Panama, 2008

My first

words are addressed to the President of the General

Assembly, at its sixty-third session, my friend Miguel

d’Escoto. I am pleased that the responsibility of

presiding over our deliberations has fallen to a

distinguished Latin American of such political and

diplomatic eminence in his country and in the region.

The President has invited us — and because of its

great importance we are obliged to comply with his

suggestion — to focus our debate on the impact of the

world food crisis on poverty and hunger in the world.

This Organization was founded at the end of a

world conflagration in order to banish war forever and

to prevent armed confrontations between nations or

groups of nations. Although it has not been possible to

avoid all such events, certainly it has acted as a

deterrent force that has prevented wars that might have

proved even more devastating. The nations of the

world decided that it would be here that conflicts

among its Members would be resolved.

Now we have to act on a conflict that is not

between Member States, but is rather one of all States

against hunger and poverty. It is difficult to explain

why, if the world is producing sufficient food for all,

854 million people find themselves in a state of food

insecurity and more than 1.7 billion people are

suffering from iron deficiency. In the last few days we

have noted how hundreds of millions of dollars have

been directed to rescue commercial enterprises, while

we still view with indifference the fact that every year

5.6 million children younger than 5 years are dying

directly or indirectly because of malnutrition — that is

640 each hour. In other words, since the moment when

we began our deliberations this morning, 5,000

children younger than 5 years have died. They did not

die because of terrorist acts, which all condemn, nor

because of natural disasters, which we all regret. They

died for a reason as simple as it is tragic — they were

poor. This situation is simply indefensible.

As part of the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs), we undertook to reduce the number of people

suffering from hunger by one half and the number of

people who live with an income of less than $1 per day

by one half between 1990 and 2015. How can we meet

this objective if the price of rice has risen by 74 per

cent and that of wheat by 130 per cent? How can we

meet this objective if more than one billion people who

have escaped extreme poverty run the risk of suffering

from hunger unless we do something to stop this

upward spiral of food prices?

What is the point of ensuring that more people

earn more than a dollar a day if the rise in food prices

has in fact altered that measurement of extreme

poverty? I do not want to suggest that nothing is being

done. The World Food Programme is doing formidable

work and donor countries have made extraordinary

contributions to alleviate the crisis and bring food to

the countries that need it most.

The deliberations of the Human Rights Council,

the High-level Conference on World Food Security

held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture

Organization and the meeting of the High-level Task

Force on the Global Food Security Crisis constitute

additional expressions of the concern of international

bodies.

But the fact is that we face a reality that has

already caused social disruption and to which no

immediate solution is in sight. The major mission of

the United Nations is the preservation of peace, and

peace is not just the absence of armed conflict between

countries, but also lies in the tranquillity of nations and

entails the elimination of adverse factors that may

disturb that tranquillity.

As if skyrocketing food prices were not enough,

they have now been compounded by unjustified

speculation, which has raised the price of fuel to

absurd levels. It is no longer just the exorbitant

earnings of oil companies that are at stake; what is at

stake now is the hunger of millions of people who have

seen their efforts and hopes go up in smoke without

even knowing what has hit them.

This means that we must see to it that from the

United Nations reforms that have been so often

postponed there emerges a strengthened General

Assembly so that, as an expression of all its

membership, it may act with authority in response to

such situations as those before us today. The

Constitution of almost all States of the world provides

for the declaration of a state of emergency as a

mechanism for dealing with imminent threats to

national security or to social harmony.

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I am convinced, and I want to say so today, that

because of the price of food, we are facing a threat to

social peace and that the General Assembly could so

declare it so that all governmental forces, private

initiatives and international bodies may coordinate

their efforts in a crusade to rescue hundreds of millions

of people from the clutches of poverty.

The world food price crisis cannot be dissociated

from climate change, as if these two problems were not

interrelated. Climate change has led to irregular crops

through droughts and floods that have had such a

severe effect on food stocks.

If the problem of the scarcity and the lack of food

is something that we have to deal with

comprehensively, we should take measures to mitigate

the polluting effects of carbon, at least by market

mechanisms or a limiting of carbon production. It is

indispensable to develop more efficient technologies,

such as wind and solar energy, to take the place of

fossil fuels, if our response is not to remain a

temporary palliative but may offer a lasting,

sustainable solution; we must see to it, without further

delay, that we tackle both problems, the food crisis and

climate change, in an integral, comprehensive and

consistent manner.

It is only thus that we will be able, without

further delay, to arrive at responses that are not just

stopgaps, but lasting, sustainable solutions. Indeed,

ever-greater importance is to be attached to the way we

relate to the ecosystems that sustain life throughout the

world, and how that affects the survival of our species

and civilization.

We must understand that the environmental

agenda of the twenty-first century cannot be built on

the basis of the idea of a conflict between the

environment and the market, nor between the

environment and trade barriers, but on the basis of

opportunities which the market and trade offer to

stimulate new ways of addressing the environmental

issues that affect us all.

We know today that there is no intractable

contradiction between conservation and development,

as perhaps there might have appeared to be when the

United Nations convened the first meeting to discuss

the subject in 1972. Let us make no mistake. The

opposite of conservation is not development, but waste.

It is clear from the intimate relationship that exists

between environmental problems and those that have to

do with social and economic development that the best

way to promote natural capital is to promote social

capital.

The only way to create a different environment is

to build a society free of the problems of poverty,

underdevelopment and ignorance which today limit our

capacity to establish harmonious relations among all

social sectors, and between them and their natural

environment.

We have the resources to do it: technology,

scientific knowledge and, above all, political

leadership and innovative capacity. But we can only

succeed through a common approach to environmental

management, shared by all the members of the global

community who are already moving in this same

direction.

The international community has been happy to

see that on the other side of the Pacific, tensions have

abated, but we note with concern that threats to

international peace and security have emerged in other

parts of the world.

Panama has set forth its positions in the Security

Council. I shall therefore only refer to what was also

suggested by the President, that is, the need to

democratize this Organization.

Over the last four years, I have heard from

countless speakers a widespread demand for the United

Nations to finally adapt its structures, which the

50 signatories of the original Charter designed 60 years

ago, to the reality of an Organization with 192 Member

States and a geopolitical situation very different from

that which then existed.

It has become a ritual repeated year after year for

every Head of State, foreign minister or ambassador to

call, without much success, for a recrafting of the

Organization. For myself, as is shown by the

commitment of my country to the United Nations, for

the fifth time in five years, I come to this podium to

ask with the same vigour and energy for the political

will to implement reforms.

Panama made a proposal, which, like all the

others, could not be the subject of consensus. We still

stand by it. We stand by the idea that this Organization

must modernize itself, and soon. We cannot allow a

situation where, in the absence of agreement, we end

up by abandoning the spirit of reform that has inspired

us up till now.

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I propose therefore that we agree, before the end

of the decade, upon initial fundamental reforms which

will begin to turn the wheels of modernization. There

are numerous examples in different parts of the world,

as well as in my own experience as a member of the

Government, that allow me to assure members that

small reforms, which may appear insignificant to begin

with, eventually lead to other, more profound reforms.

We must start somewhere.

I would like to express my gratitude to the

General Assembly for granting my country, Panama,

the honour of non-permanent membership of the

Security Council over the past two years. Panamanian

diplomats and jurists contributed to the drafting of the

Charter of the United Nations and, since that time,

Panama’s representatives have contributed the wealth

of their experience so that the principles which inspired

the Charter can continue to prevail. You may rest

assured that we will not rest until this Organization, so

vital for peace in the world and the sole hope for

millions of the poor, is finally endowed with a legal

structure appropriate for the twenty-first century.