Bolivia, 2013

I

wish to convey my greetings to the Secretary-General

and all the Presidents, Heads of State, delegations and

international organizations from across the world. I

convey also my special greetings to those attending this

annual general debate of the General Assembly.

We are here once again, as usual, to share

experiences relating to leadership and to work for the

sake of life, humanity, equality and social justice. But

we are also here to express our profound differences as

concerns life, peace and democracy. Over the past few

days I have been listening to the statements made by

certain Powers, which leave a lot to be desired in terms

of liberty, equality, dignity and sovereignty.

Thanks to the awareness of the Bolivian people, I

have now held the presidency for almost eight years. In

that time — despite the economic and financial crises in

some so-called developed, industrialized and, I would

even say, even exaggeratedly industrialized countries,

because some Powers industrialize simply to put an end

to life — we in Bolivia have an economic growth rate of

4.8 per cent, on average. Previously it was just over 2 per

cent under the economic policies of the free market and

neoliberalism. This year the economic growth rate is

estimated at 6 per cent, at least, so we are doing well.

I would like to point out that thanks to that economic

growth, in the context of the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs) we have reduced poverty; we have met

the MDG of reducing poverty and extreme poverty.

United Nations data for 2011 indicates that that year

1 million Bolivian men and women entered the middle

class. Bolivia has 10 million inhabitants, so that means

that 10 per cent of Bolivia’s inhabitants improved

their economic status. The rate of undernutrition for

children under the age of 5 has decreased even more

than required by the related Millennium Development

Goal. The literacy-rate goal for people between 15 and

24 years of age was met, and UNESCO declared Bolivia

a country free of illiteracy thanks to the cooperation of

Cuba and Venezuela, which have been working with us

since 2006-2007.

The Goal on coverage in terms of maternal health

has been reached, and maternal and child mortality has

decreased. Thanks to that economic growth we have

been able to create vouchers for pregnant women and

for children under 2 years of age, which has made

possible a decrease in maternal and child mortality.

Coverage in terms of potable water has increased. For

example, we created a programme entitled “My water

(more investment for water)”. I must thank the Andean

Development Corporation and the Inter-American

Development Bank for their contributions. With their

funding we put together “My water” I and II, and we

are now on the third programme, with $300,000 per

municipality in rural areas. That has made it possible

for us to provide some municipalities with 100 per cent

coverage in terms of potable water.

I have just come from a major event in the department

of Santa Cruz, where I visited several municipalities.

In two of them, the mayors — who are not from the

party in power but from other parties — told me that

“My water” III will result in 100 per cent of the local

population having drinking water. We have made

advances in that area. Investment in water is a blessing

for life. It means minimizing disease, because potable

water helps people avoid contracting diseases.

I would like all here to know that we have been able

to achieve this thanks to a State that lives in conditions

of sovereignty and dignity. Why am I saying this?

Because previously, politically we were subject to the

American empire. The embassies of the United States

decided who would be minister. Economically, we were

subject to the International Monetary Fund. From the

time we arrived, we have said “Enough!” to submitting

to international organizations and to the United States

embassy. Previously, for any loan, the International

Monetary Fund set conditionalities, blackmailing the

various Governments. Those conditionalities involved

our giving up our natural resources to transnational

companies, so that Bolivia would privatize basic

services. But basic services are a human right and

cannot be private property. So when we freed ourselves

politically and economically, we started to do better.

One of the policies we adopted was to nationalize

hydrocarbons — gas and oil. I want the Assembly to

know, just to share a small experience, that previously

State contracts with transnational oil companies stated

that the bearer acquired the right to the land at the mouth

of the well. When union leaders asked Governments

why the gas and oil were not the property of Bolivians,

they told us that as long as they were underground they

belonged to the Bolivians, but once they were out of the

ground that was no longer the case. They invented this

title business for the land at the mouth of the well.

In addition, 82 per cent of the benefits went to

transnationals, especially in mega-oilfields, and 18 per

cent to Bolivians. It was looting, it was theft. But since

we nationalized hydrocarbons, I must say that we

have really begun to improve the economic situation

and the social conditions in our country. Just one

example: oil income in 2005, before I was President,

was $300 million. This year, thanks to nationalization

and the fight waged by social movements, oil sales will

total more than $5 billion. Last year we almost reached

$5 billion. That figure continues to grow with new

investments, and today we have reached the stage of

giving added value to those natural resources.

As the Assembly is aware, I am not an expert in

politics or in economic matters. But I am here at the

request of the Bolivian people, learning daily about the

needs, problems and demands of my people, the people

of Bolivia.

I would therefore also like to say that this joint work

with the social movements, which are the organized

representatives of the people, is going well. I would

like the United Nations and the Secretary-General to

know that we have issued a directive and are working

on the patriotic agenda for 2025. What exactly is that

agenda about? As Bolivia was founded in 1825, the year

2025 will be our bicentennial as a republic, while we

are now a plurinational State. We are working with all

social movements and authorities, be they local mayors

or provincial Governments, to establish a medium- and

long-term plan that will make it possible to guarantee a

future for the generations to come.

Besides local issues, there are also pending regional

issues, such as the one between Bolivia and Chile on

sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean. An invasion

began on 14 February 1879, which on 23 March of

the same year gave rise to a limited resistance. Who

invaded us? It was the Chilean oligarchy of the time,

along with British companies. We lost our access to the

sea, and many meetings have been subsequently held

on the issue. An unfair treaty was imposed on us, and it

was not observed.

I want the Assembly to be aware of the following.

In a number of meetings with former Presidents and

with the latest brotherly President of Chile, we have

tried to reach an understanding. However, there has

never been an official proposal to resolve the issue of

the Bolivian people’s irrevocable right to return to the

Pacific with sovereignty.

What did the President of Chile say in September

2010 when he addressed the General Assembly here

in New York (see A/65/PV.12)? He said that treaties

were inviolable and they must not be touched. On

28 January 2013, during the summit of the Community

of Latin America and the Caribbean States (CELAC)

in Santiago, President Piñera Echeñique said that of

course treaties could be perfected. First, he said they

were untouchable, and then he said they could be

perfected. That shows that this issue is on his mind and

that it needs to be resolved.

On 17 December 2012, Piñera Echeñique publicly

stated that Chile would ensure respect not only for the

treaties it had signed, but also its sovereignty, with

all the strength in the world. But in January at the

CELAC summit President Piñera Echeñique said that

sovereignty could not be touched unless economic

interests were at stake. On 22 September 2011, at the

General Assembly President Piñera Echeñique said

that there were no ongoing territorial issues between

Chile and Bolivia (see A/66/PV.15). However, on

2 February 2013, in an interview with La Tercera, a

Chilean newspaper, he recognized the following: Chile

has offered Bolivia autonomy in a territorial enclave. In

other words, he is trying to resolve the issue. But that

proposal has never been made official.

There is a fourth contradiction. On 11 November

2012, at the Ibero-American Summit held in Cadiz,

Spain, the President of Chile said that Chile would

demand that a valid treaty that was still in force — the

treaty of 1904 — be respected, and that any conversation

about the matter must be bilateral in nature: it did not

belong in a multilateral forum such as that in which we

are participating today.

What did the President of Chile say on 2 February

2013? He said that the possibility of a gateway to the

sea without sovereignty, north of Arica, will come to an

end if Peru won at The Hague. Another contradiction:

in June 2013, President Sebastián Piñera Echeñique

said that Chile had the right to defend its territory,

sea and sovereignty with strength and conviction and

that Chile was a country that would never bend in the

legitimate defence of its territory. In June, he said

that Chile would not cede to the Bolivian position

while President Morales continued to belittle him. On

7 September 2013, he said that, naturally, they would

respect the ruling from The Hague. When it came to

the ruling from The Hague, they were a country that

respected rulings.

I simply wanted to state that to avoid conflict.

Since its foundation as a plurinational State, Bolivia has

been by nature a peaceful State. With all due respect,

I would like to inform members that we have turned to

international courts. We have requested the International

Court of Justice to declare that the Republic of Chile

has an obligation to effectively negotiate, in a timely

fashion and in good faith, sovereign access to the Pacific

Ocean in order to re-establish Bolivia’s past, present

and future rights to the sea. I want members to be aware

that this request cannot and should not be interpreted as

an act of hostility. On the contrary, it is a demonstration

of Bolivia’s respect and confidence in the mechanisms

for the peaceful settlement of international disputes.

Members cannot imagine how much damage we

have suffered, economically and geographically, or the

damage that has been done to the people of Bolivia and

to our past and future generations, by the 1879 invasion.

Our grandparents continue to ask us when we are going

to go back to the sea, because Bolivia was born with an

outlet to the Pacific Ocean. So that everyone is aware:

we are seeking a peaceful solution to this dispute.

We have heard the various statements made over

the past few days. One cannot listen to every single one

of them, but I want to say that, while we are working

to eliminate extreme poverty, we, the Heads of State

and Government, are also working for peace with social

justice. Nevertheless, a handful of Powers promote

wars, armed conflict and military intervention without

respecting even international organizations.

We have heard here statements about freedom,

democracy, peace, justice and security. As peoples

who have been the subject of interventions and have

been exploited, marginalized and robbed of our natural

resources by the empires of the time, we wonder what

democracy, what peace and what social justice some

Presidents who come here are talking about. We witness

Presidents and their retinues blocking airspace and not

providing guarantees of our attendance to this forum,

for example. How can they speak of democracy, when

the spy services of the United States violate human

rights and the privacy and security of other States while

using private companies? It turns out that they spy not

only on democratic Governments, but even on their own

allies, their own citizens and the United Nations itself.

Well, fine, let them spy on us anti-imperialist Presidents

and Governments. But spying on the United Nations?

Spying on their allies? I feel that there is a great deal of

overweening arrogance towards humankind.

That is why we continue to speak out. Not only

do they spy, they also hatch coups d’état. What peace

can we speak of when military spending sacrifices the

human rights of our peoples? I would like to ask the

people of the United States: How is it possible, when

there are so many people out of work, for their country’s

Government and President to spend $700 billion on

the military and espionage annually, when there are

so many of our brothers in the United States who are

homeless and jobless and without an education? One

cannot understand how that country can spend so much

money interfering with other countries while leaving

its own unprovided for.

They talk to us of human rights while torture is

being carried out in the prisons of Guantánamo and

on military bases in the Middle East, and while union

and political leaders who do not share imperialist

and capitalist views are also tortured. I would like to

say to the United States that it must not believe it is

master of the world. It is mistaken. Furthermore, it

signs agreements yet refuses to sign some of the most

important treaties in the world. It does not respect

United Nations resolutions.

The security of the empire and the fight against

terrorism have become the biggest excuse and tool

for unilateral military intervention. Terrorism cannot

be combated through more military spending and

interventions or the training of military forces. As

far as I know, the way to fight terrorism is with social

policies, not military bases; with religious tolerance,

more democracy, more equality of justice and more

education.

What country is free from problems? Of course

there are differences. The best thing to do is to provide

means, even if not all our Governments have the same

economic policies. Capitalism wants to emerge from its

crisis through war and armed intervention. We must ask

ourselves who benefits from the wars. Who distributes

the natural resources after an intervention? Whose

hands do they end up in, once countries are bombed?

Who is really governing in the United States, I wonder?

Is it its citizens, or the companies that promote wars?

From outside, at least — I am not an ambassador living

in the United States — what we see is that those who

finance political and election campaigns are bankers

and big businessmen, and they are the ones setting

policy.

Those who govern cannot be mistaken or confused

about the conflict in Syria. Naturally, we are against

the use of chemical weapons and weapons of mass

destruction. But who possesses the greatest nuclear

arsenal? Who invented chemical weapons? Who

industrialized those weapons that end human lives? In

my region, at least, things are perfectly clear. We know

whose hands they are in, where they come from and

who produces them.

Democracies do not wage war. What we are seeing

is that those who make the decisions about wars are the

arms industry, the financial system and oil companies.

Plutocracy has become a substitute for democracy. The

Government of the rich and powerful decides the fate of

the world. We are facing a new moment in the imperial

geopolitical disposition — and I do not wish to revisit

how Latin America and the Caribbean, like Africa and

the Middle East, were at one time carved up by various

imperial Powers, who were interested not in resolving

issues of poverty, democracy and equality but rather

in those countries’ natural resources — and now, once

again, those Powers wish to divide it all up through

military intervention and with military bases.

Another subject being debated is the colonization

of space, as we have seen in recent years. Those who

believe they are the masters of the world have told

us that their power has no limits and that they can

intervene wherever they feel like. Again, I wonder what

the United Nations is for. What do we have treaties and

conventions for? What use is multilateralism? Human

multilateralism we welcome; inhuman interventionism

will be combated by people all over the world. I believe

that as a union leader and as someone from one of the

most humiliated sectors in the history of Latin America,

the indigenous peasant peoples.

War is a business for capitalism. There can be no

peace without justice; there can be no equality as long

as the business of war has pride of place. It starts and

wages wars for its businesses. That is why I believe it is

important at this event to consider such issues in depth.

Another instrument of domination is the fight

against drug trafficking. But I have to say that despite

the efforts of the Bolivian people and Government,

there are certain Powers that do not shoulder their

responsibilities in combating the traffic in drugs,

because the drug market is in the capitalist countries.

Since we got rid of the Drug Enforcement Agency

(DEA) and launched our own national policy — and

thanks to some of our neighbours, such as Argentina,

Brazil and Chile, to which I am grateful for their joint

efforts — we have seen improvements and a better way

of fighting drug trafficking than the way imposed by

the DEA and the United States. I welcome the fact that

the United Nations has acknowledged the decrease in

drug trafficking in Bolivia, but it has not been certified

by the Government of the United States. Who should

we believe, the United States or the United Nations? I

leave it up to the Assembly.

I have felt somewhat insecure when it comes to

visiting the United Nations in New York, which is

why we should think seriously about changing the

location of the Headquarters of the Organization. The

Headquarters of the United Nations should be in the

territory of a State that has ratified all the treaties

adopted by the United Nations. As the Assembly is

aware, the Government has never ratified the treaties on

human rights or the rights of Mother Earth. They do not

guarantee us visas or overflights. I offer my solidarity

with my friend Nicolás Maduro Moros, President of

Venezuela. How can we be sure that a meeting of the

United Nations here in New York is secure? Perhaps

some of us do, but those of us who do not share the

views of imperialism and capitalism feel completely

insecure.

I would just like to say, though not out of fear, that

we should not be complicit in such an arrogant attitude

to the peoples of the world. How can we genuinely

believe in the United Nations if we do not respect

resolutions — for example, those ending the economic

blockade of Cuba. There are only two or three countries

that do not vote to end it. Most of us welcome it and

vote for the resolution every time. But if it is not

implemented and not respected, then why are we here

at the United Nations?

Furthermore, I wish to inform the Assembly

that everyone knows that the United States harbours

terrorists, criminals and the corrupt. They escape

from Bolivian justice and arrive here. The United

States Government is not assisting in the fight against

corruption. What kind of an agreement could we then

have in the fight against corruption?

Beyond that, the United States accuses the

Governments of other countries. It accuses Cuba, of

promoting terrorism. How can Cuba do that? Perhaps it

is due to such accusations that only 60 or 70 Presidents,

of the more than 190, have come here. I feel that such

policies scare off Presidents. Who will come next year

to vote, when resolutions are never respected?

That reason, and many others, should encourage us

to consider changing the Headquarters of the United

Nations. I do not expect it to be Bolivia, or South

America. There are countries that have ratified all of the

human rights treaties. That is where the Headquarters

of the United Nations should be located.

There is blackmail when it comes to visas. I had to

wait for a visa in order to come here, and then it was

for only four, five or six days — no more. What good

is such a visa? One has to watch the clock and when

to leave, because the visa will be taken from us. We

are being threatened, intimidated and blackmailed with

visas.

If the Assembly is here to seriously discuss the well-

being of humankind, perhaps my country can share

with some who are present here the idea of seriously

considering establishing a tribunal of the peoples,

including major international organizations that defend

human rights, to begin an investigation of the Obama

Government.

I was surprised by the words of United States

President Obama at the start of his term. It struck me

when he stated, “I was elected to end wars”. Those

were his words, found in newspapers, on radio and on

television. I said to myself, this fraternal President of

the United States originates from a family that suffered

from discrimination like me. We are going to agree and

we will put an end to war. I was deeply struck by that.

Now we are seeing the exact opposite. Perhaps it is due

to the Nobel Peace Prize. We congratulate him. In the

end, however, it is a Nobel Peace Prize, rather than a

Nobel war prize.

What is the basis for a trial? It certainly includes

crimes against humanity and the bombing of Libya.

I would like to know who owned the oil in Libya

beforehand? Who owns it now? Previously, at the least,

the people of Libya benefited from that oil, but how is it

being managed and used now? What happened in Iraq?

I am convinced that behind any war or intervention,

a plan is being devised on how to later seize the

natural resources. That was our experience in Bolivia.

However, we have recovered our natural resources

democratically, without bullets but with votes, not

with money but based on the awareness of the Bolivian

people.

As for prosecuting acts of international terrorism,

the financing of terrorist groups and the arming of

opposition forces — once I expelled the United States

Ambassador to Bolivia, I had no regrets. We are better

off now, politically and democratically. We are now

ending our cooperation with the United States Agency

for International Development, which had been plotting.

We want and welcome cooperation, so long as it is

unconditional and free of blackmail or preconditions

involving Presidents or the privatization of natural

resources and basic services.

Imagine the damage inflicted on a country by

an economic blockade. It is the best tool of genocide.

Therefore, if we are truly responsible for the well-being

of humankind, if we are responsible for truth, justice

and peace, then we must organize to fight back so that

no president — from South America, the Middle East

or anywhere else in the world — will ever again cause

harm to life or to humankind.

Like previous debates here — on the financial,

climate, economic and food crises — the Assembly is

now addressing the issue of interventionism. As long

as imperialism and capitalism exist, peace, justice,

liberty, dignity and sovereignty for the people of the

world will never be possible. I am convinced of that,

because I have a little experience. We should therefore

contemplate a world free of oligarchies, monarchies

and hierarchies, and then consider the sort of human

order we would want for the world.

All of us possess sovereignty and dignity, whether

we are small and backwards — “developing”, as they

call us — or whatever our situation. What damages the

political class? Sometimes it is arrogance, the abuse of

power and corruption. As Presidents of Governments, it

is our obligation to fight against such policies that cause

so much harm to the political class. It is our obligation

to change the politics. In my experience, politics is not

about business or profits. It is about service, commitment

and extending the greatest effort for one’s people. If

anyone thinks that politics involves business or profit,

they are wrong. Such President or Government will not

go far. If a Government allows bankers, financiers or

multinational corporations to govern, it is mistaken.

A Government must be controlled by a President who

has been democratically elected by the people, with the

participation of society and for the well-being of the

majority of the people.

We welcome the fact that private property is

respected. However, it is something else when economic

policy and governing are considered in favour of the

few, rather than of the many. With my little bit of

experience, therefore, I call on all members to fight

against the economic policies that cause great harm to

humankind around the world.

I reiterate that as long as imperialism and

capitalism exist, the struggle will continue, the people

will continue to rise up, but there will be no justice.

Freeing ourselves from imperialism and capitalism will

certainly ensure peace and social justice and dignity

and sovereignty for our peoples.