Guatemala, 2008

It is an

honour for me to represent my country, Guatemala, in

this high international forum. It is an honour for me to

represent a people who have fought for their well-being

and freedom for decades, specifically the past 54 years.

My Administration is an expression of precisely that

desire, because, after all those years, governmental

actions are now being prioritized around the human

person, the concepts of solidarity and social cohesion

and, especially, in the 254 days since I took office,

attention to the poorest and most marginalized among

our population, in particular the 23 indigenous peoples

that constitute our nation.

First, I should like to commend Mr. Miguel

d’Escoto Brockmann, whom we, with much Central

American pride, see presiding over the General

Assembly at its present session, following in the

footsteps of a fellow Guatemalan, Mr. Emilio Arenales

Catalán. I know that Miguel’s experience and life

example will ensure the success of this session.

I also wish to thank the United Nations for

assisting Guatemala in its peace process and for

following up on it with the United Nations Verification

Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and, most

recently, with the presence of the International

Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a

unique mechanism that will help us combat

impunity — indeed, we are the only country to have

such a mechanism.

Participating in the present session of the

Assembly are world leaders who will be remembered

in 10 or 20 years’ time for having had the wisdom to

emerge from the present crisis — a crisis regarding

which, in certain areas and at certain times, there has

been a marked absence of global solidarity. I join

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann in his appeal for

solidarity. I believe that the great remedy for this crisis

is global solidarity. We have globalized trade and

information, but we have not gained the wisdom to

globalize humanity or to globalize labour to ensure that

migrants are not treated as criminals and that — like

products, trade and money — they have freedom of

movement across borders. Our migrants seek nothing

more than the opportunities offered by globalization

and the opening of borders. It was that very opening

that worsened their poverty and encouraged them to

abandon their communities.

That is why I am making a special appeal and

proposal to the Secretary-General that we no longer try

to resolve the problem of migration bilaterally; rather,

we must do so as a bloc. For example, I should like to

propose that the United Nations create a forum

composed of former Presidents of countries of origin

and countries receiving great numbers of migrants,

such as the brotherly countries of El Salvador,

Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.

Together, in six months’ time, we could formulate a

specific proposal to finally put an end to a situation

that is a scourge for so many families, so many

Guatemalans and many other nations.

I should also like to discuss the scourges of drug

trafficking and organized crime, which greatly afflict

our populations. Only 254 days after taking office, our

Government has begun a comprehensive process of

reforming the security forces. We have changed the

high command of the army and the entire command of

the national police so that we can fight impunity

together with CICIG and the United Nations system.

Thus, Guatemala can finally achieve the true, firm and

lasting peace for which, with such hope, we signed an

agreement here on 29 December 1996.

Everything that happens in the outside world

affects us. Foreign manipulation and speculation

related to oil and food affects us. As my good friend

President Saca of El Salvador said earlier, our

countries are accomplishing their national tasks. In 254

days, my Government has, through social cohesion,

returned to the people of Guatemala what belongs to

them under their Constitution: free education and

health care — totally free, as stipulated in the

Constitution. We have broken a paradigm. In

Guatemala, it used to be forbidden to get sick after

5 p.m., because the country’s health clinics closed at

that time. Today, 52 municipalities out of a total of 333

already have comprehensive health services. In

addition, 300,000 children now have renovated schools

with teachers, desks and all the necessary equipment.

With determination, we can do what is required,

but we need solidarity among everyone. We need and

participate in Central American solidarity, which

enables us to tell the world that the free market works.

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We have had a common market for 50 years, and we

know that it works. But we also know that that

common market requires social solidarity among

ourselves.

I have always believed that solidarity is not

giving what one has left over, but rather giving what

someone else needs; it is very easy to give what one

has left over. Giving what someone else needs requires

will and solidarity. We are aware of — and have heard

our colleagues’ statements about — this international

crisis, but there is a much deeper crisis. The crises that

the world’s leaders must face are the crisis of hunger,

the crisis of discrimination and the crisis of poverty. It

is the crisis of hunger that all the Governments present

here today are fighting against, but that is also a global

issue. We in Guatemala are a people of maize, but a

few years ago they said it was bad business to plant

maize and destroyed the production systems. Today,

Guatemala imports maize.

I believe that now is the time for solidarity and

true global security. Perhaps civil security is the easiest

to achieve, despite the fact that my country is complex.

Sovereignty of food, sovereignty of health, sovereignty

of knowledge — these are more difficult to achieve.

We have planned to achieve solidarity,

productivity, a regional spirit and governance. We have

established a system of national dialogue that is

enabling all the country’s social sectors to come to the

negotiating table, to arrive at a true national

understanding and to begin rebuilding a country that,

for 54 years, was afflicted by marginalization, the cold

war, hunger and bad Governments.

I am convinced that new times have come for

Latin America. I am convinced that all our Latin

American summits and meetings herald new times. We

have our differences and individual characteristics, but

Latin America has begun to look north, south and to

the centre, to the Caribbean, and we see a continent

with the possibility of stronger unity, of stronger

horizontal South-South cooperation and North-South

cooperation. Our neighbours, our dear Central

America — we are peoples rooted in the region who

want a strong and united Central America.

This Assembly could take a momentous turn for

our future as a planet. Of course we are concerned by

climate change, but we have to maintain our Mayan

biosphere so that others can breathe while our

communities are dying of hunger. That is solidarity. We

give oxygen, but we receive technology. We give

oxygen, but we receive solidarity. We give oxygen, and

we receive the understanding of countries that we

deserve a better fate on the basis of this international

solidarity.

We have also promoted tax reform. It is no secret

for many that tax reform in Guatemala meant problems

and coups d’état. But now we have tax reform, with a

good level of consensus. There is also commitment to

transparency and to the quality of expenditures. In only

254 days 7 per cent of the national budget was directed

to the poor, money that used to be and today would

have been spent entirely on other things and without

reference to the poor. Seven towns have begun to lower

their maternal mortality indicators. Health centres are

packed, because they now provide services and they

are open. There are significantly more children in

schools in the 45 towns that are priorities. This can be

done, if there is the determination to do it.

Our security is perhaps the greatest while El

Salvador, Colombia and Mexico are more successful in

fighting drug trafficking. Guatemala pays the bills.

That is why in this brief time I wish to thank my

neighbours, Colombia, for the support that they have

given us so that we can confront drug trafficking and

organized crime on a regional scale. Our young people

should not have to pay for the weaknesses of others.

Our unassuming people and our indigenous people

should not have to pay for the vices of others. I believe

that if we work regionally things will go better.

I should like to acknowledge and reiterate our

gratitude to the United Nations system for the peace in

Guatemala that was sought during the eight years of

negotiations, in which I had the honour to take part. Its

follow-up with the United Nations Mission for the

Verification of Human Rights and of Compliance with

the Commitments of the Comprehensive Agreement on

Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and now

with the presence of the International Commission

against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) makes it easier

for us to take the difficult road towards the integration

and development of Guatemala and towards equity in

Guatemala.

I should like to share with members that the

programmes for social cohesion that were learned and

developed in Guatemala, but also acquired in friendly

countries, are yielding results. The “My Family Makes

Progress” programme is now affecting 40,000 families,

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and the young people are going to school and to health

facilities. The “Shopping Bag Solidarity” programme is

yielding results in the urban areas, and “Open Schools”

is reducing delinquency in the areas of higher risk in

Guatemala City.

If we had the courage to globalize the economy

we would now have the challenge, and almost the

obligation, to globalize all of mankind. Such

globalization would lead to comprehensive, global

solidarity; it could be the way to save our planet. It

could be that we save it by combining our successes

and trying to avoid our errors.