Guatemala, 2012

At the

outset, allow me to greet Mr. Vuk Jeremić, President of

the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session. At

the same time, I would like to express my appreciation

to Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser for his stewardship

during the previous session.

I have the honour to represent Guatemala for

the first time before this highest organ of the United

Nations. Guatemala, and my Government in particular,

will always support any initiative that furthers the

noble objectives and principles of the United Nations,

summarized in the words “peace”, “development” and

“human rights”.

My country is committed to the peaceful settlement

of conflicts, which is the central theme of our debate.

In that spirit, in late 2008 we agreed to sign a special

agreement with our neighbour, Belize, seeking a

resolution of a long-standing territorial dispute through

the International Court of Justice. Our Congress

unanimously approved the agreement, and on October

6, 2013, simultaneous plebiscites will be held in both

countries to democratically ratify our commitment to

resorting to the International Court of Justice.

Furthermore, we Guatemalans lived through an

armed conflict that lasted 36 years. I was a soldier who

participated in that conflict. And because I know war, I

highly value dialogue. That is why in 1996 I was one of

the signatories of the peace accords in my country. That

motivates me to reaffirm my support for the President’s

wise decision to convene this session to discuss the

peaceful settlement of conflicts.

My Government has set three overarching objectives

in order to advance firmly and sustainably towards a

Guatemala that fully enjoys the benefits of peace. First,

we have proposed the Hambre Zero initiative, which

seeks to reduce the chronic malnutrition that affects

over 40 per cent of our children below five years of age.

That reduction will be sustainable only if we are able to

better develop our rural areas in order to permanently

reduce the poverty of families living off the land,

particularly indigenous families.

Secondly, my Government is promoting a pact

for security, justice and peace, which seeks to reduce

the social violence that afflicts our country. In taking

office, I found a country with high levels of violence;

as a result, reducing those levels has become a priority of my Government. We are certain that we can attain

progress in that area, since the indicators over the past

nine months alone already show a notable decrease of

13 per cent in the number of homicides compared to the

same period last year. I can therefore state that, without

being satisfied with those indices, we are nonetheless

moving in the right direction in fulfilling our promise

of reducing the levels of violence and increasing

security in Guatemala in an environment of full respect

for human rights. In this endeavour, we work closely

with neighbouring countries, and especially with our

Central American brothers.

Thirdly, we are campaigning on the economic

front through the Fiscal and Competitiveness Pact.

Fiscal affairs have been one of the weaknesses of our

institutional arrangement, and for this reason, during

the very first days of my Government we successfully

promoted a fiscal reform, approved by Congress, that

increased our fiscal receipts by 15 per cent, allowing

us to maintain a stable macroeconomic environment

by reducing the fiscal deficit without having to reduce

public expenditures. At the same time, fiscal stability

is allowing us to stimulate private investments that

generate employment opportunities; that is, dependable

jobs, as demanded by our citizens.

Unfortunately, our efforts in relation to the three

challenges previously mentioned — lowering chronic

malnutrition among children, reducing violence, and

promoting employment — are nullified in part by the

scourge of drug trafficking. At least 40 per cent of the

homicides in our country are linked to the illicit drug

traffic, and my Government is obligated to allocate

scarce fiscal resources to combat transnational gangs

that operate between the producing countries in the

South and the consuming countries in the North.

Moreover, my country has gradually been transformed

into a producer and a consumer of drugs, thereby

compounding an already difficult situation.

The existing framework, born out of the

international conventions adopted during the past

five decades and currently in force, has not achieved

the desired results. The consumption markets expand

instead of decreasing; the number of producer countries

and the type of drugs available tend to multiply; and the

routes chosen for marketing and trafficking are trending

towards diversification. The drug problem is growing in

size and complexity. It involves an increasing number

of countries and persons. Clearly, it is a transnational

phenomenon, and it is for that reason that I raise it in

this universal forum.

It seems that the basic premise of our war against

drugs has serious shortcomings since, unfortunately, it

has not been possible to eradicate drug consumption. I

believe that the time has come to accept this fact and to

adapt our fight against the scourge in such a way as to

take into account the new realities.

Our youth, the group most affected by drug

consumption, demands more effective responses from

us. Let us realize that the problem is more a public

health issue than a matter for criminal justice and

deal with it accordingly. We must offer treatment,

prevention, social protection, economic opportunities

and development for the communities involved in the

drug market. Let us not fill our jails with thousands of

young people, who would have a different kind of life

if we were to approach the problem in a different way. I

invite the Member States assembled here to jointly seek

avenues that will enable us to offer our young people a

more promising future, improving their opportunities

for a better life and at the same time reducing violence

and poverty.

Fifty years provides sufficient time for us to

evaluate results, to gauge what we have achieved and to

conclude why we do not have the results we had hoped

for. In that regard, I also call on Member States to review

the international regulations that currently govern our

global policies regarding drugs. The Single Convention

on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, as amended by the 1972

Protocol, the Convention on Psychotropic Substances

of 1971 and the United Nations Convention against

Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic

Substances of 1988 must be evaluated on the basis of its

results and brought up to date to allow us to achieve the

desired outcomes. That is a serious challenge that must

be addressed in all earnestness so that we can have a

respectful and frank multilateral dialogue, informed by

clear scientific evidence regarding the best strategies

available to ensure that our young people are protected

from the scourge of drugs.

In that regard, last April the Heads of State and

Government of the Western Hemisphere met for the

Summit of the Americas in Cartagena de Indias. Our

host, Mr. Santos Calderón, President of Colombia,

invited us to discuss new avenues to combat drug

trafficking. The agreement reached was that we should

undertake studies to assess new alternatives, which we would discuss next year, in June, at a meeting of the

Organization of American States in Guatemala. That

is a step in the right direction and one that we believe

should be emulated at the global level.

In the same spirit, Guatemala would like to propose

the establishment of a group of countries that are well

disposed to reforming global policies on drugs. The

group would bring together Governments that are

interested in promoting in appropriate international

forums an objective and rigorous assessment of

prevailing policies and inconsidering new, creative

and innovative alternatives. We must seek such new

avenues responsibly and tenaciously, and I am sure that

with the cooperation of all producing, consuming and

transit countries, we will succeed.

Allow me to stress that it is not a matter of

abandoning the fight against the scourge of drugs.

Rather, it is a matter of arming ourselves better and

responding with greater effectiveness and clarity,

because our children and grandchildren deserve a more

integrated and effective response from the international

community.

I would like to conclude my thoughts by reaffirming

that Guatemala will not renege on any international

commitments to which it is party. We have no desire

for unilateral action, which would only sow chaos and

conflict when the response should be a global one. We

will wait patiently to change our policies in Guatemala

until the international community moves forward

and arrives at a new consensus. At the same time,

however, I commit my leadership to moving forward

on evaluating the global policy on drugs, so as to make

it more effective and based on current international

standards that reflect the challenges and realities of the

twenty-first century.

Before concluding, I would like to brief ly raise three

points that I believe to be important to this meeting of

the General Assembly. First, as a demonstration of our

commitment to defending and promoting human rights

on all fronts, on 14 January I said that Guatemala would

seek to ratify the Rome Statute of the International

Criminal Court and thus become a party to the Statute.

I am pleased to report that, on 2 April, we deposited our

instrument of ratification.

Secondly, in that same speech, I indicated that

we would make it a priority of our foreign policy to

contribute to the ideals of democracy, justice and peace,

within a framework of absolute respect for international law. In that regard, I indicated that Guatemala would

fulfil its duties on the Security Council responsibly and

in a constructive spirit. I believe that so far we have

kept that promise, and we are pleased that in six days

Guatemala will assume the presidency of the Council

for the month of October, and we will continue to act

responsibly.

Thirdly, regarding the events of recent weeks, we

reject all acts that defame religions. At the same time,

we condemn violence in any form, including assaults

on diplomatic missions. Such expressions of intolerance

offend us all.

Finally, I would like to recall that, on 21 December,

Guatemala will celebrate the beginning of a new era

according to the Mayan calendar. That era, 13 Baktun,

marks the start of a very positive new age that will

enable and invite us to renew physical and spiritual

energies in an atmosphere of peace, cooperation and

dialogue. All heads of State and Government are invited

to join us in Tikal National Park to share in the dawn of

this new era. The Mayans of yesterday and today, and

all Guatemalans, await them with open arms.