Ecuador, 2002

Many of the heads of State that have preceded me at

this rostrum have been eloquent in expressing their

open condemnation of terrorism, their prescriptions for

the eradication of extreme poverty, their vision for a

new international order that will ensure peace and

security in the world and their reservations about a

globalization process that, if poorly understood, will in

the end make the gap between rich and poor

unbridgeable.

We want to stress above all the urgent need to

take action and to begin to commit new and greater

financial resources to development. We must

strengthen our common bond and work together to try

to find solutions to the problems that affect us all.

We, the poor countries, are asked to practise

austerity and fiscal discipline, respect the rules of the

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free market and free trade and cooperate in the fight

against the scourges that afflict humankind. When we

try to obtain access to the major markets for our goods,

however, the door is slammed shut. We are asked to be

competitive, but when we take the fruits of our labour

to the market, subsidies amounting to millions of

dollars are placed in our way, making it impossible for

us to even hope to compete.

We are asked to participate in the fight against

drug trafficking, but we have not been given the

resources promised us to enable us to carry out our

action plans.

When we try to negotiate in a serious and creative

way with international lending agencies, attempts are

made to impose terms on us — terms that, if accepted,

would dangerously weaken our young and sometimes

fragile democracies.

People don't understand: our peoples, in their

poverty, are quite perceptive, but they still cannot

understand how they can benefit from a globalization

process that may never knock at their doors.

We, the leaders of the developing countries, are

severely criticized when, upon our return from summits

and forums, we have only meagre results to show, and

when the resolve to provide support and cooperation is

weakened because of the actions of a few with respect

to a consensus declaration.

I want to be very clear and simple in expressing

my thoughts in this universal forum: hypocrisy,

inequity, injustice, increased poverty and failure to take

action, among other ills, are the main reasons for

breaches of the peace. They create a framework in

which violence, sectarian extremism and

misunderstanding find fertile ground.

The developed world has found new and

discriminatory methods — in financial, social and

ethical terms — of categorizing our countries. Some

are willing to perpetuate this perverse way of

categorizing us on the basis of criteria laid down by

those that have more than we do. We are criticized for

a lack of transparency and for some alleged lack of

respect for the law, while enormous losses are piling up

owing to corruption. Could it be that the very

foundations of the capital system have been seriously

damaged by the scandals that have taken place in the

wealthier and more powerful nations?

Our emigrants are discriminated against, and

some forget how the most prosperous nations managed

to create their identities through the mixing of races or

by opening their arms to those yearning for progress

and freedom. Developed countries demand the

strengthening of our institutions and they get quite

lyrical in their support for democratic processes, which

often take forms that lead only to instability. We must

break paradigms, and we must do it now. We must not

persist in simplifying, relying on a purely economic

vocabulary, all the benefits of a globalization process

that is still not understood by all, nor assimilated in

each of its components.

We speak of free flows of capitals, but these

flows only take the form of transfers of investments in

the Northern Hemisphere. We countries in the Southern

Hemisphere have typically received these same capitals

in the form of expensive loans, whose heavy burden it

has been impossible to alleviate over time.

When the North looks to the South, it sees it with

paternalistic and patronizing eyes. The widely

publicized equity in the terms of exchange is only

visible in statements, manuals and textbooks of

developed countries. What we need is a new global

ethic, one that repudiates terrorism but helps, with the

same strength and resolve, give substance to our

creative efforts to eradicate poverty, a poverty that

threatens the most basic principles of human dignity.

When food is lacking, when there is no health or

education, and when the survival instinct itself is

limited, very little or nothing can be done to pursue

values and ideals cherished by any developed society.

My country condemns terrorism. My government

supports every effort to eradicate it, but Ecuador also

demands the creation of a new coalition and a new

order to fight against poverty.

This is a new century, a century of solidarity and

hope. But we must also make this century a century of

respect on the part of all nations for the principles that

govern international law. Yes, it is a new century, a

century in which all activities that violate the sanctity

of human life are condemned and prosecuted. There is

no justification whatsoever for taking the lives of

innocent persons. We must work with all forces

available, together under the law, to fight this scourge.

This is also a century of changes of attitudes and

of proposals, a time in which we must resolve

definitively the problem of the debt of the poorest

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countries towards the developed countries. It must be a

time of opportunity to build a fairer world, a world of

solidarity.

As a global citizen, I am concerned that the

commitment to ensure the very existence of the planet

is not shared equitably by all. Everything is demanded

of those of us who have great diversity and renewable

resources, but, in return, we are denied the financial

tools to seek alternative resources for a development

not entailing the destruction of our natural resources, as

if this commitment to the environment should fall on

our shoulders alone. We must fight to improve the

quality of life on earth. But the beneficiaries of this

struggle must be every man and woman on earth, and

not only those with the good fortune to have been born

in the North.

Ecuador, which I am honoured to represent in this

Assembly, is a country committed to the most noble

causes of the international community. No effort will

be spared to enable our people to reach a human

society in which men, women and children, without

distinction, without exclusion, can develop fully and

flourish.

Ecuador wants to be an ethical model that looks

to the future. We wish to see the voice of reason heard

in every global forum. We want to create a world of

freedom, a more just and united society. We would like,

from the centre of the two hemispheres, to be a bridge

uniting North and South, two regions that should walk

together towards development and not be separated by

geographic conventions.

Thank you so much, distinguished delegates, for

this extraordinary opportunity to address the world

community. Thank you for your continuing efforts to

make the United Nations the highest forum of

international debate. My country and my Government

view this body as the highest forum for debate and for

the settlement of those problems that constantly affect

humankind.