Nicaragua, 2014

We are proud to have our African brother, Sam Kutesa,

Permanent Representative of the Republic of Uganda — a

member country of the African Union — presiding over

the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. We are

fully confident that during his tenure he will advocate

for and advance the most pressing issues of our peoples.

He can count on Nicaragua’s support.

We would also like to congratulate the President

of the General Assembly at the previous session, a

brother from the Community of Latin American and

Caribbean States, Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua

and Barbuda, and his entire team for their dedicated

leadership and unstinting effort to realize an agenda for

the benefit of our peoples.

We live in a world of many interconnected and

related crises that reveal the unjust and inequitable

development policies prevailing among various peoples

and nations. The existing unjust economic order,

resulting from imperialism and its contemporary

model — global capitalism — has failed to respond

to the growing and increasingly frequent crises. The

numbers of the world’s poor increase daily in both the

South and the North, in flagrant violation of the most

basic human rights. We must work together to overcome

and eradicate poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease,

war and conflict, regime change politics and coups,

violence against women and children, the arms race,

the negative impacts of climate change, and emerging

social and slavery plagues, including drug trafficking,

organized crime and human trafficking, among others,

as soon as possible.

Social justice, solidarity, unity, complementarity

among peoples, and brotherhood and respect among

nations must prevail. The eradication of poverty

remains the greatest challenge facing the world.

We will begin negotiations on the post-2015 agenda

with the central concern of not having achieved

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in all

developing countries. It is urgent to redouble efforts

and create an international environment conducive to

facilitating developing countries’ implementation of

the MDGs, including appropriate financing.

The post-2015 agenda will provide a new

opportunity to strive for a just world order. It should

promote sustained economic growth, inclusive and

participatory social development, environmental

protection and human dignity, with sufficient flexibility

to respond to the needs, priorities and specificities

of each country and region, conscious of the fact that

no single model or recipe for development exists. The

agenda should involve an intergovernmental, open and

transparent process, based on the results of the Open

Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals

and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development.

Developing countries suffer the most from the

adverse effects of climate change, whose extreme

meteorological phenomena are ever more frequent and

intense. Despite our economic limitations and prioritized

focus on poverty and sustainable development and with

no obligation under the Convention, we are assuming

the costs of the adaptation and mitigation efforts.

We must urgently achieve a binding agreement

in 2015, containing strong, ambitious and balanced

commitments on all its provisions and based on the

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change and its principles and provisions, particularly

equity and common but differentiated responsibilities,

in order to address the climate crisis and protect the

ecosystems that sustain life on our Mother Earth.

No country that is part of the international

community can claim the right to use or threaten the use

of force in its international relations. Such exceptionalist

policies not only do not resolve conflicts; rather, they

stir things up, as has been seen in recent years. Dialogue

and negotiation are the only means to resolve conflict.

Based on its Charter, the United Nations must assume

its role as the main organ responsible for ensuring

world peace and must reject war-mongering policies,

war and confrontation. Given the challenges we are

dealing with, thorough reform of the United Nations

is becoming increasingly imperative, and particularly

reform of the Security Council, which should recognize

contemporary realities by including the voices and

votes of developing countries in the categories of both

permanent and non-permanent members.

We consider it vital that we have a nuclear-

weapon-free world with total and complete disarmament.

We welcome the designation last year of 26 September

as the International Day for the Total Elimination

of Nuclear Weapons, initiated by the Non-Aligned

Movement at Cuba’s suggestion.

In the face of the growing Ebola epidemic, Cuba,

our sister in solidarity, has once again made its human

and scientific resources available to work alongside

our African brothers who are fighting the deadly

virus. Meanwhile, that same sister nation of Cuba

continues to resist the criminal economic and financial

embargo imposed on it by the United States. Nicaragua

emphasizes its unconditional solidarity with Cuba and

demands an end to a blockade that violates international

law and the human rights of the people of Cuba. We

demand the immediate and unconditional release of

the five anti-terrorist Cuban patriots. And we condemn

the role that the United States arrogates to itself in

putting countries on its unilateral and arbitrary list of

State sponsors of international terrorism, and demand

that Cuba be removed from the list. We condemn such

anachronistic United States policies, as well as the

intensification of the blockade and its extra-territorial

nature.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its

Bolivarian revolution continue to suffer from harassment,

interference and external aggression. Nicaragua offers

its unconditional support to Venezuela’s people and

Government, led by our comrade Nicolás Maduro

Moros, in their defence of their revolutionary liberation

process.

We must bring to an immediate end Israel’s illegal

occupation of Palestinian territory and prevent Israel

from continuing its aggression and brutal attacks

on the men, women and children of Palestine. The

Security Council should once and for all live up to its

obligations and demand that Israel end such practices

and policies in order to clear the way for a sovereign

and independent State of Palestine, based on its

pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,

and with two States, Palestine and Israel, living side

by side in peace. Nicaragua reiterates its absolute and

unconditional solidarity with the State of Palestine in

its fight for freedom and its inalienable rights.

We also stress our total solidarity with the

Government and the people of Syria in their fight

against international terrorism and in defence of their

sovereignty and territorial integrity. We emphasize the

importance of achieving a negotiated political solution

among Syrians and ending foreign intervention,

including the financing and supplying of weapons to

terrorist groups. When confronted by such conflicts,

rather than opting for dialogue and negotiation to

settle them, the NATO countries take unilateral

decisions, measures and action outside the United

Nations framework and in violation of international

law, including aerial bombardment in territories of

sovereign countries.

Nicaragua has frequently expressed its rejection

and condemnation of actions aimed at regime change,

which rupture constitutional order, lead to widespread

violence, encourage the use of force and open the door to

coups d’état that can overthrow legitimate Governments

elected by the will of the people. That is the kind of

policy that we have witnessed in Ukraine; it has led

to loss of life and the displacement of populations,

and created a humanitarian crisis with unpredictable

consequences. Because we want peace and believe in

the prevention and resolution of conflicts by peaceful

and inclusive means, we reject such policies, as well

as the imposition of unilateral measures and economic

sanctions that violate international law.

Nicaragua recognizes the cooperation of China on

Taiwan with developing countries, particularly in the

area of food and social inclusion programmes, and we

reiterate our support for the legitimate aspirations of

China on Taiwan for greater participation in the United

Nations specialized agencies, one that accords with the

requirements and needs of its population of 23 million.

We reiterate our full support for the legitimate

rights of the Republic of Argentina in the dispute

over the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands, the

South Sandwich Islands and the adjacent islands. The

United Kingdom should comply immediately with the

relevant United Nations resolutions and initiate direct

negotiations with Argentina. Similarly, we support and

consider ourselves part of Argentina’s fight against

vulture funds.

Puerto Rico continues to labour under the colonial

yoke and now more than ever needs our solidarity and

active support in its struggle for independence and

self-determination. The United States should free the

world’s longest-imprisoned political captive, the Puerto

Rican patriot Oscar López Rivera. We also commend

and remain in solidarity with the struggle of the people

of Western Sahara under the leadership of the Frente

Polisario.

Nicaragua, a small country whose policies are

based on Christian values, socialist principles and the

practice of solidarity, works proactively in our complex

global environment, through various international and

regional forums, to promote policies of peace, unity and

understanding among nations, political and negotiated

solutions to conflicts and the right of our peoples to

achieve sustainable development and well-being.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our

America, of which Nicaragua is a member, has been

a factor in improving unity, complementarity and

economic integration in our region. In turn, it promotes

other forums such as Petrocaribe, which groups together

20 countries of our region and has had an immediate

and concrete positive impact on the well-being of our

peoples as one way of overcoming poverty, hunger and

inequality. On 14 December, we will celebrate the tenth

anniversary of its founding, resulting from the unifying

vision of the Latin American and Caribbean leaders

Hugo Chávez Frias and Fidel Castro Ruz.

These steps towards regional integration have

borne fruit with the creation of the Community of Latin

American and Caribbean States, through which we

continue to deepen our process of political, economic,

social and cultural integration, respecting diversity and

building unity. We have declared our region a zone of

peace. Within the framework of the Central American

Integration System, we are strengthening integration in

all fields and working together to fight the scourges of

drug trafficking and organized crime and to turn the

Gulf of Fonseca into a zone of peace and development.

Our Government of Reconciliation and National

Unity, under the visionary leadership of our President,

Commander Daniel Ortega Saavedra, continues to work

to restore the political, economic, social and cultural

rights of all Nicaraguans. Nicaragua has become the

leading country in the region in terms of public safety.

Our fight against drug trafficking, organized crime

and human trafficking has been recognized as the most

vigorous and effective in the region. Our economic

growth is consistent and rising and is among the highest

of our region. We are reducing poverty and extreme

poverty, attaining the Millennium Development Goals

and empowering women through political and economic

participation. Indeed, we rank very highly in the world

in terms of female ministers, parliamentarians and

mayors.

We combat violence against women and girls head

on, with strict laws and social programmes targeting

both groups, and with police stations for women in all

municipalities of the country. Education and health care

are prioritized and are provided free for all Nicaraguans,

and early childhood care programmes and maternity

homes can be found throughout the country.

In our Caribbean autonomous regions, in addition

to the restitution of the rights of indigenous peoples

and people of African descent, the autonomy process

is growing in strength every day, with the recent

completion of the land ownership process in the

indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. All

these efforts of our people and Government, together

with our policies of inclusion and social justice, won

immediate recognition and support from our people,

who have taken ownership of them, and they have been

held up as examples of good practice by all the agencies,

projects and programmes of the United Nations system.

In conclusion, we note that the work of the General

Assembly at the present session and in the coming

years will be crucial for developing countries and the

rest of the world. Let us unite from this very moment

to achieve the urgent and necessary changes needed to

attain a better world and better lives for our peoples.