Guatemala, 2007

It has been barely two weeks since I initiated in

Guatemala an electoral process that will conclude on

14 January, when I will have the honour to bestow the

presidential sash on the person elected democratically

by my people. That event will have two consequences:

first, representative democracy will be strengthened

further in Guatemala, based on an electoral process that

even international observers have described as very

satisfactory.

Secondly, this is my last appearance before the

General Assembly, an occasion which I take advantage

of in order to attest my support to the United Nations

and to greet our new Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-

moon, and the outgoing President of the General

Assembly, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, and the

incoming President, Mr. Srgjan Kerim.

Now that we have only a few months before

handing over power in Guatemala, I wanted to give a

brief account of the main accomplishments of my

administration, within the framework of what we

consider a successful history, despite the problems that

continue to besiege us. After overcoming an internal

conflict that lasted four long decades, this story reflects

success not only for Guatemala but also for the United

Nations, the Organization that is so closely tied to our

Peace Accords. It is precisely those agreements that

encompass our main objectives, namely strengthening

the State’s democratic institutions, promoting

economic and social development, fighting against

poverty and social exclusion, fully respecting human

rights and building a multicultural, multiethnic and

multilingual Nation.

Allow me to reveal some of the accomplishments

of the past years. First, one of the successes of our

administration was improving the quality of public

management through the creation or strengthening of

public institutions, the articulation of coherent policy

programmes combined with specific actions and in

many instances, updated legislation. It would be

tedious to enumerate the multiple areas revamped,

including diverse subjects such as food security, the

energy sector, administrative and financial

decentralization, governmental administration, the

revenue administration, trafficking of persons and

assistance to immigrants the last subject is so dear

to our concerns.

At the same time, we have progressed in

strengthening and creating new democratic

mechanisms control institutions, invigorating the

direction of ministries as well as enhancing result-

oriented management, while all along integrating the

main political aims with planning and budgets. In that

context, we have built a State where public expenditure

and biddings are subject to civil society scrutiny.

Having instituted the “Guatecompras” programme and

making it mandatory for the public sector, we have

reinforced the commitment to work with transparency

in all areas of government.

Secondly, in the last four years we have also

achieved an economic recovery within a framework of

a solid financial stability. We exceeded growth rates of

3.5 per cent in the biennium 2004-2005 by attaining

5 per cent in 2006 and 5.6 per cent in 2007. The overall

poverty index fell five percentage points between the

years 2000 and 2006, from 56 per cent of the

population to 51 per cent, respectively. We

acknowledge that ratio is still unacceptably high but

the achievement of that reduction must inspire us to

continue fighting to fulfil in Guatemala one of the main

Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

For that reason, public policy was redirected

completely towards rural development, where the main

social underdevelopment and poverty are concentrated.

One of the sources of the increasing dynamism of

our economy has been the export sector, whether to

Central America or to the rest of the world. All that

effort has been impelled by our National Agenda for

Competitiveness 2005-2015, and it has been

complemented by a marked increase in investment in

infrastructure, mainly in the rural areas. The

commitment to reach better levels of competitiveness

was also translated into the construction of a new

international airport and the remodelling of six more,

along with qualitative and quantitative improvements

to seaports, as well as the rehabilitation, paving and

extension of over 2,100 kilometres of roads throughout

the country.

Thirdly, we have given an enormous impulse to

social expenditure, particularly those destined for

education, health and housing. The goals set forth in

the Peace Accords of assigning 4.8 per cent of gross

domestic product to social expenditures have been

surpassed to reach 5.7 per cent in 2006, approximately

twice the proportion of ten years ago.

Thanks to that redirection of policy and the

strengthening of institutional reforms, particularly in

education, the principal social indicators have begun to

show significant improvements. For example, the net

rate of school attendance at the primary level was

raised from 72.6 per cent in 1997 to 95.5 per cent in

2006. At the same time, we achieved a higher rate of

health coverage, thanks to the strategy adopted, under

which another 4.1 million Guatemalans can access that

essential service.

Fourthly, in the area of the inclusion of

indigenous peoples, Guatemala enacted the Public

Policy for Coexistence and the Elimination of Racism,

under the aegis of the Presidential Commission Against

Discrimination. Also, we have incorporated

multicultural criteria into public policies, planning and

projects; we have strengthened bilingual and

intercultural education and we have instituted an

affirmative action policy in order to increase the

proportion of indigenous civil employees in the public

sector.

Fifthly, during my administration a human rights

approach was promoted in all public sector policies

and during the past four years more public policies

regarding human rights were enacted than during all

the previous governments. In that context, allow me to

mention just one aspect: the right of reparations

violations has been acknowledged for victims of

human rights and for that purpose we devised a

National Plan of Compensation with a duration of

13 years in order to respond to all claims.

Finally, we addressed the issue of citizen security

in an integral manner, a social phenomena conditioned

by multiple economic, social, political and cultural

factors, while at the same time insisting on the full

observance of human rights. We recognize that there is

still much to do in that area, but in practice definite and

significant advances have been attained. To address

new national and regional challenges that have arisen

in regard to citizen insecurity and organized crime, my

administration concentrated its efforts on strengthening

public institutions and building democratic

governance.

I must state that many of these policies should be

conceived as State policies rather than those of a

particular Government. In this regard, we have put into

place a transition programme so as to transfer to the

new democratically elected authorities, after the second

round of elections to be held on 4 November, all the

information deemed most relevant to facilitate the

administration of the new Government.

Logically, our foreign policy was also inspired by

the same principles and values as our domestic policy,

which I have already outlined. Perhaps the area in

which we have best managed to promote these

objectives is here in the United Nations, which has

worked with us in the negotiation, implementation and

follow-up to our peace accords. We have tried to repay

that support in a modest way with our contribution to

peacekeeping operations in various parts of the world,

particularly in our sister nation of Haiti, as well as

through our active presence in various United Nations

forums.

Given the circumstances, it is in our interest to

preserve, to strengthen and to adapt to modern times

our Organization, the United Nations, whose ideals we

value so much. The United Nations occupies a special

place in our foreign policy. We value it not only for its

past role the United Nations Verification Mission in

Guatemala left the country at the end of 2004 but

also for its continued contributions. In 2006, an office

of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which

works with and advises and counsels the State, was

established. This month, September, a new concerted

effort is being made between Guatemala and the United

Nations with the collaboration of a group of friendly

nations, through the creation of an International

Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG),

whose objective is to improve our investigation

capacities and the arraignment and prosecution of

criminal activities in our country. This is an

unprecedented collaboration between a Member State

and the United Nations, with a view to combating

impunity, and particularly transnational crime, an

endeavour that will surely yield very tangible benefits

for my country and valuable experience for the United

Nations.

We also reiterate our commitment to the Central

American integration process, which has produced

remarkable advances in the last four years. We are very

close to securing our integration process by means of

putting in place a customs union, and we are also

embarking on a negotiation process with the European

Union aimed at securing an association agreement.

Reviewing some of the other items on our

agenda, on Monday of this week I had the privilege to

take part in the high-level event on climate change,

where I added our voice of alarm at the irreversible

harm that we are causing ourselves owing to global

greenhouse emissions. The amount of scientific data

proving this phenomenon is unquestionable, and

Guatemala has not been spared its effects. But we also

have the scientific means to mitigate, and even reverse,

recent tendencies, which requires a shared but

differentiated effort on the part of all of us. The United

Nations offers unparalleled forums in which to tackle

this common threat. It is as serious a threat to humanity

as are wars with weapons of mass destruction, or

transnational terrorism.

I would like in the last part of my speech to talk

about some of the items on the General Assembly’s

agenda. I have the following specific comments. As a

multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual country, we

are proud to have worked hand in hand with other

countries in the negotiations that led to the recent

adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

As a member of the Human Rights Council, we

have actively participated in its process of institution-

building. We believe that the greatest challenge that the

Council has to confront is to finalize that building

process and to set in motion the universal, periodic

review mechanism. Guatemala will be one of the first

countries to be reviewed.

We are pleased at the holding of the first annual

ministerial examination of the Economic and Social

Council, aimed at appraising the progress achieved in

fulfilling the targets and the objectives of development,

as well as the launching of the Development

Cooperation Forum. We support any reform and

reorientation of the Organization that will enhance its

ability to deliver results, coherence and efficiency. We

take note of what has already been done in the

Department of Peacekeeping Operations, as well as the

Secretary-General’s ideas for reforming the

Department of Political Affairs. We are concerned,

however, that the issues of reform relating to the

development agenda agreed at the World Summit of

2005 are not being accorded the same priority.

Also, as a country that was a principal actor in

the Financing for Development conference of 2002, we

believe that the dialogue scheduled for 23 and

24 October will afford an opportunity to review the

current achievements of its goals and to implement the

undertakings set forth in the Monterrey Consensus.

In our capacity as a middle-income country, we

were pleased at the holding of the Intergovernmental

Conference of Middle-Income Countries last March in

Spain, and we are committed to the success of the

second such meeting to be convened in El Salvador in

October.

We continue to await the much-discussed reform

of the Security Council, and we note the advances

attained during the last session of the Assembly, when

we were closer than ever before to a process of

intergovernmental negotiation. We trust that during this

session those efforts will be pursued.

As I have said, this is the last occasion on which I

shall come before the Assembly as President of

Guatemala. I therefore reiterate my deep gratitude to

the United Nations and to all its Member States for

their support for our work and our initiatives during the

four years of my mandate.