Panama, 1996

The delegation of Panama wishes to join in the very

warm congratulations that the President has already

received from the speakers who have preceded me. His

well-deserved election as President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-first session attests to his skills and

personal merits, and at the same time reflects the esteem

that Malaysia, a prominent member of the Association of

South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has come to enjoy in

the family of nations.

I am also very pleased that this particular part of our

meeting is being chaired by our colleague from the

Philippines, Ambassador Mabilangan.

Allow me on this solemn occasion to pay tribute to

the eminent Portuguese statesman Diogo Freitas do

Amaral, who presided over the historic fiftieth session

with great wisdom, poise and humanism and shed his

particular light on the institutional reform of the United

Nations.

At the fiftieth session of the General Assembly

Panama proposed, together with the United States and

France, that the United Nations and interested countries

should take a decisive part in the holding of the Universal

Congress on the Panama Canal, which will take place in

September 1997. On that occasion the Assembly adopted

resolution 50/12 (1995), which in its operative part,

“Urges the competent organs, programmes and

specialized agencies of the United Nations system,

in particular, the United Nations Development

Programme, the United Nations Environment

Programme and the International Maritime

Organization, to study the possibility of providing

assistance from within existing resources for the

organization of the Universal Congress on the

Panama Canal”. (resolution 50/12, para. 3)

In the first operative paragraph the Assembly noted

that it

“Supports the initiative of the Government of

Panama in convening the Universal Congress on the

Panama Canal, with the participation of

Governments, international bodies, public and

private academic institutions, maritime users and

7

international shipping companies, to examine jointly

the role which the Panama Canal should play in the

twenty-first century”. (Ibid., para. 1)

The Government of Panama has a particular interest in

seeing that Member States of the United Nations, as well as

intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations of

the international community, are informed about how

Panama, as a sovereign State, is preparing to take on all the

responsibilities stemming from the final transfer of the

interoceanic canal in 1999, pursuant to the provisions of the

Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

One calendar year from the holding of the Congress,

I wish to inform the General Assembly that the Panamanian

Government is hard at work on preparations and stepping

up consultations with international organizations and

friendly countries in order to secure meaningful

participation. The Panama Canal Congress will be universal

in terms of participation; it will also be universal because

Panama, with its universalist and Bolivarian traditions, takes

the view that international maritime transport should be

open uninterruptedly to all the flags of the world on an

equal footing and under a neutral and universal regime that

obliges us all to ensure its peaceful use and transit, taking

into account the expansion of international trade and the

growth of the world economy.

Ours is a time in which nations appear to be closer

than ever and in which there are tremendous opportunities

to improve the living conditions of all. At the same time,

the existence of numerous imbalances, obstacles, risks and

dangers gives Governments and peoples grounds for

concern.

It is not only remarkable achievements of science,

technology and trade that are being globalized;

unfortunately, hunger and environmental degradation are

also being globalized. There are still national and

international situations that are marked by the denial of

fundamental values and that affect human rights and the

freedom of peoples. There are growing inequalities between

members of our societies and between nations, and certain

injustices still persist in some aspects of international

relations. Arms trafficking and overt or covert resistance to

agreements and initiatives to reverse the arms race are signs

that attitudes of expediency are prevailing, to the detriment

of our hopes for peace and agreement and our aspirations

to sustainable development. Terrorism, organized crime and

transnational crime conspire and feed off one another on an

unprecedented international scale, exploiting the many faces

of drug use, which is a threat to all mankind.

These concerns dominated the agenda of the Rio

Group at its tenth summit, held a month ago in

Cochabamba, Bolivia. It was an opportunity to underscore

at the highest possible political level the serious

challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean,

whose average poverty levels have reached alarming

levels despite the tremendous efforts of our Governments

to reduce them.

At that meeting the Panamanian Government

stated — and I reaffirm here in this forum — that poverty

and corruption are powerful forces threatening the

democracies of the continent. On that occasion, the

President of Panama, Mr. Ernesto Pérez Balladares,

stated:

“When Nations embark on political adventures

divorced from institutionality, they do not do so

because they reject in theory the benefits of

democracy, but because they associate their own

despair with the regime under which they live ... For

this reason, until the new concepts governing

economic relations among countries today and

democracy throughout the continent are accompanied

by investment in social sectors and a genuine

modernization of education to help close the gap, the

sectors of the population affected by poverty will

ultimately reject what we here today quite rightly

think should be permanent values of modern

societies.”

For this reason, we wish to reiterate our

understanding of and solidarity with the problems of

hunger and poverty suffered by countries in other regions,

in particular the least developed countries, the majority of

which are in Africa, and certain countries in our region

that are particularly vulnerable. Whatever may be the

standpoint chosen for consideration of the great issues

contained on the agenda of this fifty-first session of the

General Assembly, we should always approach them with

the desire to respond appropriately.

The organization of social life always presupposes

normative vision and action. The United Nations has

proved its capacity to propose to the international

community a body of norms whose effectiveness depends

on their universal application. The fundamental debate

that has been going on in the area of human rights since

the creation of the United Nations has resulted in the

enshrinement of those rights in legally binding texts and

in declarations and programmes of action stemming from

the major conferences held by the United Nations in

8

recent years. We are encouraged by the fact that that

enshrinement is encompassing the rights of solidarity in the

context of problems concerning the environment,

population, society, women’s issues and housing.

The Government of Panama is mindful of the complex

dialectic interactions between peace, human rights and

development. The desire to ensure effective democratization

in national life and to foster development is at the core of

the activities the Panamanian Government is carrying out to

benefit children, young people, women, indigenous and

rural populations, the disabled and certain particularly

disadvantaged urban groups.

The Government’s activities relating to fulfilment of

the Platform for Action adopted at the Beijing Conference

on Women represent commitments strengthened by our

justifiable satisfaction over Panama’s fairly encouraging

indicators regarding the advancement of women. The accent

is currently being placed on the sector of the female

population living in unfavourable conditions of health,

housing and education and having little participation in

political life.

In the context of this constantly renewed effort to find

the best solutions to national problems, the delegation of

Panama wishes to express to the Secretary-General our

thanks and recognition for the cooperation activities that

have been carried out in Panama by the United Nations

Development Programme, as a recognized and neutral

facilitator, to promote national consensus on the Panama

Canal issues. The successes already achieved in this area

demonstrate that the actions of the United Nations its

system in Panama are effective and have an impact on the

life of the nation.

Three months ago Panama ratified the Convention on

the Law of the Sea, the implementation of which has

become more effective since the establishment of the

International Seabed Authority and the International

Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Panama, as a maritime

country, welcomes these promising developments and hopes

that there will be further achievements in the application of

the Convention.

The Government of Panama has great expectations for

its future participation as a member of the Governing

Council of the United Nations Environment Programme and

in the Commission on Sustainable Development. We will

strive to make our contribution and to prove our

commitment to overcoming environmental problems. The

strategic importance of issues associated with biodiversity

is such that my Government hopes that new and

additional funds will be made available to promote

activities in this field. We have the same hope in

connection with climate change, the ozone layer,

desertification and the conservation of forests.

In the area of international peace and security, we

reconfirm our agreement with those Governments that

advocate a total ban on the production, use, trafficking in

and transfer of anti-personnel land-mines. With respect to

the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which has

been signed by Panama, we continue to hold the same

view as in previous years. In this respect, we welcome

Brazil’s initiative to make the southern hemisphere a zone

free of nuclear weapons. This estimable initiative adds to

the efforts of Latin America and the Caribbean to foster

a world free of nuclear weapons, efforts that were

launched with the signing and ratification of the

Tlatelolco Treaty.

Upon learning of the response of the International

Court of Justice to the request issued by the General

Assembly at its forty-ninth session, my Government

welcomed the backing given by that principal organ of

the United Nations to the negotiations on a ban on

nuclear weapons, including tests. We signed the

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on the

understanding that implicit in it is a commitment on the

part of world Powers to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free

world.

Panama has always supported those who believe that

if a part of the funds absorbed by the arms industry could

be made available to combat poverty, ignorance and

disease, there would be positive changes all over the face

of our Earth.

Panama has already expressed in the United Nations

its position and views on the problem of drugs, most

recently at the high-level segment of the substantive

session of the Economic and Social Council in June. We

would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm our support

of Mexico’s initiative, co-sponsored by the Rio Group, on

convening a special session of the General Assembly in

1998, which would offer an opportunity to update the

various debates, concepts, approaches and consensus

positions on the issue of illicit drugs and related crimes.

The Government of Panama has made significant progress

in developing the proposal presented to the Rio Group to

create a multilateral centre in Panama to combat drug

trafficking and related crimes.

9

We are glad to announce the recent holding in our

country of the first international talks on the creation of that

centre, attended by Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico,

Peru, Venezuela and Panama. We agreed at that meeting to

hold another meeting in December 1996 to take decisions

on the training module included in the plans for the

multilateral training and research institute to combat drug

trafficking and related crimes. Another meeting will take

place early in 1997 to study and decide upon the

operational module as a means of combatting drug

trafficking and related crimes, which is essentially civilian

in nature and cooperating with the military forces that will

lend additional support.

In a similar vein, the Panamanian Government also

lends its support and solidarity to the international

community’s struggle to combat terrorism. Terrorist

activity, no matter what the reasoning behind it may be, is

criminal and immoral, and exceeds all limits. Its sole face

is that of fanaticism. Terrorism is the offspring of the

apocalypse, nihilistic and gratuitous in nature, capable of

crushing human freedom and claiming a terrible harvest of

innocent lives.

Other topics on the agenda of this session of the

General Assembly are of particular interest to the

Government of Panama. Negotiations on establishing an

Agenda for Development oblige us not only to talk about

this but to act, prompted by the universal duty to cooperate

which encompasses all individuals and all communities.

The common undertaking of sustainable development

should be carried out through shared responsibilities. For

this reason, we welcome the decision taken by Member

States to politically reactivate the Economic and Social

Council. Now, what is needed is the political will to equip

the United Nations with an Agenda for Development which

will not limit development solely to its economic

component: though that is necessary, it is not enough.

Development should also provide the key part of common

well-being and be placed at the service of purposes

consciously accepted by all, purposes that will enrich the

lives of all, purposes that will enhance the creative capacity

of every individual and be securely grounded in a human

dimension which implies faith in oneself and paves the way

for progress.

Whatever approach is taken in addressing the major

issues on the agenda of this fifty-first session of the

General Assembly, the human being, his hopes and

sufferings and the obstacles and opportunities he faces to

improve the quality of his life, should always have

precedence. In spite of the dazzling clarity with which we

perceive this certainty, it would seem that we sometimes

lose sight of the fact that the human individual is the

ultimate focus of this Organization and of all the

agreements and plans of actions that we arrive at within

it and stemming from it. All our decisions should be

designed to meet the demands, needs, requirements and

interests of human beings.

This requires a revitalization of the ethical side of

the United Nations. My delegation appreciates the

endeavours of the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros

Boutros-Ghali. He has placed his unquestioned talent and

efforts at the service of the Organization. His unswerving

internationalism and his commitment to world peace and

development mean that Panama takes great pleasure in

expressing its gratitude for his work.

A year ago we were welcoming the effort made by

two great men who were struggling tirelessly to

consolidate peace agreements and move towards peaceful

coexistence in the Middle East. Today one of those men

is no longer with us. Panama wishes to express a

posthumous tribute of recognition to Yitzhak Rabin, a

martyr of the peace process between two peoples,

Palestine and Israel, with which our people and our

Government have deeply-rooted friendly relations because

the children of those peoples live together on our soil and

are helping us to build a better country. Now that

fratricidal struggle is casting both nations into mourning,

Panama reaffirms its support for all the initiatives and

resolutions that will strengthen peace and promote

tolerance.

We are very concerned about the events which took

place as a result of changes effected in the Holy Sites of

Jerusalem, to which the Security Council referred in its

resolution 1073 (1996) on Saturday, 28 September 1996.

The Security Council called for an immediate cessation

and reversal of all acts that had resulted in the

aggravation of the situation and that had negative

implications for the Middle East peace process. It

likewise called for the safety and protection of the

Palestinian civilians to be ensured. Finally, it called for

the immediate resumption of negotiations within the

Middle East peace process on its agreed basis and the

timely implementation of the agreements reached.

Another matter of concern to us relates to the

Chinese people, a people with which Panama has

maintained relations since very early in the last century.

My country has benefitted from a continued migration

which, from the building of the interoceanic railway to

10

that of the Canal, has contributed to our development and

to the fashioning of our national identity. This deep-rooted

and lasting relationship with the Chinese people has

strengthened our nation’s and our Governments’ support for

the principle of the universality of the United Nations.

Panama maintains diplomatic relations with the Republic of

China and feels bound to state that those relations have

been fruitful and beneficial. They have always been

characterized by respect and have been receptive to and

incorporated the interests and needs of both sides. For this

reason, we feel that our relations are exemplary in the best

possible sense.

On the other hand, in a few years’ time Panama will

assume full responsibility for the interoceanic Canal and, in

the context of that responsibility, Panama must

acknowledge that the People’s Republic of China is one of

the main users of the waterway both in terms of the number

of vessels and in terms of the volume of cargo originating

in or destined for the People’s Republic of China. We are

encouraged by the fact that a significant number of Chinese

citizens and companies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait

live and work in harmony in Panama, where they have won

the respect and affection of Panamanians because of their

diligent hard work. We are convinced of the validity of the

principle of one China, and we reaffirm our support for the

efforts of both parties to unify the Chinese people. We

reiterate our conviction that they will achieve that purpose

in a framework of mutual respect that gradually helps to

build trust between the two parties and create a favourable

environment for Chinese reunification.

The question of Security Council reform, the increase

in the number of its members and other related matters is

of irrefutable importance for the United Nations, as is the

question of the strengthening of the role of the United

Nations. It is unacceptable to try to change the membership

of the Security Council solely on the basis of supposed

essential features that make certain countries more suitable

than others to join decision-making organs and hold seats

in the Security Council. Because of the functions it

performs, today’s state of affairs and a moral commitment

to the future of the United Nations, we call for a reform of

the Security Council that will provide regional

representation, an increase in both membership

categories — permanent and non-permanent — and

equitable distribution.

The Government of Panama regards the Italian

proposal as a democratic approach that responds to the

concern for representativity. We were encouraged by the

willingness to negotiate, with a view to achieving

consensus, voiced by the Italian Minister for Foreign

Affairs last week from this rostrum. In the issues of

Security Council reform and the strengthening of the role

of the United Nations, the best possible ideas and loftiest

purposes should come into play. We wish to see a better,

more effective and more representative Security Council.

We would also like to see opportunities to participate in

the United Nations go hand in hand with the

responsibility to act to ensure international peace and

security and for these to be seen from the perspective of

their relationships with democracy and development. The

Panamanian Government has decided to reaffirm its

support for Japan and Germany having permanent seats

on the Security Council.

I could not conclude without fulfilling my duty as a

Panamanian to reiterate before this world Organization

that Panama is ready to assume sovereign control over the

Panama Canal in 1999, with all the administrative,

operational and security responsibilities entailed in the full

implementation of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

Panamanians’ shouldering of the main responsibility for

the Panama Canal will coincide with the advent of the

twenty-first century. We shall march resolutely into the

new millennium, looking forward to a promising future in

which it will become clear that Panama’s universalist

vocation has never wavered, and we strongly reaffirm that

vocation.

Panama’s universalism, I am proud to say, is an

ethical one, capable of absorbing the most diverse

currents of thought and human action, whether from the

North, South, East or West. Our geography made us this

way, and our history opened us up to the world —

obviously, commercially, but above all culturally.

As of 31 December 1999 Panama will be better

integrated in the world because it will be able to make

free use of its entire territory for the integration of its

nation. We shall then have to cope with the tremendous

need to make full use of our potential and abilities and to

fully exercise our rights and fulfil our responsibilities. On

31 December 1999 the Panamanian nation will be at the

centre of an excitement sparked by the joining in our

veins and souls, of the past and the future, of the

struggles of generations, of joy and suffering and of the

many endeavours that all bear the same name, a name

that designates a common objective, a single mission that

many times engendered fervour and even heroism.

In the twenty-first century, Panama will still be a

small country. What will be different, I repeat, is the full

integration of the Panamanian nation in its territory, the

simple but intense and far-reaching meeting of a nation

with the entirety of its territory. The existence of an

interoceanic waterway, the Panama Canal, in that territory

will prompt us to pursue, step up and deepen our efforts to

establish the right approaches and institutions to complete

our sovereign life as a nation and to facilitate the fulfilment

of our universalist vocation. That universalism will make it

possible for us to continue to participate in the realities of

a globalized and interdependent world with the desire to

make it a source of mutual enrichment, openness, initiative

and creativity.

It is a fortunate historical coincidence that on

Wednesday of this week, 2 October 1996, the General

Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) decided

to accept the report of its subsidiary organ concerning

Panama’s accession, thus ensuring its entry as a full

member of the World Trade Organization. We welcome the

fact that, with the accession of Panama, all countries in the

Latin American region have become members of the WTO.

We all aspire to see a United Nations that will be

ready to deal with present and future problems. Panama

hopes to contribute to the vital consensuses and aspires to

become part of the necessary renewal of the United

Nations. As part of the Panamanian experience since the

creation of the United Nations, I personally have taken part

in the Organization’s intergovernmental machinery often

enough to be able to speak of faith. With faith in the

United Nations, we have often been capable of moving

mountains of mistrust and misunderstanding, which have

covered the world in a landscape of conflict and deadlock.

Thanks to that faith in the United Nations, today we can

speak of new generations of human rights and new

generations of peacekeeping operations, which, in the view

of men and women of my generation are proof that the

United Nations represents a victory over the erosive effects

of time and history.

My delegation believes that the United Nations has

accomplished wonderful tasks through its constructive

consideration of various manifestations of human diversity

and through the taking of decisions that give them a

productive, secure and peaceful place on Earth.