Honduras, 1997

At the outset, I would like

to extend to you, Sir, my sincere congratulations on your

election to the presidency of this session of the General

Assembly. Your election is well-deserved recognition of

your great personal qualities and a tribute to Ukraine. We

wish you success in the exercise of your duties.

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My delegation would also like to extend its

appreciation to the Permanent Representative of Malaysia

to the United Nations, Mr. Razali Ismail, for his excellent

work during the previous session of the General Assembly.

We also extend our sincere thanks to Mr. Kofi Annan,

who in carrying out his mission as the Secretary-General of

our Organization has demonstrated a remarkable spirit of

hard work and commitment during a particularly difficult

time for the United Nations in the maintenance of

international peace and in the complex task of restructuring

and strengthening of this institution.

The most noticeable feature of the world as the end of

the century approaches is the generalized spread of

democracy. Almost all the nations of the world share this

way of life, thereby giving the end of the century a

character which has no parallel in past centuries. We are

finally living in an era of democracy after a long night of

dictatorship and totalitarianism in various parts of the globe.

But this universalization of democracy goes hand in hand

with something which — for lack of a better name — we

might call the malaise of democracy. Dissatisfaction can be

heard everywhere; this political system is being called into

question in the name of development and prosperity.

Democracy with extreme poverty is not the model we seek.

Representative government is a political gain of the

modern age, but it is only the halfway point on the road to

full human development. It must be accompanied by other

elements which are essential to a life of dignity: wellbeing,

justice, involvement and a full understanding of the human

being as both the root and the fruit of all our efforts.

If there is one thing which we will have to do in the

future, particularly in forums such as the General

Assembly, it is to find formulas that can provide for a

workable relationship between democracy and development,

between prosperity and equity, and between growing wealth

and disappearing poverty.

The United Nations faces challenges and expectations

with regard to this serious matter of the viability of

democracy. There is perhaps today no more important task.

If freedom, the essence of this political system, is

disparaged in the name of growth without values, then the

loss of generations sacrificed on the battlefields in this

tortured century will lose all meaning. That danger does

exist, and those of us who know from our own painful

experience the crimes that can be committed in the name of

progress have a duty to alert everyone to it.

In recent years, five successive Governments have

come to power legitimately in Honduras through free

elections. This is unprecedented in our history and it

allows us to say that we are indeed practising democracy,

which is a lesson we never finish learning. Our

experience shows once again that free elections, while

being the basis of Governments, are not in themselves

sufficient to consolidate the system or to guarantee the

complete satisfaction of the people.

Since 1994 we have been trying to involve our

people more in major national decisions and we have

been trying to pay more attention to their needs through

an open dialogue. This is part of our belief that it is

essential to move forward from formal democracy to real

democracy, if we want it to be more than a constitutional

expression and become part of the living culture of our

people.

Democratic culture as a way of life requires constant

vigilance to bolster its credibility and to legitimize its

existence every day. This is why in our part of Central

America, Honduras, we have regarded it as essential to

back up this form of government with an ongoing

reaffirmation of its ethical values and a resolute campaign

against all forms of corruption, which is one of the worst

and most vexatious enemies of democracy.

In late November this year, Honduras will hold

another election to change its Government. I am pleased

to be able to report to the international community that

this process will be free and transparent and that once

again the people will decide the Government for the next

four-year term.

Economic indicators provided by national and

international institutions agree that at the end of our

mandate there has been a significant improvement in the

Honduran economy. We are pleased to be able to hand

over to the new authorities a country that is in better

shape than it was when we began our term. This could

well be the real meaning of democracy: constant

improvement in living conditions and moving from one

level to another through successive Governments — with

the free vote of the people being the final judge of what

is to be done.

The Honduran way of finding common ground in

order to reach agreement on the kind of country we want

has been to establish permanent interaction between the

governors and the governed.

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These last four years of government have to a large

extent been an ongoing debate with civil society, the

healthy results of which confirm, on the one hand, the

advantages of participation and, on the other, the capacities

of Government. This is what democracy teaches us, its

most valuable lesson.

Much indeed remains to be done, but we are on the

right track. We have established solid juridical bases. We

have made tangible progress and are building a dynamic

State respectful of the law, dependable in justice and, above

all, conscious of the enormous needs of the Honduran

people and their inalienable right to be the principal focus

of development. The social expenditures of the Honduran

State in 1998 will account for over 30 per cent of our

national budget. This is a clear message to our people.

It is well known that Honduras is part of the great

Central American family. We were united in the colonial

period and we were united when we attained independence.

Separation and fragmentation have simply been a long

parenthesis, occasionally interrupted by fleeting attempts at

unity. What is important, however, is the will of our

countries, repeatedly expressed, to come together again and

their demonstrated desire for union, which has always

sought new forms of expression and can be wiped out

neither by the passage of time nor by setbacks of any kind.

From 1994 to today, two major events have marked

life in Central America. The Alliance for Sustainable

Development (ALIDES) was signed in 1994 and an

agreement was reached to initiate the gradual and

progressive establishment of the Central American union as

the higher expression of the community association laid

down in the 1991 Tegucigalpa Protocol, contained in the

Nicaragua Declaration of 2 September 1997.

The Alliance represents a radical change in the

integration agenda of Central America, a new concept of

development, making it integral to and indivisible from the

benefit of the human individual. Sustainable development,

as advocated by ALIDES, is a recognition that growth may

be pursued while protecting the future — we can grow

today without jeopardizing the development of generations

to come.

It is also an alliance with nature, a new relationship

and a revaluation of our resources. It seeks to avoid the

negative consequences of a short-term approach and to look

to the lasting prosperity of our peoples. Lastly, it exploits

our new competitive advantages: our situation as an

isthmus, our long coastlines, our inter-ocean facilities, our

magnificent biodiversity and the beauty of the Caribbean

region. We are committed to building ALIDES. It is

fitting to acknowledge that the originality of our approach

has been recognized at the world level and is being

endorsed by important entities.

The main content of the Nicaragua Declaration that

I have just mentioned is the agreement on Central

American union. While we have been working on

regional integration, the absence of a political lodestar has

wrought a lack of coherence at the regional level. We are

now resolved, however, to deal with this lodestar and this

political dimension in a gradual and progressive approach

that does not run roughshod over history. This will bring

us together and define us, giving substance to the vision

of Central America shared by the rest of the world.

Our decision is neither utopian nor romantic,

although we are such stuff as dreams are made on, as

Shakespeare says. We are not talking here of utopias or

romanticism. Our decision is simply an act of maturity, a

realistic recognition of the needs created by our internal

development and by external demands which, if we are to

survive with dignity, will require us to make enormous

efforts that, in our case, transcend our capabilities as

divided, individual States.

We have established a working committee to draft

the bases and principles for Central American union. By

the end of the year, we should have the relevant

documents. The process will culminate in the signing of

the formal commitment to political unity.

Those who are familiar with Central American

history and aware of our current efforts in the various

fields of integration know that Central American union is

not simply an act of faith; it is, rather, a work of

engineering, an enormous undertaking that, taking into

account the unique qualities of each of our States, is the

key to the exercise of joint sovereignty.

The peoples of the United Nations must be informed

of this important decision. That is why the five Central

American Presidents are here, in this highest world forum,

spreading the good news of this political decision.

Through the representatives here, we wish the world to

learn of this great decision and to accept our aspirations,

which are shared by other regions of the world. In this

context, my country reiterates its endorsement of the right

of the Republic of China to become a Member of the

United Nations family. We support the work of that great

nation, which is seeking ways to participate fully in this

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and in other international forums without any form of

exclusion or hegemony.

I wish now to refer to Honduras’s support for the

process of deep-rooted change in the United Nations, both

in its various fields of operation as well as in its internal

decision-making organs. The world in which the United

Nations was created was not what it is today and we must

therefore keep up with the times.

On the question of the Security Council, we would

repeat what was said at the forty-ninth session of the

General Assembly and reiterate our belief that a solution to

the question of the size of the Council’s membership cannot

be rushed. Moreover, my country endorses the statement on

the strengthening of the United Nations and Security

Council reform adopted at the eleventh Summit of the Rio

Group. This stated that the Latin American and Caribbean

region must be taken into account in any proposal relating

to an increase in the Security Council’s membership.

We are pleased at the mine-clearance work that has

been carried out with international support. In the case of

Honduras, this work is particularly important because of the

lives taken and mutilations caused by this inhumane

practice that is now receiving universal condemnation, a

condemnation that we firmly and decidedly support.

Finally, we would like to express once again how

pleased we are at the regional and world treatment of the

subject of corruption. As the world becomes aware of how

this scourge affects the development and peaceful existence

of peoples, we will finally make progress towards

vanquishing it in the various parts of the world.