UN General Assembly
1985

I should like to address the economic problem, which concentrates its virulence in the third world, and in particular in Latin America. Crushed under the weight of an enormous foreign debt, the countries of the region are living through a scenario of severe difficulties with domestic repercussions resulting in recession, unemployment, inflation, increased poverty and violence. Ensnared in a vicious network of economic factors - namely, the rise in international interest rates, falling prices of commodities and the selectivity of markets in the developed countries - we are confronted with a crisis comparable only to that which assailed the market economies in the early 1930s.