Guatemala, 2005

As a founding Member of the United

Nations, Guatemala would like to reaffirm, before the

General Assembly, its faith in and commitment to

human rights and fundamental freedoms, the sovereign

equality of States and participatory, transparent and

democratic multilateralism. The United Nations

continues to be the best tool available to humanity in

its endeavour to accomplish that goal.

The goals that the Charter signatories set for

themselves six decades ago have lost none of their

validity. Indeed, the attainment of those goals remains

a major challenge for humanity. The goal of

maintaining international peace and security presents

new challenges. Its relationship with sustainable

development and the fight against poverty serves as a

paradigm in that regard. We are confronting new

threats that make it harder to ensure good governance

and undermine democracy, such as trafficking in

persons, weapons and drugs, as well as terrorism.

Small and vulnerable countries, such as mine, are

particularly affected by those problems.

We have been trying together to cope with such

new challenges for some time, but only recently have

we been able to reflect on them and reach a number of

agreements that we trust will enable us to reform the

Organization with a view to address these challenges,

as a whole, more efficiently and with renewed

ambition.

We support the appeal made by Secretary-General

at the beginning of the general debate for an

“accountability pact” to ensure that the Secretariat and

Governments are effectively held to account and

monitored.

Guatemala will continue to participate actively in

efforts to set up the Peacebuilding Commission. Our

own national experience will enable us to contribute

actively to those efforts.

We will also contribute to the effort to achieve

the speedy conclusion of a comprehensive convention

against international terrorism and to the

implementation of an integral strategy aimed at the

suppression of that scourge.

We attach equal importance to the creation of a

standing Human Rights Council, the composition of

which is to be agreed upon during this session, with a

view to properly focusing, depoliticizing and making

26

more effective the discharge of our responsibility to

ensure the full observance of human rights. We

resolutely support the strengthening of the Office of

the United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights, which should be provided with the resources

necessary for it to carry out its work effectively.

Similarly, we have no hesitation in supporting the

responsibility to protect.

We consider it essential to make decisive

progress in the areas of disarmament and nuclear non-

proliferation by means of initiatives such as that put

forward by Norway, Australia, Chile, Indonesia, the

United Kingdom, Romania and South Africa, which

Guatemala supports.

As regards the principal organs, we support the

strengthening and revitalization of the General

Assembly, whose task is to provide political guidance

in connection with the work of the Organization. We

must restore to the Economic and Social Council its

leading role in the area of sustainable development,

and continue to enhance its cooperation with the

Security Council.

We urge the broadest support by Member States

for the reform of the Security Council. It is essential

that that reform effort be comprehensive and that it

include a review of the Council's methods of work and

of the procedures by which decisions are taken, the

purpose being to strengthen the Council and to make it

more legitimate, ensuring that it reflects present-day

realities and represents developing countries. We are

sympathetic to the aspirations of Brazil, Germany,

India and Japan to become permanent members of the

Council, as well as to the call for additional

representation for Africa.

When addressing the Assembly one year ago,

Oscar Berger Perdomo, the President of Guatemala,

sought to express the feelings of our country at that

crucial time in its history. I am pleased on this occasion

to share with the Assembly some of the advances we

have made since then.

Not only were the Peace Agreements integrated

into the Government plan, but the framework law on

those Agreements was enacted. Social dialogue has

been pursued in all areas of Government action. A 43

per cent reduction in the strength of the army was

achieved, and there was progress in modernizing and

professionalizing it. In line with this, the Guatemalan

army has increased its participation in United Nations

peacekeeping operations and is now in Haiti and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Public expenditure is concentrated in the social

area and in infrastructure, for which 60 per cent of the

2006 national budget is earmarked. A secretariat for

food and nutritional security has been created, while a

State policy in those matters has been drawn up, with a

participatory and sustainable focus. Significant

activities are being carried out at the national level and

jointly with other Central American countries to

combat common crime and transnational organized crime.

A programme for economic and social reactivation

continues to be implemented with enthusiasm, a

cadastral law was recently enacted and a competition

policy, adopted by consensus with the participation of

civil society, will be presented next week.

The fight against poverty and social exclusion

continues to occupy a central position in all the

activities of the Government and is carried out in a

manner that fully respects the ethnic, cultural and

linguistic diversity of the country. Recently, we

established a national policy for indigenous peoples,

which was presented by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate

and Ambassador for the Guatemalan Peace

Agreements, Rigoberta Menchu.

Appropriate legal proceedings continue to be

taken against persons guilty of acts of corruption. Full

transparency continues to be ensured in the area of

Government procurement.

Our commitment to the full observance of human

rights is being maintained at the national level. Inter-

agency activities are being carried out under the

recently adopted national human rights programme.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights has established an office in Guatemala, the

functions of which are to provide advice to the

Government, State entities and civil society in order to

strengthen the promotion and protection of human

rights in our nation.

Nevertheless, the advances made are increasingly

being compromised by an inordinate increase in the

price of fossil fuels, which has an extremely negative

effect on countries whose open economies, like that of

Guatemala, are net importers of oil. Our oil bill is

absorbing an increasing percentage of the foreign

exchange generated by exports of goods and services.

At the same time, we have had to cope with

considerable increases in the cost of transportation and

27

of electricity, with their multiplier effect on productive

sectors and the price of basic consumer goods. The

effects of all this at the level of the economy as a

whole and at the macroeconomic level threaten to slow

down the expansion of our economy. For our part, we

are doing all we can to conserve energy and develop

alternatives to hydrocarbons. We appeal to the

international community to cooperate with us in

mitigating the impact of this situation.

Guatemala is taking actions to strengthen

democracy at the national level by consolidating a

regime that is democratic, participatory and inclusive.

Our commitment to democracy in the world is

unshakeable. That is why we are participating actively

in forums that seek to promote and defend those rights,

and we also support the Democracy Fund.

My country’s foreign policy has as its main

objectives achieving better inclusion of Guatemala in

the world, strengthening multilateralism and regional

integration. We have strengthened our ties with

countries and groups of countries with which we have

relations and are united by institutionalized

mechanisms of cooperation; moreover, we have

established new strategic associations with countries

and groups of countries in South America, the

Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

Considerable advances have been made this year

in regional integration. Progress has been made in the

joint assessment carried out with the European Union

to launch negotiations in 2006 for an association and

free trade agreement between both regions.

The Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) with

the United States, which includes the Central American

countries and the Dominican Republic, offers great

opportunities to our country for the generation of

employment, increased investment and legal certainty.

However, as we enter CAFTA-DR, the credit rating and

export promotion agencies of the developed countries

have assigned us a risk rating less favourable than what

we consider it should be. Along with other

consequences, that situation unfairly increases the cost

of credit for us. Guatemala has one of the best debt-

servicing records in Latin America, one of the world’s

best external debt indicators, well-established working

relations with all multilateral agencies, sustained

economic growth for more than 15 years, a stable

currency, a single-digit rate of inflation and a high

level of monetary reserves.

Strategically, Guatemala has advanced in the

negotiation of trade agreements with Colombia, the

Republic of China in Taiwan, the Russian Federation,

Belize, MERCOSUR, CARICOM, the Andean Group,

Chile, Canada, Egypt and Israel.

Another fundamental pillar of Guatemala's

foreign policy is caring for the needs of Guatemalan

migrants. The Government endeavours to solve their

problems and to ensure that their human rights are

respected, taking actions for that purpose at the

national and international levels. We appeal to

recipient nations, particularly the United States, to

facilitate the regulation of the status of Guatemalan

migrants in their countries. For those reasons, we

continue to cooperate at the international level with all

efforts aimed at resolving the problems that migrants

face. We welcome the recognition contained in the

2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1) on the

link between international migration and development.

Guatemala will continue to take the necessary

steps to put an end to poverty in the country and to

attain sustainable development. Prioritization of public

expenditure at the national level is not sufficient for the

magnitude of the actions we are setting out to

accomplish. We consider it imperative to ensure the

success of the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the

World Trade Organization (WTO). By definition, the

Doha Round should place development at the heart of

its negotiations, and we trust that, when we meet in

Hong Kong in December, we shall take decisions that

by and large are consistent with the aspirations of

developing countries. We need to have a level playing

field in trade and agricultural commodities, and we

need wider access to the markets of the most dynamic

economies in the world for our goods and services, as

well as to expand and diversify our product base.

We welcome the offer made by President Bush in

this Hall to speed up the elimination of all tariffs and

subsidies that distort free trade in the world. We urge

donor countries, development agencies and the

international financial system to increase their

financial and technical cooperation with medium and

low-income countries, with a moderate debt level, one

of which is my country, Guatemala.

I wish to stress in particular our concern for the

situation of the 23 million inhabitants of the Republic

of China in Taiwan, whose aspirations for

representation in international organizations remain

28

unfulfilled. Guatemala, which is committed to the

maintenance of international peace and security as well

as to the peaceful settlement of disputes, appeals to the

countries bordering the Taiwan Strait to refrain from

any threat or use of force and urges them to resolve

their differences through dialogue.

We also express our hope that the difficult

situation in the Middle East will have a satisfactory

outcome, in conformity with Security Council resolutions

242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002) and 1402 (2002).

We are heartened in that regard by the efforts and

progress made in the Middle East peace process, and

particularly by the dialogue begun between the parties,

the implementation of the road map, and the

implementation of the disengagement plan.

One cannot avoid recalling here, during this

anniversary of our Organization, the millions of

persons who perished during the Second World War

and the Holocaust as a result of the power of

totalitarianism. Our presence here also recalls us to the

struggle to recover democracy, freedom and the dignity

of the human being.

Hope was born from the liberation of men,

women, boys and girls from the concentration camps,

the end of the war and the adoption of the Charter in

San Francisco. We cannot disappoint those hopes or

return to the past. The United Nations must deliver on

its promises and continue to offer humanity an

opportunity.