about that

level of debt, the problem is not just that of the debtor,

but also of the creditors.

Starting with the dictatorship on 24 March 1976,

and through the neoliberal period, Argentina was a

favourite of the International Monetary Fund. In the

end, Argentina accumulated an unprecedented debt

that caused the country to implode, not just in economic

terms but also in political terms. We had five presidents

in a single week. At that point, nobody claimed

responsibility for what had taken place in Argentina.

Argentina had to resolve its problems as best it could,

and in 2003, a few months after taking office, a President

who had come to head the Government with only 22 per

cent of the vote came to speak at the General Assembly

(see A/58/PV.11) and maintained that it was necessary

to generate a model of development and growth for the

country so that the country could shoulder its debt.

He maintained, in a rather interesting metaphor, that

dead people do not pay their debts and that countries

have to live, develop and grow in order to meet their

obligations.

But he also said that the level of debt — 160 per cent

of the gross domestic product — was not our country’s

responsibility alone; that we as a country were accepting

responsibility for having adopted policies that had

been forced upon us; that while we were shouldering

our responsibility, we were also requesting and calling

for the multilateral organizations like the International

Monetary Fund and the creditors themselves, which

had lent money at usurious rates — at that time as high

as 14 per cent in United States dollars — which were

receiving payments in the Argentine Republic, to also

assume part of the responsibility for that indebtedness.

And with that man — who took over with 22 per

cent of the vote, with 25 per cent unemployment, a

54 per cent poverty rate and 27 per cent of extreme

poverty, without education, without health, without

social security, over time, with a model of development

and growth — we were able not only to create millions

of jobs, millions of people becoming integrated in

the social security system, including retirees and

pensioners, but also to invest 6 per cent of the gross

domestic product in education, and set aside enormous

amounts of money for the country’s infrastructure,

building roads, schools, nuclear plants, hydroelectric

plants, water, gas and electricity plants that now cover

the entire country, in an unprecedented programme of

social inclusion that has allowed to reduce poverty and

extreme poverty to single digits.

Today, the International Monetary Fund itself

recognizes that Argentina’s economic growth between

2004 and 2011 is the third-largest globally in terms of

quality of growth. Only Bulgaria and China are ahead

of us. In Latin America, we have the greatest quality of

growth and the best purchasing power for our workers

and salaried employees and the highest social security

deposits.

We have been able to achieve all of that while

also dealing with debt that others had generated. It is

worth repeating that our Governments were not the

ones that declared a default, nor were they the ones

that had assumed the debt; we were simply the ones

who shouldered the debt, as appropriate, and paid, from

2003 to today, more than $190 billion — I repeat, more

than $190 billion — by restructuring the defaulted debt

with 92.4 per cent of creditors through two debt swaps,

one carried out by President Kirchner in 2005 and the

other carried out by me in 2010.

What is certain is that we were successful. We

succeeded because 92.4 per cent of Argentina’s

creditors regularized their situation. We began to

make regular payments, and not only to them. We

also fully paid our debt to the International Monetary

Fund through so-called stand-by arrangements. We

were able to completely cancel our debt with the

International Monetary Fund. A few months ago, we

also concluded negotiations with the Paris Club on

a debt dating back to 1956. It was so long ago that I

was three years old when that debt was created and the

Minister of the Economy of my country, who discussed

the restructuring and renegotiation of the debt with

the Paris Club, was not even born. Yet we reached an

agreement with 19 European Union finance ministers

to finally restructure the debt. We are now paying the

first phase of $642 million.

This does not end there. We also regularized the

situation with the rulings of the International Centre

for Settlement of Investment Disputes at the World

Bank, which has begun hearings not for acts or actions

committed by our Government, but for the actions

of previous Governments that ended up in the World

Bank tribunal. We have also resolved that issue, just

as we arrived at an arrangement with Repsol when we

decided to regain control of our energy resources and

expropriated 51 per cent of the oil company’s shares. We

also restructured that debt and reached an agreement.

We have done all this with our own resources,

without access to capital markets because Argentina,

due to the default of 2001, was denied access to capital

markets. This represents a process of unprecedented

social inclusion. Why do I say “unprecedented”?

During the 1950s there were similar inclusion

processes in my country, but the difference is that we

initiated this process of inclusion after complete and

utter bankruptcy. At the peak of default, we were able

to overcome default, to include the people of Argentina

and to enjoy social growth with inclusion. And today

Argentina is extricating itself, and in addition we have

one of the lowest debt ratios in the world.

The other leading case to which I referred and now

wish to discuss is the emergence of the so-called vulture

funds. That is not a term used by any popular South

American leader or by any African ruler, although

African countries have also been major victims of

these vulture funds. One of the first global leaders to

mention them was the former English Prime Minister

Gordon Brown at the General Assembly in 2002. This

expression became the copyrighted shorthand for

something unworthy and immoral that kept countries

from addressing the genuine problems of education,

health and poverty. Today, with the support of the

judicial system of this country, Argentina is now being

assaulted by these vulture funds.

What are these vulture funds? They represent the

1 per cent of debt-holders that did not take part in the

2005 restructuring. They could not participate because

they had purchased bonds in 2008. As everyone knows,

these are specialized funds, as indicated by their

names, that purchased funds or shares of countries

that had defaulted on their debt or were about to do

so. Subsequently, they did not revert to the country in

question for the payment of that debt, but brought suits

in various jurisdictions in order to make exorbitant

profits. “Profits” is hardly the right word, because what

has been recognized in a judgment passed down here

in the jurisdiction of New York is that this 1 per cent

grew at a rate of 1,608 per cent in a five-year period.

Is there any business, undertaking or investor earning

1,600 per cent in just five years? That is why they are

called vulture funds. Today, they are obstructing the

recovery of that 92.4 per cent who trusted in Argentina.

I am therefore pleased that the Assembly has taken

the bull by the horns, and I hope that between this year

and next — before the General Assembly holds its new

session in 2015 — we will have arrived at a regulatory

framework to restructure sovereign debts. The point

is to engage in an exercise in active and constructive

multilateralism so that no other country will have to

experience what Argentina — a country that has the

ability and willingness to pay its debts despite the

harassment of these vulture funds — has been through.

These vulture funds also threaten and hold the

economy of our country hostage by provoking rumours,

slander and libel from the personal to the economic and

financial, so that they sometimes act as a destabilizing

factor in the economy. Those who set bombs are not the

only terrorists; those who destabilize the economy of a

country and create poverty, misery and hunger through

the sin of speculation are economic terrorists. That is

what we want to spell out. That is why we strongly

advocate the establishment of a multilateral convention

soon and expeditiously, not just for Argentina, but

for the rest of the world. We believe that a financial

and economic balance that addresses the social and

economic disparities among countries and within

societies will also be a great antidote to those who

recruit young people who have no hope in the future

and enrol them in crazy crusades. We must all lament

that. We can see only the surface of the phenomenon; we

also have to delve deeply into the causes that mobilize

people.

We also talked about my country as a triple leading

case on terrorism and security. My country is the only

country of the Americas other than the United States of

America that was the target of terrorist attacks: one in

1992 when the embassy of Israel was blown up, and the

second in 1994 when the headquarters of the Asociación

Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) was bombed. This

year marks the twentieth anniversary of the bombing

of AMIA. I dare say before this Assembly — in the

presence of some of the family members of the victims

who have always been with us — that the Government

headed by President Kirchner did the utmost and went

the greatest lengths to uncover the real culprits, not

only because it opened all my country’s intelligence

files and created a special prosecutor investigation unit,

but also because, when in 2006 the justice system of

my country accused Iranian citizens of involvement in

the bombing of AMIA, I myself was the only President

who dared to propose asking the Islamic Republic of

Iran to cooperate with and assist in the investigation.

That request was made intermittently from 2007 to

2011, until the Islamic Republic of Iran finally agreed

to a bilateral meeting, allowing it to be included in

the agenda. That meeting led to the signing by both

countries of a memorandum of understanding on

legal cooperation that allowed for the Iranian citizens

who had been accused, and who live in Tehran, to be

deposed before the judge.

But what happened when we signed that

memorandum? It seemed as if all hell had broken

out, both nationally and internationally. The Jewish

associations that had sought our support for so many

years and that had come here with us to ask for help

turned against us, and when an agreement was finally

reached on legal cooperation they accused us of

complicity with the State of Iran.

The same thing happened here in the United States.

When the vulture funds lobbied before the United

States Congress, they accused us of collaborating

with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which at the time

was known as the Terrorist State of Iran. They even

lobbied on their websites, posting pictures of me on the

Internet with former President Ahmadinejad as if we

were business partners. Just this week, we learned that

the iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel, in this city, was the

setting for a meeting between the Secretary of State of

this country and his Iranian counterpart.

We are not criticizing them. Quite the contrary,

anything that represents dialogue and understanding

seems very good to us. But we wish to ask those who

have been accusing Iran of being a terrorist State — and

I am not speaking here of the last century, but of last

year — what they would say today about the members

of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham (ISIS),

many of whom not so long ago were called freedom

fighters when they were fighting in Syria against the

Government of Bashar Al-Assad. And this is where

I believe we have another problem with respect to

security and terrorism. The major Powers too often and

too easily seesaw from the concept of friend to enemy,

and terrorist to non-terrorist. We need to agree once and

for all not to use international politics or geopolitical

positions to determine positions of power. I say that as

a militant opponent of international terrorism.

By the way, just to add a touch of color, ISIS has

apparently issued a threat against me that is under legal

investigation in my country. The threat apparently has

two justifications: first, because of my close relationship

with His Holiness Pope Francis, and secondly, because

I recognize the need for two States, Israel and Palestine.

While I am at it, let me reiterate my call on the Assembly

to recognize Palestine once and for all as a State with

full membership in this body. We have to begin to undo

some of the Gordian knots — because there is not just

one Gordian knot but several — regarding the situation

in the Middle East, which involves recognizing the

State of Palestine, Israel’s right to live securely within

its borders, and Palestine’s right not to be subjected to

the kind of disproportionate use of force that led to the

deaths of hundreds of women and children, which we

condemn just as we also condemn those who attack

Israel with missiles.

In a time of economic vultures and hawks of war,

we need more doves of peace to build a safer world. We

need more respect for international law and more equal

treatment of those seated in this Hall. Just this morning,

I overheard one leader refer to the use of force to attack

the territorial integrity of a country.

Here too, the Republic of Argentina is a leading

case. For more than 100 years, we have had a claim

against the United Kingdom on a matter of sovereignty.

We once again ask the Assembly to call on the United

Kingdom to sit down with Argentina to discuss the

matter of the sovereignty of the Malvinas. No one

cares and there is not a single veto from the Security

Council, because Argentina is not a member of the

Security Council and is not even among the countries

that decide what happens in the world. So long as

that continues, and so long as the votes of the five

permanent members of the Security Council are worth

more than the votes of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya,

Egypt, Uganda, Argentina, Bahrain or the United Arab

Emirates, nothing will be resolved. We will just have

the same speeches we hear every year without arriving

at a resolution.

The Assembly must fight to take back the

powers it delegated to the Council, since —almost

paradoxically — the Assembly has to ask the Council

for permission on its decisions or on whether to admit

a member. We need to reassert that the Assembly is a

sovereign body of the United Nations, and that each of

us is worth one vote in a true global democracy. Not

everything will be resolved when that global democracy

is respected to the letter, but I do believe it will mark

the beginning of a solution. I am neither a pessimist

nor an optimist; I consider myself to be a realist. In any

event, the child of pessimism and optimism is always

optimism, but with realism. Optimism without realism

is either ingenuity or cynicism. I do not wish to appear

ingenuous or cynical before this audience.

I want to convey what we really think in my country.

We have long demanded reform of the Security Council

and of the International Monetary Fund. In 2003,

reform the International Monetary Fund seemed almost

inevitable; today, hardly anyone remembers the idea of

reforming the International Monetary Fund, because

it no longer plays a central role in decisions. Even the

International Monetary Fund itself and both its current

head and former leaders, including Anne Krueger, are

also calling for reforms with respect to the restructuring

of sovereign debts. So long as there is no international

treaty approved by this Assembly, no matter how many

clauses are imposed by the restructuring, there will

always be a Judge Griesa somewhere in the world who

says that they are meaningless, and who will end up

applying usurious taxes to bleed some poor country to

death. That is what is happening, because it seems to

me that they are trying to overturn the restructuring of

sovereign debt for which the Argentine people worked

so hard.

Before coming here I was in Rome, meeting with

a fellow countryman who today occupies a strong,

exemplary religious and moral leadership. I would like

to offer a message of peace and of peacebuilding. If

we truly wish to fight terrorism, then let us work for

peace. We cannot fight the terrorists by beating the

drums of war. Quite the contrary, that is exactly what

they want — a symmetrical reaction so that the wheel

again begins to turn and a price is paid in blood.

That is why I think it is important for us to think

deeply about those issues. Above all, I want to bring

to the table the certainty that if the United Nations

recovers its leadership, if the Assembly resumes its

mandate, when too many countries fail to comply with

international law, even though they require others to do

so, then I am certain that we will have made a major

contribution to peacebuilding and the fight against

terrorism from which no one would have been left out.

But we have to leave to our children a much better

world than the one we have today.

Finally, I wish to recall that a year ago the problems

were different. A year ago, we were discussing other

problems, other threats to security. Times have

changed. The wrongdoers of yesterday do not seem so

bad today. Those who should have been invaded and

crushed a year ago, today seem to be cooperating to

fight the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham (ISIS).

First, it was Al-Qaida, and, I wonder, where did

Al-Qaida and the Taliban spring from? Where do they

get their weapons and resources? My country does not

produce weapons. Who sells arms to those groups?

Then there was the Arab Spring, which ended up by

being not so much a spring as a fall and even a winter.

Those involved went from being freedom-fighters to

being persecuted or imprisoned. Now there is ISIS, a

new terrorist organization that carries out beheadings

on television on a carefully set stage. What is causing

all this, I wonder? Where is this coming from? I have

become really distrustful of everything after seeing

what is happening in the world today — real-life scenes

that make fictional series look trivial.

It is therefore worth asking ourselves why it is that

we are facing ever-greater problems — problems that

caused the Pope to comment that there is practically a

third world war. That is true. It is a world war but not

along the lines of the more conventional wars of the

twentieth century. There are hotspots where the only

victims are civilian populations. That is why, a few

minutes from now in the Security Council, of which

Argentina is a non-permanent member, we wish to raise

some of those issues. We have no certainties, no absolute

truths, but we have many questions. We want to put

them to those who possess a lot more information than

we do, far more data and far more extensive networks of

information than my country has. Heaven forbid that,

with all those data, they have a wealth of information

but can understand little of what is happening. For they

have to be able to comprehend what is happening if they

are to come up with a definitive solution.

I deeply appreciate once again the political will of

the 124 countries that supported resolution 68/304. As

everyone knows, there was pressure to keep us from

getting that number of supporters or having a vote,

but I think that the exercise of practical, effective and

democratic multilateralism that the adoption of the

resolution represents demonstrates that all is not lost.

On the contrary, it is in the hands of each and every one

of us, each of our countries, to find real and effective

solutions to the problems the world has today.