United Nations General Assembly Debate
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon opened the annual General Debate this morning. All 192 members will make a presentation over the next week and a half. Excerpt from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's speech : Poor and developing countries must increase their share of control in the IMF and the World Bank. Otherwise, there can be no real change and the peril of new and greater crises will be inevitable. Only more representative and democratic international agencies will be able to deal with complex problems like reorganizing the international monetary system. Sixty five years later, the world can no longer be run by the same rules and values that prevailed at the Bretton Woods Conference. Likewise, the United Nations and its Security Council can no longer be run under the same structures imposed after the Second World War. We are in a period of transition in international relations. We are moving towards a multilateral world. However, it is also a multipolar world, based on experiences in regional integration such as South America’s experience in creating the UNASUR. This multipolar world will not conflict with the United Nations. On the contrary, it could be an invigorating factor for the United Nations…. The issues at the core of our concerns – the financial crisis, new global governance and climate change – have a strong common denominator. It is the need to build a new international order that is sustainable, multilateral and less asymmetric, free of hegemonies and ruled by democratic institutions. This new world is a political and moral imperative. Excerpt from Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez' speech : Our country has taken on a firm commitment as regards tobacco control policies, both at the international level through the ratification of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and at the national level through the implementation of policies for the improvement of the wellbeing of the population. As of 2006, Uruguay became the first smoke-free country in the Americas and the seventh in the world. It is not insignificant matter when you take into account that according to the World Health Organization, smoking is "the leading avoidable cause of death worldwide." It is an epidemic that annually causes more than five million deaths in the world (more than one million in the Americas) Five million a year … this is more deaths than alcoholism, traffic accidents, AIDS, illegal drugs, murder and suicide… combined!!! If the current trend continues, in the next twenty years, deaths caused by tobacco would double in the world and triple in our region. Given that tobacco smoke does not only affect smokers, and that great achievements are usually a product of evolutionary processes that proceed in small steps, our delegation at the United Nations sponsored and promoted the resolution adopted by this Assembly, whose implementation will allow us to have, at least in this sphere, a "smoke free United Nations." Excerpt from Chilean President Michele Bachelet's speech : After the Asian crisis one decade ago, there was much talk about financial system reforms, better oversight mechanisms and early warning systems. But none of this happened. Political laziness prevailed. Private interests prevailed over the public good… …[W]e must return multilateral dialogue to the centre of international policy, abandoning unilateralism. While unbridled globalization in the financial sphere provoked the crisis we are experiencing, unilateral action and disdain for institutions resulted in conflicts that must not be repeated. Military or economic might cannot be the norm in international relations. Excerpt from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez' speech: In Colombia the only reason behind terrorism is the illicit-drug enterprise. Before, violent criminals denied drug-trafficking and made efforts to maintain ideological appearances; today, having lost all decency, they can no longer hide their criminal business nor fake ideological postures, denied by the cruelty towards their victims and those that have been kidnapped, and never acceptable by the democratic transparency of our Country that they have tried to destroy. We have a different concept of co-responsibility and of the proposal to legalization with regard to drugs. The old division between producer and consumer countries has disapeared… …We believe that instead of advocating for the legalization of drugs, we must reflect on the need to make consumption illegal. There is no coherence between the severity facing production and trafficking and the permissiveness of consumption. This has led to murderous micro-trafficking in cities, to encouraging consumption by adolescents and youth and to involving children in the criminal enterprise. We are advancing in the constitutional process to make consumption illegal, making sure not to confuse the sick addict with the criminal distributor. Excerpt from El Salvadorian President Don Carlos Mauricio Funes' speech: …I wish to underline that it is a major objective of my government to strengthen the links that unite the brother countries of Central America. In this sense, I am convinced that there is no exit nor future for each one of our countries in isolation, backs to one another… I want to call attention to this point to my central american coleagues. We have unresolved matters that we must undertake; we have common challenges that we must face, shoulder to shoulder. With the full integration of our region, we have everything to win and nothing to lose. Excerpt from Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernandez’ speech: Given the almost general failure of developed countries in fulfilling their commitement at the Social Development World Summit in Copenhagen to contribute to the development of the weakest and most vulnerable countries, as well as the prevailing situation of a global recession, let us draw the attention of the General Assembly regarding possible new funding sources for the Millennium Development Goals… There are abundant resources around the world. The problem is that they are unequally and unjustly distributed. And that is due, among other reasons, [to] the existence of a global financial architecture prone to lack of transparency, keeping secrets, money laundering, tax evasion and fraud. The only hope to revert the current situation of economic decline, social deterioration, and moral crisis prevailing in the world, lies in the brave, wise, and timely decisions that we can take from this prestigious forum. Excerpt from Panama President Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal’s speech: Tolerance is the secret to people’s coexistence with one another. Nuclear tests, however, make us all nervous. The state of alert only serves to elevate tensions between nations whose relations are already less than stable…In Panama we respect the use of science as a tool for human development, but we reject its use as a front to conceal nuclear proliferation and the production of weapons of mass destruction… …Due to its nature as a crossroads, Panama is used by organized crime for drug and arms traffic. But we are declaring our own war. We’ve become an active partner with Mexico and Colombia in the battle against narco-terrorists. Alongside President Calderon and President Uribe, we are committed to strengthening the ties of cooperation, so that Panama can be an active source of intelligence. Excerpt from Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo Mendez' speech: ...I would like all the peoples and governments represented here to energetically condemn the commercial blockade that the largest economy in the world exercises against Cuba, another unsustainable chapter that, while in force, shatters the credibility of any discussion of pluralism, tolerance or humanism that is expressed in these forum... ...In fourth and last place, I openly express concern for the sinister winds that blow in the world with the out of control arms race, that in no sense is justified and that can only be applauded by the industries of death and barbarity. As more speeches become available we'll continue to post them here.