Nicaragua, 2002

I should like first of all to congratulate

Mr. Kavan on his election to the presidency.

On 21 March at Monterrey, Mexico, the President

of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolaños Geyer, announced that

“a process of moral renewal has been launched in

Nicaragua, with a crusade against public and private

corruption”.

On that same day, the President also announced

that, in the spirit of the new era of moral renewal,

“a Nicaraguan judge has just found three former

officials of the previous Government and three

other people guilty of acts of corruption that

impoverished our people. The judge left pending

the case against former President Alemán and

eight other officials of the previous Government”.

President Bolaños went on to say:

“With a view to continuing my policy of zero

tolerance of corruption, I must return to my

country as soon as possible to contribute, with

justice and transparency, to the historic landmark

constituted by this bold decision.”

A few days ago, in a similar case, another

courageous Nicaraguan judge sentenced members of

the former President's immediate family to jail.

Today, I have come before this General Assembly

on behalf of an entire people to reaffirm, in deed,

Nicaragua's commitment to governance, transparency,

accountability and to the principles of the rule of law.

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There is much at stake today in Nicaragua. Not

only must we punish corrupt officials and recover for

our country Government money that was diverted and

laundered, but also the results of our efforts will be

crucial to the struggle waged by other peoples of our

region and of the world against this scourge.

Nicaragua's success will be an incentive for the entire

international community. The failure of transparency in

Nicaragua would set a bad precedent for humankind.

We have not fought this battle alone. The support

of more than 84 per cent of our population has been

coupled with the moral and economic support of many

countries, embodying the democratic values shared by

us, the peoples of the United Nations. To them, to the

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and

to the international organizations that have supported

us, we extend our sincere gratitude.

In order to ensure that the changes we have made

are irreversible, we will need sustained and adequate

support. In this way, we will preserve the great moral

heritage of humankind — democracy exercised with

honesty and accountability.

As a part of this great heritage, we are today

discussing human development, conceived as the

State's ultimate purpose, to be attained through

democratic governance, economic growth and social

equity. We understand governance to be the result of

doing things correctly in the political sphere —

transparency, human rights and sovereignty. We see

growth as the result of doing the right things in the

economic and financial spheres, foreign exchange,

fiscal and monetary policies and competition. And we

understand equity as the result of doing things right in

the social sphere — namely, in education, health,

housing and gender equality.

Progress in bringing together these three elements

that comprise human development will not be possible

until corruption is rooted out. By its very nature, the

scourge of corruption has an impact that transcends

national borders. In this regard, we offer our full

support to the work being carried out by the special

committee responsible for negotiating a United Nations

convention against corruption. From this forum, we

appeal to the international community to commit itself

to the broadest possible mutual assistance and

cooperation in investigating or prosecuting acts of

corruption.

Terrorism is just as abhorrent as corruption. This

month we remember with anguish the tragedy of 11

September, when thousands of innocent people

perished, many of them heroically. This tragedy, like

all terrorist acts, must never be forgotten. At the same

time, international cooperation to deal with such crimes

must remain permanently on our agenda. It is essential

that we coordinate activities to prevent and punish such

terrorist activities, which cause so much pain and

suffering, with the full force of the law.

Nicaragua wishes to reaffirm once again its

unconditional support for United Nations activities to

combat international terrorism in all its forms and

manifestations. In Nicaragua, we have already set in

place a National Plan against Terrorism and Related

Crimes, designed to strengthen cooperation among

institutions, and with the aim of preventing, combating

and eliminating this scourge, and complying with

Security Council resolutions.

The case of Iraq is a challenge and a test for the

entire multilateral system that we have been

constructing. It is up to us to either help strengthen it

or help to weaken and fracture it. While it is true that

we are all in favour of multilateral action, it is also

undeniable that inertia and inaction undermine

confidence in our collective will. The multilateral

system must demonstrate the dynamism which is its

very raison d'être by taking joint, concerted and timely

action to resolve conflicts.

We wish to see a system capable of reacting with

specific, timely and effective measures to dangers that

threaten international peace and security, a system that

does not find itself overtaken by circumstances.

Nicaragua takes the view that the immediate and

unconditional return of United Nations weapons

inspectors to Iraq, in a climate of complete

cooperation, can only be regarded as an important part

of a greater effort aimed at the elimination of all kinds

of weapons of mass destruction, within the context of

the global interests of the international community and

in compliance with all pertinent Security Council

resolutions.

The reform of the United Nations is also part of

the desire to respond effectively. Reform basically

revolves around new organizational and administrative

structures, which, without a doubt, have gradually

enabled the United Nations to act with greater unity of

purpose, coherence and flexibility. Nicaragua, like the

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Secretary-General, believes that there is still great

potential for progress, and we must all ensure that the

Organization's work programme includes the priorities

set out in the Millennium Declaration.

No reform of the United Nations would be

complete without the long-awaited expansion of the

Security Council in order to enable it to respond fully

and effectively to current and future needs. Similarly,

we must pursue efforts to revitalize the General

Assembly and the Economic and Social Council in

order to empower the Organization fully to assume its

responsibilities, as enshrined in the Charter. Nicaragua

shares the interest of Member States in strengthening

the Organization, with a view to optimizing its efforts

to maintain international peace and security, prevent

conflicts, promote sustainable development and

eradicate poverty.

The recent World Summit on Sustainable

Development filled us with hope and, at the same time,

uneasiness. On the one hand, we saw the degree of

attention being focused on the problem of

environmental degradation. But, on the other hand, the

path to achieving the balance between development

and environment is still long and arduous, particularly

for the least developed countries. Before us lies the

challenge of generating greater wealth and more jobs

without harming our environment. We cannot achieve

this without the support of the developed countries,

which must help pay the price of the benefits they reap

from our efforts. Therefore, I wish to recall the

Monterrey consensus, where we urged those developed

countries that have not yet done so to adopt specific

measures to allocate 0.7 per cent of their gross

domestic product for official development assistance

(ODA) to the developing countries.

Nicaragua is aware that violence, civil and

international wars, the scourge of acquired

immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), drought and

poverty are the main problems afflicting the African

continent in recent years. However, we note with

concern that international cooperation and assistance to

Africa are diminishing. The efforts of African

Governments to achieve economic growth and alleviate

poverty must be matched.

Development efforts have also been given direct

expression in Central America, where we have reached

important agreements and taken decisions that today

enable us to say that our region is embarking on a new

era in its history. On 21 June last, in the city of

Granada, Nicaragua, we held the Twenty-First

Ordinary Meeting of Heads of State and Government

of Central America. This provided the opportunity to

reaffirm our commitment to moving towards the

consolidation of a Central American Customs Union,

which will become a reality on 31 December 2003. The

Customs Union was conceived as a means of

contributing to the economic and social development of

our countries. It will promote smooth interregional

trade, reduce the costs of transport owing to border

delays, facilitate the movement of persons and

vehicles, and, at the same time, attract international

business and investment to the region.

Nonetheless, the prolonged halt in the

international economic recovery was exacerbated in

Nicaragua by uncharacteristic problems in the external

sector, owing to the high price of imported oil and the

lowest coffee prices in history.

According to data provided by Gabriel Silva,

President of the Colombian Coffee Growers'

Federation, five years ago, coffee consumers paid 30

billion dollars while producers received 12 billion

dollars, or 40 per cent. Today, consumers pay 65 billion

dollars but producers receive only 5.5 billion dollars or

less than 8.5 per cent.

This critical situation, which is generating

unemployment and hunger in the productive areas of

Nicaragua and other producer countries, seems to be

caused by a cartel of coffee-roasters, a situation that

must be remedied as soon as possible through measures

to promote competition in consumer markets and on

the international market.

Nicaragua congratulates Switzerland on recently

joining the United Nations as a new Member and

Timor-Leste, which is about to join. Their presence

among us will contribute new ideas and approaches to

strengthening efforts for a better world, and —

paraphrasing the representative of Switzerland's

statement to this General Assembly — will enhance the

universality of the United Nations in the best interest of

humankind.

In this same connection, my country, aware of the

principle of universality and equality that inspired the

United Nations, considers it a priority to permit the 23

million inhabitants of the Republic of China on Taiwan

to enjoy the universal right to participate in

international affairs through its own delegation to the

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United Nations, parallel to and with the same rights of

participation as the People's Republic of China, whose

Government has never exercised hegemony over

Taiwan.

Nicaragua, as a founding State of this

Organization, reaffirms its commitment to the Charter

and its aspiration to become a non-permanent member

of the Security Council during the elections to be held

during the sixtieth session of the General Assembly.

I spoke earlier of a new era of moral renewal in

Nicaragua rooted in the values of the United Nations. I

believe that when we speak of strengthening

democracy, reforming the Organization, fighting

corruption, terrorism and drug trafficking, halting the

arms race or providing joint, timely and effective

responses to the dangers which threaten us, we are

really speaking of one and the same thing: belonging

jointly to an Organization that holds and safeguards our

trust and collective action based on the principles that

united our peoples on that historic day to create the

United Nations.