Colombia, 1998

Mr. President, as I address the Assembly for the

first time as President of Colombia, I should like to offer

you, on behalf of my Government, our warmest

congratulations on being elected to guide our debates

during this session.

A few weeks ago, the most important democratic

elections in Colombia’s recent history took place. Despite

the problems that have besieged our nation in the last few

years, our institutional structure has faced one of the

sternest tests ever and has again shown that it is solid. In

June, more than 12 million people — one of the highest

electoral turnouts in the history of the Republic —

expressed their free, spontaneous and conscious choice.

Today, Colombia is looking towards new horizons.

We have restored confidence in our country. We have

started the changes which will enable us to face our

internal problems with determination and which will win

us a more positive and dynamic place in the international

community.

Our most urgent task will be to build for peace. That

is the unshakable commitment of my Government and the

heartfelt desire of all of the Colombian people. We are

aware that any process designed to root out the causes of

conflict for all time will be highly complex. But all our

efforts will be dedicated to this noble goal, and we will

strive for it tirelessly.

It is for this reason that I have personally taken the

lead in building peace. We are working hard on the

preparation of an agenda for this purpose. We are

convinced that representatives of all sectors of society

should play a part, and that at the end of the road we will

find a guiding light that will lead our country again to

peaceful coexistence. Peace in Colombia will also be

founded on a clear strategy for economic development and

a bold policy for social justice. Only in this way will it be

possible to forge a fruitful and lasting peace.

As we travel the road to peace the support of the

international community will complement our own efforts.

We will advocate respect for fundamental rights and

full application of international humanitarian law among all

those involved in conflict. We will learn from the valuable

experiences of other countries in the solution of internal

conflicts, and we will adopt whatever is applicable and

appropriate to our own situation.

Peace in Colombia will demand very substantial

investments in social sectors and infrastructure in the zones

of conflict. For this, we will create a “Peace Fund”. A

significant portion of the money required will come from

internal sources. We will also be looking for contributions

from the international community, from which we have

already received expressions of encouragement, solidarity

and interest.

All these actions will be part of what we have termed

“diplomacy for peace”. It will be diplomacy with social and

economic content. It will be diplomacy expressed in

investment and in the mobilization of human, technical and

financial resources, so that our peace will have a firm and

lasting foundation.

The achievement of peace in Colombia will be an

important initial contribution to the liberation of mankind

from one of the twentieth century’s greatest evils: the

global problem of illicit drugs. To the extent that we can

find agricultural alternatives for our peasant farmers, with

fair prices for their products at home and abroad, they will

become less dependent on illicit crops. The support of the

international community will be crucial in this. The

eradication of illicit crops will be one of the central

elements of the peace talks that we intend to undertake

with the groups engaged in armed conflict.

It is true that the end of East-West confrontation

brought into being a system of international relations

based on détente and on a decline in the role that military

power had played during the cold war. The spectre of a

nuclear cataclysm seemed to have vanished, and all

humanity embraced new hopes for the future.

It was thought that the end of the cold war would be

the salvation of the many countries and the millions of

people who had been forgotten in the midst of tensions

and feuds between the two superpowers. But now, almost

10 years later, those initial expectations are far from

becoming a reality. Ethnic and religious rivalries, regional

confrontations and grave new threats to peace have

emerged.

I must say most clearly that my Government and the

people of Colombia absolutely reject all kinds and modes

of terrorism, whatever their origin or motive. There can

be no truce with terrorism. All States must fight together

to defeat it. This is surely one of our greatest challenges.

Corruption is buffeting democracy in a growing

number of countries and is becoming a cause of political

and social breakdown. Illicit drugs continue to be one of

the worst scourges of today’s society, bringing irreparable

harm to the new generations and, therefore, to the future

of humanity.

Human rights are still not properly respected.

Women are still the target of abuse and discrimination.

Children are the victims of disgraceful practices. Fifty

years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, the more vulnerable groups often have no

access to the protection that States are obliged to provide

for them.

Unsustainable consumer and production practices

still continue. The planet’s natural resources are being

depleted, its biological wealth is being looted, and our

rivers and oceans are being contaminated. Poverty

continues to affect huge segments of society. Economic

growth in some countries and the prosperity of some

levels of society contrast dramatically with the

marginalization suffered by the majority of the world’s

population.

This situation is occurring in an international

environment in which the right to development is

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indissolubly linked to the existence of a favourable

international climate. We are going through the most

serious financial crisis since the end of the cold war, but

there does not yet seem to be sufficient clarity and political

will to face it and overcome it.

All Latin America has voiced its concern at the gravity

of the crisis. Its origins are outside our region, in which

countries have made structural reforms to achieve healthy

economies that will enable them to meet the social

expectations of their peoples.

We are aware of the risk of a world recession, and we

consider it essential that the more developed countries, the

Group of Seven and the international financial organs adopt

suitable measures to prevent any new collapse. Such a

disaster would irreversibly affect the developing countries

first. The measures should enable the financial markets to

recover their stability and provide a rapid solution to the

current crisis in the world economy that has caused so

much concern.

Among the proposals which Colombia made at the San

Francisco Conference and which were included in the

United Nations Charter, there are two I would now like to

mention, because they belong to the common heritage of

our foreign policy: first, compliance in good faith with the

obligations assumed by the Member States of the United

Nations, as an underlying assumption for the validity of its

universal action; and secondly, recognition of the role

played by regional arrangements and agencies in the

maintenance of peace, in international security as an

integrated concept and in the peaceful settlement of disputes

between States.

Colombia believes that universalism and regionalism

are complementary and should support each other

harmoniously. Therefore, one of the aims of our diplomacy

is to strengthen the regional agencies within the concept of

universalism. It is thus essential that we join our efforts to

regain the momentum achieved on the occasion of the

fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the United Nations, so

that the Organization will be revitalized and ready for the

beginning of a new millennium.

The various levels of action required are all based on

the credibility of the multilateralism which the United

Nations embodies and the trust which our peoples have in

it. Some support the approval of certain reforms that the

experience of this period of history and the changes on the

world scene have in themselves made imperative. The

United Nations cannot be expected to possess magic

formulas that we ourselves do not have for solving

problems and situations that concern us all, within the

context of the interdependence and internationalization

characteristic of our times. But we certainly need to adapt

them to this moment in history, when we face such wide

horizons and colossal challenges. We need something of

the idealism and pragmatic spirit which could be inspired

by solidarity among the human race.

The reasons for the creation of the United Nations

not only remain intact, but also have rapidly even become

more relevant in the second half of the twentieth century.

The principles which inspired its creation have become so

important that any action taken unilaterally or by a group

of States turns out to be inadequate or limited in effect.

Therefore, it will be useful to identify what we can do to

make the proposed reforms truly worthwhile. One must

seek a genuine consensus for the agenda of priorities for

the new millennium.

Colombia is ready to help reconcile existing

disputes. This is not a question of a simple, formal

agreement or of a quest for utopian reform, but of a

meeting of wills and a methodical and open-minded

consensus regarding proposals which are designed to

bring us closer to an era of greater justice and balance.

We must eliminate the contradiction in which more

responsibilities, actions and programmes are demanded

from the United Nations while at the same time some

States fail to meet their obligations or do not show any

willingness to increase their contribution in proportion to

their capacity. Without doubt, the United Nations must be

properly funded. The adaptation of structures, regulations

and modes of operation means that the Organization must

have the personnel and the funds it needs, through

efficient and exemplary management.

Cooperation for development must receive a massive

injection to save it from decline, and this must be in

accordance with the text and spirit of the Charter and of

countless commitments, within an overall concept that

includes encouragement of respect for human, individual,

social, economic and cultural rights.

My Government has a policy of encouraging broader

participation by the new actors on the international stage,

such as non-governmental organizations and the private

sector. New sources of funding for certain social,

development and humanitarian programmes should be

sought, which should extend the scope of action of the

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United Nations and ensure that it continues to steer the

common course of international solidarity.

We need multilateralism with social content, in which

the human being is the central priority and in which

development is the guiding principle in decisions. I stand

before you to appeal to all nations to contribute to the

burial of the post-cold-war period, to see it as no more than

an interregnum, and to open the door wide to an era of

creative and more humane multilateralism.

The original principles of the Organization are of

course still valid, but we need to make some adjustments.

We need to reconsider certain modes of international action

and heed the voices of the peoples who desire development

and fight for it in the midst of difficulty and conflict. We

need to strengthen communication and dialogue between

North and South and to correct unreasonable imbalances.

We believe that the time has come to make an

objective review of the present state of negotiations for the

reform of the Organization, in order to ensure that social

and economic matters are properly related to the legitimate

aspirations of developing nations. There must be

instruments to encourage rapport between the organs

originating from the San Francisco Charter and those

institutions born at Bretton Woods.

We know that the responses of individual nations or

groups of States are insufficient. Therefore, there is an even

more urgent need to coordinate global responses through

vigorous multilateralism. There is an obvious dichotomy

between de facto globalization, science and technology,

instantaneous communications and the world market, on the

one hand, and, on the hand, the absence of genuine social

order and human advancement.

We must revive an authentic and productive North-

South dialogue, based on a concept of solidarity which is

more substantial than declarations or good intentions and

which is expressed in specific action. It must take account

of the needs of the more vulnerable groups and of those

excluded from progress. It must replace the logic of

confrontation and of the division between poor and rich

countries with the logic of cooperation, shared

responsibility and solidarity inspired by justice as the

golden rule of multilateralism.

His Holiness Pope John Paul II summed up this

position perfectly on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary

of the United Nations, when, addressing this same

Assembly, he urged us to unite our efforts to build a

civilization of love, founded on the universal values of

peace, solidarity, justice and liberty, to overcome the fear

which darkens human existence at the end of the

twentieth century.

We firmly believe that the Charter and all the

institutions of the international system must promote

dynamic cooperation, each enriching the shared universal

heritage with its own particular character.

The United Nations must not be merely a forum for

the sovereign expression of States. It must be the place

for negotiation and synthesis in the political, cultural,

social and economic life of the nations.

It is reassuring to see that the grand designs that

inspired the Charter remain valid. It is now our task to

maintain them and to interpret the new situations that

arise in the course of history.

We know, for example, that conflicts within States

are conceptually different from the old wars between

States. We have a greater understanding of the link

between peace and development and of the way in which

politics and socioeconomic interests are related. We

believe that it is appropriate to consolidate a minimum

international order and to replace violence and terrorism

with peace and coexistence, which should then thrive

naturally through multilateralism.

Colombia encourages the efforts undertaken in arms

control, with the systematic quest for disarmament as the

ultimate goal, and supports the priority allocation of world

and regional resources to development. We believe that it

is therefore essential to make progress in the control and

gradual elimination of weapons of mass destruction and

to exercise effective control over the illegal arms trade, to

which thousands of men, women and children fall victim

daily throughout the world, and especially in the

developing countries.

We need a realistic and methodical strategy to secure

peace in our time and in the coming century. We need to

promote monitoring mechanisms for treaty compliance,

the negotiated solution of conflicts and the creation of

nuclear-free zones with effective verification systems. In

this respect, the United Nations will need to perfect early-

warning systems to evaluate events so that its actions will

be efficient and genuinely preventive.

I have come here today to reaffirm Colombia’s

unbroken tradition as a nation devoted to the great

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principles that underpin the very existence of the United

Nations. We are prepared to offer, with thoughtful

optimism, our support for the achievement of its purposes

and its reforms. We believe it would be useful to review

and appraise the results of the various summits held in

recent years, so that we may follow up their results and

plans of action. This will serve both as a gauge of their

effectiveness and as the central element of the analysis of

the coordination of the various institutions of the United

Nations system as a whole.

Our people rightly demand more effective action and

less empty rhetoric. We cannot betray billions of human

beings who yearn for a world at peace, with democracy and

freedom, and above all just, united and equitable.