UN General Assembly
1985

Mr. President of the United Nations General Assembly and representative of Spain, a country in which the Latin American community asserts its roots, acknowledging it as a fundamental ingredient of its own identity. Mr. Secretary-General, symbol of Peru's commitment to the international community and of our faith that the transformation of Peru is linked to change and justice in the world. Representatives of all nations: For some this is a ritual, a declarative and symbolic meeting. We have not lost faith, because we know that those who are listening to us are a bureaucratic agency, but rather that they fully assume their role as representatives of mankind in the face of selfishness, poverty and violence in our world. Of course we could ask whether in its 40 years of existence the United Nations has fully achieved its purpose, whether peace really exists in the world. And we might answer that nuclear peace is but a balance of insecurity and terror, that this apparent peace expresses its tensions by shifting its conflicts to the poorest