Uruguay, 2004

Today no one denies that globalization is here and that

it is here to stay. Not only has it changed the world of

communications so that now everything happens at the

same time throughout the world, but more importantly,

it has made historical borders irrelevant. The young

generation has more contact with other young people

living thousands of miles away than they have with

their own neighbours or family.

It is absolutely true that a global culture is

emerging in this world. While this is happening,

countries are still living on their nationalisms, their

secular habits, their own interests and their parochial

projects that are often alien to the new realities. The

question that we leaders ask ourselves ó especially

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those of us who represent small nations - is whether

this inexorable change can be handled by the

organizations that we have created, or whether those

organizations still have a long way to go in terms of

adapting to the new reality. When we look at the

impressive success achieved by the United Nations

since San Francisco in 1944, two things seem clear.

First, the institutions that we have created

represent the greatest and most successful effort ever

made by mankind to organize peaceful coexistence and

to endow the planet with the best possible instruments

for dealing with the important aspects of human lives

within human society.

Secondly, it is equally clear that the world has

changed so much that the current reality now far

exceeds the capacity of the institutions that were

created to address and resolve past issues, issues that

today have taken on totally different characteristics.

Suffice it to recall that the founding Members of the

United Nations numbered 51 and that today there are

191 Member States. More important, the worldís

population at that time was only half what it is today.

And the total is inexorably rising towards 9 billion.

Furthermore, over the past 40 years, scientific

advances and the ensuing technological applications have

increased the resources of a very small group of nations,

leaving far behind many other countries, some of which

only recently gained their independence and most of

which are rich in natural resources but lack the basic

structures needed to achieve sustainable growth -

countries, moreover, where, no doubt as a consequence

of this, the population is increasing at very high rates

and where the resulting emigration to other continents

will soon create serious problems of coexistence.

Uruguay has been a Member of the United

Nations since its foundation and believes in the

Organization and in the varied multilateral agencies

that support its efforts; we understand the need to

consider Charter revision so that nations that did not

then carry the weight they carry today can assume

greater obligations in the inescapable tasks that the

situation of mankind now imposes on us. It is time for

them to share the responsibility with the five nations

that assumed it nearly 60 years ago.

Uruguay has also been participating in

peacekeeping operations for many years. Uruguay is one

of the largest troop contributors, and is the very largest

if the ratio of its small population - 3.4 million - to

peacekeepers is taken into consideration. We have

participated in operations in Asia and in Africa, and we

are currently deployed in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, Haiti, Eritrea and elsewhere.

Uruguay acknowledges and welcomes the wise

European Union effort to bring equality at the highest

level to European nations with marked differences in

income compared with the richest countries. The

examples of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece,

which will surely be emulated for new European Union

members, indicate what we in the United Nations must

do for the Congo and Haiti.

There is no point in achieving peace if the United

Nations lacks funds that can immediately be spent for the

practical benefit of peoples in extreme economic

difficulties. We must create global and largely

autonomous financial instruments to achieve those goals.

That is the only way for the United Nations to succeed.

A tiny nation like Haiti ó of 27,000 square

kilometres and 9 million inhabitants, where the average

number of children per mother is 4.7 and which lacks

the institutional and material infrastructure it needs -

cannot and will not resolve its problems merely

because a contingent of military forces from countries

of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) is

keeping the peace.

Travelling in the Congo with the troops we

recently dispatched, we see exactly the same thing

happening: a nation of 2.2 million square kilometres

and a population of 50 million does not have a road

going from one end of the country to the other. Without

autonomous, ready and independent means of coping

with and transforming that state of affairs, the United

Nations will not have solved anything at all even five,

10, 15 or 20 years from now. Yet only the United

Nations can handle such tasks.

Just more than three years since the fateful day of

11 September 2001 and just over six months since the

tragedy in Madrid, new and terrible forms of violence

continue assailing other parts of the world, claiming

hundreds of innocent victims ó as we have recently seen

in Russia and as we see in the Middle East. This reveals

the destructive power that poses a permanent threat to the

world as a whole, a source of inescapable sadness and

a cause for despair about the human condition itself.

Terrorism - and a genuine commitment to

combat and defeat it - must therefore be the first item

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on our international agenda. Each State, each nation, each

community and each human being must contribute to

this endeavour; that is how we can help the United

Nations to fulfil its role as universal guarantor.

Combating this and other evils - hunger, poverty,

underdevelopment, marginalization, exclusion - requires

a United Nations that is more united, nimbler and more

effective. That is why the Organization must be more

representative, more balanced and more reliable: so

that it can continue to be a reference point for the weak

and a restraining influence on the strong.

Here, our country has recently adopted legislation

strengthening the system of prevention and control of

money laundering and the financing of terrorism. We

are in compliance with nearly all current treaties in this

area, and our legislation improves our mechanisms for

international cooperation against money laundering

and the financing of terrorism.

At the Millennium Summit and in the Doha

Declaration and Monterrey Consensus we agreed on

principles, goals and priorities, and we made

commitments which we reaffirmed a few days ago at

the summit of world leaders for the Action Against

Hunger and Poverty. If we are to attain those goals, we

need more just and equitable rules of international

trade. That is how to ensure that this becomes a key

stage in the march towards the social and political

stability that is today in serious jeopardy.

This is particularly important since it is well

known that States that vociferously preach free trade

and demand open markets ó which in our case are

already entirely open ó themselves impose and institute

obstacles to trade, subsidize their production in distorting

ways and compete with countries such as mine and many

others, which have nothing to offer the world except the

labour of their people in the commodity and industrial

sectors, which further enriches the rich countries.

Uruguay attaches fundamental importance to

financial and trade issues. In all international forums,

Uruguay calls for freer, more open markets. We favour

a single market from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego; we

support the Doha Agreement; we support the opening

of markets. We believe in freedom, but we believe also

that freedom is indivisible: there can be no political

freedom without economic freedom, and we think there

can be no economic freedom that does not go hand in

hand with political freedom.

We believe, therefore, that peoples can be strong

only if they can create their future in freedom. We

cannot build and stabilize democracies if women and

men cannot find an honest job to which to devote their

energies. That goal cannot be achieved with economic

assistance alone or with loans that, in the poorest

countries, are paid back only with great difficulty. It

can be brought about only with free trade ó something

that the world experienced in the nineteenth century.

In conclusion, Uruguay will continue to be

committed to the international system and to the

progressive development of international law, the most

recent expression of which was the establishment of

the International Criminal Court, whose Statute we

have ratified. We reaffirm our conviction that

multilateralism is the main principle on which the

conduct of international affairs must be based. We

express the hope that our region and the world as a

whole will pool their efforts and work together in a

realistic and committed manner. We continue to believe

in the United Nations as the collective instrument best

suited to our search for peace.