Panama, 2004

I wish to

begin by warmly congratulating Mr. Jean Ping,

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Gabon, on his election

to the presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-

ninth session. I wish also to extend my country’s

thanks to the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for

the powerful and inspiring words he spoke yesterday

(see ).

Thousands of my compatriots are today suffering

under the blows of nature. Floods of a kind never

before seen have brought grief to many families. The

entire country has turned to the victims in a truly

moving display of solidarity. With my heart in Panama

with the victims and their families, I have come to the

United Nations, because the tragedy unfolding in my

country highlights more than ever the need to tackle

the problem of poverty urgently.

The United Nations was conceived as a way of

preventing war and restoring peace. Today, all the

countries of the world have to be able to feel that they

can come to the United Nations to solve their problems

and not just to discuss them. If that is to happen, the

United Nations must reform.

For some years, from this rostrum, heads of State

and Government have been urging the need for reform,

and the Secretary-General has welcomed that initiative.

I want to join my voice to theirs so that once and for all

we actually carry out the reform. We cannot afford to

wait any longer or the people of the world will lose

faith in the United Nations.

We do not need an organization with a glorious

past. We need an organization with a future, one that

can tackle the world’s most serious problems. For that

reason it is necessary that the principal organs be more

representative.

There are political struggles and armed conflicts

on every continent. There is no region of the world

where peace and harmony reign. Some are regional

conflicts, some are internal ones, but they are no less

bloody for that. And yet, there is one struggle that is

global in dimension and that requires global solutions.

I am speaking of the struggle against hunger and

poverty. That was the subject of a 20 September

meeting of more than 60 world leaders, who were

resolved to tackle it with all the tools available to them.

I need not dwell on the tragic numbers, but I do

endorse what has been said by the moving force of that

meeting, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil:

“peace can never grow out of poverty and hunger”.

In Latin America the threat to democracy posed

by military coups has been significantly reduced. It is

no longer army divisions that threaten democracy; it is

the legions of the poor and the unprotected who can

destroy democratic institutions if their basic needs are

not met.

But then we face a contradiction: the more

poverty there is in a given country, the less likelihood

there is of being able to defeat it. Countries are crushed

by public debt. Millions of people are being born today

already owing more than they will earn in their entire

lifetime. Often those debts are the result of past

deficits, which, owing to excessive bureaucracy, bad

projects or corruption, produced no tangible benefits

for the people. The fiscal problems facing most of the

countries in our region make the situation even worse,

as Governments lack the resources they need to try to

meet the minimum needs of their people.

This analysis is not a new one. The “lost decade”

of the 1980s was the result of exactly the same

problems, although there was also an international

economic crisis and an absence of democratic

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legitimacy in most of the continent at that time. There

are, however, undeniable differences between that

period and the present. On the one hand, over the past

few years unprecedented wealth has been generated,

while at the same time the number of poor has grown.

On the other hand, although more countries are

democratic today, there is also a greater amount of

debate on how to effectively address society’s

immediate problems.

Democracy, as a system of government, ended up

being conflated with the limitations of individuals,

while in truth the problem was that Governments were

unable to produce effective responses. The problem is

thus not democracy; the problem lies with

Governments.

Direct help to Governments, in the form of loans

or grants, has not been enough or sufficiently effective

to solve the problems of poverty or the lack of growth

that the aid was supposed to correct. Those of us who

have the responsibility of governing and trying to

provide answers cannot forget that, for many, patience

has yielded to despair. The immediacy of their needs

demands immediate solutions, which are not always to

hand. That means that we have to speak out clearly

about the problems, that we have to administer our

States with transparency and that we have to fight

corruption in order to win back the trust of people who

are tired of so much deception and frustration.

Latin America needs a new economic agenda, one

not based at just throwing money at social problems. It

needs an agenda that seeks to understand the complex

nature of our countries and institutions. Stopping

payments, restructuring, adjustments — that is a road

that we have been down before, and our region was the

loser.

The new agenda requires absolute transparency in

public administration and accountability. But the task

of making public administration more efficient and

more transparent takes time and resources. But interest

on debt builds up, and the needs of a large sector of the

population also increase.

Progress in reducing poverty among our peoples

will require much effort and great resources from the

poor countries; to a degree, creditor countries and

multilateral agencies could compensate them by

reducing public debt. In that regard, we propose that a

relief clause be included in the lending programmes of

the international financial institutions to reduce future

interest on our public debt if we meet agreed goals on

poverty reduction. That would be one way of

compensating Governments for their efforts to alleviate

poverty while also allowing them to meet their

financial obligations.

In the past few years, people’s concerns have

shifted dramatically. Cultural heritage, natural wealth,

biodiversity and animal species threatened with

extinction must all be protected. It seems that

sometimes financial resources are found more easily

for those issues than for the millions of human beings

who are dying every day of hunger, or for those who

are barely surviving, unable to live a decent life, and

without hope.

I would like to join in the widespread call on the

international community to devise and implement bold

and generous approaches to tackle poverty. It is

shameful that in the technological age, when so many

things have been invented that were unimaginable just

10 years ago, that we have not been able to invent a

way for millions of people in the world to escape from

the subhuman conditions to which poverty condemns

them.

Sometimes it seems that international aid is

provided only if there are desperate tragedies or acts of

terrorism. Of course, when nations are victims of

national disaster or terrorism such international

assistance is necessary and commendable. I would like

to take this opportunity to reiterate Panama’s resolve to

combat terrorism wherever it may occur. But we must

not forget that many more people die because of

poverty than in wars or natural disasters.

I am pleased to report that Panama has done its

duty and has stood by the international community in

its efficient and safe management of the Canal. We

shall continue in future to manage that important artery

of international trade in the same way, so that it will

be, as it has been today, open to shipping from all

countries of the world.

I will return to my country optimistic, because I

have seen here a determination to fight poverty. I have

sensed the solidarity of the international community in

the face of natural disaster and I have renewed my

belief that when there is the will, when there is faith

and determination, the most difficult tasks can be

accomplished.