Chile, 2008

On behalf of

the General Assembly, I have the honour to welcome to

the United Nations Her Excellency Mrs. Michelle

Bachelet Jeria, President of the Republic of Chile, and

to invite her to address the Assembly.

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President Bachelet Jeria (spoke in Spanish):

Eight years ago, representatives of all the countries of

the planet met in the General Assembly Hall to adopt

the United Nations Millennium Declaration

(resolution 55/2) — a text that is one of the broadest

and most explicit agreements ever drafted by the

international community on the subject of

development, well-being and quality of life. The

Declaration set a series of very precise standards in the

fight against hunger and poverty, education, health,

gender equality, environment and cooperation, stating

for each the minimum to which nations should commit

themselves.

The world at that time announced the civilizing

mission to which it aspired and identified the

inescapable challenges and unavoidable tasks for any

Government and for the international community. It

defined a real ethical vision for the leaders of the

nations. The world has changed since then, however.

We have witnessed, sometimes tragically, the

emergence or reappearance of various problems of

global significance, such as climate change, terrorism

or the food crisis. At the same time, the

interdependence of economies and communications has

become even greater over the past eight years, which

has undoubtedly created many opportunities but also

greater risks and inequities.

In that changing context, we have witnessed

outstanding progress towards the Millennium

Development Goals in many countries of the world, but

we have also witnessed many regrettable setbacks.

World events over the past year give us much food for

thought that will allow us to act decisively. The

optimism of the turn of the century, leading to talk of

the “millennium of hope”, seems to be dissipating. It is

estimated that the increase in food prices alone has

driven more than 100 million people into extreme

poverty. In turn, financial instability today is afflicting

many economies, threatening to generate a worldwide

trend towards recession in which — as always — those

most affected in the end will be the world’s poorest.

That is why it is so crucial to review our Goals.

We cannot remain indifferent to the deterioration of the

basic well-being of millions and millions of citizens all

over the world. Those of us who share the same

concept of progress and have made freedom and social

justice our watchwords must raise our voices.

The world has managed to secure the economic,

technical and scientific resources that, for the first time

in its history, can ensure the well-being of all mankind.

We cannot squander that capacity. A better world is

possible, but it requires determination to move

forward, and the current international economic crisis

shows that it is precisely such determination that has

been lacking.

The greed and irresponsibility of a few, combined

with the political negligence of others, has plunged the

world into a situation of great uncertainty. What a

paradox we are witnessing today! With the money used

to bail out the international banking system, the

scourge of hunger on the planet could easily have been

eliminated. Thus, now is the time to reaffirm our

resolve.

The international economic crisis is a blow to

those who believe that nothing can be done, that

nothing should be regulated or that inequality cannot

be remedied. That is the major lesson to be learned

from what has happened over the past year. None of

the current problems facing mankind, and certainly

none of the civilizing goals that we have set ourselves,

can be tackled properly if the public does not have a

clear option of collective action by States and civil

society.

That is why today I appeal to all to work together

to support emergency measures to address the food

crisis and to redouble our efforts to ensure that the

developing economic crisis does not prevent us from

attaining the Millennium Development Goals. That is

why I appeal for an urgent and genuine commitment to

multilateralism. That is why we must undertake to

continue supporting and reforming international

institutions, particularly the United Nations, to make

them more representative, more democratic and more

responsive to the hopes of our peoples.

That is also why we must reach agreement at the

Doha Round of the World Trade Organization. That is

why we must achieve concrete results at the

forthcoming Follow-up International Conference on

Financing for Development. That is why we must also

ensure the success of the 2009 Copenhagen Climate

Change Conference and convert those negotiations into

agreements that make a decisive contribution to

development.

I appear before this General Assembly as the

representative of a nation that has much to contribute.

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Modestly and proudly, we announce to this Assembly

that Chile is ahead of schedule towards achieving the

Millennium Development Goals set for 2015. I

emphasize that it is possible to eradicate poverty, that it

is possible to emerge from underdevelopment and,

even more importantly, that it is possible to do so in

democracy and freedom.

My country almost tripled the size of its economy

between 1990 and 2008, which are the years of

democracy in Chile. Just as we have made the economy

grow, we have also made social investment and equity

grow. We have advanced strongly on all fronts: health,

education, housing, quality of life, social cohesion and

greater gender opportunities.

The numbers speak for themselves. At the end of

the dictatorship, in 1989, 4 out of every 10 Chileans

were living in poverty. That 40 per cent dropped to

13 per cent in 2006. Although there is much to do,

whenever we achieve one goal we set ourselves a new

horizon of challenges. Just as we have drastically

reduced poverty, today we aim to guarantee universal

access for all Chileans to a social welfare system that

allows them to live their lives in tranquillity and

removes the fear of disease, poverty or old age, thus

increasing opportunities for all, so as to advance

steadily in greater equality and dignity.

However, this morning I wish to highlight the

reasons for those achievements. What underlies them is

a clear political determination, shared by the majority.

The country has freely chosen a path of economic

growth, political democracy and social justice. All

political sectors have converged on that path, with

differences, of course, as in any democracy, but all are

aware that those are the major goals of Chilean society,

because behind the achievements there is also a sad

learning process.

In the past, when the country became divided,

when the country became polarized in two

irreconcilable factions, there was much suffering and

very great social setbacks. Democracy placed at the

centre of public life, as a goal for a freer and more just

society, has been one of the main lessons that we

Chileans have learned and that largely explains the

achievements of the last 18 years.

That same conviction led us recently to be very

active in coming to the aid of a friendly democracy.

One week ago, when there was a threat to disrupt the

democratic institutional order in the Republic of

Bolivia, we nations of South America came to the

support of the legitimately elected authorities and

offered our cooperation to help in the resumption of the

domestic political dialogue, while condemning the

rebellion and bloodshed. Within a few days, we

succeeded in convening a meeting of the Presidents of

the member countries of the Union of South American

Nations in Santiago de Chile, in order to agree with the

President of Bolivia on a process for talks and to find

and support a peaceful solution to the conflict in that

country.

From this rostrum, as the convener of that

historic regional meeting, I wish to express

appreciation for the willingness displayed by all those

involved, because we thereby set an example of how

multilateral commitment should be understood. It is a

commitment forged in the diversity of political projects

but based on shared values, such as democracy, peace

and the defence of human rights. The La Moneda

summit — as that meeting was called, after the Chilean

presidential palace — will forever symbolize the

moment at which the South American nations decided

to strengthen their commitment to democracy,

whenever it is threatened anywhere on the continent.

Yet what does that episode tell us? It tells us that

the values of democracy, dialogue, human rights and

peace are becoming stronger than ever in Latin

America. It tells us that the region wants to leave

behind the dark moments of its history. It tells us that

democracy is established as a system of government. It

tells us that violence has no place in politics. And it

tells us that those values, in addition to being widely

shared by the citizens, are becoming entrenched in

multilateralism, in institutions and in international law.

Over these years, we have learned that national

policies, although essential, are not enough, that there

is no incompatibility between affirmation of one’s own

identity and integration, and that international

agreements must be formulated to govern globalization

and make democracy and the social rights of the

citizens a universal requirement. Each country has the

right and the duty to contribute to the creation of a

world in which the great values of mankind prevail,

regardless of the country’s economic or demographic

dimension, of its influence or its power, or of how

close it is to or how far it is from the hubs where

decisions that affect the lives of each and every one of

the planet’s inhabitants are taken.

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From our position at the south of the world, Chile

is cooperating. We have enthusiastically supported, and

in some cases promoted, the most diverse initiatives in

pursuit of the development of our peoples. A few days

ago, in Santiago de Chile, together with the Prime

Minister of Norway, we launched an important regional

initiative for the attainment of Millennium

Development Goals 4 and 5 in Latin America and the

Caribbean. Under that initiative, Chile will cooperate

in the assignment and training of troops in Bolivia,

Ecuador and other countries of the region. However,

when we say “troops”, we are not talking about

soldiers. It will be a force of nurses, midwives and

doctors specialized in maternal and child health, who

will travel through the fields and mountain ranges of

our America, delivering babies, helping mothers,

providing vaccinations and caring for sick children.

Because despite the progress made in that regard in

recent years, which has increased the percentage of

attended births from 78 to 89 per cent, still 22,000

mothers die in Latin America each year simply because

they received no professional care. Despite the

improvement in child mortality, 400,000 Latin

American children under five years of age are still

dying each year — hence, the urgency of that initiative,

which is the urgency of promoting democracy and the

social development of our people.

In just over two months, the world will have a

noble reason for celebration. It will be the sixtieth

anniversary of the adoption of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights. What a great step

forward for mankind. That transcendental charter of

rights marked the beginning of the end of centuries and

centuries of arbitrary action, death, torture and abuse

of power. Certainly that charter did not represent an

immediate solution, but it did mean the beginning of

the largest and most effective social and political

mobilization in favour of people’s dignity.

Today, those who violate that charter sully their

reputation with the international community. We have

gone even further by creating an international

architecture of protection and legal advancement, in

which my region set a great precedent with the inter-

American human rights protection system.

We hope that something similar will happen with

the Millennium Declaration. We want it to become an

ethical and political requirement for all the world’s

rulers. We want the citizens of every country to protest

against famine, poverty and unsanitary conditions. We

want discrimination against women to be reason for

shame for all those who practise it. We want

discrimination against native peoples to be eliminated

from the face of the Earth. We want protection of the

environment to be part of the vocabulary of every

inhabitant of the planet and, definitely, of the priorities

of every Government in the world. We want

cooperation by those who have the most to be a

political as well as a moral obligation. That is Chile’s

achievable desire, which we have come to present to

this General Assembly.