Bolivia, 1993

I should like to extend greetings to the President

of the General Assembly, Ambassador Samuel Insanely of

Guyana, to the former President, Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria,

and to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. I

congratulate them on their active commitment to the

principles of peace, justice, human development and

international law.

I should also like to greet the Heads of State and

representatives of Member States who are gathered here in

this historic Hall.

Despite having the seventh highest rate of

hyperinflation in the history of mankind, Bolivia has been a

pioneer in the structural reforms that began in 1985 with the

advent of democracy and freedom - reforms that were

carried out without limiting human rights but by making

major sacrifices. I should like to take this opportunity to

pay a tribute to the President of our country during that

period, Dr. Victor Paz Estenssoro and, on behalf of all

Bolivians, to pay a special tribute to his statesmanlike

leadership.

In retrospect, this may not seem so great a task:

Reining in the economic crisis and bringing about peaceful

change in conditions of freedom and liberty are activities

that are being accomplished in many countries in Latin

America and elsewhere in the world. The situation in

Russia, for example, reminds us of the difficulty of

achieving consensus and legitimacy in governing a society

in crisis, a society in which change is necessary.

Bolivia’s course has required daring and imagination.

We have not shrunk from calling upon our people to make

sacrifices and shoulder additional burdens. But we are

profoundly alarmed, however, when we see so many

countries embarking on the road to democracy and change

and attempting to achieve stable growth and development

with social justice and when we then note that no

corresponding efforts are being made in the developed

world.

The end of the cold war lit a beacon of hope, but we

are surprised that it has not engendered an increase in

international cooperation and solidarity. There was greater

cooperation during the era of confrontation because of the

desire to defend third-world countries against the communist

threat and to replace the cold war with relations built on

solidarity and development. Today, on the contrary, poor

countries are faced with cuts in assistance, the prices of our

raw materials continue to plummet, and protectionism is on

the rise. Indeed, in real terms the current prices of tin,

tungsten, antimony, coffee, rubber and petroleum are even

lower than they were in 1930, during the great depression.

It is difficult to see on this bleak horizon how we are

going to solve our problems: the migration from rural to

urban areas, and from cities to the developed world; the

increase in drug trafficking and the phenomenon of poor

people being virtually forced to destroy nature in order to

survive. That creates a vicious circle, with ever-deepening

poverty.

The paradox of our times is that, in a world that is

growing ever richer in overall terms, poverty is on the

increase. There is a wider disparity between the "haves" and

the "have nots". The precarious stability born of internal

social and economic deficiencies must be tackled by all of

us. There is also an urgent need for basic changes in how

we face the problem of solidarity and the development of the

community of nations and human societies.

Developed countries must realize that sooner or later

the present situation rewards no one and injures everyone.

I truly believe that we must have a clear awareness of the

fact that population growth, the doubling of the population,

the destruction of the environment, the production of illegal

drugs and the trafficking in them, the migration from poor

countries to rich countries are problems that will affect not

only those countries but the world at large.

The solution is greater development. We know that

when people’s incomes rise, when women are educated and

when there is social justice, population growth rates also

change.

We know that in order to restore balance between the

environment and society we need educated people who can

put to use their special heritage and knowledge of living in

harmony with nature - as is the case in our country.

Just as we had to learn that nature can punish us when

we harm it, the time has come for all of us, developed and

undeveloped, to become aware that it is unacceptable that

the rich of the world should become ever more wealthy

while the poor are becoming poorer.

As we know, the solution is not just to hand out money

or aid. But there is no other way to achieve our goal if we

do not change old ideas. The motto should be "Trade, not

aid". Yet it would seem that the fate of the underdeveloped

world is "no trade and no aid", which is absolutely

unacceptable to us all if we wish to create a new, more just

and peaceful society.

With the passing of time solutions will be even more

costly and more difficult in human terms and in social and

economic terms. What we need, I believe, is greater

foresight on the part of those who are guiding the world’s

destiny. They must find solutions that are truly effective.

I am not saying that we should repeat the past. But in

the past there were plans such as the Marshall Plan that

helped donors and recipients alike. We need similar

approaches. We look forward with great expectation to the

free trade agreement among Canada, the United States and

Mexico. We congratulate President Clinton on his

commitment to struggling against the forces of protectionism

in his country and elsewhere in North America to trying to

forge ahead.

As a small developing country, Bolivia views all this

with hope, and as a commitment that we will be able to sell

our products to the developing countries rather than only

sending them people.

We look forward to a speedy and successful conclusion

of the Uruguay Round, as we believe that the freedom of

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 3

opportunity to produce is the only hope for our societies.

The children of the world ask only that their parents be able

to work and bring home their daily bread. But that happens

only when a country - a society, a world - stands together

and gives everyone equal access and opportunity.

We are not asking for special treatment; we are not

asking just for help. We are asking to be allowed to work

and to export, and not to be obliged just to export the most

talented and vigorous people of our societies to the

developed world.

In Bolivia we are trying to forge ahead with projects

using foreign capital and the participation of our people. We

are a very poor people. Our country knows that it needs

technology and capital, and during the coming years we

hope to embark on an ambitious but feasible plan.

This plan has three pillars: capitalization,

democratization and popular participation.

First, we wish to invite foreign capital to come to

develop technology and use fresh resources in order to

enrich the heritage of our State enterprises. We do not want

to sell our heritage, and we do not want only the

participation of States.

Secondly, 50 per cent of those enterprises and

50 per cent of the stock must be owned by all Bolivians so

that these Bolivians can participate in the enterprises and

feel included in the process of economic development.

Thirdly, many people ask "How can we give free goods

to uneducated people who do not know how to read or write,

who have different ethnic and cultural backgrounds?" The

truth is that in Bolivia many people do not know how to

read but do know how to count. They know what it means

to participate. They know what it means to feel they are

taking part in the fortunes of the country. With their

participation we wish to bring to poor neighbourhoods and

communities the health and education the people there need

so that they can share in management.

The coming millennium will no longer find that

representative democracy is enough. It must be participatory

democracy. People want to participate and they will do so

very well when it comes to matters that directly affect their

lives and futures.

We believe that with participation of this kind our

societies’ meagre resources will yield greater productivity.

Demand will grow, which will make it possible for our

societies to forge ahead.

But in Bolivia participation is not a mere word. For the

first time in 500 years, a man has emerged from an

indigenous ethnic group to become Acting President of our

country. To the Bolivian people Victor Hugo Cárdenas is

not only an Aimara Indian, a person from the countryside,

but a great professional and outstanding intellectual. He

typifies our desire that all of our citizens take part in our

society. We want to do away with age-old injustices. We

want to bring about change - to bring people in, not keep

them out. We want to create unity while respecting the

diversity of opinion not only on ecology and the

environment but also on cultural, geographical and racial

problems.

We believe that this determination to include - not

exclude -people is helping build a society in which there is

change with order, and order with change. And although we

are among the poorest countries in Latin America - indeed,

in the world - we believe that we stand as an example of the

fact that it is possible to live with social peace and to regain

stability, growth and social justice within the general

framework of a democratic society. In Bolivia, democracy

works because people seek consensus; they seek respect;

and they are accepting of diversity.

This process should allow us to arrive at a situation

conducive to dealing with employment, education and health

care, and, most importantly, the rural sector, where the

greatest degree of poverty prevails and where the people are

among the poorest in the world.

Dynamic growth would, of course, reduce the need to

cultivate coca leaves. We in Bolivia have succeeded in

reducing by 50 percent the amount of land used for the

cultivation of these leaves. We accomplished this without

the guerrilla violence that accompanies narcotrafficking, and

without the cartels that are in place in the country. While

we are undoubtedly making progress in this area, we are

well aware of the fact that the only alternative development

activity to this is light industry for export purposes. There

is no use telling the Bolivian peasant, as I said earlier, to

stop producing drugs and instead plant coffee when the price

of coffee has dropped to half its former price, or to produce

cacao when no one wants cacao - or rubber. Experience of

alternative crops emphasizes the vital importance of enabling

countries such as Bolivia - especially Bolivia - to export

their products to the developed countries in the form of

manufactured goods, rather than having them export the

scourge of harmful drugs to the rest of humankind. We will

4 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

continue, nevertheless, to fight against drug trafficking

because we have made a commitment not only to our people

but also to humankind. Though we are poor, we are very

happy to see that new efforts are being made to reduce

demand. What we want to do is reduce supply. We wish

to eliminate this business, with all its attendant dangers -

social, moral, legal and institutional. Indeed, we have

chosen the zero-option. We expect to be successful, with or

without help. But we are more likely to be successful if we

enjoy the support, cooperation and understanding of the rest

of the world, which is, after all, affected by this terrible

scourge.

Ours is an ambitious project, to be sure, but it is

feasible. We recognize that the principal responsibility for

this plan rests with Bolivians. We are not just waiting for

someone to help us. No, we know what all the peoples of

the world know, that hunger cannot wait, that solutions have

to be found by oneself. But, in all sincerity, I think it will

be very difficult to overcome these problems without

international cooperation. There must be some signal from

the outside that assistance will not come to an end as

barriers to trade mount.

Bolivia has made a great commitment to the

environment. We have done so because our poverty stems

partly from our neglect of this problem. We have allowed

poverty increasingly to justify destruction of our natural

resources in our daily activities. We do have a great plan -

a plan of international significance, not just to resolve our

balance-of-payments problems, not just to create an

industrial centre that could be the basis of the energy that we

need, but to see to it that environmental pollution is reduced.

That plan calls for construction, with Brazil, of a pipeline

that would bring Bolivian gas to the San Pablo market.

With cheap, non-polluting energy, used in industry and in

cars, we can contribute to fundamentally reducing pollution

in Latin America at its source, for the benefit and

development of Bolivia, Brazil and the entire world.

Human rights must be the emblem of the new world

community, and we must see to it that the right to

development within social justice is achievable. It is not just

a gift that we are asking for. We are asking for an

opportunity. The United Nations is changing. It has to

change; the world has changed. After the great

confrontation of the cold-war period, we must deal with all

the harm this war caused, especially in the Third World.

We have to reorient global solidarity, not just in terms of

assistance, but we must accept a concept that is truly very

simple and logical. Some countries become rich when they

do business, when they engage in trade with other rich

countries. To believe that a man is rich because everybody

else is poor is a holdover from the past. The great lesson of

our time is that the only way to generate wealth is to help

people break the shackles of poverty.

We welcome the agreement between Israel and the

Palestine Liberation Organization. It marks the beginning of

a new era of peace and of a new spirit of global justice and

dialogue between nations facing historic circumstances. The

mutual recognition of the inadmissibility of acquiring

territory through war is a great stride forward, as is the great

and historic lesson that, even in regions where territorial

disputes so stubbornly persist, civilized dialogue, common

sense and humanity can yield results and can bring people

together rather than keeping them apart.

Recently, in the heart of Latin America, we reunited

two countries - Paraguay and Bolivia - that 61 years ago

were split apart by war and have now decided to forge a

common destiny. This has had a great impact on us,

because, since the handshake - since the agreement between

the two countries - in our country the veterans of the Chaco

war have marched carrying the flag of Paraguay. If those

who fought, whose comrades died, are prepared to forget,

how could we not do likewise?

These enlightening examples of how the most bitter

conflicts can be resolved evoke in us a sincere desire that

the same spirit should guide the search for a final solution

to Bolivia’s land-locked status, which has lasted 114 long

years. Many people say: "How can you be claiming

something that you lost 114 years ago?" I reply that we

have a great deal of patience; our people waited 500 years

for their lands to be given back to them, for them to win

back their country and their right to participate in society.

I believe that injustice is not prescribed for us; we shall

continue to make our claim, through the use of reason and

never by force. We shall continue to claim our right of

access to the sea until it is granted, until the sea runs dry.

When it does, there will be no further problem and we

shall make no further claims, but I believe that it really

would be an affront to go on blocking this historic coming

together - which two fraternal peoples are demanding - if at

the Government level, at the level of leadership, we continue

to discuss something to which both countries already want

to find a solution. Solutions are possible; miracles do

happen, but we have seen that miracles are the result of

work and imagination, and in this we are committed, without

aggressiveness, coolly and calmly, to doing whatever we

can, as creatively as we can manage, to find solutions that

will meet the challenge and the expectations of this new

Forty-eighth session - 29 September l993 5

world in which we are living, and to bring about the change

that we require.

In these times of change, we must rely on our own

creativity. We know the importance of one’s own efforts.

But at the same time we want others in this world to stand

by us in solidarity, and at least give us the opportunity to

show what we can do.

And we must move ahead in security along the new

paths required by history, and we ask, and shall try to

ensure, always and with renewed vigour, that the path

chosen is the path of solidarity, well-being, and fraternal

relations between peoples and countries.