Honduras, 2010

On behalf of the people and Government of Honduras,

I wish to recognize Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki for his

leadership during the previous session. I also

congratulate President Joseph Deiss on his election to

the Assembly presidency and the Secretary-General,

Ban Ki-moon, on his wise leadership of our

Organization.

In this same house of the peoples of the United

Nations, at the world summit on the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs), our President, Porfirio

Lobo Sosa, highlighted the faith that our country has in

this Organization and in its Charter for achieving a

world that is more peaceful, prosperous and fair (see

A/65/PV.3). As a founding Member of the United

Nations and a peace-loving country, we reaffirm our

obligations. As we have been working, ceaselessly and

together with many other Member States, since the

birth of the Organization, we will continue to work to

fully realize the ideals enshrined in the San Francisco

Charter.

Honduras — which is geographically small but

great of spirit and generous in its democratic and

peaceful vocation — has involved itself in the world,

basing itself on the principles of equal rights, self-

determination for peoples and non-interference in

internal affairs.

The imperative of promoting economic and social

progress for all nations moves us to acknowledge that

the MDGs have been a first step in the right direction.

We agree with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the

Millennium Goals are not easy, but they are achievable.

However, the struggle against poverty requires

additional efforts that recognize the fact that we have a

collective responsibility to protect and share what the

President of Honduras has called global common

goods, including solidarity.

Another global good should be the prudent

management of our economies. The financial crises

have proven that that responsibility does not fall just to

the developing countries. It is so important that,

according to the World Bank, the recent crises in food,

fuel and finances have sunk an additional 64 million

human beings into poverty. Such crises can make our

efforts to fight poverty more difficult or even

impossible.

The opening of trade and of financial systems is

another global good. Access to international markets is

as important as official development assistance itself,

although it does not replace it. We must add efforts to

enable foreign direct investment in our developing

nations; access to technology, in particular technology

having to do with medications; the reduction of

greenhouse gases; and the non-proliferation of nuclear

weapons.

The challenge of achieving the Millennium

Development Goals before 2015 in a manner as

responsible as possible lies with our Government.

Given the results already achieved and what remains to

be done, President Lobo Sosa has launched an appeal

to start talks as soon as possible on a new global

agreement that will guide our actions and goals after

2015.

We firmly believe that poverty is not only the

shortage of material goods, but also the lack of

opportunities. That is why we are committed to respect

for human dignity, the common good, support and

human solidarity. Those four principles are not just a

moral imperative; in the case of Honduras, they are a

national imperative.

In that regard, with broad consultation with civil

society, the political parties and other independent

sectors, we adopted a country vision and national plan

that sets out four focal points for achieving our

national goals, inspired by the Millennium

Development Goals: a Honduras without poverty,

educated and healthy, with robust social welfare

systems; a Honduras that is developing in democracy,

with security and without violence, with absolute

respect for human rights; a productive Honduras that

generates opportunities and decent jobs, that

sustainably exploits its resources and that reduces

environmental vulnerability; and a modern,

transparent, responsible, efficient and competitive

State, with fully independent branches of government.

The cohesion of our society, unity, reconciliation,

governance, coexistence and peace all depend on

achieving that. That is why we are engaged in building

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an inclusive society, since no country is so poor that it

cannot show solidarity with those that are even poorer.

Our first commitment is to helping people in

extreme poverty through the “Bono 10,000”

programme. Bono 10,000 is a credit programme that

will greatly strengthen family economics and,

furthermore, is conditional on steps to improve the

access of the most vulnerable Hondurans to education,

health care and nutrition through the broad

dissemination of the School Snack scheme and other

food security programmes.

We are strengthening the decentralization

processes and improving citizen participation in the

making, implementation, monitoring and assessment of

public policies. We are also addressing social

inequality by creating economic opportunities at the

local level.

Productive programmes, such as the United States

Millennium Challenge Corporation in Honduras, have

had a huge impact on the recipients, resulting in a very

significant increase in the income of the farmers

participating in the programme. With the same aim of

generating greater income for families, we have

launched a programme to finance microbusinesses and

small enterprises, thanks to the cooperation

programmes of the European Union, Japan and Taiwan,

as well as all those countries that are extending the

hand of solidarity to our people.

In all those programmes, women are a particular

target of our Government’s efforts because we know

that, along with the fight against poverty, we must

combat gender inequality.

While we work at the local and community

levels, we are also promoting private investment. The

purpose is to create decent jobs for more than 200,000

young people who join the labour market annually. The

Government of Honduras bases the successful

implementation of its social agenda on a social market

economy.

With those premises in mind, our Government

has drawn up a national programme to promote

investment for the period 2010 to 2014 in six main

sectors: industries generating more and better jobs,

agro-food and forestry production, clean generation of

energy, tourism development, infrastructure to support

manufacturing, and water and sanitation. We will

develop those programmes within the new framework

of the law on public-private partnerships, the law on

rural and marginal urban employment, a new law on

clean energy and the law on promoting and protecting

investments.

With such efforts, a new era is opening in

Honduras with the creation of conditions so that

private business can boost sustained economic growth

with social responsibility and the country is guided

towards prosperity and stability.

Honduras is ready to better address the challenges

of reducing its vulnerability to natural disasters and

climate change. The law on land management makes it

possible to utilize and protect the land properly, with

responsible management of the natural resources. At

the same time, we have launched a national risk

management system.

Efforts to improve the social situation and to

boost economic growth must be based on a legal and

institutional foundation. There is a strong link between

individual freedom and political stability with

economic growth and social justice. Higher rates of

economic growth that are sustainable over time also

help to create the social conditions for governance,

confidence and smaller political threats.

For 30 years, we Hondurans have strived to

develop our democratic institutions. The international

community has supported us throughout that process.

At the end of the third decade of our democracy, we

had an institutional system that had ceased to be the

monopoly of the executive branch and that shared

power more evenly among the judicial, legislative and

executive organs.

Despite that progress, we underwent a political

crisis, from which we emerged when the Honduran

people turned out in huge numbers on 29 November

2009 to vote in the election with the greatest turnout

and transparency in our electoral history. We

Hondurans exercised our popular sovereignty and our

right to self-determination. We sent an unequivocal

message: we love democracy and our institutions, and

we prefer dialogue to conflict. That is our message,

which has been understood and respected by the great

majority of the nations represented here. We wish it to

be acknowledged by all Governments in the world.

In that spirit, President Porfirio Lobo Sosa

endorsed a broad amnesty for political crimes and

formed a Government of national unity, with the

59 10-54965

participation of all the country’s political parties.

Furthermore, the President decreed the creation of the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission — a totally

independent body that will ensure that the critical

events of 2009 will never happen again. The work of

the Commission is already under way, and its report is

expected during the first quarter of next year. Its

conclusions will be broadly disseminated and its

recommendations will be implemented.

We are convinced that national reconciliation and

unity are based on respect for all sectors of society

irrespective of political or ideological position.

Tolerance is and must be the foundation of democracy.

We are also convinced that the human rights

and fundamental freedoms of citizens must be

respected without restriction. The President of the

Honduras has proposed to the National Congress the

creation a Secretary of State for Justice to promote and

take charge of designing, implementing, supervising

and evaluating all public policies and ensuring that

they are based squarely on human rights principles.

Inspired by our respect for human dignity, our

Government condemns all forms of racial

discrimination and enthusiastically welcomes the

forthcoming launch of the International Year for People

of African Descent. To implement our commitment

against racial discrimination, Honduras is creating an

entity for the development of indigenous peoples and

Afro-Honduran people and a policy of racial equality.

In the context of those commitments any person

deprived of liberty must be treated with the respect

inherent in his human dignity. To that end, the

President approved an executive decree aimed at

reducing overcrowding in the penal institutions

through renovation of their infrastructure and

equipment.

Along that same line, the Government of

Honduras has energetically condemned and continues

to condemn human rights violations, especially

violation of the right to life. We are firmly committed

to the fight against impunity and will continue to make

every possible effort to bring to justice those who

violate that essential right of the human person.

We are thankful for the cooperation we have

received so far in overcoming difficulties in

guaranteeing security for our citizens. President Lobo

Sosa has also asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to

have the United Nations consider support for setting up

a commission to fight impunity, in order to support

national institutions and strengthen their capacities as

they carry out their tasks in investigating and

prosecuting crime. At the same time, we reiterate our

Government’s invitation to the agencies that make up

the United Nations human rights system to follow up

on the situation in Honduras.

I wish to convey the ongoing appreciation of

Hondurans to the United Nations system and its

Secretary-General for all the cooperation and

assistance given our country. We thank all of those who

have firmly supported Honduras, because that has

benefited our people directly.

I want to highlight the solidarity and friendship

that exist among the brothers of the Central American

region. Within the Central American Integration

System we will continue to go forward until our

common homeland becomes one great nation, beyond

the limits of the historic Central America.

Our Government is aware of the difficulties and

challenges of the moment in history in which we are

living, and we are taking decisions based on that

awareness. Today I can state with conviction that we

are moving along the path to prosperity, because I

believe in the determination of the people of Honduras,

their ability to deal with adversity, their hard work,

their strength of heart and their sprit and hope. We

have an unbreakable will; we have the human capital.

The time has come to reaffirm our commitment

and to act in favour of the poorest members of society.

The time has come to act in solidarity and with

determination so that all human beings may be

protected from discrimination and need. It is time to

create a world with tolerance, with harmony and with

freedom and security for all. The time to globalize

social justice with freedom and democracy is now.