Honduras, 2011

For

Honduras, it is a source of great satisfaction to

participate in this important session of the General

Assembly. On behalf of the Honduran people, I should

like at the outset to express our great pleasure at the

re-appointment of Mr. Ban Ki-moon for another term

as Secretary-General. I also wish to convey to the

President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth

session, Mr. Joseph Deiss, my greatest respect for the

contribution he made to this global forum through the

fruitful work achieved under his leadership. We also

congratulate Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser upon his

election as President of the General Assembly.

I congratulate the State of South Sudan on having

become the newest Member of the United Nations.

It is also timely to reaffirm my decisive

commitment as a leader to this Organization, which

represents the best forum for addressing and resolving

the problems facing the world in the quest for the

common welfare of humankind based on the principles

enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. I

reaffirm our commitment to the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights, and in particular to the principle that

we are all free and equal in dignity and rights. This

concept includes peoples and nations alike. Over and

above geopolitical interests, the self-determination of

peoples is inviolable and inalienable. All peoples have

the right to their own territory, cultural identity and

traditions.

In this context, my Government has recognized

Palestine as a State and endorses its legitimate

aspiration to become a full member in the concert of

nations. Full security for the State of Israel and full

international recognition for Palestine are essential

conditions for a comprehensive negotiated two-State

solution providing for strong and lasting peace through

mutual understanding. If we want peace, we must

recall that peace is based on respect not only for human

rights, but also for the rights of peoples and nations.

With regard to my country, Honduras, I must say

that the political crises it suffered and the coup d’état

of 28 June 2009 led to a deterioration in the human

rights situation. Overcoming it is one of our highest

priorities. Since I took office in January 2010, my task

has been to build unity and reconciliation among the

Honduran people through peacebuilding founded on

social justice. That process of reconciliation and

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democracy-building in our country has enjoyed the

constructive support of the international community as

a whole.

I take this opportunity to express my particular

thanks for the mediation efforts of Presidents Juan

Manuel Santos Calderón of Colombia and Hugo

Chávez Frías of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,

which led to the signing of the Cartagena Agreement,

which in turn facilitated the return of Honduras to the

Organization of American States.

We have demonstrated by our actions that there is

no State policy to violate human rights in Honduras; on

the contrary, we work every day to promote a culture

of respect for human rights based on ongoing dialogue

with all sectors of society, with special attention to

those sectors that have generally been deprived of the

right to participate. We are building a participatory

democracy, derived from the principle that all social

groups have the full and legitimate right to take part in

our history.

We have a secretariat for justice and human rights

to advise on relevant policies. With the participation of

civil society organizations, the secretariat is

enthusiastically working on developing our country’s

first public human rights policy and a national action

plan on human rights. It is also following the

recommendations made by the Human Rights Council

to Honduras during the Universal Periodic Review. In

line with those aspirations, in July our Truth and

Reconciliation Commission — having worked in

absolute legitimacy and transparency — completed its

fully independent mandate and presented the people of

Honduras with its report and recommendations so as to

ensure that such things never happen again and to

foment reconciliation within the Honduran family. We

are taking the necessary steps to implement those

recommendations.

At the same time, faced with the global crisis that

resulted from serious problems in developed

economies, we have met with trade unions,

entrepreneurs, workers, farmers, civil society and

political parties to reach an overall national agreement

that will enable us to face the challenges that the crisis

created in our country. Our Honduran response has

been to propose a social pact to establish conditions

propitious for economic growth, employment,

appropriate remuneration and productivity. The

national plan for the next 28 years is under way. We are

empowering our citizens. The optimum Government

we can shape is comprised of a people who themselves

want to develop within a framework of equitable

economic growth.

Alongside that overall national agreement, all

sectors and stakeholders in the field of education are

reaching agreement on wide-reaching educational

reform in Honduras to propel a dynamic education

administration guaranteeing equal opportunity for all,

especially those who have the least.

In the social sphere, we have a family assistance

programme with conditional monetary benefits. More

than 400,000 families have received such payments,

and by 2013 we hope to reach 600,000 families,

representing 50 per cent of families in Honduras. The

condition is that children go to school and that parents

attend child-nutrition programmes.

In September 2010, along with President Johnson

Toribiong of Palau, we called upon heads of State of

United Nations Member States to save sharks, stop the

traffic in shark fins and put an end to global

overfishing of the species. I repeat that plea with the

same passion today.

Although our country does not contribute much

to greenhouse gas emissions, we have signed many

international treaties and conventions that aim to

guarantee the planet’s security and climate for its

inhabitants in the context of the clean development

mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol. Beyond those

important conventions, today we will sign the

Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent

Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and

Pesticides in International Trade.

Honduras reiterates its strong approval of all

measures to protect and conserve natural resources and

the environment, based on the principles agreed upon

20 years ago. We ask the States Member of the United

Nations to renew those past commitments and to draw

up national policies so that we can build our capacities

and establish mechanisms that respond to the needs of

the population.

Although it is not enough in itself, my

Government has made significant progress in

promoting the just historical claims, rights and profile

of indigenous peoples and people of African descent.

In accordance with the Durban Declaration and Plan of

Action, we have adopted public policies to work

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towards those commitments. Among them I would

mention our ratification of the International

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial

Discrimination, the institution of an African Heritage

Month in Honduras, and the creation and inauguration

of a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples and People of

African Descent.

I note that the United Nations, through General

Assembly resolution 64/169, proclaimed 2011 the

International Year for People of African Descent. In

that context, civil society members of African descent,

in cooperation with the Organization for Ethnic

Community Development convened and celebrated the

First World Summit of People of African Descent in

August, amply supported by my Government, other

Governments, international partners and United

Nations system bodies. One of my Government’s

aspirations is to complete our constitutional reform to

define Honduras as a multi-ethnic, multicultural

country.

My Government joins its voice to those of

millions of people of African descent in calling for the

United Nations to institute a decade for people of

African descent beginning in 2012, create a

development fund for people of African descent, and

establish a permanent forum for peoples of African

descent within the United Nations.

Before concluding, I would like to raise an issue

that is one of the greatest and most important

challenges that our region faces: citizen insecurity. The

most recent analysis carried out by the United Nations

Office on Drugs and Crime, the United Nations

Development Programme and the World Bank show

that Central America has become the region in the

world with the highest levels of violence and organized

crime. Their economic impact has escalated in the past

decade to reach, in the case of Honduras, a level close

to 10 per cent of our gross domestic product.

Violence and transnational organized crime,

primarily evident in the commission of crimes such as

drug trafficking, kidnapping, murder, money and asset

laundering, people trafficking, arms trafficking, the

commercial sexual exploitation of women and minors,

among other crimes, are a serious threat to our

possibilities to create well-being. Without security,

there is no economic growth or development.

The evidence shows that many of those crimes,

from the organized crime and lack of security to which

they give rise and that prevail in our societies, have

their roots in the use and trafficking of drugs. Owing to

their very nature and to the sums of money involved,

they have a serious impact on our societies and add to

the erosion of our system of values. They steal our

young people, destroy conviviality and community life

and create parallel economic systems that are true

enclaves of crime, violence and degradation.

Today, the countries of the region invest huge

amounts of money in combating the production and

trafficking of drugs. However, practically the only

instances in which the production and trafficking of

drugs significantly drop in a region occur as a result of

a change in routes or production being in other areas.

Given that demand in developing countries has not

decreased, the strategy that we follow in the region

today, in the best case scenario, has only a partial and

limited impact on the trafficking, transport and use of

drugs.

For that reason, we note that, first of all, a pilot

project that we have put to the United Nations should

be launched to strengthen the capacity for the

investigation and trial of organized crime in Honduras.

Secondly, we need to gather together all the strategies

that were discussed at the International Conference in

Support of the Central America Security Strategy on

22 and 23 June in Guatemala. We should also point out,

and it must be reaffirmed, that consumer countries

must act bravely and resolutely in order to reduce or

eliminate the use of and the trade in drugs because we

must realize that without that, it will be very difficult

for our societies to end the scourge. We must succeed

in aligning our strategies so as to end the drug scourge

and organized crime.

I would like to end by expressing my best wishes

for this sixty-sixth session to meet the expectations of

all Member States, which, I am sure, are founded on

the principle of the sovereign equality of States.