Panama, 2000

Allow me to convey to you, Mr. President, the warm

congratulations of Her Excellency, Mireya Moscoso,

President of the Republic of Panama, together with

those of her Government and the people of my country,

on your election to serve as President of the General

Assembly at its fifty-fifth session. Your designation to

guide the debates in this forum is highly gratifying to

the Panamanian delegation, not only because of your

own brilliant political record and your well-known

devotion to the well-being of the Finnish people, but

also because of the noble way in which you here

represent the lofty ideals of sovereignty and universal

cooperation in pursuit of world peace, sustainable

human development, human rights, democracy and

justice — traditional mainstays of Finland's foreign

policy and of the activities of the United Nations.

Panama shares with so many other States Members of

the Organization your concern to put these ideals into

practice, and that is what I shall be addressing today in

my statement.

I am also glad to pay tribute to, and express my

gratitude for, the activities of the Secretary-General,

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Mr. Kofi Annan, who has devoted particular effort in

the last year to the maintenance of international peace

and security, the reform of the Organization, and the

promotion of human rights, gender equality and the

enjoyment of the rights of the child. Panama shares

these and other concerns of the Secretary-General.

Indeed, as the other members of the Ibero-American

community are aware, upon an initiative of President

Mireya Moscoso announced at Havana in November

last year, the next Summit of Heads of State and

Government of Ibero-America, which will take place

shortly in Panama, will be dedicated to discussing the

problems facing children and young people in our

region. In the preparations for this meeting, which

Panama has undertaken with the greatest enthusiasm,

the national Government has received the support of

organizations devoted to the well-being of the world's

children and young people. These include the United

Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) — a United

Nations agency which has selected Panama as its new

regional headquarters and to whose noteworthy

activities, in fulfilment of its mandate, I am glad to pay

tribute on this occasion — together with agencies

responsible for promoting culture, particularly the

culture of peace, including the United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO), another United Nations agency which has

done extremely valuable work in promoting universal

understanding through education, technology and

communication.

With respect to gender equality, we are glad to be

able to state that in recent years our country has made

significant progress, particularly with respect to the

political participation of women. Indeed, since

1 September last year a woman has guided the destiny

of our nation. From January this year our Supreme

Court of Justice has been presided over by a woman.

During the review conference on women held in the

context of the special session of the General Assembly

in June 2000, the delegation of Panama signed the

Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination

of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which

makes it possible to have recourse to an international

body in case of the denial of such rights. Furthermore,

Panama has made significant improvements in access

for women to education and health. However, much

still remains to be done, particularly with respect to

equal access to economic resources. In this area, which

is closely bound up with sustainable human

development, my country hopes to make significant

advances, particularly through international

cooperation.

On this point, international cooperation, I should

like to share some brief thoughts and place them before

this distinguished body for consideration. More than 40

years ago one of my predecessors in the post of

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Miguel J. Moreno,

addressed this General Assembly on the topic of

international cooperation for development. On that

occasion Minister Moreno stated:

“Economic development, and international

cooperation for the attainment of such

development, are not only necessary if world

peace is to be achieved, but also represent

important means of cementing it and making it

durable.” (A/PV.749, para. 176)

Dr. Moreno added:

“Social tranquillity and national political stability

depend on economic development and on the

benefits which the peoples derive therefrom, as

do also a better understanding among the nations

and international harmony; all these are

indispensable for world peace.” (A/PV.749,

para. 178)

These wise words are as true today as they were

when they were uttered at the thirteenth session of the

General Assembly in 1958. It is this wisdom that has

guided the renewed emphasis that the United Nations,

in the last decade and through its United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP), has placed on the

promotion of sustainable human development. This

concept is the axis and basis of our President's

governmental plan. Our Government recognizes that

without measures to promote human development,

economic growth can make no sense and have no

meaning.

Although it may be boosted by economic growth,

human development is much more than economic

growth, for human development means enhancing the

capacities of human beings as individuals and as

members of the community by measures that provide

access to emancipating education and to better health

and transport services, measures to permit participation

in an economy and a culture that respects human

dignity, that encourage the prudent use of natural

resources, and foster and enlarge the exercise of the

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fundamental duties and rights of the human individual.

Given this multidimensional nature and the

Panamanian Government's concern to work towards

sustainable human development and to promote human

rights, the Panamanian delegation expresses its

satisfaction at the contents of the latest UNDP human

development report, which considers the link between

human rights and human development. The report

explains that human freedom is the common purpose

and the common motivation of human rights and

human development.

In the years that have elapsed since our return to

constitutional government our country has made

significant advances. Under our Government we have

begun a process of repealing legislation that restricts

freedom of expression and we have invited the Inter-

American Commission on Human Rights, a significant

regional agency, to assist us in promoting the

enjoyment of human rights in Panama. Also recently,

through a process of cooperation involving the major

political movements in the country, we have adopted

by consensus the basic elements of a Panamanian

security policy based on the doctrine of human

security, an extremely important component of

sustainable human development. That doctrine upholds

individual and grass-roots communities as constant,

clear-cut points of reference for the responsibilities and

purposes of the State's security strategy, and is based

on taking preventive measures designed to reduce

vulnerabilities and minimize the risks threatening the

opportunities and rights of individuals and of

communities. I am particularly gratified to be able to

state that Panama is one of the few countries to have

adopted the human security doctrine as a State policy.

We hope that this will be a matter for more in-depth

discussion and analysis at the next Summit of the

Americas to be held in June 2001 in Quebec, Canada.

In the context of this and other aspects of

sustainable human development and the exercise of

human rights, Panama firmly believes in international

cooperation and has recourse to it in order to promote

the lofty objectives that are the inspiration for States

Members of the United Nations. At the recent

Millennium Summit, whose purpose was to set a clear

course for the United Nations in the twenty-first

century, Panama, among other things, called for States

Members to return to the pursuit of the original spirit

of the Charter of the United Nations. Pursuant to this

request, it is our hope that the members of the Security

Council will assume the obligation of representing the

general interests of the international community instead

of acting according to their individual strategic military

or political interests. The general interest of the

Members of the Organization indicates that the time

has come to engage in debate and reach some

conclusion as to the way in which we can expand the

number of permanent and non-permanent members of

the Security Council while restricting and regulating

the use of the veto. We have expressed our agreement

with the need to reform the Charter of the United

Nations in order to achieve this objective and others,

provided such reform is based on the principles of

democracy and equitable geographic participation.

Panama wishes here and now to reaffirm its

commitment to the principle of self-determination of

peoples, articulated in the Charter of the United

Nations, and to the use of mechanisms for the peaceful

settlement of conflicts. The dangerous disputes which

riddle and split our world from the China Sea to the

Magreb, and which may degenerate into domestic or

transboundary outbreaks of violence, must be

addressed with a sense of urgency by the United

Nations. This would be possible within a structured,

conflict-prevention programme that provided for

specialized support to nations to guide them and assist

them in a fair and orderly, peaceful negotiation of their

interests. Accordingly, we recommend recourse to the

moral and technical presence of the United Nations

within such processes, engaged in by small States beset

by hostile Powers, or by racial or religious

intolerances. Likewise, we recommend recourse to the

United Nations in support of negotiations on

reunification or self-determination that other people

may wish to embark upon, with the aim of preserving a

prosperous, democratic way of life or of securing for

themselves the benefits of development.

The Republic of Panama nowadays is a fully

sovereign State glad to have recovered the exercise of

sovereignty throughout its national territory, and to

have proved its resolve and ability to fulfil the

commitments stemming from its participation in this

great international community. Panama has the will and

the capacity not only to administer efficiently and

transparently its greatest asset, the Panama Canal, but

also to cope successfully with the growing demands for

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international maritime traffic and to ensure the security

of our inter-oceanic waterway.

The Canal and the reverted lands will be the

driving force behind the development of the

Panamanian economy in coming years. Among other

large-scale projects, we are now executing the

extension of the Culebra Cut, a $1 billion investment

that, once completed in the year 2001, will permit

simultaneous passage of Panamax vessels through this

section of the Canal. Once this work is completed,

projects will be begun to expand the Canal's water

basin. Moreover, consultations and studies are under

way with a view to building the third set of locks,

which will make it possible for the inter-oceanic

waterway to be used by post-Panamax vessels and will

increase the efficiency of the Canal by 25 per cent. All

this will benefit world trade. Lastly, in the coming year

bidding will be opened for the construction of a second

bridge over the Canal in order to help unite our land,

which is currently divided by the Canal.

In the lands recovered and now devoted to

national development, former military installations of

all kinds have been expertly retooled for commercial

civilian use. Among other things, the former Albrook

air base has become a centre for domestic air and land

transport; the former School of the Americas has been

converted into a hotel of the Meliá international chain,

with its own convention centre; the Coco Solo military

base, which enjoys a unique location at the Atlantic

mouth of the Canal, today houses the international

maritime cargo ports of Manzanillo and Coco Solo,

which complement the international port of Balboa on

the Pacific, all interconnected by a trans-isthmus rail

system for container transport; and in the forts of

Davis, Corozal and Cocol', processing centres are now

being developed for exports, with the backing of

international capital.

With input from the International Financial

Corporation, studies are being undertaken to convert

the Howard air base into a multifunctional air and sea

cargo centre for the Pacific side of the Canal. The

development of the Sherman base, which is a genuine

ecological gem, seeks to link the protection of the

country's historical patrimony and environment with

economic development. Fort Clayton is now the base

of an educational and industrial complex known as the

City of Knowledge, where the regional office of the

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) for the

hemisphere will be located. The City of Knowledge is

also home to regional campuses of Texas A & M and

McGill Universities and a continental-level regional

centre for human rights. All of this will contribute to

the Government's plan to make Panama a centre of

international agencies.

In order to take full advantage of international

cooperation, Panama has adopted a policy of

strengthening its links with the various major

international organizations, including those that are

part of the United Nations system. In this way we are

striving to move forward and contribute to worldwide

peacemaking by converting former military bases into

civilian and commercial areas that will enhance world

peace.

This is an appropriate occasion to place on record

that Panama categorically rejects the actions of the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD), which has unilaterally devised

taxation standards that its members are trying to

impose outside their jurisdiction, in open violation of

resolutions of the General Assembly. On this point,

Panama is grateful for the support of the majority

leader of the United States House of Representatives,

who on 7 September wrote to the United States

Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Lawrence Summers,

strongly condemning this action. There is a need for a

careful examination of the flight of billions of dollars

in capital from developing countries to the financial

institutions of the first world which are trying to

tighten the so-called qualifications that are used to

exert pressure, with obvious objectives.

Panama is committed to the fight against the

laundering of money stemming from drug trafficking

and other unlawful activities. We believe that all

countries should work together to eliminate this

scourge. This effort should be carried out through

legitimate mechanisms of international institutions that

are representative not only of the industrialized North

but also of the emerging countries of the South, such as

the United Nations and the various regional

organizations.

In the spirit of international cooperation, to which

I previously referred, and in consideration of the most

basic concepts of justice, we are today calling for the

cooperation of the General Assembly in resolving a

dispute between Panama and the United States of

America, as a result of the bases operated by the armed

forces of that country on our territory throughout the

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last century. In this forum, in September last year, our

President stressed her confidence that the outstanding

differences surrounding this issue that still persisted

between Panama and the United States would be

resolved satisfactorily in a reasonable period of time.

Unfortunately, despite the efforts and goodwill

displayed by the Panamanian Government these

differences have still not been settled.

In his powerful report entitled “We the peoples:

the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first

century”, and with respect to certain matters relating to

trade, the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, proposes

that States Members follow a line of conduct consonant

with environmental and human rights standards. He

also urges States to fulfil their obligations vis-à-vis

universal values and the common standards that have

emerged from countless conferences and extensive

negotiations and that have taken the form of historic

resolutions and conventions under the auspices of the

United Nations. By extension, we believe that this

appeal to States applies not only to trading matters but

also to all the other aspects of relationships among

nations. His profound words express the vast ethical

foundation of the United Nations.

In another part of his report the Secretary-General

warns of the risk that environmental degradation,

among other factors, may heighten social and political

tensions in an unforeseeable and potentially dangerous

fashion. We are particularly gratified by this clear

vision on an issue whose various facets are already

having a serious impact not only on many developing

nations but also on the most developed.

In view of these very wise appeals and warnings,

as well as of the predominant role that the United

Nations plays in the maintenance of international peace

and defence of the principle of sovereignty, in a formal

note, to the Secretary-General I have requested him to

bring to the attention of the United Nations the failure

of the United States of America to fulfil its obligations

so that the Organization can assist in bringing about an

early resolution of the dispute arising from the refusal

of the United States to fulfil the commitments derived

from the unauthorized military use by its army of

significant portions of Panama's national territory. I

have informed the Secretary-General of the facts and

formally requested that my note be circulated as a

document of the General Assembly and that it be

brought to the attention of the Security Council.

I take this opportunity to wish the General

Assembly a fruitful year of deliberations under the

guidance of its President. I should like to express my

sincere hope that this year will be one of significant,

meaningful and tangible achievements for the

Organization in the treatment of the most important

items on its agenda, to the benefit of all mankind.