Ecuador, 2009

Ecuador hails the choice of Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki

as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth

session. We believe his broad experience in the

international scene augurs success in the work of this

Assembly. Ecuador wishes especially to commend the

former President, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann,

for his determination in democratizing this

Organization and for his unswerving commitment to

the poor and the voiceless of this planet.

The central theme of this general debate —

strengthening multilateralism — is the very purpose of

the United Nations. This Organization is called on to

be the expression of horizontal, democratic and

respectful relations among the countries of the world,

under the strictest observance of the principle of equal

sovereignty among States.

However, with its current structure and

operations, the Organization has not been able to

respond to the great challenges of the twenty-first

century. For that reason, it is urgent to strengthen its

structural reform. The Security Council must be more

representative, democratic and efficient. To achieve

that, we call on all Member States to make a

commitment to achieve true substantial transformation

this year in the Council’s composition and its working

methods. Likewise, our country believes that the

General Assembly, as the most democratic and

universally representative body, must fully assume the

role established for it in the United Nations Charter. It

is essential to move forward on substantial agreements

that can lead us to a real revitalization of the Assembly.

Along the same lines, Ecuador is committed to

regional integration processes as mechanisms of

coordination, cooperation and solidarity among

peoples. We therefore take on with great dedication and

enthusiasm the pro tempore presidency of the Union of

South American Nations (UNASUR), as an opportunity

to contribute to integration through a welcome

mechanism to promote democracy and collective

welfare in a coordinated and consensual manner.

Latin America and the Caribbean have

understood that the best way to face today’s challenges

is through effective multilateral action. Our region is

undergoing an intense process of integration based on

solidarity and cooperation. That process is

demonstrated in such vital regional forums as the Rio

Group, UNASUR, the Bolivian Alternative for the

Americas (ALBA) and the Caribbean Community.

Those groups engender the most diverse proposals and

initiatives designed to construct common agendas on

social, cultural, political and economic matters, in

order to build a new development strategy that is more

inclusive and less predatory.

Every integration effort requires the recognition

of the principles of equality and sovereignty of States.

Therefore my country applauds the reversal of the

unfair exclusion of our sister Republic of Cuba from

the Organization of American States (OAS). We have

settled part of Cuba’s debt, but despite repeated calls

on the part of this Assembly over the past 17 years, the

economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed

by the United States of America against that brother

country remains in place. The blockade is contrary to

the great principles of international law, and its

continuance is still severely affecting the well-being

and dignity of the Cuban people.

Latin America and the whole world have taken a

stand with the historic General Assembly

pronouncement (resolution 63/301) condemning the

coup d’état against the legitimate Government of the

Republic of Honduras. The international community

has categorically and unanimously rejected this attack

against democracy and against all the practices of

peaceful coexistence between peoples. We therefore

insist on the immediate restitution of President Zelaya,

as well as on the protection of his physical person and

an immediate end to the repression of the Honduran

people. We echo the resolutions of the United Nations,

the OAS, the Rio Group, UNASUR, the European

Union, ALBA and the many other international

organizations that have made decisive statements on

this subject.

I would also like to mention the declaration made

by the 61 heads of State and Government of South

America and Africa who met on Margarita Island,

Venezuela, on 26 and 27 September, in which we

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condemned the coup d’état in Honduras. In that

document, we also express our support for the Security

Council meeting held on 25 September 2009, which

highlighted the issue of the security of the Brazilian

embassy in Tegucigalpa, where President José Manuel

Zelaya has legitimately been taking refuge since

21 September and which has been subject to an

unjustifiable military and police barricade.

We call on the international community to act

together to adopt strong measures that guarantee the

restitution of democratic order in Honduras in order to

promote an election process of some kind and

recognize the authorities that are elected as a result of

such a process.

Today, we are facing a systemic and

multidimensional crisis that jeopardizes not only the

balance of an economic system but also the very

survival of human beings. The food crisis, the energy

crisis and the scandalous financial crisis are clear

symptoms of the fact that the system does not work and

must be re-invented.

One of the most obvious facets of the overall

crisis is the economic and financial crisis. Although

this crisis originated in the main speculative markets of

the rich countries of the North, that is, the casino

economy, its effects have been multiplying and

expanding in developing countries.

Nevertheless, the current financial crisis is only a

symptom of a larger crisis — the crisis of a system that

favours the financial and speculative economy over the

real economy. It is also the result of an international

financial architecture that is unequal, non-inclusive and

inefficient and that must be reformed urgently. Ecuador

proposes that the crisis does not require merely

technocratic reform but a profound change of our

economic model.

For that reason, my Government strongly

supported the decision of the General Assembly to

hold, this past June, the high-level Conference on the

World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on

Development. At the Conference, Rafael Correa,

President of the Republic of Ecuador, became the main

voice of the countries of the South advocating for a

comprehensive reform of the current world economic

order, which jeopardizes the life and the well-being of

millions of people around the planet. President Correa

also proposed to democratize and redefine the

international financial architecture.

At that Conference, important steps were taken in

recognizing the fundamental role of the United Nations

in the reform of the international financial system and

architecture. We welcome the fact that the Conference

acknowledged regional and subregional agreements as

integral parts of multilateral responses to the current

crisis.

I have the honour of announcing one such

response in this forum. This past Saturday,

26 September, at the South American and African

summit that took place on Margarita Island, our

countries signed the constitutive act of the Bank of the

South, which will start out with a declared capital of

$20 billion and a subscribed capital of $7 billion. The

Bank will be a multilateral financial entity aimed at

supporting human development in South America. This

agreement was reached at the summit of South

American and African countries. This important event

was part of the proposal put forward by my country on

the creation of a new international financial

architecture based on a series of regional responses.

In addition to this achievement, we must mention

initiatives such as the creation of a common Latin

American reserve fund, the establishment of a regional

system of payments as a prelude to the creation of a

regional central bank and the consolidation of a common

monetary system that will create an electronic currency

to facilitate our trade. The good news is that we have

begun to take fundamental steps in the establishment of

the Centralized Payment Compensation System, called

SUCRE, which will soon enter into force within ALBA.

We reiterate our reservations concerning the

actions undertaken by international credit institutions

such as the International Monetary Fund and the World

Bank, since they have collaborated actively to take

strong economic and political measures against certain

nations. We also reject, on the basis of the principle of

sovereignty, the relationship between the World Bank

and arbitration centres such as the International Centre

for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which has only

served to pass judgment on and penalize certain parties

and to benefit transnational interests over national

interests.

For our countries, the restructuring and relief of

our external debt is more urgent than ever. We cannot

continue to give higher priority to paying off external

debt than to financing a recovery in production and

development.

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We have an enormous task ahead of us with

respect to the effects of the crisis. The General

Assembly working group on the financial crisis will be

the ideal mechanism through which to follow up on the

implementation of the commitments and tasks that

arose out of the Conference last June.

This crisis has shown that capitalism as a model

for economic and social relations is not viable. It has

also highlighted the imbalances in the relationships

between society, nature and the economy. One of the

most obvious examples of this is the imbalances that

are to be found in the way that the issue of climate

change is dealt with.

This past week, a high-level Summit on Climate

Change was held in this very Hall. I must frankly state

that it was a great disappointment. Empty rhetoric

abounded, and no commitments were undertaken, with

few exceptions. As a result, our response to the issue

has been nothing more than inadequate and, at times,

irresponsible. Even worse, we heard repeatedly last

week that the major challenge is how to maintain

economic growth without affecting the environment —

that is, how to preserve the current system, with a few

cosmetic adjustments. We believe, however, that we

need to completely transform the means of production

and consumption and not simply promote further

growth without stopping to take stock of where we are.

The principle of shared but differentiated

responsibilities, as contained in the Framework

Convention on Climate Change, recognizes that rich

nations and the elites who consume too much are the

major causes of this scourge and that they must

therefore assume a large proportion of the costs of

reducing emissions. Wealthy countries must make

additional efforts to decrease their greenhouse gas

emissions, beyond the reductions already brought

about by the economic crisis.

Reducing emissions is urgent but not sufficient.

Adaptation measures must be identified, in particular

in vulnerable countries and countries that lack the

economic resources to deal with the impacts of climate

change. We are not speaking about donations or credit

being offered for adaptation efforts. Reparations must

be made that recognize the ecological debt and take

into account the historic responsibility for the

excessive emissions of the past several decades, when

the greenhouse effect was already recognized. Serious

studies on the subject estimate that this would amount

to at least $50 billion dollars a year over 20 or

30 years.

We demand that the countries of the North

comply with and strengthen the commitments they

undertook in the context of the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto

Protocol regarding measures for adaptation and

mitigation, the development and transfer of

technologies and their financing. However, we

recognize that we have a shared responsibility to

provide responses to the climate crisis. For this reason,

Ecuador has offered significant proof of its

commitment to this issue. I would like to briefly

mention four initiatives that my country has

undertaken.

The first initiative, and the one that provides the

guidelines and foundation for Ecuador’s international

environmental policy, is the Yasuni Ishpingo-

Tambococha-Tiputini (Yasuni ITT) initiative, an

innovative project that was introduced by President

Rafael Correa at the 2007 United Nations Climate

Change Conference and that breaks with traditional

discredited approaches. Ecuador has decided to keep a

considerable amount of its proven oil reserves

underground — about 850 million barrels of crude —

in order to pursue three important goals. The first goal

is to prevent the pollution that would result from the

emission of 410 million tons of carbon dioxide into the

atmosphere. The second is to protect the indigenous

peoples who live in the Yasuni National Park, the

Taromenane and Tagaeri peoples. The third goal is to

preserve biodiversity. In that connection, an

international trust fund will be established in the

coming weeks as a financial mechanism to enable us to

receive international contributions and invest them in

conservation and sustainable development initiatives

for the country, in line with the development goals laid

out in our national development plan.

The second initiative is the Forest Partners

Programme, which is an initiative that provides

economic incentives to indigenous peoples and rural

farmers to protect our forest. This will enable us to

protect 20 per cent of our total forest areas until the

year 2015.

The third initiative is a programme to transform

the energy grid, aimed at ensuring that the main

sources of energy used in the country are renewable

and sustainable. One of the projects undertaken under

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this programme is being carried out in the Galapagos

Islands, a world heritage site for humankind, with the

goal of achieving 100 per cent clean energy sources on

the archipelago by 2015.

Our fourth initiative would take place in the

context of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting

Countries (OPEC) and proposes the introduction of an

eco-tax of approximately 3 per cent on oil prices, in

order to bring about a decrease in demand and thereby

a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. This proposal

was first put forward by Herman Daly, an

environmental economist, and subsequently taken up

and presented to OPEC by President Rafael Correa.

The revenue from the proposed eco-tax would

facilitate, under the administration of a body such as

the United Nations, projects to facilitate the conversion

of the energy grid to using renewable energy.

Ecuador believes that this time of crisis

represents an opportunity to make radical changes that

will allow us to transform our societies from their

current model, which is based on competition and on

irrational and unsustainable habits of consumption that

prioritize merchandise over people, into societies based

on human beings living in harmony with themselves,

with their fellow human beings and with nature.

For us, land, nature and the physical environment

are essential components of the fundamental principle

of our constitutional ordering of well-being, or “sumak

kawsay”. This principle of well-being implies living

with dignity according to our cultural values and in

harmony with nature and is the basis for the

economical and social policies that my Government is

embracing in order to overcome social inequalities.

We would also like to highlight, once again, the

gravity of the food crisis. In an era where the

technology to produce sufficient food exists, there is

hunger in the world. This is due to the fact that access

to food is dominated by the large transnational

agricultural companies that control the global market.

In addition, subsidies and other distortions on trade

have a serious impact on agriculture in countries of the

South.

We firmly support the convening of the World

Summit on Food Security, which will take place in

Rome during the sixty-fourth session of the General

Assembly and is aimed at reaching agreements on

assigning priority to the right to food security and

sovereignty over the pursuit of profit and the drive to

maximize gains.

In order to achieve the targets defined by the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the

minimum required for survival and well-being, those

Goals must be complemented by decisive support from

the countries of the North aimed at increasing official

development assistance and international cooperation

without imposing any kind of conditions.

Review of the progress made in achieving the

MDGs will take place in the year 2010, as mandated by

the Assembly, and must serve to lay the foundation for

efforts to correct the errors and omissions of these

Goals. They include, in particular, the failure to

consider the structural causes of the problems, the lack

of attention paid to human rights, the absence of any

goal dealing with the generation of valuable

employment, the exclusion of our ancestral peoples

from the process of drawing up public policies and the

absence of a multicultural approach in defining the

Goals.

At this session, the General Assembly will be

taking important strategic decisions regarding Ecuador.

We are sure that all Member States will strive to make

the Organization’s efforts more effective in the

promotion and defence of the rights of differently

abled persons, the recognition and implementation of

the rights of indigenous peoples, gender equality, and

efforts to combat human trafficking, among other

important issues.

I would like to refer in particular here to my

country’s commitment to combating the scourge of

illegal human trafficking. We firmly support the need

for a global plan of action, and we offer to the

Organization our national experience in terms of legal

and control issues.

Another subject we consider essential for the

agenda of this Assembly is that of international

migration. In the current Ecuadorian Constitution, one

of our most transformative principles is based on the

recognition of universal citizenship. We do not impose

any restrictions on the freedom of movement of people

around the world. We believe we are all citizens of the

world. There is no such thing as illegal human beings.

There are, however, such things as illegal and immoral

practices of exclusion and exploitation. In this twenty-

first century, merchandise and capital are not bound by

any borders, but walls are being built to restrict the

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movement of human beings. Ecuador will continue to

work towards a constructive multilateral dialogue on

migration and the adoption of a comprehensive

approach on the issue of the human rights of migrants

and their families, in accordance with the mandate set

by the heads of State in the 2005 World Summit

Outcome.

As a country that prioritizes respect for and the

guarantee of all human rights, Ecuador currently

receives more refugees than any other country in the

Western Hemisphere. Without belittling the support

that we receive from the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees, we must stress that we

have allocated significant economic resources to assist

people who are in need of international protection. We

have implemented pioneering measures and policies

with respect to the protection of refugees. We have one

of the most advanced programmes in terms of refugee

management, namely, the Expanded Registration

programme.

Ecuador, as a founding member of the United

Nations, accords priority to dialogue and international

cooperation in the resolution of conflicts and believes

that military action alone cannot bring about lasting

and sustainable peace in any conflict zone in the world.

The commitment of Ecuador to the stabilization

process in the brotherly Republic of Haiti is

internationally recognized. Because of this, since the

beginning of the Haitian crisis in February of 2004, we

have actively participated in the United Nations

Stabilization Mission in Haiti, in terms of a mostly

civil contingent. This endeavour was undertaken in

accordance with our foreign policy of complete support

for and attention to humanitarian crises and the

peaceful resolution of conflicts.

I cannot conclude this statement without

mentioning Ecuador’s satisfaction at having renounced,

a few days ago, any solution that is not in accordance

with international law. We hope to achieve very shortly

a normalization of diplomatic relations with the

brotherly Republic of Colombia, which will be of great

benefit for both of our peoples. This was made possible

thanks to the opportunity for dialogue and meetings

offered by the General Assembly each year.

Finally, I extend once again the affectionate and

hope-filled greetings of the Ecuadorian people, the

revolutionary citizenry of my country, and my

President, Rafael Correa, to the rest of the world’s

people and to their representatives here.