El Salvador, 2012

I

bring cordial greetings to the authorities of the United

Nations and to all the Heads of State and representatives

here with us. This session of the General Assembly,

which will address the theme of the settlement of

disputes by peaceful means, offers us an opportunity

to reflect on the course of the history of our countries

and humankind, and to showcase the issues that the

world’s peoples need to solve. The peaceful settlement

of conflicts is an essential part of how we strengthen

our democratic institutions and the rule of law in a

world that has not yet consolidated peace.

For various reasons that we need not go into,

we are witnessing violations of the principle of

non-interference — through various mechanisms

that are not necessarily military — of our countries’

constitutions and our own international treaties, as well

as various manifestations of intolerance, xenophobia

and other attitudes that provoke violence and foment

conflict. Hard as it is to believe, we still see political

parties, leaders, intellectuals and representatives of the

media who continue to see global realities through Cold

War eyes, as if the last half-century had not produced

enormous changes in the international political map.

Such outdated positions hinder the progress of our

peoples and nations in strengthening and broadening

their democratic borders. My country, El Salvador, is a

clear example of such contradictions, finding itself as

it does stuck between a process that is strengthening

the rule of law and the persistence of conservative

forces that still entertain the fantasy of communism.

I bring these thoughts to this forum because I

believe that El Salvador’s young democracy is a good

example of how to settle disputes through dialogue. It

is also a good example of structures that are mired in

backwardness, privilege and the Manichaean view that

belongs to the Cold War. As is well known, El Salvador

endured a long armed conflict that lasted 12 years and

cost more than 80,000 lives. Our emergence from

that conflict has been a model of the effectiveness of

dialogue and negotiation for my country and the entire

world.

We took a giant step forward as a nation

20 years ago when, on 16 January 1992, we signed the Chapultepec, Mexico, peace accords that brought the

armed conflict to a definitive end. The United Nations

itself acted as mediator; the then Secretary-General,

Mr. Javier Pérez de Cuellar, in consultation with the

Security Council, appointed the Peruvian diplomat

Álvaro de Soto as mediator. I would like, if I may, to

pay tribute to Mr. De Soto’s work, as it is an example of

how even exceedingly difficult disputes can be settled

through dialogue. In that regard, he proved to be a true

architect of peace. We can say that, beginning in 1992,

Salvadorans launched a new process that has gradually

consolidated our democracy and created modern

institutions.

Three years ago El Salvador passed another

milestone signaling a step forward in the strengthening

of our democracy. After 20 years of Governments led by

the same political forces, we witnessed a political change

that brought in the current Government to administer the

State. This was not simply a change of political party; it

opened the way to a movement of renewal that has been

expressed in various issues of enormous importance

for the rule of law and for reinforcing the work of

our democratic institutions. The long-term control of

our country’s Government by a single political party

for two decades gave absolute power to a small group

over the organs of State — executive, legislative and

judicial — and over other institutions such as the Court

of Accounts, the Office of the Prosecutor General and

the Public Ministry, among others.

As change and the break with absolute control

took place, they began to permit genuine independence

in the branches of Government, which in turn began

to lead to the genuine f lowering of democracy that

the people had demanded. Those changes, far from

changing the rules of the game, effectively guaranteed

judicial certainty and eliminated the privileges that

had protected Governments in the past. On behalf

of the State, the Government asked for forgiveness

for the crimes committed by State agents during the

armed conflict, and has undertaken and continues to

undertake concrete efforts to make moral and material

reparations to the victims of barbaric atrocities and

their families. This was a debt to the Salvadoran people

and the international community that had not been

settled by previous Governments.

Not long ago, our country experienced an

institutional crisis whose nature and scope were

very different from those of the armed conflict, but

nonetheless put Salvadoran democracy to the test.

I am referring to the recent crisis that arose between

the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court of

Justice and the Legislative Assembly in my country. At

no time did the crisis cause political instability; rather,

it brought two State bodies in conflict and, in that

respect, it was an example of the independence of those

two branches of Government in our country today.

The conflict, arising from different and conflicting

interpretations of the Republic’s Constitution, lasted

almost five months. It was a protracted crisis that

generated opposing positions within our country, and

the lack of agreement between the parties drove the

Legislative Assembly to call for a settlement through

the Central American Court of Justice. The conflict and

that decision of the parliamentary majority set off strong

reactions from groups on either side. Unfortunately,

it was also exploited by foreign groups, including by

campaigning United States senators who blew the

conflict out of proportion without understanding it

fully.

Therefore, with no agreement to resolve the crisis,

the President of the Republic offered to mediate and

facilitate the dialogue. After 17 long days of meetings

with representatives of the different political camps in

the Legislative Assembly, the longed-for agreement was

finally reached. In the end, that agreement led to the

appointment of a new President of the Supreme Court

of Justice and the normalization of the administration

of justice in our country.

I wished to share with the Assembly this brief

sketch of events in order to underscore that once again

El Salvador was able to find a felicitous solution to an

institutional crisis through dialogue and as the fruit of

negotiation. In short, it was a new triumph of the young

and ever-stronger Salvadoran democracy. Of course,

many challenges lie ahead, such as that of promoting

a process of constitutional reform that will lead to an

unequivocal interpretation of our Magna Carta so that

we do not once again suffer conflicts such as the one

we saw recently. We also must move to update State

institutions in the light of what we have learned over

the past two decades.

El Salvador resolved on its own an institutional

conflict that in other eras would have led to coups

d’état and breaches of constitutional order with serious

human, economic, political and social consequences for

countries that suffered such situations. We found the

solution through dialogue, which is a fine example of

the theme for this session of the General Assembly. At the same time, we are aware that the strengthening of

democratic processes — which, happily, is the one-way

road on which Latin America is now travelling — should

bring profound changes in the economic and social

structures of our countries, which must clearly be based

on the rule of law.

The fact that there are people who are marginalized

and excluded from the progress and goods that only a

small portion of humankind is able to enjoy remains

an open wound that we cannot and should not continue

to tolerate. We live from crisis to crisis, ever more

frequent and ever deeper, which lead to a system and

models based essentially on the accumulation of wealth

in the hands of a tiny minority, leaving large majorities

in poverty and backwardness. The phenomenon of

migration, which we once addressed in this forum, is

the child of that planet-wide inequality and an striking

ref lection of the need to change and change quickly.

Latin America has taken important steps in that

direction. We are leaving behind a perverse model that

had impoverished our people and turned our region into

the most unfair of the planet — not the poorest, but

the most unfair. Today, we are aware that no model is

successful if it leaves out vast majorities. With all the

people involved we can achieve much, but without the

people we can achieve nothing. That is the road that we

have begun to travel in our region. Without a doubt, it

will be a difficult and long road, full of progress and

setbacks, but in the end, and I stress this, it is the only

road that will allow for certain success.

The unfair distribution of wealth and goods, the

constant aggression against the environment, and the

lack of global control over financial f lows that leads

to recurring crises — which are always paid for by the

people and never by those who are responsible — are

realities that do not arise from any ideology. The problem

is not one of ideology. These are realities that we must

change in order to establish a climate of peace and

security in which we see the domestic changes that give

our peoples better living conditions and access to the

material and cultural goods that produce progress in

our global society.

I do not wish to conclude without first alluding to

a topic that we have also addressed in this forum and

that is a source of ongoing concern for the international

community. I am referring to civic security and the

fight against organized crime and all forms of violence.

El Salvador is today the focus of the region, multilateral

organizations and the countries that historically have close ties to my country. That is due to a phenomenon

that we have been experiencing for more than half

a year and that has brought a significant drop in

violence and crime. El Salvador was the second most

violent country on the American continent until a few

months ago. We had 15 murders per day on average,

as a result of violence, crime and infighting among

criminal organizations, in particular among gangs. By

September, the average had fallen to 3.8 murders per

day. We have seen drops in other crime rates that, while

less significant, are still steady and substantial.

For the past three years, El Salvador has been

undertaking a policy of civic security that has been

bearing fruit. Recently, a truce signed between rival

gangs, with the Catholic church as intermediary and

facilitated by the Government, contributed decidedly to

that crime reduction process. However, let me also say

that if violence and organized crime are to disappear

in our countries, we must modify the conditions for

millions of young people who live without hope and

without opportunity. These are tasks that are incumbent

upon the Governments and societies of each of our

countries.

However, there is more. As we have said on other

occasions, without the strong and decided support of the

drug-consuming countries, and without an unequivocal

commitment from those large markets, we cannot wage

this good fight successfully. Central America, together

with Mexico and Colombia, have agreed upon joint

policies to wage that battle. We need the support of

the Government and people of the United States in that

battle. It is essential.

El Salvador has launched a massive campaign to

raise awareness and mobilize our people against gender

violence in the understanding that violence against

women is violence against all of society. If gender-based

violence is a problem throughout all of our societies,

it is one that we should address and that is even more

pressing in societies where there is a strong tradition of

tolerance of violence and chauvinism against women.

Governments bear the biggest responsibility, but

societies should also show solidarity and commit to

those efforts. We are certain that the differences that

divide us within our countries can be overcome only

through dialogue. That is the manner in which we must

resolve conflicts. Dialogue, consensus and agreement

are the guidelines for the road maps that will lead to

societies that are more fair and prosperous.

I should therefore like to conclude my remarks

by sending along a warm greeting to the people and

Government of Colombia for their efforts to attain a

definitive peace in their country. For several decades,

our sister Republic of Colombia has suffered an armed

conflict that has limited its possiblities and clearly

hindered its economic growth and the well-being of its

people. For that reason, the dialogue and negotiation that

have been launched by President Juan Manuel Santos

Calderón deserve the full support of the international

community, and in particular of the Latin American

countries. We congratulate the Colombian people and

wish them the greatest success on the road that they

have taken towards peace and national concord.

Along the same lines, we hail the process of

economic reforms undertaken by the sister Republic

of Cuba, which is bringing about a transformation

that is worthy of our support and encouragement. We

therefore reiterate the call we made last year in this

Hall. The blockade against Cuba must be lifted. It is

an anachronism from a past that has been overcome in

our America.

Peace, unity and change are essential values when

it comes to working for the happiness of our peoples.