Bolivia, 1994

I am honoured to convey the greetings of

President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and of the people of

Bolivia to the Heads of State and Government in attendance

at this the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly; to

the Foreign Ministers; to the President of the General

Assembly, Mr. Amara Essy, and to his predecessor,

Ambassador Samuel Insanally, as well as to our dear friend

Vice-President Sergio Abreu; to Secretary-General Boutros

Boutros-Ghali; and to the whole of the international

community, so worthily represented here.

As the highest forum of the peoples of the Earth, this

noble Assembly constitutes the ideal setting to reflect on

and debate the issues of our day.

Bolivia is striving to enter the twenty-first century

while bringing about substantial changes based on the

principles of the United Nations Charter.

During its first year in office, the Government of

President Sánchez de Lozada devoted its efforts to

carrying through the reforms needed to make the State an

effective instrument for our society’s democratic

development, centred on the well-being of our people.

Thus, our reforms have been based on the concept of

comprehensive development, combining human and

economic development, social equity, and sustainable

development.

Now that Bolivia has thus completed the reform of

its political constitution, it is putting into effect changes

that will enable it to consolidate democracy and economic

development, in conditions of fairness and social justice.

My country has embarked on a dynamic policy of

participation by the people, a process of educational

reform, and a recasting of the shareholding and

productive structures of public enterprises through an

innovative concept of capitalization.

During the second phase of its programme, the

Bolivian Government is planning to implement new legal

provisions to increase investment and production in order

to provide more and better job opportunities, and to find

concrete solutions to the problems of poverty and the

marginalization of broad sectors of society. It is in this

connection, in the context of our Government’s policy,

that the participation of the people is of particular

significance.

On the subject of sustainable development, my

country has proposed the holding of a meeting of

Presidents of the hemisphere; that meeting is now

scheduled for 1996 in Bolivia.

The future of our peoples and their material and

spiritual well-being can only be the work of their own

hands, as they are both the subjects and the objects of

development. It is therefore most encouraging that - not

only within our country but within the United Nations

system as well - there is a conviction that a central role

falls to organized participation, both individual and

collective, as an essential factor for change in a creative

and positive direction.

Mechanisms for popular participation will make it

possible to imbue the liberty, independence, sovereignty

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and progress of nations with vitality and social content. It

is a matter of appraising the role of all social sectors:

workers and entrepreneurs, women, indigenous and rural

communities, the marginalized, the young, the elderly, the

disabled and all those who have the right and duty to

contribute to building a better future.

It is with that conviction that the Bolivian Government

has contributed actively to the preparatory work for the

forthcoming World Summit for Social Development, to be

held in Copenhagen in 1995, and the Fourth World

Conference on Women, in Beijing the same year.

In that same spirit, the International Decade of the

World’s Indigenous People will be inaugurated at this

session of the General Assembly. My country is confident

that the observance of this Decade will be not merely

symbolic, but essentially a practical and concrete endeavour

in its objectives and its scope. To that end, the meeting of

representatives of Latin American and Caribbean

Governments, grass-roots peasant organizations and

international agencies, held in the Bolivian city of

Cochabamba last June, framed a series of recommendations

to be included in the strategy of the Decade. Those

recommendations have also been brought to the attention of

Governments and the United Nations system. We hope to

receive a prompt and positive response so that the

legitimate claims of indigenous peoples will not be lost in

the labyrinths of international bureaucracy or the oblivion

of another 500 years of solitude.

Resolving age-old problems surely calls for a great

capacity to understand the values, customs and ways of life

of other cultures. Bolivia hopes that the International

Decade of the World’s Indigenous People will provide an

opportunity for the international community to fully

understand the topic of the coca leaf, a form of vegetation

traditionally grown in Andean regions. The cultural and

medicinal uses of the coca leaf need to be re-evaluated in

order to distinguish it clearly from the social problems

brought about by the abuse of one of its derivatives in the

developed countries, which creates a growing demand

associated with an international cycle of crime.

Let me take this opportunity to declare formally, once

again, that the Government and the people of Bolivia are

earnestly and firmly committed to international efforts to

find the best-suited mechanisms to guarantee the success of

the policies delineated within the framework of the changes

recommended in General Assembly resolution 48/12,

adopted at the last session.

Less than two weeks ago, on an initiative of

President Sánchez de Lozada, the most representative

organizations of Bolivian society, together with the armed

forces and the police, took a historic step when they

debated the problems of the coca leaf in a framework of

pluralistic participation and cooperation. The main

conclusions of that meeting, which I take the liberty of

summarizing to this great forum of nations, stressed the

urgency of combating drug trafficking through a world-

wide strategy of shared responsibility; the need to adopt

as a primary goal the fight against the dire poverty

affecting over two-thirds of Bolivia’s population; and

support for initiatives aimed at the comprehensive

development of coca-producing areas.

Bolivia is grateful for the international community’s

willingness to draw a perfectly clear distinction between

the positive aspects of the native coca leaf and the grave

harm done by dint of the external demand for cocaine.

We trust that this positive attitude will make it possible in

the near future to address this problem without prejudice.

But the international agenda at the end of the

century encompasses other equally complex issues that

have recently been brought to light by the end of the cold

war, although their roots can be traced back to centuries

of accumulated injustice.

The Republic of South Africa has given the world

invaluable lessons in its struggle against apartheid and for

democracy. My country is joyful at the outcome of that

process and, on behalf of Bolivia, I welcome President

Nelson Mandela to the General Assembly.

Deeply moved as well by news of the tragedies in

Rwanda and in other regions of the world, Bolivia

expresses its solidarity with peoples which, through

violence and catastrophe, are showing us what we sow

when problems are not resolved in timely fashion,

problems such as hunger, poverty, mass migration, the

various forms of injustice inherited from colonial times

and the plundering and lawless acts carried out even

today by Powers large and small against other States.

Bolivia welcomes the advances achieved through

dialogue in the Middle East, and we trust that in the

future dialogue will become the principal instrument in

dealing successfully with international disputes and

conflicts. The Bolivian people hopes for a just and

lasting peace between Israel, Palestine and the Arab

peoples. May the deliberations of the General Assembly

contribute to consolidating that process.

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The situations in the former Yugoslavia and in other

areas are a direct consequence of actions in the service of

misguided geopolitical interests aimed at social and political

destabilization of foreign territories, We hope that the

senseless repetition of such practices, which have had such

woeful effects in Central Europe, Asia and Africa, will not

lead to similar disasters in other regions. Furthermore, the

Government and the people of Bolivia condemn policies of

"ethnic cleansing" in the strongest terms and call upon the

international community to take resolute and clear measures

to put an end to those actions and to punish those

responsible for them.

Latin America stands unconditionally in support of

democracy and against the illegal use of military means and

force, in accordance with the recent declaration of the

presidential summit of the Rio Group, the resolutions of the

Organization of American States and of the United Nations

and the numerous proclamations of Parliaments and popular

organizations from all over the continent.

Democracy, of course, cannot be left undefended.

Bolivia has had the bitter experience of long dictatorial

interruptions in its institutional life. Consequently, Bolivia

stands today with the people of Haiti and its legitimate

Government, and it supports the immediate return of

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the restoration of the

democratic regime.

History has shown that peace, justice and respect for

the principle of self-determination can be guaranteed only

when there are consolidated democratic institutions capable

of defending and promoting human rights. Solidarity

cannot be left at the rostrum. My country reiterates its

willingness to help, within its available means, in the

process of restoring Haitian democracy to the extent the

legitimate Government of that country deems our help

useful.

The ending of the cold war must apply also to Latin

America and make it possible, through dialogue and

understanding among the parties concerned, for Cuba to be

reintegrated into the inter-American community.

All States of the world must contribute to ensuring

peace, brotherhood and the timely solution of problems that

are as yet unresolved. To that end, action must be taken to

enable peoples to develop, since economic backwardness

and its social effects are at the root of the crises and

conflicts we face.

We therefore attach high priority to the themes of

the "Agenda for Development". Economic

complementarity, the transfer of technology, trade, the

opening up of economies, foreign investment and co-

operation should be our instruments for strengthening

solidarity and friendship among peoples and

Governments.

In this spirit, Bolivia strongly supports Latin

American unity and subregional integration, hemispheric

agreements, and any opportunity that may present itself

for exchanges between nations.

These aims - cooperation and complementarity,

friendship and solidarity - must serve as the basis of the

new international order. For that reason, the observance

of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Charter in

San Francisco should provide an opportunity to make

substantive progress in adapting the United Nations to the

new realities and demands of the world community.

Governments on all continents must demonstrate the

ability to save future generations from the scourge of war.

We must make human rights, individual and collective,

fully effective. International justice must become possible

and be assured, and social progress within the broadest

concept of freedom must be promoted.

In international relations in the third millennium, law

must cease to be the instrument of the stronger, serving

to entrench injustices, and must become the sole and

effective means of resolving disputes, rectifying the errors

and excesses of past generations as often as may be

necessary.

On the subject of respect for the rules of inter-State

relations, Bolivia welcomes the entry into force of the

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and

welcomes the fact that 1998 is to be the International

Year of the Oceans. Convinced that recovering our

country’s access to the sea is an inalienable right of

Bolivia, the Government of President Sánchez de Lozada

is working to secure for the Bolivian people, during the

current decade, a real solution to the unjust land-locked

situation with which it has had to contend for over

100 years. My country believes in the force of

convictions, in the force of international solidarity, in the

force and the evolution of law, and in the possibilities of

friendly negotiation with a view to overcoming disputes.

Democracy must find clear expression in inter-State

relations. Participation by countries large and small in

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the resolution of issues that affect all of them must be

equitable and not, as is sometimes the case, mere words.

This presupposes, among other things, a change in the

organization and composition of the Security Council so

that with its permanent and non-permanent members, it will

be representative of the realities and requirements of

appropriate participation, reflecting the obvious emergence

of new centres of power in different parts of the world. It

will also be necessary to strengthen the role of the General

Assembly and to restore the United Nations its central role

in the resolution of the major economic problems of the

planet, a task which, for the present, remains the exclusive

preserve of the super-Powers.

The right to development is an objective necessity,

although exercise of the right still seems remote for the vast

majority of the world’s population. We must assume an

effective commitment to give that right the same priority

treatment as is given to the human rights of individuals.

If the present generation is unable to defeat growing

poverty and secure employment opportunities for the

already vast global army of the indigent, it will be

impossible to ensure the peace and well-being in the

developed regions of the world. Population growth, mass

migrations and globalization will take their toll, with a

negative effect on the dignity, the peaceful co-existence,

and the hopes of all mankind for a better life.

Over the centuries, the Andean peoples of Bolivia

have wisely been guided by three fundamental rules which,

in the Quechua language, are: "AMA SUA, AMA

LLULLA, AMA KHELLA", meaning "Do not steal, do not

be idle, do not lie".

If those three rules were also applied in relations

between States and nations today, they would have to be:

"Do not unjustly exploit the fruits of your neighbours’

work. Do not complacently enjoy your splendid life-style

amid universal poverty. Do not make promises of

solidarity and understanding that you are not prepared to

keep."

I feel sure that the ability of all of us to live together

would be infinitely enhanced were we to be guided by such

rules.