Honduras, 1999

I wish to

express my pleasure at your recent election, Mr. President.

I also wish to acknowledge the work of your illustrious

predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti. The Secretary-General, Mr.

Kofi Annan, also deserves acknowledgement for his

untiring efforts to ensure that peace and security govern

international relations in this turbulent world in which we

live, always showing sensitivity and a very special concern

for those who suffer the most, have the least, and therefore

need the greatest care.

Almost a year ago, Central America was tragically

struck by one of the most terrible hurricanes of the century.

Our country, Honduras, was the most severely damaged,

with billions of dollars in losses resulting from the

destruction of more than 70 per cent of its infrastructure

and economy. More than 15,000 people were killed,

injured or went missing and more than 1.5 million

suffered losses, either directly or indirectly, a high

percentage of whom lost their homes, belongings and

businesses in their entirety.

Those unfortunate circumstances through which we

had to live, the consequences of which we have only just

begun to recover from, have been aggravated in recent

weeks by the severity of the winter and high levels of

precipitation. Once again, the banks of our country’s main

rivers have overflowed, as it was not possible to dredge

them because of lack of time and resources. This is again

jeopardizing the safety of numerous population centres

and cities, causing more flooding and mudslides and

blocking the country’s main transportation arteries. This

has brought further insecurity and anguish to our

population, adding new losses and difficulties to the

already grave state of affairs we have faced since last

October.

Hurricane Mitch and other natural phenomena of

uncommon violence lay bare the physical vulnerability of

our countries and highlight the absolute necessity of early

and organized preventive measures. Such preventive

measures can be achieved at the national, regional,

continental and, indeed, global levels only through

combined, joint efforts and resources. No country, much

less a country that is poor in material resources, is up to

the task of bearing the massive destructive power of these

phenomena alone. This is a huge new challenge for the

United Nations, whose diligent attention to this matter we

take this opportunity to request, knowing that it stands to

save thousands upon thousands of lives, spare us enormous

damage, and deflect immense ills.

We, the Honduran people, have always valued the

world’s solidarity, for which we are most grateful, and have

also learned that brotherhood among men and among

nations is a value that we must not lose. On the contrary,

we must revitalize, strengthen and disseminate it, especially

now that globalization and high-speed communications are

drawing States and continents closer together, making it

possible for one nation instantly to feel the pain that afflicts

another as if it affected us all directly.

More than neighbours, we must be brethren. Beyond

cooperation, we must sow the seeds of brotherhood.

Solidarity is a fine thing, but brotherhood is stronger and

more human, because it breathes from the depth of our

hearts that divine, universal breath of life with which God

endows each and every one of his creatures so that we

should be equal and enjoy the planet’s wealth as equals.

Since its founding in 1945, the United Nations has

played a preeminent role in the life of our planet. The 50

nations that met at San Francisco, California, among which

the Honduran people were honoured to count ourselves, and

that signed the United Nations Charter, have increased in

number over the years. Some have changed, while others

have disappeared as multinational or federated structures.

Therefore, the challenges that the next century will place

before the United Nations are new, even greater challenges,

and most likely will be even more difficult and will arise

ever more frequently.

The growing victories of human rights; the accelerated

expansion of democracy as a system of governance and

coexistence among peoples; the rights of women and

children, and the imperative to protect both against abuse,

discrimination and violence: these are matters that challenge

the creative imagination of the world’s peoples and

Governments. They are paradigms for a new millennium,

whose portals we approach with a watchful mind and a

hopeful heart.

Peace; the environment; population growth; the

abandonment of the fields and the forced, chaotic

urbanization of our cities — which have thus become

ruralized; issues of food; the vast differences between a

small cluster of rich nations and an immense universe of

nations that are in a permanent process of pauperization;

and the eradication of weapons of mass destruction: these

are but a few of the topics that transcend the boundaries

of the centuries. These issues demand new approaches

and solutions formulated in the light of the experiences

that this waning century leaves us.

Now, when the end of the twentieth century enables

us to be exceptionally privileged witnesses to a change of

millennium, is a time for reflection, so that we may

harvest the century’s finest fruits and bear them across the

bridge between the centuries. However, we must not carry

to the other frontier of time those things that in this

century have produced the great disasters of war and

agonizing tensions on the international scene; nor must

we hold on to those that have segregated peoples and

dismembered entire States or that have spawned the

marginalization and exclusion that still torment a large

part of humanity.

It is of the utmost necessity, then, that fraternity

should return to its rightful place in the triangle of liberal

principles, the very ideals that gave birth to the rule of

law and the concept of constitutionality, to harmony and

equality among individuals and among nations, thus

shaping democratic States and the paradigm of human

freedom as the basis of the existence of humankind, its

very raison d’être on this planet.

We say that the elder siblings among the community

of nations must adopt the concept of fraternity as a

principle and a guiding ethic for international coexistence

with their brethren, so that together — without exclusion,

without the yawning chasms that separate the great from

the small, the wealthy from the impoverished — we may

all cross to the other side of the millennium with a new

outlook of justice, opportunity and hope, for the sake of

all that we are as the human race, and for the sake of all

the efforts, sacrifices and suffering expended in our

attempts to dodge the blows of economic disparity and

unjust treatment in finance and markets. Yet we have

remained steadfast, and continue to do so through titanic

efforts and countless sacrifices, to avoid being left behind

by development, cultural trends and the scientific and

technological benefits of transportation and

communications. We have struggled for all of this while

giving our heroes and martyrs to the cause of freedom;

we stretch as far as we can to develop democratic rule in

our States. We struggle each and every day to make

democratic rule able to govern, credible, hope-inspiring

and trustworthy in the eyes and hearts of the many who

do not always have the patience to wait until the benefits

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of the system materialize, who despair and grow weary of

dreaming dreams that are difficult to attain.

For democracy to survive the times and to justify the

high price that we have paid for it, it must respond to the

concerns and aspirations of peoples. Protecting against

regression in what so many have paid dearly to achieve;

preserving the advances we have made; and finding a way

to ensure that there will respond in a positive way for the

benefit of peoples: these are the greatest challenges that we

carry with us as we meet the coming millennium.

Central Americans have learned, through bitter

experience and a painful toll of blood and sacrifice, that

fraternity is a higher value than mere neighbourliness, that

cooperation and understanding yield better fruit for us than

past rivalries and local nationalisms and that there is no

difference, however serious it may appear, that we cannot

resolve in a peaceful, harmonious and civilized manner.

A few days ago the presidents of El Salvador and

Honduras set a beautiful example for the continent and the

world when they ratified the Convention on Nationality and

Acquired Rights which covers the inhabitants of the areas

delimited by the Judgment of 11 September 1992 of the

International Court of Justice in the land, island and

maritime frontier dispute between El Salvador and

Honduras. With this action, we have resolved, definitively

and in perpetuity, the frontier dispute which for many years

cast a pall over our fraternal relations.

The Central American bloc is today working towards

access to the United States market under conditions as

advantageous as those already enjoyed by other partners to

our north; also, as a region we are seeking to open up the

field for ourselves in trade throughout the continent through

agreements with other existing blocs and with individual

nations, including Mexico and countries of South America.

Central America is preparing to cross the bridge

between the millennia with all its republics more integrated

with each other than ever before, identifying with each

other in the common ideal of keeping ourselves united so

that we are stronger, of playing a stellar role in the

American continent, of turning the isthmus into a point of

strategic convergence for world trade, and of writing

ourselves into a success story that will serve as an example

and touchstone to the world community.

The globalization process, which has accelerated over

the last decade, will continue to expand, creating challenges

and chances, problems and opportunities. The dizzying

flows of capital which in a single day can wreak

catastrophic collapse on the economies of entire countries

and regions must surely merit special attention from this

Organization. Our peoples fail to understand why they

should be affected by breakdowns in the financial system

arising out of risk-taking and speculative flows in regions

of the world that are remote, alien and even unknown to

them. We are affected by them although we play no part

in them and are not to blame for them, yet they raise the

prices of our staples, rob us of development opportunities,

impoverish us even further and make life harder for us.

Globalization ought to be an experience that generates

broader possibilities and greater opportunities for all

countries and for all people, not greater imbalances and

inequalities.

In stark contrast to the elimination of customs and

border posts and to equal access to markets stands the

need to reinforce the identity of ethnic groups, nations,

countries and regions. Cultural diversity is a source of

legitimate pride, and of wealth, creativity and global

complementarity. Automation of mass production cannot

and should not make human behaviour, the most precious

resource on our planet, automatic. Homogenizing the

world’s cultural diversity, by whatever means, would be

as serious and unthinkable as eliminating the planet’s

biodiversity.

The world’s age-old desire for a new world order

based on peace, cooperation and fraternity between all

countries rather than on a balance of arms between

powerful and hegemonic States has already come to pass.

Although there are still some local problems, and

although some old nationalisms are once again raising the

flag, the world is generally a much more peaceful and

stable place than it was 100 years ago. Although small

groups of terrorists are still rattling various countries in

the old world and the new, the truth is that, broadly

speaking, we live in a world which is more peaceful —

thank God — than the one our forebears knew. That is

why we must indeed acknowledge that, despite all its

imperfections, the world has brought in a new world

order at the end of this century and the dawn of the new,

an order led by the United Nations.

In this new world order which we are seeing at the

end of the second millennium, there is no more room for

the struggle left us by the Cold War, much less for

Europe’s various hegemonies of the past three centuries.

Nor is there any possibility that one State alone can

dominate the rest, as neither the human capacity nor the

material resources exist to do so. Rather than the balance

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of compulsion upon which the politics of coexistence

between the world’s strongest States was based, what

predominates now is multiple independence,

complementarity between States and international

cooperation and, of course, teamwork as much in the quest

for peace as in coping with civilian crises and natural

disasters.

Even a superficial look at events north and south, east

and west gives us an inkling that peace, international trade

and the fact that States now have no choice but to

cooperate with each other have levelled the playing field in

international relations: on the world stage, it is now not so

much a State’s economic clout or military capability that

determine whether its voice is heard in the debate but rather

its moral force, and especially its democratic values and its

ideals in terms of protecting human rights. In our specific

context here, there are no more big States and small States,

just members of the world community whether committed

or not to the common task of making Planet Earth a real

and effective place for human happiness for everyone

without exception.

With this in mind Honduras, together with the other

representatives of this great community, the United Nations,

celebrates the new world order in which all of us are

needed and are even indispensable to maintaining and

developing it. A crisis between one State and another, or

any internal difficulties arising out of conflicts rooted in

inequity or because of nationalist, racial or religious

demands, are no longer matters to be shrugged off.

On the contrary, today, with the globalized view of the

Earth, each State assumes responsibility for its own

protection, not merely for its own sake, but because in that

way it guarantees the life and happiness of humankind for

centuries to come.

Difficulties such as those in East Timor, the crisis in

Kosovo, the increasing nuclearization of the Indian

subcontinent or the rise in terrorism in Colombia and

Russia are issues that concern us all. Although not all

countries participate in each peacekeeping and humanitarian

mission, there is a disposition and openness in each and

every one of their inhabitants to respond to the calls for

international solidarity, whose strongest voice is that of the

United Nations, and especially that of its Secretary-General.

In the Sahara, for several years now Honduran soldiers

have participated in peacekeeping missions under United

Nations command. We are sure that, like us, no other

country skimps when it comes to offering cooperation and

making sacrifices.

Both the intervention of the Security Council in the

Kosovo conflict just recently and the organization of an

international peacekeeping force for East Timor illustrate

the efficacy of this system, which makes all of us

brethren, neighbours, friends and partners.

It is undeniable that, even as the world has changed

and with obvious respect among all States, the United

Nations still operates using the mechanisms that were

established at its founding in 1945. The limited number

of Member States on the Security Council leaves out

other States that, because of their contribution to the

development of the world, should participate in the high-

level decisions of that important organism of our

Organization.

Likewise, we believe it is time to provide

alternatives so that the veto power enjoyed by certain

States is limited to certain matters and certain

circumstances, and so that the mere protection of private

interests does not have excessive influence or provide

justification for aggressions directed at the rest of the

world community. To end the practice whereby the veto

serves as the Organization's last word should be a goal to

which all of the States represented here dedicate ample

time and consideration.

The incorporation of three new Members into this

Organization fills us with joy and hope, while inspiring

confidence that the Organization will treat the Republic of

China in the same manner — that, as Taiwan expects, the

new world order will be reflected in greater respect for

the rights and values of Taiwan's inhabitants, including

renewed respect for its aspirations to participate fully in

the greatest human organization on Earth. I do not wish

to miss this opportunity to express the solidarity of the

people of Honduras and of all Central America with the

people of Taiwan as they suffer the terrible misfortune

that is afflicting that sister region of the world.

To summarize, with regard to the new world order,

which we hope will prevail in this global forum,

Honduras supports broader representation of the peoples

and the nations of the world, and a more just and

balanced representation in the discussions and decisions

of the United Nations.

Almost a year ago, my country was lashed by the

most fearsome and destructive hurricane in history. Along

with causing suffering among a noble and stoical people,

the tragedy made evident the sensitivity and diligence of

international cooperation and fraternity. Marked by

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authentic sincerity and dedication to the highest values of

brotherhood, in which we profoundly believe, messages of

concern poured in from all over the world, along with

assistance, which continues to flow, enabling the people and

Government to reconstruct what the hurricane wrecked.

Thanks to that fraternity, we have moved forward in

the process of rehabilitation and reconstruction and created

a foundation for the transformation of Honduras — and the

same applies to Central America. I hereby declare that we,

the people of Honduras — with the tears from this recent

and painful event still fresh, and while facing a new round

of anguish — are back on our feet, brimming with the

vibrant spirit of utmost hope, ready to become a success

story in this world, to convert tragedy into opportunity.

Regarding the cooperation that most of the countries

present here have offered and continue to offer us, we take

this occasion, on behalf of the Honduran people and the

Government over which I preside by the sovereign will of

its citizens, to extend our most heartfelt gratitude to all, and

likewise to confirm before the Assembly Honduras's desire

to reciprocate — in a way that is commensurate with the

greatness of its heart and the legitimacy of its democratic

institutions — for all that the world has with such deep

affection provided us in our time of trouble.

All I would add is our most respectful request that

cooperating institutions and nations expedite the resources

and projects that they have committed to Honduras's

reconstruction, which we urgently require now more than

ever.

On this occasion our country, never forgetting that it

is a founding Member of the United Nations, calls for a

reform of our Organization so that a new order, based on

worldwide cooperation and fraternity, can guarantee for all

of us that the Earth was created not for the strongest and

the most powerful, but for all human beings.

May God bless all nations. May God illuminate us all.