Panama, 2005

Allow

me, Sir, to express the congratulations of the

Government of Panama on your election to preside

over this historic session of the General Assembly.

I would like to congratulate warmly the

Secretary-General for the dedicated manner in which

he has undertaken the difficult task of reforming the

United Nations so as to ensure that it will be able to

address the challenges of the twenty-first century.

I wish to express my special thanks in particular

to the outgoing President of the General Assembly,

Mr. Jean Ping, for his efforts in leading the

consultations and reflections in order to attain

agreement and, in particular, for placing his trust in the

delegation of Panama in order to facilitate this process.

The United Nations was conceived on a

fundamental premise, that of the legal equality of

States, which at the time was more of an aspiration

than a reality. However, much progress has been made

on the path towards building a world where the power

of reason, justice and dialogue settle disputes between

nations and not military or economic power.

My country can confirm that the United Nations

and the international community have created effective

instruments and institutions to ensure that equality

prevails over the deep divide between the

industrialized countries and the developing countries.

Panama has gained full control of its territory and

recovered the Canal thanks to its visionary leaders, but

also to a large extent due to the implementation of the

principles of international law that the United Nations

has staunchly defended and through the support of the

international community.

Panama can never remain indifferent to the

destiny of the Organization. As one of the signatories

of the Charter and beneficiary of its institutions,

Panama understands the need to adapt the Organization

to the reality of our time. The formulas used for

bringing this adaptation about must focus on increased

participation of States in the Organization’s decisions

and must aim at the full legal equality of all States, an

aspiration that has yet to become a reality, but which,

nevertheless, remains the mainstay of the United

Nations.

We cannot afford to delay in bringing about a

radical change in the rules that currently govern

economic relations among States, because, while in the

United Nations we are slowly progressing towards

equality and agreement, the world is rushing towards

an abyss of inequality and disagreement.

Despite the efforts undertaken by a number of the

least developed countries to adapt their institutions to

models that were supposed to help reduce inequalities,

practice has shown that there is no one-size-fits-all

solution that can be applied across the board to all

countries. Indeed, the application of rigid solutions has

contributed rather to a further widening of the gap

between countries.

Amid such uncertainty concerning our public

development policies, unforeseeable events — natural

disasters, epidemics and, currently, the rising price of

oil, an indispensable driver of production and

15

growth — have completely altered the balance of

foreign and domestic affairs. Moreover, it is unclear

whether the negative impact those events have had on

our economies will vanish automatically once the

phenomena that have created them disappear. Indeed, it

appears that we are caught in a vicious and hopeless

circle: the differences that have led us to accept urgent

changes have, in turn, created more difference and

greater resentment in the least developed countries,

with more failed States and therefore greater insecurity

in the global village.

The price of oil for non-producing countries has

further deepened that divide, as it takes away from the

resources necessary for their development. To give an

example, over the past three years the cost of net

imports of oil for Panama has shown a 250 per cent

increase. That is the situation for the majority of the

countries in our region, as well as for those in other

continents, with very few exceptions. Countries like

ours that are net importers of oil have to produce more

in order to export more and thereby to be able to

import the same number of barrels of oil.

Rising oil prices are due to the sharp increase in

demand by the major consumers, which have not

adopted effective policies to reduce their dependency

on hydrocarbons.

Even more serious is the fact that fuel prices have

risen so dramatically and have wreaked such havoc in a

number of countries they threaten to create political

instability and provoke economic crises.

It is only with the technical and financial

cooperation of developed countries — in particular in

the field of energy — that we can achieve the transfer

of technologies that can help us to produce cleaner and

cheaper energy. As a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol,

Panama has submitted projects with clearly identified

requests for financing that deserve to be supported by

multilateral funding institutions and by those countries

that cause the greatest pollution.

Energy dependency is compounded by the

difficulties that countries face in importing technology

and holding on to their human resources, in particular

the most qualified among them. Workers that have

migrated to richer countries send home financial

remittances that can temporarily supplement the

income generated by our national economies but that,

in the long term, prevent us from exploiting our most

important asset — our most highly qualified human

resources. Those workers contribute to the innovative

growth that our nations require. The result is the

accumulation of innovative capital and productive

labour in the most developed countries, with a

corresponding impoverishment of countries most in

need of those resources, generating yet greater

divergence and more inequalities. In other words, the

exodus of human capital, while providing a source of

currency in the short term hampers our countries’ long-

term development.

Our countries must be able to compete even in

the absence of a level playing field. We must as a

priority put an end to tariff barriers to trade, which

prevent developing countries from putting their

products on the markets of rich countries and from

having access to better technology, not only productive

but also information technology.

As a result of the widening gap with regard to

access to technology, our countries have fallen behind

in their efforts to advance and to ensure the well-being

of their people. Moreover, it has served to perpetuate

the differences in living conditions between developed

countries and those that are still struggling to emerge

from underdevelopment.

The situation is similar with regard to the

obstacles that impede access to basic medicines to

improve public health in areas as sensitive as AIDS

and malaria. Those obstacles take the form of patents

that grant quasi-monopolistic powers to the

pharmaceutical companies that produce those

medicines.

In addition, the already devastating differences

that exist between States are even greater than the

statistics currently show, using simplistic and rigid

criteria such as per capita income, which does not

accurately reflect reality. Forty per cent of the

Panamanian population lives below the poverty line,

but we are nevertheless statistically designated as a

medium- to high-income country and therefore our

access to external aid is very limited. Figures provide

only a lifeless snapshot of a country. Behind that, or

perhaps in spite of that, there is a human reality: that of

men, women and children who suffer from hunger and

constraints. Those people are not even aware of the

existence of the United Nations, but they are fully

entitled to the benefits of modernity. Instead, their way

of life is being relentlessly handed down from one

generation to the next.

16

The international community has demonstrated

great resolve in the fight against terrorism and

insecurity and it is prepared to make even further

sacrifices, if necessary. However, it is time to

recognize that hunger and poverty also undermine the

internal security of our countries and endanger

democracy. It appears that the world only responds to

headlines, but every day poor countries suffer from

misfortunes and constraints that do not produce

headlines for the tragic reason that the international

community seems indifferent in some cases or has

quite simply resigned itself to them.

There is no point in asking a developing country

to rectify so many deficiencies within a reasonable

time frame if it cannot even have access to funds on

more favourable and predictable terms than those

currently being offered by the international capital

market.

Improving the quality of life of our citizens — a

goal that the United Nations has set itself — depends

on the increasing use of physical and financial capital,

as well as the national labour force, in activities that

generate growth and promote innovation. The material

well-being of our societies will be achieved when more

people work and each of those workers is more

productive.

Our countries are not begging for favours. What

we are demanding is a more level playing field. The

markets of industrialized countries are blocked by

protectionist tariffs and by non-tariff barriers, which

impede access to them by the rest of the world. The

most developed countries pursue agricultural policies

that seriously exacerbate poverty in developing

countries. For one thing, their domestic production

receives billions of dollars in subsidies. The surplus

thus created is then dumped on world markets at prices

that significantly reduce the income of the traditional

exporting countries.

Therefore Panama welcomes the commitment of

the United States of America, announced last week

from this very rostrum by its President, to eliminate all

subsidies that — as he himself recognized — have

created poverty in many countries. If all those

countries that subsidize their products to the detriment

of free trade were to adopt here a similar commitment

and to implement it swiftly, then the United Nations

would have solid grounds to celebrate its sixtieth

anniversary as an historic and highly significant

occasion.

For its part, Panama reiterates today that the

canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will

remain open and secure, demonstrating the high degree

of efficiency to which the international community is

accustomed. We have analysed the needs of

international trade and, aware of Panama’s role in the

era of globalization, we shall take a definitive decision

on the canal’s extension through a national referendum.

Our countries should not be condemned to

stagger from one crisis to the next. By emphasizing the

need to combat the alarming levels of poverty and

abject poverty, humankind’s collective conscience will

emerge in favour of development and progress. This

Organization was created at the end of the cruelest war

of all times in order to protect humankind from the

horrors of a similar conflict and to ensure that peace

and harmony would prevail throughout the world.

Panama welcomes the progress that has been

made towards that goal and rejects any attempt to delay

the application of peaceful solutions to regions that

continue to suffer a high level of political tension that

seriously endangers peace. That is our vision of the

inequalities of a society founded on the principles of

the twentieth century, and an expression of cautious

optimism about the opportunities to blaze a new trail

for the benefit of our people, who want to leave their

fears behind and to attain the dreams that all are

entitled to simply by virtue of being alive.