Argentina, 2006

I would

like to congratulate you, Ms. Al-Khalifa, on your

election as President of the General Assembly at this

session, since I believe it is very significant that a

woman has assumed that role, to promote gender

equality, which is a goal both of my Government and

of the United Nations.

On behalf of the Argentine Republic, we would

also like to congratulate the President of the General

Assembly at its sixtieth session, Mr. Jan Eliasson, for

the work he carried out, and to renew our recognition

of Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his role in action

promoting peace, multilateralism and the fight against

poverty.

We have come to the General Assembly in the

firm belief that the revitalization of this forum of

global representation is fundamental so that

international law can be the instrument of rationality

that will enable us to settle conflicts and combat the

threats to peace.

The international conduct of the Argentine

Republic is inspired by the values of representative

democracy, respect for fundamental human rights and

active defence of international peace and security.

Those principles, shared by the vast majority of the

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Argentine people, guide our administration and are the

basis of our foreign policy decisions.

In the field of human rights, in 2003, after more

than two decades of sustained democratic rule in

Argentina, we experienced a true paradigm shift. In

response to the mandates of the whole of society, the

three powers of the State adopted, within their

respective purviews, concurrent decisions against

impunity, preserving memory, truth and justice and

securing reparations.

The annulment by Congress of the laws that

accorded impunity for State-sponsored crimes of

terrorism, the ruling that those laws and pardons

granted by the courts in our country were

unconstitutional, and the reopening of over a thousand

court proceedings for crimes against humanity — some

of which have resulted in the conviction of those

responsible — constitute landmarks of that shift. It is

our conviction that democracy is strengthened with the

simultaneous fight against impunity and promotion of

full respect for the rule of law, without calling for

revenge.

With that experience, we have, since the

beginning of the reform of the United Nations system,

strongly supported incorporating human rights into the

hierarchy so as to raise the institutional level of their

treatment to that already given to development and to

the maintenance of international peace and security.

That determination led us to establish the Human

Rights Council, in whose creation Argentina

participated actively.

The first steps of that body have been positive,

having approved the text of the International

Convention for the Protection of All Persons from

Enforced Disappearance. That is an instrument of great

significance for our country, as it defines a crime

against humanity from which Argentina suffered

massively in the past, at a high cost to our society. We

have among us here today a representative of an

organization that was extremely involved with that

issue — one of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,

Mrs. Marta Vázquez, who is accompanying our

delegation. We hope the General Assembly will adopt

that very important instrument quickly, during this

session.

Five years after the attacks that shocked this city

and the world, we would like to firmly condemn the

serious threat of global terrorism. Argentina considers

all acts of terrorism against innocent civilians to be

criminal and unjustifiable, and accepts no argument to

justify such methods.

The Argentine people suffered two atrocious

attacks in the 1990s against the Embassy of Israel and

the headquarters of the Asociación Mutual Israelita

Argentina. We are still struggling, in spite of the time

that has elapsed, to fully clarify the facts and punish

the culprits. We believe that, in order to face this

criminal threat successfully, we must carry out a

sustained multilateral and legitimate response. Respect

for human rights, international humanitarian law and

refugee law is essential, as are international

cooperation and legal assistance to effectively enforce

the norms against terrorism.

If, in facing down global terrorism, we resort to a

global violation of human rights, the only winner in

this fight shall be terrorism. We will advance firmly in

the fight against terrorism only if we frame it within

respect for local laws and international norms and

conventions. No complication can be an excuse for not

combating terrorism within the law.

Peace is built and maintained by understanding

the true concept of solidarity among nations from a

wider perspective than the purely military or the

predominantly unilateral. Nations big and small, rich

and poor, will be markedly vulnerable if we fail to

grasp that the fight against terrorism demands

sustained multilateral, intelligent action firmly based in

legitimacy, respect for fundamental rights,

proportionality of response and the support of

international public opinion.

We would like to express our concern regarding

the hostilities on the border between Israel and

Lebanon, resulting in hundreds of casualties, severe

damage to the civilian infrastructure and hundreds of

thousands of displaced persons. The violence must

stop. We need to address the causes at the heart of the

crisis, avoid the disproportionate use of force, and

understand that only negotiated political solutions can

hold in the long term. Argentina will continue to

support a fair solution to the Middle East problems

within the framework of resolution 1701 (2006).

We must understand that the world will move

closer to peace only insofar as it promotes equality and

struggles to eradicate poverty and exclusion. That is

true both for the global system and for each country

nationally.

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Argentina supports the building of societies that

are fairer, more equitable and with a better distribution

of the benefits of economic growth. We also believe

that each country has the right to search for its own

development model with no external conditionalities.

We not only aspire to generate sustainable growth; we

also want it to reach everyone. There must be

harmonized growth that translates into a balanced

income distribution, because we know that what is

needed is not development for a mere few, but the

development of the whole country.

In the region and in the Common Market of the

South, we want an efficient instrument to address

poverty and exclusion; we want the common good to

prevail over sectarian interests and to overcome

stagnation and the technology gap; and we want to

define a sustainable and productive development model

that valorizes our competitive advantages and fosters

our vast wealth in human and material resources.

The economic situation of the Republic is very

different from what it was when our Administration

began. We are achieving true structural change. That

includes uninterrupted growth at rates of between 8

and 9 per cent; the growing participation of investment

in the gross domestic product; record local savings

rates; the resurrection of local industry; a fiscal surplus

at historic levels; a clear expansion of our industrial

sales to the world; the systematic decrease of local and

external public debt; the preventive accumulation of

reserves; lesser external exposure; a marked drop in

unemployment; a strengthening of the income of wage

earners and retirees; and a significant fall of poverty

and destitution levels.

With a prudent monetary policy, an orderly fiscal

policy, a fiscal and commercial surplus, and a

responsible management of indebtedness, we are

increasingly reducing the vulnerability and uncertainty

that characterized the Argentine economy in the past.

Decent work, social inclusion, national production,

internal consumption and sustained growth have

allowed us to fulfil the goals of the Millennium

Declaration, although there is still a long way to go to

recover from the hell into which we had fallen.

We seek the integral sustainability of that

process, not only in its macroeconomic aspects, but

also guaranteeing social equity and a fairer distribution

of income through the reduction of poverty and

unemployment.

In implementing a national education plan with a

strong federal emphasis that highlights the challenge of

improving the quality of education, ensures the

growing funding of the public sector, and interacts with

the private sector, we seek also to achieve its strategic

sustainability.

We cannot but point out that these achievements

have not been supported by the International Monetary

Fund, which has denied us any kind of aid, and, it must

be said, that they are in many cases the result of

ignoring or even contradicting its recommendations

and conditionalities. We have sufficient empirical proof

of the failure of international financial organizations in

the promotion of development in less developed

countries. In many cases, their conditionalities have

actually had the opposite effect, hindering

development.

The world has changed and those organizations

have not. They still insist on jeopardizing advancement

with their misguided interference. That is why we

support, together with most countries, the reform of the

international financial architecture to make it more

effectual in assisting the progress of nations with fewer

resources. In noting the reluctance of international

financial organizations to effect any real change in

their policies, we feel it necessary to endorse such

change and to consider the creation of new

international financial instruments that would allow us

to fund development projects to fight poverty and

hunger in the world and generate true options for

progress.

Argentina is distressed to note the stagnation in

the negotiations of the Doha Round for the

development of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

It is imperative, within the current globalization

process — from which developing countries must

profit — to reach a successful and balanced result fully

consistent with the mandate of the Doha Declaration.

Thus, we reaffirm the need to reach a satisfactory

result in agriculture in this WTO round, including a

substantial reduction in domestic subsidies, the

elimination of export subsidies and ample access to the

markets of developed countries.

We are increasingly concerned to see the

deterioration of the global environment. We affirm that

there can be no double standards. The environment

must be protected in developed and in developing

countries, in rich countries and in poor, in the countries

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of the North and of the South, in the central and in the

peripheral countries.

In developing their industries, the more

industrialized countries have profited from a true

environmental subsidy from the rest of the countries

which today compromise, in their relative

backwardness, a true world environmental reserve.

That is why we cannot accept that those countries that

have achieved greater development — often at the

expense of the degradation of the environment and by

producing a severe global effect evident in climate

change — should seek to transfer to us the more

contaminating part of their industrial processes.

There can be no reliable solutions without the

concerted action of all countries of the world, insofar

as the nature of the problem is of a global scale. It is

unacceptable for the claims of the developing States to

go unnoticed. It is imperative to take the path of

solutions.

Our countries wish to receive investments and

present profitable opportunities in the energy,

transportation and infrastructure fields, and even in

sensitive sectors. Therein lies a strong foundation for

international collaboration, but we do not want

investors to undertake activities in our countries that

are prohibited in the industrialized countries just so

that they can improve the profits of shareholders by

creating the illusion of an allegedly less expensive

product by raising the costs of environmental pollution,

deteriorating health conditions and lowered life

expectancy.

On a different subject, we attach high importance

to our participation, together with other countries of

the region, in the United Nations Stabilization Mission

in Haiti. In our view, beyond the progress achieved in

the transition, the steady support and economic

assistance of the international community will continue

to be critical in the areas of security, the strengthening

of institutions, the fostering of political dialogue, the

protection of human rights, social inclusion, the

promotion of the rule of law, the creation of

administrative capacity and, above all, the promotion

of economic and social development through concrete

contributions.

We reiterate here our will to achieve peaceful

nuclear development under the verification of

international organizations. Argentina’s commitment to

disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear

weapons, our adherence to the Treaty on the Non-

Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and our long-

standing practice in the field are known to all.

In conclusion, I wish to recall that the question of

the Malvinas Islands — which includes the Malvinas,

the South Georgias, the South Sandwich Islands and

the surrounding maritime area — has been under

consideration by the United Nations since 1965. The

General Assembly and its Special Committee of 24 on

Decolonization have defined this as a special case that

differs from traditional colonial situations in that it

involves a sovereignty dispute that must be resolved

through bilateral negotiations between my country and

the United Kingdom, in accordance with the provisions

of resolution 2065 (XX) and other relevant resolutions.

We must stress that the Government of the United

Kingdom persists in ignoring those General Assembly

resolutions. Nonetheless, I would like to reaffirm once

again my country’s readiness to engage in constructive

dialogue with the United Kingdom. We call upon the

United Kingdom to promptly heed the request of the

international community to resume negotiations.

In conclusion, we are firmly convinced that the

basis exists for international cooperation that can help

the world move towards peace. The tensions and

difficulties besetting humanity must not prevent us

from understanding the extent to which the

authoritarian notion that military might can provide

unilateral solutions to conflicts and threats is starting to

recede. That mistaken belief has led only to failure and

great suffering.

Only multilateral solutions, reached through the

arduous process of negotiation, despite their

limitations, can move us forward. In this context, the

United Nations has a fundamental role to play in

ensuring greater understanding among nations with a

view to creating a safe, peaceful and fairer world in the

years to come.