Nicaragua, 1999

Please accept

our warmest congratulations, Sir, on your well-deserved

election to the presidency of the General Assembly. We

wish you every success, which we are convinced will be

forthcoming in your leadership and in the outcome of

these proceedings.

We also wish to convey heartfelt recognition to the

Foreign Minister of Uruguay, Mr. Didier Opertti, who so

brilliantly presided over the last session, a matter of

legitimate pride for Latin America.

I should also like to convey a message of warm

support and tribute to the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi

Annan, for the fruitful work that he has been pursuing

with commendable energy and great vision, to reform,

strengthen and invigorate the complex and sensitive

United Nations system within a comprehensive context

while looking towards a new century and a new

millennium that will require all kinds of revisions,

adjustments and adaptations.

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We share and support the initiatives that, among their

other objectives, are designed to make it easier for countries

that are relatively underdeveloped and engaged in the tasks

of economic and social development and combating poverty

to achieve the very difficult and painful transition to a new

globalized world with a market economy devoid of barriers,

where rapidly developing patterns are being imposed with

regard to competitiveness, advanced technology, models of

culture and consumption, social and computer

communications, sophisticated systems of financing and a

vast array of other tools and processes. All of this

highlights with stark reality the great differences and

imbalances that exist at the international level.

Those are the major challenges that we must confront

together, using political will, hard work, education, training,

the transfer of science and technology, investment,

openness, production, trade, superior skills and active

policies of participation to ensure that shared benefits will

flow out to profit all, fairly and equitably, at every layer of

the social fabric of our peoples.

It would be unfortunate and very dangerous if these

great opportunities offered by globalization were not

translated into positive, innovative and tangible changes to

effectively promote, in the shortest time possible, a

substantive improvement in standards of living, expectations

and opportunities for the vast majority, within the

framework of sustainable development.

On occasions, at certain stages in these transitional

processes, disturbances have occurred as a result of

troubling inequalities between various sectors and social

actors. Such differences exist and are growing both in

advanced countries and in developing countries, which are

in the majority.

We should anticipate, reverse, mitigate or, at least,

temper with realism and sensitivity such negative effects,

which owe their origins and characteristics to specific

circumstances and considerations that were assumed to be

temporary. A failure to take adequate measures could put

at risk budding democracies, which are precariously

building stability and the institutional structures of law and

governance.

In this primordial task, the participation of citizens and

of civil society, in its various forms, is vital. We must make

use of a constant, open and pluralist dialogue to facilitate

changes of course, reform and consensus, which will

contribute to the strengthening of democratic systems and

make it possible for people to live together in peace.

In this context, this year the two main political

forces in Nicaragua, which together won a little more

than 90 per cent of the vote in the most recent elections,

have produced an agenda that will be submitted to the

National Assembly for consideration, so that it can be

debated with complete transparency in the nation's

principal forum.

Furthermore, beginning in 1997, my country began

a difficult reorganization and structural adjustment

process, taking the decision to deal responsibly with the

high political and social costs of laying down the stable

foundations for dynamic national reconstruction and

transformation.

We must put behind us once and for all the painful

period in our history, which lasted more than a decade

and was characterized by destruction and violence in a

cycle of fratricidal confrontation and which, fortunately,

has now been overcome. That historical interval left us in

a very weakened state that was reflected in the

deterioration of all human development indicators, the

general collapse of economic activities and a gigantic

external debt whose unbearable and overwhelming weight

was borne on the impoverished shoulders of the long-

suffering people of Nicaragua.

This situation of extreme fragility made it necessary,

from the beginning of my Government, to formulate an

economic policy that would gain the support and

credibility of the international community and the

multilateral organizations. This led to an agreement with

the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new

enhanced structural adjustment facility (ESAF)

programme which, after its projected completion within

a period of three years, would have made it possible for

us to qualify for the concessionary plan of the Heavily

Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative.

While we were occupied with the many sacrifices

that we had to make during that tough process of healing,

reorganization and reconstruction, a little less than a year

ago we suffered the ill-timed and devastating effects of

Hurricane Mitch, which severely affected our efforts,

work and plans. However, generous international

cooperation mitigated to some extent the suffering, the

irreparable loss of thousands of lives of our compatriots

and the widespread destruction of basic infrastructures,

property, natural resources and the environment.

The damage inflicted by the tragedy also created

new challenges and opportunities, encouraging us to

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redouble our efforts and to seek the necessary unity, joining

together without distinction, in efforts to move forward. In

May this year, therefore, the Consultative Group for the

Reconstruction and Transformation of Central America,

convened initially by the Inter-American Development Bank

in Washington in December 1998 as a result of Hurricane

Mitch, met in Stockholm and offered Nicaragua phased

global support amounting to $2.5 billion for a period of

three to four years. This significant support will enable us

to give urgent attention to social programmes and

infrastructure projects, with priority being given to the

sensitive areas of health, education and housing, as well as

to plans for assistance to small producers and agricultural

workers affected by Hurricane Mitch.

The disciplined implementation of the ESAF

programme and the new set of circumstances ushered in by

the hurricane, led last week to an event that happily

coincided with the celebration of our national

independence — a resolution of the International Monetary

Fund by which it associated itself with the resolution

previously adopted by the World Bank, thereby opening the

door to Nicaragua for its inclusion in the HIPC initiative.

This extraordinary event, which will mean a substantial

pardoning of our external debt, was a historical watershed,

opening up a fresh chapter in our new independence, which

will transform the economic and social reality of our

people, making it possible for them to enter the new

century relieved of an unbearable burden inherited from the

past, with renewed vigour, great potential and realistic

optimism for a substantially improved quality of life for

Nicaraguans.

We should like to reiterate our eternal gratitude to the

international community and to the multilateral

organizations that have smoothed our path, enabling us to

march together, shoulder to shoulder, towards a promising

future.

Nicaragua appreciates the sustained efforts of the

United Nations system. Those efforts have been expanded

during this decade to incorporate the great challenges and

main issues confronting the country, including issues

concerning governance and local development, the

promotion of a healthy environment, the reduction of

extreme poverty, greater access by disadvantaged

populations to public services, the modernization of

democratic institutions, the promotion of population

policies, the process of demobilization of ex-combatants

and the search for solutions to property conflicts through

dialogue. Likewise, we acknowledge the special efforts

made by the United Nations with regard to strengthening

the administration of justice and the penal system, and to

the creation of the Inter-American Court of Human

Rights. It is also appropriate to emphasize its support for

the prevention of natural disasters through overcoming

socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities.

Working together with the United Nations, we have

gradually been fulfilling the commitments of the Earth

Summit of 1992 during my term of office in order to

create the National Council on Sustainable Development

(CONADES). We have also been making strides

concerning the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate

Change, as well as participating in the major projects of

the Meso-American Biological Corridor and the

Biological Corridor of the Atlantic.

At the same time, we have been making a consistent

effort in the demining of the border zone with Honduras,

where the last war left more than one 100 thousand anti-

personnel landmines in the ground. We thank the

international community, and especially the Organization

of American States and the United Nations, for the

significant resources they placed at our disposal to

undertake this delicate task.

As signatory to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, we

unreservedly support initiatives aimed at establishing an

international mechanism for the total elimination of

nuclear weapons. We are also conscious of the grave

menace to the security of our nations and to peace posed

by arms trafficking, including trafficking in small arms,

which cause the greatest suffering and loss of human life.

We join in the world crusade to combat poverty,

whether that poverty is generalized, focused or in diverse

strata of our societies. We are pleased that the last year of

this century has been designated the International Year of

Older Persons, who seem increasingly to suffer from

poverty and neglect. We likewise reaffirm our

commitment to ensure social protection, along with the

redoubling of efforts to make more effective both the

personal security of citizens and the security of their

property.

I would not want to end without inviting the

Assembly to reflect on the hopes of the 22 million

persons who, at the threshold of the twenty-first century,

continue to lack representation at the United Nations —

the Organization of universal vocation, where the most

important decisions having to do with international policy

are taken. The Republic of China — founded in 1912 and

which has been an independent sovereign nation that

7

maintains official diplomatic relations with Nicaragua and

the other republics of Central America and other

countries — continues, lamentably and unjustly, to be

unrepresented in the Organization. This prevents it from

participating in the work of the Organization and from

making its valuable contribution in the various areas of

international cooperation, despite the fact that it has

complied fully with the provisions of the Charter of the

United Nations, which was signed at San Francisco.

My Government has supported and will continue to

support, with firm and fraternal solidarity, the

unquestionable right of the Republic of China — whose

exercise of full sovereignty over Taiwan for half a century

is an unquestionable reality — to be incorporated as a full

member of the United Nations. We therefore call anew on

the international community not to deny that friendly,

progressive and exemplary people the right to be recognized

and allowed effective participation in this great forum,

thereby affording it the well deserved opportunity of

sharing with us its vocation for peace and its generous

spirit of international cooperation.