Costa Rica, 2009

Let

me begin by sending a warm greeting to Mr. Ali

Abdussalam Treki, President of the Assembly, on

behalf of a country 35 times smaller than his native

Libya and infinitely different in scenery and

geography. Instead of desert sandstorms we have

torrential rains. We know not the waves of the

Mediterranean, but the capricious tides of the

Caribbean. Its dunes are our forests, its mosques our

cathedrals. But I believe that such differences are at the

very heart of the United Nations. Aristotle posited that

things are distinguished by what they look like. Here,

within this haven, nations are similar precisely in that

they are distinct, because each is irreplaceable in the

vast catalogue of the planet. From the far reaches of

this variety that makes us brothers, I wish him the

greatest success in this Assembly.

Twenty-three years ago, I spoke for the first time

at this rostrum — a rock of reason amidst seas of

insanity. At that time, I came here bearing the cries of

millions of Central Americans who sought a peaceful

solution to the civil wars that were lacerating our

region. I came to ask powerful nations to stop the flow

of arms fuelling the procession of coffins in our

territories, and I came to defend the right of the

peoples of Latin America to build their own destiny

freely and democratically.

The second time I visited this Hall, I came

seeking support for the peace plan that the Presidents

of Central America had signed. In those days, no one

thought that little Central America would defy the

world and choose life in the face of all threats. No one

thought that we would have the strength to confront the

Powers of the cold war and find our own solution to all

our problems. No one thought that we would be able to

sow the seeds of democracy in our lands and go on to

work for the human development of our peoples. We

gave the pessimists and the sceptics a lesson. We

refuted with dreams the nightmares that many

prophesied for us. Today, I come here to recognize the

distance we have travelled and to warn of the risk of

backsliding.

Since the last time I spoke before this Assembly,

a Central American nation has seen the demon of the

coup d’état awaken once again. Our region’s armies

have received nearly $60 billion to combat imaginary

enemies, while our peoples have struggled empty-

handed against the economic crisis. Some leaders have

defied democratic rules in the most imaginative ways,

while everything that was wrong with our continent has

carried on the same, or worse. Poverty has continued to

afflict more than a third of our inhabitants. One in

three young Latin Americans still has never seen a

high-school classroom. Hundreds of thousands of

people have died of preventable diseases. The toll of

violent death in some of our countries has exceeded

those of countries at war, despite the fact that, with the

exception of Colombia, there are no armed conflicts in

our region. And millions of trees have been felled in

territories responsible among them for two thirds of the

worldwide forest cover loss in the twenty-first century.

This scenario is not a hopeful one. For those of us

from Latin America, it is difficult not to feel that we

are always rescuing our future from the clutches of our

past, and that we are always trying to take off on a

runway where some foolish person spilled oil, long

ago. We have not achieved greater development. We

have not made our democracy stronger. We have not

driven from our reality the shadow of militarism and

oppression. These problems recur endemically, to

varying degrees, in the majority of developing

nations — the very nations that will to a large extent

bear the weight of the course of humanity over the next

50 years.

It is the developing nations that will shoulder the

worst of the struggle against global warming, that will

carry the heaviest burden of population growth on the

planet, and that will be responsible for accelerating the

growth of a global economy to which the rich cannot

contribute much more than they already generate. We

do not yet know how the leading role we have been

given will play out. Our success or failure will depend

on whether we have the courage to take on at least

15 09-52425

three fundamental challenges: the strengthening of our

democracies, the encouragement of human development

for our peoples through the reduction of military

spending and cross-border arms trafficking, and the

creation of a new international order for the transfer of

aid, information and technology to combat climate

change.

Developing nations, and middle-income nations

in particular, live simultaneously in the medieval and

postmodern eras. In our race to emulate the

experiences of developed countries, we have skipped

past fundamental steps. There is no doubt that one of

these steps is the patient construction of democratic

institutions, on which developed countries have spent

centuries, while we, if we have been lucky, have spent

decades.

As a result, beyond superficial appearances, we

lack a true civic culture. We have democratic structures

that in many cases are no more than empty shells. We

have free elections, but lack the open social forum to

allow all citizens freely to make political or ideological

contribution. We have formal separation of powers, but

in many places power remains a single monopoly

disguised in multiple public entities. We have rule of

law, but the reach of the law is tested every day by

Governments incapable of applying it, when not

determined actually to weaken it. We have political

constitutions and international treaties that reaffirm our

belief in democratic values, but populations still prone

to toss those values aside for material gain.

Paraphrasing the great Argentinean writer Jorge

Luis Borges, we can say that most inhabitants of

developing countries do not identify with the State,

which seems to them an abstract concept, removed

from their immediate concerns. That is why they allow

a Government to end before its constitutional period

has elapsed or to continue in power beyond that period.

That is why they expect the Government to offer social

welfare and public services, but do not recognize the

reciprocal obligations of citizens.

That is why they prefer caudillos to political

parties, messianic leaders to democratic institutions.

That is why they boycott the approval of new taxes in

countries whose tax burden is half or even a third of

that of developed countries. That is why they so easily

fall for a discourse that blames national problems on

others instead of assuming responsibility for designing

mechanisms that confront them. And this is the best-

case scenario, because in the worst there is no

democracy at all.

As long as we continue on this path, placing our

hopes in developing nations will be like pouring water

into a sack. As long as we fail to dedicate more

international attention, and more international aid, to

strengthening and perfecting democracies in this world,

we will watch again and again as our countries try to

take off on a slippery runway.

This challenge is even more urgent in the face of

an arms race that, year by year, moves $1.3 trillion

globally. The combination of strong armies and weak

democracies has proved harmful in every corner of the

planet, and above all in Latin America, which, during

the second half of the twentieth century was a

showcase of dictatorial horrors, fuelled by the

existence of an omnipresent military apparatus. I will

never tire of repeating it: in Latin America, and in a

substantial portion of the developing world, armies

have served no purpose other than to carry out coups

d’état. They have not protected the people; they have

oppressed them. They have not safeguarded liberties;

they have trampled on them. They have not guaranteed

respect for the will of the people; they have mocked it.

What is the threat to our nations? What, for

example, is the great enemy of Latin America that

compels it to waste $165 million a day on weapons and

soldiers? I assure the Assembly that such threats are far

less significant than that posed by the mosquito that

carries malaria, for instance. They are less significant

than the threat posed by the lack of opportunity that

pushes our young people into crime. They are less

significant than the threat posed by the drug cartels and

street gangs that survive thanks to an unrestricted

market for small arms and light weapons.

And so what we have to do is order our priorities.

Costa Rica was the first country to abolish its army and

declare peace on the world. Thanks to that visionary

decision, thanks to the liberating army of Commander

José Figueres, who renounced arms forever, we have

the opportunity today to invest our resources in things

that matter. And while we know that not every nation is

ready to take such a radical step, we believe that a

gradual and progressive reduction in military spending

is not only a good strategy for allocating resources, but

also a moral imperative for developing nations.

For this reason I ask the Assembly once more to

make the Costa Rica Consensus a reality. This

09-52425 16

initiative would create mechanisms for forgiving

foreign debt and using international financial resources

to support those poor and middle-income developing

countries that are investing more in environmental

protection, education, health, housing and sustainable

development for their people and less in arms and

soldiers. And I also ask the Assembly to approve an

arms trade treaty, which is known to this Organization,

and which seeks to prohibit the transfer of arms to

States, groups or individuals when sufficient reason

exists to believe that those arms will be used to

undermine human rights or international law. I assure

members that these two initiatives will make us safer,

and certainly more developed, than the costly

machinery of death that currently consumes our

budgets.

What is more, spending on arms deprives us not

only of economic resources. Above all, it deprives us

of human resources. At this moment, the greatest

arsenal of genius in the world is working on refining

the weaponry and defence systems of a few nations.

That is not where this genius should be. Its place is in

the laboratories where medicines are being created that

will be accessible to all humankind. Its place is in the

classrooms where the leaders of tomorrow are being

formed. Its place is in the Governments that need help

in protecting their harvests, their cities and their

populations from the effects of global warming.

We have included sustainable development in the

Costa Rica Consensus because we believe there is a

connection between arms and the protection of the

environment. This is, first, because arms and wars

generate more environmental devastation and pollution

than any productive activity; and secondly, because the

very existence of military spending constitutes, in and

of itself, a negation of resources available to combat

global warming. Every armoured helicopter, every

tank, every nuclear submarine represents, in practice,

forests that are not protected, technologies that are not

becoming less costly and adaptations that are not being

made.

Only a few weeks remain before the Climate

Change Conference in Copenhagen, where every

country will have to undertake commitments much

greater than today’s. My small nation, Costa Rica, will

attend the conference with its head held high, because

unilaterally, and at great sacrifice, we have set

ourselves goals that are ever more challenging. We

have launched an initiative called Peace with Nature,

through which we propose, among other things, to

become a carbon-neutral country by the year 2021.

This is possible, in large part, thanks to the nearly four

decades we have spent protecting our land, replanting

our forests and safeguarding our natural species — and

also because, at the same time that we abolished our

army, we created pioneering institutions devoted to the

search for renewable energy sources. Today, more than

95 per cent of our electricity comes from water or

wind, from the depths of the Earth or the rays of the

sun.

Infinite challenges remain, for Costa Rica as for

any other middle-income country. The world’s rich

nations, which developed in the most unsustainable

way possible, cannot now place limits that choke the

development expectations of every other country.

Efforts must be directed instead at forming a global

platform that allows us to transfer international aid,

information and technology efficiently from one nation

to another; a platform that will only make sense if the

member States of the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development increase their official

development aid, which today stands at $120 billion

per year. When it comes to mitigating and adapting

ourselves to global warming the world must share, not

compete.

These three challenges — strengthening

democracies, reducing military spending and

cooperating to confront climate change — perhaps

constitute the most ambitious agenda humanity has

ever had to take on. Neither I, nor my Government, nor

Costa Rica, will ignore this historic call; for we simply

cannot fail. We cannot falter. We cannot turn back

when we are standing at the vanguard of 6.8 billion

human beings.

Like Adam and Eve, we are still living in a

heavenly Paradise minutes before being expelled due

to our own arrogance. Our sense of responsibility, our

humility and our courage will determine whether we

waste our opportunity on Earth and squander the

miracle of life that has brought us heartbreak and pain

yet has also allowed us to know happiness. The

greatest of the Costa Rican poets, Jorge Debravo, said

that hope is as strong as bone and more powerful than

imagination or memory. May that still-present hope

give us the strength to embark on the last journey of an

unsustainable civilization and the first of a civilization

that will survive and outlast us all.