Honduras, 2006

I

feel very honoured to be the emissary of the Honduran

people, who send to all at this General Assembly

brotherly, warm and effusive greetings on the occasion

of the sixty-first session of the Assembly.

We come here today before the representatives of

the nations of the world to merge the larger part of our

dreams and hopes in order, together, to achieve the

greatest goals for world peace. Our high aspirations,

along with the worthiness of the members of the

Assembly, are part of humanity’s common purpose of

attaining international law and justice.

But we also have to recognize that there are

things that are difficult to understand in an

environment that is supposed to be conducive to peace

and development: the contrast we see among different

latitudes of the Earth; the immense needs of peoples;

the contrast of poverty; drums of war that resound

everywhere; nuclear threats; cruel situations for nations

and peoples.

Rather than narrowing, social divides have grown

wider in recent decades. Morality is not being

combined with economy or science. Morality is

moving away from the principles and values of a just

and true God. That is why our presence in this

important Assembly is needed to focus clearly on the

fact that humanity needs to seek its objectives

according to healthy principles that will dignify our

peoples.

When the last half of the twentieth century came

to an end, we sincerely believed that we had put an end

to political, ideological and religious tyrannies. But

today we see them cropping up again, together with the

tyrannies of trade, which are often more cruel than the

others. Today, they want to sell us a free-market policy,

but ultimately that is a ruthless, insensitive economic

policy that is protectionist for many sectors. Instead of

opening the door to a social approach to the market,

where freedom is for people, we only have freedom for

investment, and we forget about individuals and

citizens and the rights of women and children, the most

vulnerable groups who, although lacking in power,

yearn for a better life.

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Certainly, we need to have protection, but not just

protection for investments and big capital. We also

need protection for the vulnerable of the world: for

children and young people, for farmers who sow their

small plots; for those businesspeople who cannot get a

foothold on the ladder of international trade; for the

owners of microenterprises who are reaching out in

search for the well-being and dignity they deserve.

All of us, of course, want a free market, but an

ethical one. We want to live in a globalized world —

but one in which respect for identity, patriotism and the

dignity and sovereignty of peoples are also global. So

we are here to denounce hypocrisy, double-talk and

moral double standards on the part of those who

proclaim and promote a solution to our problems

through democracy and free trade, but who seize and

hold hostage the concepts of internal and external

spaces and promote a system of privileges, oligopolies

and monopolies, half-truths and flawed markets that

they hold captive. They are insensitive to the demands

of the majority, very often tortured by hunger,

unemployment, indifference and exclusion.

We have come to this Assembly to wish everyone

the best, but also to point the finger at those who

preach false free trade that only deepens poverty and

seek to seduce us with the erratic mirage of remittances

that we so easily accept but which in fact are the fruit

of a labour force that we have exported; the result of

the cruel fate of our emigrants; the inexorable and evil

tragedy of people caught between freedom,

marginalization and slavery.

My Government and the people of Honduras

condemn the monopolistic controls, the privileges and

the absurd exceptions that prevent us from building

true freedom with democracy and market access, the

paradigm that we all want to move towards without the

protectionism we all condemn.

The Governments of the world must be led by

men and women who long for peace and not by

multinational corporations that promote war. Here,

civil society organizations could play a major role in

correcting this situation and denouncing it.

I represent Honduras, a country of the Isthmus of

Central America, and, like our Central American

brothers and sisters, we continue to face the

innumerable paradoxes that arise between civilization

and barbarism. We have been the historical theatre of

absurd wars, ambitions and sterile battles, very often

exported, and the horrors of death and pillage. Yet the

peoples of Central America are in the vanguard of

those looking for joint solutions. We have the creative

capacity that keeps us from losing faith or hope in a

better world.

America has been inspired throughout history by

great men and women of renown. Here in North

America, Lincoln was a splendid guide for democracy.

In the South, it was Sucre, San Martín and Bolívar;

José Martí in the Caribbean; Villa and Zapata in

Mexico. And in Central America, we have Jerez, Mora,

Valle, Darío, Turcios, Omar Torrijos and the pro-union

martyr Francisco Morazán, among others. The Chilean

poet, Pablo Neruda, Nobel laureate for literature, said

it well:

“Deep in the night Morazán is watchful.

Is it today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? You know the

answer,

Central ribbon, slender America,

...

Raised up on emerald sea-feathers:

Territory, unity, slim goddess

Born in the water-foam battle.

They destroy your sons, and worms

Spread their pestilence over you.

...

Now comes the axe-brandishing tiger.

They come to devour your entrails.

They come, fragrant little America,

To nail you to the cross, to flay you,

To cast down the metal blazoned on your banner.

Invaders fill your dwelling-place

And toss you aside like lifeless fruit,

...

And others plunder your ports ...

Is it today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? You know the

answer.

Brothers, awaken. And Morazán is watchful.”

We, the Central American peoples, stand tall,

ready to take the opportunities offered by development

and genuine free trade, seeking our common destiny,

seeking it today — which is not the end of history, but

the beginning of a new era for humanity, if we shoulder

our responsibility and commitment. We have not lost

our desire for liberty or our longing for hope. We

continue to fight for food security, for energy

independence, for the social morality that we all

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deserve and for an economy that is at the service of

markets, yes, but also at the service of people. We form

a common front against poverty and against the

corruption which today is invading our culture at many

levels. Unless we overcome this, we cannot win

genuine sovereignty.

Central America opens itself to the world so that

the world can open itself to Central America. We are

prepared for investment in tourism and in various areas

of our economy and society. We are ready in Central

America — El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa

Rica, Panama, Belize and now the Dominican

Republic. We represent this central waistband of

America, this bridge of trade and markets — a bridge

to a free world, a better world.

Time limitations prevent me from addressing all

the other important topics. Allow me to conclude this

brief statement by expressing wishes for true peace and

opportunity for everyone, in the conviction that the

peoples of the world can exist only when in the heart of

man there is fear of the wisdom of God.

Let us all say yes to the loving God, to that God

that considers man a brother to man and not an enemy

of man — to that God of non-violence. That is the God

we hymn and glorify, and we in Central America and

Honduras join together in a song of hope:

“Is it today? Yesterday? Tomorrow? You know

the answer.

Brothers, awaken. And Morazán is watchful.”