Bolivia, 2014

Mother Earth and humanity are suffering, stricken by

the environmental, climate, financial and food crises

generated by an inhumane, predatory capitalism that

turns human life and Mother Earth into merchandise.

Today we have an historic opportunity to build a new,

different world, and we must do so without delay.

The post-2015 agenda must express that mandate that

Mother Earth and humanity demand of us.

We welcome the proposal of the Open Working

Group on Sustainable Development Goals that

incorporates the proposals of Bolivia and the peoples

of the world to respect Mother Earth and the concept of

harmony with nature. That is not a matter of a simple

political statement. It is a commitment shared with

the entire world to change our visions of development

to a more comprehensive, holistic vision. What we

propose to the world is living well, in harmony with

Mother Earth, and the construction of a culture of life,

complementarity, solidarity and peace.

Respect for Mother Earth has been lost. Today

she is being marketed and manipulated, causing grave

danger to life. Now as at no other time, the premise

that man believes himself to be the lord and master of

nature is more true than ever. Humankind, encouraged

by capitalism, has turned everything into a market,

including genetic manipulation and the destruction of

human beings.

Human and natural life and their happiness

should be the reason why any vision, tool or focus for

development exists. No vision of development makes

sense if it does not respect or strengthen life. Economic

growth does not in itself lead to the realization of

social rights and good living. The horizon of equality

calls for the distribution of wealth and the economic

and political empowerment of the poor, the excluded

and the marginalized. It calls for strengthening

communities and building societies with solidarity, not

exclusive societies based on the accumulation of wealth

and governed by money, covetousness and the avarice

of the market.

Together with the Group of 77 and China, I must

state the fundamental importance of recovering the

sovereignty of our countries and peoples over our natural

resources. It is only by recovering control of our natural

resources that we will be able to garner greater benefits

for our peoples, in particular to eliminate poverty and

to invest in economic diversification, industrialization

and social programmes.

Each country has the right to decide on its priorities

and strategies for development, but it is important that

those strategies strengthen the environmental functions

and the ecosystems of Mother Earth in the framework

of complementarity and mutual support between

productive systems, communities and nature. It is vital

to strike a balance between the rights of Mother Earth,

the right to development, the rights of indigenous

peoples and social, economic and cultural rights, as

well as the right of the poor to emerge from poverty.

Complementarity and mutual support, not commercial

incentives, are instruments to preserve Mother Earth.

On this point we differ from the followers of the so-

called green economy.

An important issue to be promoted in the framework

of the post-2015 agenda is the human right to water and

the right of Mother Earth to enjoy water for regenerating

and reproducing life. Three billion people today live in

areas or regions where the demand for water exceeds

its availability, and that reality will worsen as years

pass. By 2030 the demand for water will have increased

by 30 per cent. In 2050, four billion people will suffer

from critical scarcity of water in the context of climate

change.

In Bolivia, in accordance with human right to

water and with our Constitution, and thanks to the

national programme known as My Water, we have

already reached the Millennium Goals. We did so three

years ahead of schedule. Declaring the human right to

water means it cannot be privatized. Water is life, and

it cannot be an object of profit or commercialization.

Likewise, to resolve serious social inequalities, basic

services such as water, electricity, telecommunications

and basic sanitation, as well as education and health,

must be a human right.

We have a pending agenda to eradicate poverty

and hunger, but for that we must also fight the pitiless,

inhumane forces of capital and the market, the

omnipresent power of banks and usurers who profit

from consumerism and hunger. The so-called vulture

funds are an expression of that. They are agents of

financial rapine who live off speculation, stealing from

developing countries with impunity, taking the bread

from the poor, extorting and defrauding with the help

of the legal systems of capitalism. They caused the

financial crisis and profited from it.

We must profoundly change the exclusionary

structures of financial institutions, such as the

International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

That should be part of the transformation of the world

financial architecture. Those organizations cannot be

governed only by developed countries, which, through

clever financial strategies, blackmail and oppress

developing countries, especially the poorest. That is

what we call eradicating financial colonialism.

In the world there still exists an offensive, abusive

reality — the 1.3 billion poor people and more than

800 million who are chronically malnourished — as

well as the gaps between the rich and the poor. That

is due to an unequal distribution of income, but also

to an unequal and discriminatory access to wealth, to

the means and factors to live well and to enjoy basic

services. The increase in the number of hungry people

in the world is due, without doubt, to the financial

crisis. If not for that, there would now be 413 million

fewer hungry people in the world. But the eradication

of hunger and poverty is unthinkable without changing

the international financial architecture.

The violence of war feeds the darkest interests,

such as the geopolitical control of the great Powers and

corporations that promote conflicts in order to ensure

their imperial or neocolonial interests. Today, it is the

economic interests of capital that promote neocolonial

wars. With the expense required for war campaigns,

humankind could overcome many of its problems,

including the Ebola virus, tuberculosis, AIDS or

dengue.

We have again witnessed the cruelty and barbarity

of the genocidal actions of the Government of Israel

against the Palestinian civilian population. We have

therefore denounced Israel for violating international

humanitarian law and universal human rights. We

demand an investigation of the crimes committed by

Israel in the Gaza Strip. The Plurinational State of

Bolivia, like other Latin American countries, agrees on

the profound need to reiterate the legitimacy of United

Nations resolutions demanding the end of the occupation

of the Palestinian territories and the construction of an

independent State within the borders existing prior to

4 June 1967. That is why we again reiterate the need

to recognize Palestine as a full-fledged Member of the

United Nations.

As Chair of the Group of 77 and China, I cannot

fail to mention the important commemoration of the

fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the Group of 77,

held on 14 and 15 June in the city of Santa Cruz de

la Sierra, Bolivia. The Summit of Heads of State and

Government of the Group of 77 and China adopted a

declaration entitled “For a new world order for living

well” (see A/68/948), which confirms the principles of

unity, complementarity and solidarity and the building

of a new world order that establishes a more just and

democratic system for the benefit of our peoples.

We commend the Bolivarian Alliance for the

Peoples of Our America-Peoples’ Trade Agreement

(ALBA-TCP) on completing 10 years of tireless work

towards the integration of peoples. That work goes

beyond commercial profit and focuses on promoting the

values of cooperation, solidarity and complementarity.

In its 10 years, ALBA-TCP has become a major player

in Latin America and the world.

Since March 2011, 150,000 people have died in

Syria and 3 million people have fled as refugees to

neighbouring countries. Bolivia agrees that the future

and destiny of Syria must be determined by the Syrian

people themselves in the full exercise of democracy, in

accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

Bolivia condemns and rejects the interference by

the United States of America in Iraq that triggered the

current crisis in the country. The war unleashed in 2003

against Iraq destabilized the entire region. It was said

that Iraq possessed large quantities of weapons of mass

destruction. That argument remains one of the biggest

lies ever told in the history of imperialism. On the basis

of that lie, peaceful coexistence among social, ethnic

and religious groups has been destroyed. The situation

has given rise to a terrorist group called the Islamic

State that is imposing a new war that threatens the entire

region. Bolivia rejects the extreme violence with which

that terrorist group has acted against civil society and

wholeheartedly affirms that nothing justifies fratricidal

violence.

The invasion of Iraq, together with other historical

events, has taught us a lesson that wherever the United

States of America intervenes, it leaves destruction,

hatred, misery and death in its wake, but it also leaves

wealth in the hands of those who profit from the wars:

the transnational corporations of the arms industry and

the oil industry. We must make use of the culture of

peace to eradicate extremist fanaticism, but also the

imperial warmongering promoted by the United States,

which, faced with war, threatens more war. The United

Nations was created to build and promote peace, not to

justify wars and invasions.

Using war against war is not the same as peace.

That is a perverse formula — the formula for death and

endless confrontation. We must resolve the structural

causes of war: marginalization, poverty, lack of

opportunities, cultural and political exclusion, social

discrimination, inequality, usurpation and territorial

dispossession, ruthless capitalism and dictatorship of

the interests of transnational corporations. Every year

here we hear Mr. Obama deliver a discourse on war,

arrogance and threats against the peoples of the world.

It is also a discourse of extremist fanaticism.

The economic, commercial and financial blockade

imposed by the Government of the United States

against Cuba is the main tool of United States policy

in its eagerness to destroy the revolution and restore its

hegemony over Cuban territory. The blockade against

Cuba is the most unjust, severe and prolonged system of

unilateral sanctions that has ever been applied against

any country. The blockade qualifies an act of genocide.

That colonial blockade must be ended immediately.

We want to affirm before this Assembly the historic

right of the Bolivian people to their access to the sea — a

right that was trampled by a brutal invasion promoted

by colonial business interests. The colonial imposition,

the absence of genuine participatory democracy and the

interests of foreign companies were interposed between

the Bolivian and Chilean peoples, fraternal peoples who

were led to a war favouring the transnationals. Because

my country firmly believes in and promotes peace and

harmony in our relations with all of our neighbours, we

turned to the International Court of Justice in search

of dialogue to resolve, peacefully and in good faith,

a prolonged dispute over our sovereign access to the

Pacific Ocean.

Our demand does not seek to alter the international

order of the limits and boundaries or to threaten

international treaties, as the the Government of Chile

would have people believe. On the contrary, Bolivia has

invoked international law and its principles to resolve,

methodically and in good faith, the issue of its sovereign

access to the Pacific Ocean. An effective and peaceful

solution regarding Bolivia’s sovereign access to the

sea would be in the interests of our peoples, the new

generations, the region and the whole world. I therefore

call on all countries of the United Nations system at

this sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly to join

us, not only Bolivia, but our neighbour Chile, in this

challenge to peace, justice and rule of law.

We must eradicate violence and war and denounce

the imperialist warmongering of the world Powers that

arrogantly believe they embody the ideals of freedom.

The imperial Powers use their communication media

to manipulate the wills and the emotions of the people.

They lie and deceive with impunity. They divide and

pit nations and communities against one another to

promote wars, control strategic resources and put them

at the service of their foreign capitals.

This is the century of peace, but peace with

sovereignty, with freedom for peoples and not with a

free market. This is the century of agreements on liberty,

life and peace and not for agreements on free trade

in life. There will be no harmony if the arrogance of

empires and their renewed colonialism harass, oppress

and kill human beings, cultures and the peoples of the

world. The empire of finance, the empire of markets,

the empire of the arms industry must all fall to give way

to the wisdom of life and life in peace and harmony.

To summarize with the greatest respect and

admiration for the Assembly, I would like to say that if

we want to put an end to poverty, if we want to defend

life and Mother Earth, our only path is to put an end

to the capitalist system and imperious thinking for the

well-being of humanity.