UN General Assembly
2019

The book recounts our efforts for peace, dialogue, negotiation and consensus. One page is about the dream of Simon Bolivar, who wrote that if the world were to choose its capital, it would assign that great destiny to the Isthmus of Panama. Its pages tell of the struggle of generations of Panamanians and the global support that culminated in the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties. I am referring to Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, and Omar Torrijos, then Head of the Government of Panama, who led the negotiations between two nations, one large and one small, and who were able to reach an agreement and achieve a historic reparation — the restoration to Panama of our Canal and our territorial integrity. There is another page in that book that Pope Francis wrote this January, at the end of World Youth Day, which reads, “Panama is a country of a noble people.” Those are Panama’s stories.