UN General Assembly
1996

human beings from the start, enabling them to grow, endowed with the values that would make them citizens. Latin America, born unaware of racial hatred, religious conflicts and territorial greed, with an indivisible spirit made up of a combination of influences that move in the same direction on the freest and broadest of stages, is hurt by the fact that its real problems today are social ones, brought on by the error of political regimes that ignored the discipline of education or doubted its undeniable primacy. Democracy has taken root in Latin America as in no other part of the universe as a consequence of political desire. Nevertheless, we are not satisfied, because democracy must mean the eradication of age-old ills and constitute, more than merely a system to elect governments, a cogent civilization. We aspire to a democracy transparent in its conduct and effective in its achievements to continue offering it as an alternative to the ancient dictatorships. This explains my country’s perseverance in attaining an honest and clean democracy. In this regard, we have proposed a