May I take this
opportunity to join those who have come before me in
congratulating His Excellency Mr. Joseph Deiss on his
election as President of our Assembly and on his
diligent stewardship of the proceedings thus far. I also
thank and congratulate His Excellency Mr. Ali
Abdussalam Treki for his leadership and drive at the
head of the sixty-fourth session of the Assembly.
 We spent the first three days last week debating
the progress made — or not made, as the case may
be — in attaining the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) by 2015. For many of us, there are still
formidable struggles ahead. For Seychelles, while we
have made huge strides forward towards meeting these
Goals, we are also pedalling furiously so as not to slip
back on what we have already worked hard to achieve.
This brings to mind the question: Are the MDGs an end
in themselves? The task does not end in 2015. It cannot
end in 2015. What happens, and where are we headed
after that?
 Those of us that are middle-income countries, and
that includes many small island developing States
(SIDS), already know the different set of challenges
that these questions bring — questions that other
countries will also have to face as they achieve and
move beyond the MDGs. The debate needs to start
now, as we fast approach 2015, on how countries will
access the affordable financing they will need not just
to move beyond the MDGs, but to ensure that they
keep and do not lose what they have achieved.
 That is why Seychelles announced at the MDG
summit that we will be engaging with the United
Nations system to enter into new commitments towards
setting MDG-plus targets, the overall objective being
to make sustainable development a reality beyond the
Millennium Development Goals and the next
generation.
 We are all aware of the differences among us in
our sizes and populations. The needs of every Member
of the United Nations are different. We have learned a
lot about development over the years, and today we all
know that one-size-fits-all does not work. At the
United Nations and other development organizations,
we have created development categories to facilitate
access for those most in need of the appropriate
resources. Resources are always stretched, and, as we
move beyond 2015, we must make sure that
development categories truly facilitate development.
Such categories must not become a way to punish those
that succeed in development.
 And we must not allow small island developing
States to fall through the cracks between the categories.
Middle-income SIDS face special problems that the
international development architecture does not
currently make provision for. The funding that is
available to SIDS is fragmented. There is no reliable
funding to them. Even on issues where SIDS are most
affected, such as climate change, there are many
barriers to our ability to access funding, not least the
use of gross domestic product per capita criteria to
define eligibility for funding.
 The question that will come up increasingly as we
try to answer the question of how to fund development
beyond 2015 is where SIDS can go to finance their
development. The answer is that we need to define a
specific development category for SIDS to be used by
all development partners.
 That is why small island developing States say
“let us start at home” by requesting the Secretary-
General to initiate a system-wide review of how
effectively the United Nations and its various agencies

49 10-55122

are actually supporting SIDS, and how that can be
improved. This could be done by an inter-agency
working group that would provide concrete
recommendations to this sixty-fifth session of the
General Assembly as to how the United Nations system
could better support the specific needs of SIDS. The
world economic and financial crisis has reinforced the
vulnerability of island States to external shocks. More
than ever, it has illustrated that islands need as much
support as possible if they are to be able to pursue
development successfully.
 As I have already highlighted, there are gaps in
the existing development system. Those gaps mean that
we must be prepared to be innovative in meeting the
development challenges that are looming. We welcome
the efforts of several countries and of the Secretary-
General to adopt new and innovative means to finance
development. In Seychelles, the pressures of the food,
fuel and financial crises meant that in 2008 we had to
engage in wide-ranging macroeconomic reform with
the support of the Bretton Woods institutions, the Asian
Development Bank and our Paris Club creditors. We
are most grateful to all our partners for their support.
 I think it is interesting to note that while we were
restructuring our old debt, our economy began to grow
thanks to new foreign direct investment, most of it
from the developing world — the Gulf, Africa and
Asia. There are many new channels for development
that remain relatively unexplored and unstructured.
 I would like also to brief the Assembly on a
groundbreaking renewable energy project being
undertaken in Seychelles with the support of the
United Arab Emirates Government. This project is an
example of how a small island can have access to
affordable financing to reduce its dependence on fossil
fuels — one of the things that make islands most
vulnerable.  These South-South dynamics are often
overlooked in the traditional dynamics of the United
Nations. Often, we also waste a lot of time on
ideological debates that further obscure the true
objectives of development. We need to be pragmatic
and we need to act.
 Climate change, and in particular sea-level rise,
remain by far the greatest threats to small islands.
Much more ambitious global action needs to be taken
to significantly reduce emissions and implement
adaptation in a manner that will ensure the
development aspirations and survival of all countries,
small islands in particular. We need to ensure that fast-
start funding is also available for disbursement as
quickly as possible.
 I must stress the concern of small islands that
much of the funding available to adapt to climate
change is being channelled through traditional funding
channels. This means that most SIDS will miss out on
funds because of our middle-income status. Climate
change requires funding mechanisms that do not rely
only on business as usual. We need a real fast start. For
the moment, we are still stuck at the starting block.
 While we reflect on the governance of the United
Nations, we must also spare no effort to ensure that we
can be effective in resolving conflict in those areas
where human suffering is at its worst. In the Horn of
Africa, we remain deeply concerned about the ongoing
situation in Somalia. We convey our solidarity to the
Somali people and the Transitional Federal
Government that is trying to restore peace and security.
We fully support the efforts of the African Union,
through the African Union Mission in Somalia, and of
the United Nations.
 It is clear, however, that we must now be
prepared to move beyond what we have already tried
and tested. The ongoing problems associated with the
situation in Somalia also continue, unfortunately, to
hamper the conditions for development in the region.
The threat of terrorism is rising, while the scourge of
piracy continues to spread further afield, as far east as
Maldives and as far south as Madagascar.
 Seychelles has worked hard to ensure that our
maritime zones remain safe, and we thank all our
partners for their support. Nonetheless, piracy has led
to direct losses in our economy of over 4 per cent of
gross domestic product. We welcome the new regional
project on piracy being developed by the Indian Ocean
Commission and the Common Market for Eastern and
Southern Africa, with the support of the European
Union. This project approaches the problem from
several angles simultaneously as we attempt to
strengthen the regional capacity for patrols and
surveillance, strengthen the legal and judicial capacity
of our countries, and mitigate the negative effects on
our economies.
 I would like to thank our friends and neighbours
for their support on this issue. It is an issue that
depends on all countries working together, both from
within the region and beyond. We must also continue to

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engage with the Somalia to strengthen its ability to
build its own institutions.
 Seychelles also strongly believes that the
international community must strengthen its efforts to
tackle transnational crimes that are often linked to
instability and insecurity, from money-laundering to
people trafficking. In the Indian Ocean region, we are
determined to work with all partners to ensure that we
can address these issues effectively.
 We are all part of the United Nations because we
believe that we must work together to achieve
development. Development is a collaborative process.
We need to strengthen this collaboration. We need to
make more efforts to ensure that there is more
innovative financing to fund development. We need to
be more pragmatic in our approach. We know it will
not be easy, but that only strengthens our resolve. We
are ready to move forward together.


This
is the second time in 25 years that I have come to this
podium as head of State of Peru to address the
representatives of all the countries of the world.
 First of all, I would like to begin by
congratulating the President of the General Assembly
at its sixty-fifth session. Peru will constructively
support his actions because we are sure that his
experience will help us to achieve the results we hope
for.
 The first decade of this century has already been
marked by the bloody attack of 11 September 2001 and
again by the greatest economic crisis of the last
80 years. That shows that we face enormous challenges
that know no borders and require a joint, united
response from the entire international community.
Hence, in this most important forum on our globe, Peru
reaffirms its resolve to cooperate with the United
Nations and other States to tackle the challenges of
climate change, terrorism, extreme poverty, the
economic crisis, drug trafficking, weaponization and
xenophobia, which is rearing its head again.
 For Latin America, the first decade of the twenty-
first century has also meant confronting a choice
between two different models of social and economic
development.
 The first is social democracy exercised through
institutions. This is a democracy that recognizes
market policy and that attracts global investment with
clear rules, but which also has public policies for

35 10-54827

productive infrastructure. This is a democracy that
does not just wait for a trickle-down effect to reach the
poorest, but neither does it resort to the facile approach
of subsidizing everything or raising wages in the public
sector. This is a democracy that is open to the world
and that acknowledges the immense power of
cybernetics and communications and that, therefore,
embraces a global market policy and aims to reach
outward in the world through fairly negotiated free-
trade treaties that preserve the rights of workers and
the environment. But this is also a democracy of
education, teaching people that the path to
development is one of effort and of individual and
collective merit.
 In the face of that model of social democracy,
another path was proposed in America at dawn of the
twenty-first century. That was a model of State
ownership, advocated by countries with great natural
resources, who trust their development to administer
their resources and reject global investment. That
model aims to control the political direction of the
economy and rejects global reality. It suggests growing
the domestic market, administering international trade
by State authority, using subsidies and wages in the
public sector instead of promoting productive
infrastructure and assuring the peoples’ future.
Moreover, instead of affirming democratic institutions,
this alternative path affirms the politic will and
personal agenda of leaders, which always culminate in
an aggressive downward spiral, destroying freedom of
the press and expression and taking people down the
path of weaponization.
 That second path does not seem to us a
responsible one, because it avoids reality and offers no
sustainable solution to social problems, nor does it
create jobs that people need, because poverty cannot be
diminished and true employment created without
modern technology and integration into the global
economy. Therefore Peru opts for a realistic and global
approach.
 After four years, I am proud to share the progress
and successes that we have achieved in our social
agenda and in the Millennium Development Goals that
the United Nations has put forward. I can say that Peru
is today a more stable, independent and egalitarian
country than it was years ago; and all this means that
we are better able to contribute to the defence of world
freedom and democracy and to play a stronger role in
fostering regional and international peace and stability.
 Peru has been one of the proving grounds for
realistic, global development, for modern, democratic
development that follows a global markets policy for
sustained development while pursuing social policies
that ensure increasing stability and equity for our
citizens. In the past five years we have achieved annual
growth of 6.5 per cent, and even in the year of the great
crisis we maintained employment growth and poverty
reduction. All the forecasts for this year indicate
economic growth of 8 per cent, which will enable us to
reduce further the poverty that still exists in our
country.
 We have given priority to public spending on
infrastructure projects in the areas of health, education,
water and sanitation, electrification of thousands of
towns and roads, in accordance with the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) established by the
Assembly.
 As a middle-income country, over the past four
years Peru has achieved an annual rate of public
investment of 6 per cent of output, double previous
rates, and has invested $24 billion in more than
130,000 specific projects aimed at raising the living
standards of our poorest populations and improve their
participation in the economy. However, besides public
efforts, and thanks to the stability of our economy and
to the rules we follow, the private sector has invested
and reinvested $72 billion over four years, creating
2.1 million new jobs. All international projections
indicate that we will continue to grow at an annual rate
of 6 per cent for the next six years, since we are
already assured of $38 billion in investments to be
made, in addition to investments in the agricultural and
manufacturing sectors.
 Peru has succeeded in reducing its poverty rate
from 48 to 34 per cent of the population, and we shall
reach our goal of lowering it to 30 per cent next year.
We feel sure that when Peru celebrates the bicentenary
of its independence, in 2021, the rate will have fallen
to 10 per cent.
 As I remarked yesterday at the High-level
Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development
Goals (see ), Peru has achieved many of the
MDGs ahead of schedule and will continue to work to
meet all the goals of poverty reduction, improved
nutrition, literacy, health and education, among others,
which are the true objectives that every good
Government must aim for. Suffice it to say that our

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infant mortality rate has already been cut to half of
what it was at the beginning of the MDG period, and
by a third compared with five years ago.
 All this has been achieved thanks to a stable
economic policy and an increase in basic services and
employment. Moreover, our currency reserves have
tripled in the last five years and now stand at
$42 billion. Peru’s financial system is one of the most
sound in the world, without debt or credit exposure that
might put it at risk. But the most important thing is that
the political discourse of politicians that constitutes an
essential element in driving and guiding our countries
has consistently advocated democracy and investment,
and has been fully in line with a broad path of
expanded trade and global investment. I believe that it
is this alignment that has granted us the results that we
can illustrate today.
 As opposed to this, some countries in the
Americas which chose the second route — that of State
ownership, political management of the economy,
inward-looking growth and State administration of
trade or confrontation rather than productive
cooperation with other countries of the world — cannot
show similar results. Thus, we can now say that Peru
has laboured on the progressive path of history in
moving towards the purposes of the United Nations.
Moreover, the crisis has shown us that the free market
does not mean an absent State, and that we who govern
must not wait for wealth to expand without knowing
when and how to steer it in order to benefit those who
need it most.
 Besides doubling our exports over four years and
tripling our reserves, we have also signed trade
agreements with most of the world’s countries — the
United States, China, the European Union, Canada,
Korea and many others — providing us with the
necessary base to maintain and drive growth and
improve our competitiveness, thus providing jobs for
the people. In this way Peru will be greater and will be
able to better contribute to international cooperation —
and cooperation, along with maintaining peace, is the
great purpose of our Organization.
 We are aware, however, that we live in a
multipolar and interdependent system, and that none of
Peru’s achievements will be sustainable in the long
term unless we unite our efforts to combat common
threats. Peace, security and cooperation are inseparable
parts of globalization, and we must promote them
through coordinated strategies.
 Twenty-five years ago I spoke from this rostrum
for the first time, and I see that, 20 years after the end
of the cold war, we have still not built the stability that
is a new multilateralism, based on the power of
international law. We are still in a situation of
uncertainty, where instability encroaches on peace and
new threats arise, testing the agility, creativity and
political determination of this Organization and the
countries it comprises.
 Peru believes that in this globalized world,
security is the result of the interaction of internal and
external factors. We are thus deeply concerned about
the proliferation of nuclear arms, which must be halted
at all costs. There is also, however, the issue of
conventional weapons, since in practice it is they that
produce the death and destruction suffered in many
parts of the world. Moreover, arms and the arms trade
limit social development, foster poverty and inequality
and feed the threat of instability. Peru has therefore
proposed to all countries of South America, the
adoption of a protocol on peace, security and
cooperation to bring about permanent peace and
reduced arms expenditures.
 In our view — and this has been said a thousand
times here — it is not possible that, since the
establishment of the integrated, reliable Union of South
American Nations, its 10 member countries have
invested $25 billion in new weapons and spent another
$150 billion on maintaining military operating
expenditures. This is shameful, because with that sum,
more than 50 million people in South America could
have ceased to live in poverty. Over the next five years,
if we do not halt this absurd arms race, we will have
spent another $35 billion on new weapons and $200
billion on regular military expenditure, thus fueling an
irrational race which will always find justification to
continue.
 But the absurdity we see in South America is
even more serious on the global scale. It is not possible
for our countries to continue to allocate so much
money to the buying of weapons when there are so
many poor people in the world. It is as though the cold
war had not ended and was continuing to the benefit of
arms traders.
 We say once again, as we did in the Union of
South American Nations and the Organization of

37 10-54827

American States, and as we say in all international
forums in which we participate, let us allocate less to
the buying of weapons and more to combating poverty.
Let us raise the flag of the martyr of pacifism Jean
Jaurès or our great friend, the Olof Palme of Sweden.
 Let us demand that multilateral financial
institutions include anti-armament clauses in their
contracts and conditions, just as they do environmental
provisions. Why should they lend belonging to all the
citizens of the world to countries that use them in a
race to death? It is a serious matter to produce and
consume harmful drugs, but it is also a serious matter
for the richest countries of the world to produce
weapons for poor countries to buy, curbing their
development and road towards justice. We appeal to
the leaders of the world: stop buying and producing
arms; feed the disadvantaged; develop land; and create
employment.
 Real strength, real leadership of nations and
peoples is found in intelligence and the ability to help
the least developed, not in the capacity for arms
production or its nuclear power. We know it is difficult
to make this appeal over and over again, but we shall
keep doing it because one day clarity and acceptance of
these ideas will prevail among world opinion and
among the world’s peoples.
 For all those reasons, we call for this world forum
to act. It is important for us also to think of regional
integration, because we are not a cluster of asteroids.
But we believe in a modern, different integration. In
this world of computers, satellite communication, trade
without borders and human rights without national
restrictions, this new integration does not mean just
joining those who are already geographically joined,
but also using the tools of technology to ensure that the
furthest off are also integrated. This is the new space of
freedom that science and technology are creating for
human beings and nations.
 We must get beyond the primitive idea that there
is not enough to go around and realize that when the
wealth of information is distributed, those who
distribute it are no poorer for having done so. Rather,
they have lost nothing by sharing with others.
Similarly, integration is a form of wealth which sooner
or later will reach all united peoples.
 Here, I can provide a fine example of the path
followed by Ecuador and Peru after two centuries of
confrontation, hatred and war. Thanks to the
determination and political will of the Government of
Ecuador headed by President Rafeal Correa, and its
agreement with the Peruvian Government, we have
taken a quantum leap forward in fraternity, integration
and development.
 Barely 15 years ago, we were divided by war, but
now we have a permanent joint binational Cabinet
thanks to which we have built bridges and thousands of
kilometres of roads, improved our agricultural systems
and integrated our social security systems for workers
in our two countries. We have binational consulates
and embassies, representing both our countries in many
parts of the world. Ours is an example we would like to
show to the United Nations as proof of our genuine and
active devotion to integration; we believe in integration
and in fraternity among peoples.
 The need for greater integration was tested when
the worst international crisis of the past 80 years broke
out. This financial crisis, which began in developing
countries, has had consequences that we still cannot
predict. Our understanding of this crisis is the
following: the beginning of globalization and the
increase in world trade were possible only with the
new information and communications technologies
which, at the infrastructure level, have developed new
forms of production and policy.
 Information is now the fundamental fuel driving
the economy and political change. It is gradually
displacing fossil fuels as the essential form of energy.
So we see the structure of world trade becoming
increasingly dematerialized, but information and
communication, by means of e-money and computers,
are able to work at such speeds that they have
outstripped the human capacity of our banks, our
financial wizards and existing institutions to manage
the new economy.
 This is the dawn of a new, much swifter,
digitalized economy in crisis. But if this speed brings
crisis and chaos, the same speed of technology will
also bring solutions to problems engendered by the
crisis. We must trust in human beings and their creative
abilities. Never in human history have we had so many
means of payment and so much capacity to consume;
never have we had so much technological creation and
transformation; never have we had such an interactive
digital market that allows people, even the poorest,
from their homes to instantly stimulate production in
other parts of the world.

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 This enables us to look with human optimism to
the future of the world and to believe that after a slight
rise in inflation in 2012, which will come about
because of the expansion of the means of payment to
overcome the crisis, world trade will accelerate and
help us emerge from the present circumstances.
 However, we must be prepared for this greater
speed brought about by digitalization and by creativity.
We must strengthen our peoples’ and communities’
ability to integrate, strengthen exchanges among our
countries through transportation, communications and
electronic interconnection, strengthen education and
eradicate weaponization.
 Our message is one of optimism about the world
situation. Despite ourselves, we are building a better
world, without borders, without tyranny, with more
freedom. We must act, employing policies which are
successful against the crisis. We must employ
democracy, sound institutions and realism, using
capital and international technology and mobilizing
investment in small and micro businesses.
 Of course, our response to the crisis must always
be a collective one. The Group of 20 (G-20) is now the
prime forum of international financial cooperation and
coordination, and we must support its role to support
its role in reforming the system. We need a greater
regulation given the growing speed with which
financial and economic instruments can be
manipulated. Peru commends the efforts that have been
made, but proposes that the work of the G-20 gain in
legitimacy by establishing fluid lines of
communication with the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank, and by involving other countries
in this work.
 But just as in the financial crisis, all nations must
coordinate our efforts to properly confront terrorism,
drugs, the illicit arms trade, money laundering,
trafficking of persons, xenophobia and climate change.
 With respect to this last theme, I must note that
Peru is vulnerable to the environment and is at very
serious risk due to climate change. But at the same
time, my country is strategically placed to mitigate and
adapt to the effects of global climate change because it
ranks fourth in terms of the quantities of tropical
forests.
 We want to change our discourse. We have not
come with hand extended to demand cooperation from
the rich of the world but to demand that they fulfil their
commitments in their own countries. We have come to
say that we will do the same in our own countries.
 In Peru, our forest sequesters 21 billion tons of
carbon per year. We have 84 biospheres and are one of
17 megadiverse countries on the planet.
 I offer — if necessary, with hand extended to the
insensitive world of the rich countries — our budgetary
and humane commitment to protect, unscathed, Peru’s
54 million hectares of forest, thus controlling climate
change at the global level. As a tropical glacier country
in danger, we appeal to the world to implement specific
goals for cooperation and technology transfer and to
provide resources to develop programmes to combat
the effects of climate change.
 We want an agreement that is comprehensive,
binding, fast and effective, and I reiterate to the
Assembly my country’s desire to strengthen joint
action through development of a clean and sustainable
growth economy with low carbon emissions. With that
intention we will voluntarily reduce to zero the
deforestation of the primordial natural forests and will
alter our present energy matrix so that by 2021
renewable non-conventional energy, hydropower and
biofuels will account for at least 40 per cent of the
energy consumed in the country. And we will make
annual reports to the Assembly.
 However, we must not forget that much of the
pollution is still produced by poverty. Hundreds of
millions of households in the world continue to use
wood-burning stoves, thus driving deforestation and at
the same time polluting the environment and causing
serious bronchiopulmonary and nutritional problems
among children. We propose to reduce the number of
wood-burning stoves in Peru by 20 per cent by 2021
and to replace them with better stoves, and we want
that issue to become part of the Millennium Goals.
 A final point is something of particular interest to
Peru — the situation of migrants. The globalization of
capital, services and products cannot be accepted
without also accepting the free movement of people or
facilitating their mobility. Peru actively promotes the
defense of the human rights of migrants and their
families, because it is a country built by European
migrants, as is the United States and many other rich
countries today — which they forget when they expel
today’s migrants and deport them by plane.

39 10-54827

 Peru believes that migration is a development
tool that has enriched and continues to enrich universal
culture and the social life of countries. That is why we
condemn any type of regulation, whether in Arizona or
elsewhere, or any kind of xenophobic or discriminatory
expressions. It is a paradox that the countries governed
by the children of migrants are today those that most
vigorously deport migrants, unwittingly creating a new
form of domestic violence that could have very serious
consequences in the short term.
 We reiterate that the best way to avoid
unregulated migration is by means of unhampered free
trade and investment from the most developed
countries that helps to generate employment and
improve the quality of life of people in the developing
countries.
 Peru has an ongoing commitment with the United
Nations, a commitment with humankind without races,
colours or distinctions. We would like, as we proposed
a few years ago, to strengthen the entire system in
order to consolidate ourselves as a modern, strong and
free organization, free of the contradictions or delays
of the past, one that can ensure peace with less
bureaucracy and with greater resolve and stronger
political fortitude.
 Let there be peace and well-being for all peoples
of the Earth; let there be bread with freedom for all
human beings.


I have been given such
a bad spot on the speaking list that I feel as if I am in a
Fellini movie, speaking to an empty Hall. Still, because
I believe in ghosts, I believe that the friendly ghosts of
those who are not present are here to listen, and I
profusely thank those who bothered to come on this
Saturday afternoon.
 Mr. President, in compensation for my having the
worst possible time slot in the general debate, when I
see you this afternoon I hope you will have a nice box
of Swiss chocolates to give to me.
 We will not distribute the written version of my
speech because no one reads them anyway and it is a
waste of paper and money. However, anyone who is
curious enough about my speech will be able to find it
on the General Assembly’s website. It is a lengthy
speech — although I will not compete with Presidents
Obama, Ahmadinejad or Chávez — so I will skip
through much of it, out of respect for the
representatives who have been here for a week
listening to many speeches.
 Still, I would fail my upbringing if I were not to
thank the Mayor of New York and New Yorkers for
welcoming us to their city. We sympathize with the
residents of this city for the inconveniences we cause
them by our presence, even if most people would agree
that the United Nations and the numerous meetings
held here throughout the year bring enormous tangible
and non-quantifiable benefits to the city. I also would
like thank the United States federal authorities for their
exceptional efforts and professionalism in providing us
with a secure and friendly environment.
 I have never met Mayor Bloomberg, but he has
gone up in our esteem and respect because of his
intellectual clarity and moral courage in standing up
for the rights of American Muslims in building a
cultural centre and a sacred place of worship in lower
Manhattan as a venue for reflection, learning and
fraternity among cultures and religions. What better
place is there than lower Manhattan, near the World
Trade Center, to signal the revulsion of American
Muslims and moderate Muslims all over the world at
the actions of some extremists? I congratulate Mayor
Bloomberg for his moral courage and integrity.
 I was not present in this Hall when President
Ahmadinejad of the Islamic Republic of Iran addressed

10-55109 2

this Assembly a few days ago. I was at Columbia
University, addressing an equally important gathering
of young students and academics from many countries,
cultures and religions. So I did not hear President
Ahmadinejad’s latest intellectual concoctions in this
Assembly. I will not question the right of anyone to
speak his mind. President Ahmadinejad is entitled to
believe in and regurgitate whatever intellectual,
philosophical or theological concoctions his unique
mind may fabricate. However, I do not agree that any
of us should disregard the basic rules and practices of
conduct among leaders by uttering obscenities in this
Assembly. What President Ahmadinejad said in this
forum in regard to the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center was an obscenity. He went too far, as he
has done many times before in this Assembly and in
other forums, as when he has questioned the facts of
the Holocaust.
 Otherwise, we fully subscribe to Iran’s legitimate
right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful
purposes, and we caution the Powers that be not to
hasten in reaching conclusions that may lead to
irreversible, catastrophic decisions. We do have serious
doubts, however, about the reliability and safety of
nuclear energy. Let us not forget the lessons of the
Three Mile Island accident, which occurred at 4 a.m.
on 28 March 1979 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or the
even worse Chernobyl nuclear meltdown of April 1986.
The recent catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
would pale by comparison with the blow-up of a
nuclear energy facility. We do not know whether
Iranian rulers do or do not have the desire to be an
armed nuclear Power. What we do know, however, is
that the possession of nuclear weapons is not a shortcut
to super-Power status, as some in Asia seem to think,
and does not insure anyone against twenty-first century
conventional and non–conventional security threats.
 Nuclear weapons were developed as a result of
the tragic experiences of the Second World War and of
mutual suspicion and fears pervasive among the
Powers at that time. They have become obsolete. That
is proven by the fact that the mighty Soviet nuclear and
conventional arsenals were not able to prevent the
implosion of its Empire, the liberation of hundreds of
millions of people or the reunification of Germany.
Nuclear weapons are not going to be of much help in
the ongoing ethnic, religious and border disputes in
Asia. We pray to God the Almighty and the Merciful
that these weapons and others, chemical and biological,
do not ever fall into the hands of extremist non-State
entities.
 We gathered here from 20 to 22 September to
review the progress — or lack of it — on the pledges
we solemnly made before our peoples in 2000 to
eliminate or at least halve poverty by 2015. In Timor-
Leste, we regained independence in 2002, and in the
first years of our independence we set out to rebuild
our country from the ashes of the violence of the past,
lay the foundations of a functioning democratic State,
heal our wounds, reconcile our divided communities
and normalize relations with past external adversaries.
In only eight years and in spite of the overwhelming
challenges facing us, we have navigated out of the
storms to a new period of peace, stability and
economic growth.
 Timor-Leste is a least developed country, affected
by pervasive poverty. We are still a fragile country,
partly because we are only eight years old, and being
an infant country, all the institutions of the State are
young and fragile. However, the Almighty and the
Merciful has blessed us with generous natural
resources, such as oil and gas, enabling us to accelerate
our overall development.
 Timor-Leste was not yet independent in 2000,
and it was not until our first Millennium Development
Goal report was issued in 2004 that the first targets
were set. For the past three years, Timor-Leste has
enjoyed real peace and a robust economic growth of
over 12 per cent. In the past two years, poverty levels
have decreased by as much as 9 per cent. Infant
mortality and under-five mortality rates have been
reduced and have already reached the 2015 target.
School enrolment has increased from 65 per cent in
2007 to 83 per cent in 2009-2010. Adult illiteracy is
being gradually eliminated thanks to a joint programme
between Timor-Leste and Cuba. We anticipate that,
within two to three years, Timor-Leste will be
completely free of illiteracy. About 30 per cent of our
general State budget is allocated to public health and
education. This turn-around is due largely thanks to
aggressive public financing of social such programmes
as direct cash transfers to the elderly, widows, the
handicapped and veterans, and to determined efforts to
expand cultivated areas and increase food production.
 The first of the 800 Timorese medical students
studying in Cuba have returned home. In addition to
those studying medicine in Cuba, there are 200 more

3 10-55109

enrolled in the medical school of our national
university. In addition, more than 200 Cuban doctors
have been assigned to Timor-Leste since 2004,
working side by side with Timorese doctors and nurses
delivering services to the remotest corners of the
country and training our medical and health personnel.
The members of the famous Cuban Medical Brigade
are true missionaries, as deserving of the Nobel Peace
Prize as Mother Teresa.
 In Timor-Leste, this year we will finalize our own
road map, the 2011-2030 Strategic Development Plan,
which will lift our people from centuries of poverty to
the level of an upper-middle-income country by 2030.
 With regard to the management of our petroleum
resources, we are pleased to note that the Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative in its most recent
report of 1 July, rated Timor-Leste number one in Asia
and number three in the world for sound, transparent
and effective management of our oil and gas revenues.
 Women make up almost 30 per cent of the
deputies in our national Parliament. Key cabinet
positions in the executive branch — finance, justice,
social solidarity, prosecutor-general and so on — are
held by women. A youth parliament, comprising
130 youth parliamentarians ranging in ages from 12 to
17 years, has been elected and will have its first formal
sitting in November. I am pleased that our expectations
on balanced gender representation were in fact
exceeded. The youth parliament counts 68 girl and
62 boy deputies.
 Timor-Leste is proud to have one of the most
humanist Constitutions in the world. It prohibits the
death penalty and its maximum prison sentence is
25 years. We have also ratified all core international
human rights treaties. Our Constitution gives primacy
to international law over domestic law, such that all our
laws must conform to international law.
 As the Head of State guided by humanist beliefs
and the relevant provisions of our Constitution, I have
issued pardons to individuals who have been tried and
found guilty by the courts and have served a number of
years with good behaviour. We believe that the pursuit
of justice cannot be dissociated from other
overwhelming values, such as compassion and
understanding of mitigating circumstances.
 I wish now to turn to some international issues.
We appeal to President Barack Obama to sign an
executive order releasing five Cuban citizens who have
languished in United States jails for over 10 years and
denied family visits. Even visits by the International
Committee of the Red Cross have not been authorized.
The United States should likewise lift the draconian
financial and economic sanctions and trade embargo
against Cuba. The Cuban people are among the few in
the world who are still suffering the inequities of the
cold-war era. It would seem that, for some in the
United States and in particular in the State of Florida,
the cold war is not over.
 The situation in Myanmar is an immensely
complex one. It is a vast country fragmented along
ethnic lines and plagued by numerous armed groups
fighting with different agendas. Based on our own
experience, we believe that in order to manage such
complex challenges, be it in our own country,
Myanmar or anywhere else, we must all show wisdom
and engage in patient dialogue with those who do not
agree with us so that together we can end conflict and
pull our countries out of poverty.
 With respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we
commend the Israeli and Palestinian leaders for their
renewed dialogue under the auspices of the United
States Administration. To those in Palestine who, in
spite of decades of suffering and humiliation, have
resisted the temptation of extremism and violence, I
bow. To those in Israel who have championed the cause
of peace and the rights of the Palestinian people, I will
say that they represent the very best of the Jewish
people — a people who more than anyone else on
Earth should understand the suffering and desire of
others for freedom.
 We urge Hamas to show statesmanship by
recognizing the State of Israel. Extremism, fanaticism
and indiscriminate violence do harm to the noble
Palestinian quest for dignity and freedom. At the same
time, we submit that Hamas and Hezbollah are genuine
popular movements deeply rooted in the plight of
millions of poor, dispossessed, alienated and angry in
the Middle East. Labelling them terrorists and refusing
to engage and build bridges with such groups is, in our
view, not a sound policy.
 We urge Israel, a country founded on 5,000 years
of history and born of centuries of persecution and war,
to show the wisdom and generosity of the Jews by
ending the Gaza blockade, allowing unhindered access

10-55109 4

for humanitarian assistance, and ending the land-
grabbing and colonization of the West Bank.
 On the question of Western Sahara, the aborted
decolonization of that territory and the endless plight
of hundreds of thousands of Saharans in camps in
Algeria constitute an indictment of the international
community. This is not an issue as complex as
Afghanistan or Palestine. How can we believe that
there will be an early resolution of these other
seemingly intractable problems when there seems to be
little political will to solve the Western Sahara
problem?
 I believe that I have already exceeded the time
allocated to me by one minute and 35 seconds. I have a
few more words to say about foreign aid and climate
change, but I will skip that in order to respect
everybody else, particularly those following me. Allow
me only to say two words about United Nations
reform.
 More than 60 years after its founding, the United
Nations has yet to undertake meaningful reform to
make it more representative of the world of the twenty-
first century and to become more effective. And we are
not talking only about an expanded and more
representative Security Council. We are talking about
making the United Nations and its many agencies and
programmes less bureaucratic and more efficient in
their internal management and service delivery.
 In regard to the Security Council, we restate our
view that it has to be expanded to accommodate the
new demographic and economic realities of the twenty-
first century. Major regional Powers like India and
Brazil must be granted permanent member status in the
Security Council.
 In concluding, on behalf of our people I thank the
international community for the steady and generous
assistance provided to us in our years of need. We
would not have been able to achieve the progress of the
past years without the understanding of our friends and
partners.
 We can all do better in Timor-Leste and
elsewhere, and we must. With humility we
acknowledge our failings and limitations. We are
determined to live up to the expectations of our people
and to lead them towards a peaceful and prosperous
future.


It is an
honour for me to speak to the General Assembly today.
 The world has changed dramatically since the
United Nations was founded 65 years ago.
International trade and exchange are, of course,
nothing new. What is new, however, is how quickly the
changes affect everybody’s lives. Only if we in the
United Nations are and remain able to act can we shape
these global changes. We will manage to solve
problems relating to security and economic, social and
ecological development only if the international
community stands united. Germany is ready to assume
global responsibility within the framework of the
United Nations.
 Germany’s foreign policy is firmly embedded in
the international community. In Europe, a system of
cooperation has replaced the confrontation that cruelly
divided our continent for centuries. The European
Union is successful because, in Europe, all peoples and
States meet on an equal footing. The United Nations,
too, brings together nations large and small, rich and
poor, those that are more powerful and those with less
influence. Cooperation between equals on an equal
footing is our guiding principle also for work here at
the United Nations. Each and every country must
respect all others.
 German foreign policy is a policy of peace. This
autumn, Germany will stand for election as a
non-permanent member of the Security Council
because the Council is the ideal forum in which to
cooperate in the cause of peace and development.
Peace is more than the absence of war. In today’s
globalized world, people are just as vulnerable to the
consequences of climate change, poverty and
underdevelopment as they are to violence and
oppression.
 Climate change has a direct impact on each and
every one of us. Countless people are already
personally feeling its economic and social
consequences. In their letter to the Security Council,
the Pacific island States rightly warned us in no
uncertain terms just how much climate change
threatens everyone’s security. Everyone must play their

35 10-55103

part to protect the climate. In Germany, we have just
adopted a forward-looking energy strategy. By the year
2050, 80 per cent of our electricity production will
come from renewable sources. Germany has also
pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per
cent by the year 2020, compared to the 1990 baseline.
Even now, we have reduced our carbon dioxide
emissions by almost 30 per cent. We are pioneers in the
field of climate protection. We are helping those who
are now most adversely affected by climate change. We
are particularly concerned about the fate of small
island States.
 Anyone who is serious about combating climate
change has to build on innovation, new technologies
and exchange. Developed and developing nations alike
can profit from cooperation on future energies.
Germany will contribute its technological expertise, for
example, in the fields of renewable energy and energy
efficiency. In this way, we are turning the challenge of
climate change into an opportunity for fair
development and enhanced cooperation. Climate policy
is a cornerstone of any sustainable development policy.
The recent summit on the Millennium Development
Goals laid down the next steps forward in our global
partnership for development.
 Education is the key to development.
Development needs education. Education protects
people from discrimination and oppression. Education
fights prejudice and thereby fosters peace. Education
also creates products and markets; education is the path
to prosperity. The true wealth of many nations is no
longer found in their raw materials but in the minds of
their people. Education is a human right. It is because
education will determine whether societies succeed or
fail in tomorrow’s world that Germany is one of the
major international partners for learning. By building
on education, we are building bridges to the future for
the young people of today.
 The United Nations itself must also keep up with
the pace of change. Today’s world order is not properly
reflected if Africa and Latin America are not
permanently represented on the Security Council. Asia,
too, rightly considers itself to be underrepresented. The
entire continent, not just individual States, is
developing at breathtaking speed. We take our
partnerships seriously, both the old and the new.
Germany, too, remains ready to assume greater
responsibility.
 Disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation are
not issues of the past but challenges of our time.
Disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation are two
sides of the same coin. We have to do all we possibly
can to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not
become the bane of globalization. Unlike the Review
Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons five years ago,
this May’s Review Conference was a success. If we
work together to maintain this momentum, it will be in
our power to ensure that this decade does not see a
build-up of arms but becomes a decade of
disarmament. A world without nuclear weapons is a
long-term vision, but even a marathon begins with the
first step.
 There is now movement in the disarmament
debate. The group of States founded here in New York
on Wednesday to advance disarmament and arms
control does not stand alone. For over 10 years, the
Conference on Disarmament in Geneva was not even
able to agree on an agenda. That is not the way to live
up to our shared responsibility. We met yesterday at the
invitation of the Secretary-General to break the
deadlock binding the Geneva Conference. Our world
will be a more secure place when the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force and the
production of fissile material is ended once and for all.
 German peace policy stands for the peaceful
settlement of regional conflicts. Germany is doing its
utmost to ensure that the direct talks between Israel
and the Palestinians are a success. We will continue to
strengthen the forces of reason and reconciliation.
During this vital period for the peace process in
particular, I urge both sides to refrain from taking any
action that might block the path to peace. We condemn
any form of violence that has the sole aim of
torpedoing the peace talks. At the same time, we call
for the moratorium on settlement construction to be
extended. Lasting peace will be achieved only through
a two-State solution, with Israel and a Palestinian State
living peacefully side by side within secure borders.
 Iran, like every other country, naturally has the
right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
However, the Tehran leadership itself has sown doubt
about the civilian nature of its nuclear programme.
Iran, by demonstrating openness and transparency, can
allay that doubt. Our offer of dialogue still stands. It is
now up to Iran to grasp our outstretched hand.

10-55103 36

 The conference aimed at establishing a zone free
of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East,
planned for 2012, will be a major opportunity to
strengthen peace and security in the region. Germany is
encouraging all countries in the region to take part to
ensure that the conference is a success. We are
committed to a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East.
 Germany is one of the major supporters of a
peaceful and secure Afghanistan. As we agreed in
London and Kabul, we want to transfer security
responsibility for the whole of Afghanistan to the
Afghan Government by 2014. To make progress in that
country, so long ravaged by war and civil strife,
effective measures must be taken to prevent the
violence. However, military means alone will not bring
success. We favour a comprehensive approach and
above all a political solution. All sides now need the
courage and the stamina to engage in reconciliation.
 The German Government assists when people
anywhere in the world are struck by natural disasters
and emergencies. However, a country’s conscience is
to be found in the hearts of its citizens. I am proud that
my fellow Germans donate so generously at times of
greatest need. Humanity and solidarity are global
values; humanity and solidarity make no distinction
based on skin colour or religious beliefs. When the
tsunami devastated coastlines around the Indian Ocean,
when the Haiti earthquake destroyed the work of
decades, or just recently, when the horrific floods in
Pakistan left havoc in their wake, we Germans shared
the victims’ pain and helped in the most heartfelt way
possible. We will stand by Pakistan over the coming
months and years to ensure that the country has a
promising economic future.
 We are working towards a peaceful order in the
Sudan, now and after the referendum early next year.
We are looking for ways of achieving stable conditions
in Yemen and are particularly active in the Friends of
Yemen group. We are working hard to combat piracy
off the Horn of Africa and to bring peace and stability
to Somalia.
 Reconstruction efforts in devastated regions
cannot bring success overnight. Similarly, for societies
torn by war and civil strife, the route to life in dignity
leads through peace and reconciliation. There can be
true peace only when human rights are respected. For
us, such principles as the rule of law, freedom of
opinion, freedom of the press and respect for
inalienable human rights are essential. The protection
of human rights remains a task for all societies.
 It is a fundamental tenet of the United Nations
that women determine their own lives and help decide
the fate of their countries. Ethnic or religious
minorities enrich their societies. Tolerance is one of
Germany’s guiding principles. Everyone wins in the
competition for the best ideas; in a clash of cultures,
there can only be losers.
 United Europe can make a valuable contribution
on our continent and beyond. Germany is working to
ensure that, in the future, the European Union shall
cooperate even more closely with other regions in
Latin America, Africa and Asia, and live up to its
global responsibility. Germany is the third-largest
development cooperation donor. We have practically
recovered from the financial and economic crisis and
are on the right track due to our robust economic
growth. This strong economy makes Germany a strong
global partner.
 If all countries, small and large, work together,
we will be able to master the pressing challenges of our
world.
They can count on Germany. They can rely on
Germany.


With reverence and an immense sense of responsibility,
I come to this historic forum for the first time to
reiterate the commitment of my country and more than
45 million Colombians to the fulfilment and success of
the founding principles of the United Nations. As this
Organization proceeds in its reform process, we
support its adoption of the criteria of good governance,
efficiency and transparency in order to realize those
principles and to achieve a more effective international
system of cooperation.
 We believe that the United Nations should focus
on achieving concrete results that transform realities
rather than deepen conditions of dependency or
perpetuate assistance programmes that often do more
harm than good in developing countries. It is in this
belief and with faith in the future of the Organization
that I express today before this Assembly my country’s
aspiration to become a member of the Security Council
for the period 2011-2012. We seek that position on the
basis of respect for the principles of the United Nations
Charter and with the commitment to providing our
fullest cooperation to the maintenance of international
peace and security.
 Colombia — which, along with other Latin
American nations, commemorates its two-hundredth
year of independence this year — has a long and
successful democratic and institutional tradition. Our
Republic has suffered the attacks of terrorism and the
ravages of international crime, but we have always
faced them within the framework of our Constitution
and laws, following the most rigorous democratic
procedures. We are confident that our long and painful
experience can be very useful to all States Members of
the Organization in matters in which we have
developed a strong technical and operational capacity,
such as security, the struggle against terrorism and
drug trafficking, the fight against the illicit trade in
small arms and light weapons, the progressive
eradication of anti-personnel mines, humanitarian
assistance, the disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration of illegal armed groups, and — of
particular importance — how to do so while always
protecting human rights.
 As advocates of peaceful coexistence, we
Colombians are proud to participate in peacekeeping
and peacebuilding operations, such as the United
Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the
Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, and the
United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in
Sierra Leone. This participation reflects our
commitment to peace anywhere in the world, which we
reaffirm today.
 That is why we want to be the voice of Latin
America and the Caribbean in the Security Council at
this very special moment for our region. Latin America
and the Caribbean, a region of some 600 million
inhabitants, is our area of natural interaction. The
region includes countries with multiple political
visions and diverse positions on many specific topics.
But we are united in the interest of overcoming
poverty, improving the living standards of our people,
integrating ourselves successfully into the global
market, and protecting our environment.
 Latin American nations are beginning to assume a
global leadership role on economic, environmental,
security and development issues. In my inaugural
speech on 7 August, I said that, given the significant
progress achieved by my country, the time for
Colombia had come. Today, in this global forum, I
wish to go further and state with absolute conviction
that the time has come for Latin America.
 We Latin Americans have assumed the
management of our economies with responsibility. As a
result, we were one of the regions least affected by the
global economic crisis. Today, our countries are
growing on the basis of economic, social and
technological pillars that are stronger than ever and
attracting investors from throughout the world. We are
a subcontinent where the majority of the population is
young, with immense talents and ability to work, with
cities and natural wonders that attract tourists and

5 10-54965

investors from all over the world, and with
unparalleled environmental wealth.
 In these times, when the world demands food,
water, biofuels and natural lungs for the Earth such as
the tropical forests, Latin America has millions of
hectares ready for cultivation without affecting the
ecological balance, and all the willingness necessary to
become a supplier of all the goods that humanity needs
for its own survival.
 More than 925 million people living with hunger
and malnutrition are a challenge that cannot be
postponed. Latin America can and wants to be part of
the solution. Ours is the region richest in biodiversity
on the planet, with the most megadiverse country in the
world, namely Brazil, and the country with the greatest
biodiversity per square kilometre, namely our country,
Colombia. The Amazon region alone holds 20 per cent
of the global supply of fresh water and 50 per cent of
the planet’s biodiversity.
 Colombia is not a country with high levels of
polluting emissions, but we want to assume our
responsibility to the planet and its future. We therefore
support the international initiative known as Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation,
which seeks to generate and allocate the resources
necessary to reduce tropical forest loss and associated
emissions. We Colombians want to be a model country
for the world in monitoring its forests, carbon
emissions and the state of its biodiversity.
 Latin America as a whole must be a key region in
saving the planet. We call for a new agreement to
replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, to
ensure the commitment of all — starting with the big
industrial Powers  to emissions reduction. With
appropriate economic compensation, we have an
enormous capacity to reduce deforestation and plant
new forests, changing the history not only of the region
but of the world as a whole.
 When the twenty-first century began, Latin
America and the Caribbean were just starting their
march towards integration into the global economy.
Today, 10 years later, in the light of our political and
economic stability and agricultural, energy and
environmental potential, I want to send a message to
the other nations of our region. The world’s eyes are
upon us. Now is the time for us to open our own eyes,
to overcome any persisting differences among us, and
to think big. If we do so, and given everything I have
just said, we can declare with one voice, as I do today
at the dawn of the second decade of the third
millennium: This is Latin America’s decade. It will be
a decade in which we can grow and advance, and first
and foremost in which we can serve our peoples and
the well-being of humankind.
 Two days ago, I had the opportunity to present
Colombia’s results in its progress towards the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. I
am not now going to repeat our achievements — which
have been many — or our remaining challenges, which
are many more. I simply want to underline that, more
than any other problem, poverty, with all its related
consequences, is the greatest calamity in our world.
 I want to call attention in particular to the twofold
tragedy faced by a brother Caribbean country, which,
along with its endemic poverty, is coping with the
effects of a devastating natural disaster. I was in Haiti a
couple of months ago and I must say, before this
Assembly of the nations of the world and with a
saddened heart, that its unbearable reality surpasses the
worst nightmare. The pledged international aid is yet to
arrive in its entirety, or at least it is not visible.
Haitians are still fighting and surviving with dignity
and courage, but without the due attention we must
give to their situation, which can bear no delay. I call
on the Security Council to consider transforming the
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti into a
true development operation that responds to Haiti’s
needs and achieves concrete results.
 In these difficult economic times, especially for
industrialized nations, with high unemployment and
stagnation, global solidarity tends to vanish from
among our priorities. That is a mistake. Turning one’s
back on international cooperation and trade helps no
one, and we are convinced that selfishness harms
everyone, and the industrialized world more than any.
Where else are consumers going to come from if not
from the millions of poor who have until now been left
at the margins of progress? Who, other than societies
filled with enthusiastic young people, can contribute to
the dynamism  that mature nations need? What
economic space, other than the developing world, is
available to satisfy the needs of humankind in the
coming decades? Collective prosperity has advanced
the most precisely when millions have been involved in
development, and the darkest moments of our planet’s
economy have been those of exclusion and barriers.

10-54965 6

 I cannot close without referring to two global
scourges — terrorism and drug trafficking — that feed
off each other, because it is often the money from illicit
drugs that finances terrorists acts and groups. Perhaps
more than any other country, Colombia has been a
victim of these phenomena, but it has also been a
model in the fight against them and a champion of the
need to act together with the international community,
under the principle of shared responsibility.
 Our democratic security policy — a policy of
security for all with respect for the law — is also a
human rights policy because we have been able to
dramatically reduce the crimes and behaviours that
most threaten the lives and fundamental rights of our
people, such as homicide, kidnapping and
displacement. We were the first country to
comprehensively apply the principles of truth, justice
and reparation in the demobilization of illegal armed
groups. The Colombian State and society are
committed to defending and promoting human rights.
We do so out of conviction — deep conviction — and
not by imposition.
 We have achieved great results in the fight
against drug trafficking. There has been a substantial
reduction in hectares where coca is grown, and we are
committed to pursuing this task until those crops are
completely eradicated. We have hit hard the mafias that
control this business, including guerrilla groups that
have become veritable drug cartels. We will continue to
fight them relentlessly and without quarter. We will
spare no effort. Just yesterday, from this very city, I
announced to the world the news of the death of the
highest-ranking military leader of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia in an operation impeccably
conducted by our armed forces. This is the most
important and decisive blow against that terrorist group
in its history, and we hope it will bring us closer to
peace.
 We want to achieve peace either by reason or by
force, and we will achieve it so that we can dedicate
and focus all our energies on achieving development
and prosperity for our people. In the fight against drug
trafficking, we have lost many of our best soldiers,
policemen, leaders, judges and journalists. Still, their
blood has not been shed in vain. From a failed State in
which violent actors, financed by drug trafficking, had
distorted our democracy, today we look at the world
from a thriving democracy rising towards democratic
prosperity for all. We defeated the big drug cartels, but
this business has not come to an end yet. That is why
we will keep on fighting it, because for us it is a matter
of national security.
 We are concerned and distressed that our relative
success has led to other countries of the region
suffering the growing presence and activities of drug
trafficking in their territories. The world needs to open
its eyes, because to be in denial with respect to this
problem could be fatal. It happened to us at a very high
cost.
 We Colombians are more than willing to
cooperate with States that need it, and we are already
doing so with several countries in Central America and
the Caribbean, with Mexico and even in Afghanistan.
But, it is very important that we be consistent on this
issue. I say this as representative of the country with
the highest moral authority to speak of this scourge,
because no other nation has suffered like ours the
disastrous consequences of drug trafficking.
 We note with concern the contradictory stance of
some countries that, on the one hand, demand a head-
on fight against drug trafficking and, on the other,
legalize consumption or study the possibility of
legalizing the production and trade of certain illicit
drugs. How can I or anyone tell a peasant in my
country that he or she will be prosecuted and punished
for growing crops for drug production, while in other
countries such activity is being legalized? These
contradictions make it urgent — and on this matter we
join the call by President Leonel Fernández Reyna of
the Dominican Republic — that we agree to review the
global strategy against illicit drugs in order to draft a
single global policy that is more effective and within
which all countries will contribute equally to this
effort.
 Thanks to the significant security, economic and
social achievements accomplished in recent years
through the efforts of many Colombians and the
leadership of my predecessor, President Álvaro Uribe,
today Colombia finds itself at the dawn of a new
morning. I came to office with the commitment to fight
poverty and unemployment and to lead my country
towards not only economic but also social prosperity
that reaches everyone, above all the poorest. I have
proposed a Government of national unity in which all
Colombians are united to create jobs and greater
welfare. I foresee with great optimism our future as a
nation.

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 Today, I present myself before this global forum
with respect, humility, a sense of history and an
awareness of our own limitations to say that we can do
nothing alone, neither in my country nor in the world.
Only united and only with respect, solidarity and
tolerance will humankind be able to know a better
tomorrow.


I too offer
you, Sir, my warmest congratulations upon your
election to the presidency of the General Assembly at
this our sixty-fifth session. Let me assure you, as
always, of the cooperation and support of the Tongan
delegation. I also express my gratitude to your
predecessor His Excellency Mr. Ali Treki for his

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recently concluded term as President at our sixty-fourth
session.
 I wish to also thank the tireless Secretary-
General, Ban Ki-moon, for his resolute leadership of
the Organization during these times of unprecedented
and challenging global events. We also acknowledge
the enduring work of the Organization’s Secretariat and
its agencies, and in particular those who have made the
ultimate sacrifice in the furtherance of that work.
 A decade on, the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) continue to reflect our firm global resolve to
ensure a durably improved quality of life for all of our
peoples — a global pursuit of happiness, if you will. It
is no surprise, then, that the MDGs are now a core
component of our national development planning.
 Tonga has recently produced its second national
MDG report, which highlights positive results across
the eight Goals. With regard to MDG 1, on the
eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the report
suggests that, while the international community
acknowledges that Tonga does not suffer from extreme
poverty or hunger, there are some households that do
suffer hardship, and their needs are being addressed.
With regard to Goal 2, the net enrolment ratio in
primary education for 2008 was 93 per cent, indicating
that Tonga has almost achieved universal basic
education. Goal 6, as it relates to halting and reversing
the incidence of non-communicable diseases by 2015,
and Goal 5, as it relates to universal access to
reproductive health, both remain challenges.
 Yet despite the continuing uncertain global
economic and financial climate, Tonga remains
committed, in the five years remaining until 2015, and
beyond, to making further strides towards achieving
the MDGs. We look forward to completing one such
stride on MDG 6 next year, in 2011, with the timely
convening of a high-level meeting of the General
Assembly on the prevention and control of
non-communicable diseases.
 The MDGs, in our view, as much as marking the
advent of the twenty-first century, reflect our
aspirational goals for this millennium beyond 2015.
Much of any future progress for Tonga will be
contingent on our determination and ability to rely on
our own domestic efforts, complemented by the actions
of our development partners and the international
community.
 At the annual meeting of the Pacific Islands
Forum leaders held in Port Vila last month, leaders
adopted the Port Vila Declaration on Accelerating
Progress on the Achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals, wherein they drew linkages
between the attainment of the MDGs and the state of
progress in the 19 focal areas of the Mauritius Strategy
for Implementation.
 If the landmark Barbados Programme of Action
placed small island developing States (SIDS) firmly on
the global agenda, then the linkages between the
MDGs and the Mauritius Strategy +5 Review (MSI+5)
serve as an accurate compass for charting the direction
that small island developing States, their development
partners and the international community need to take
to ensure progress. We join others in thanking the good
Ambassadors of Luxembourg and Singapore for
brokering the consensus outcome of the MSI+5.
 Like others, Tonga calls for the creation of a
formal SIDS category within the United Nations
system that not only improves the internal linkages and
infrastructure within the system but ultimately
improves its ability to better relate to and respond to
the needs of SIDS. Without some measure of
adjustments to the manner in which the United Nations
system addresses SIDS and SIDS issues, progress will
remain stilted.
 Climate change properly continues to dominate
the majority of statements we have heard this week and
last. In the end our collective ability as States could not
adequately meet the burden of global expectations in
Copenhagen, and many States like Tonga were left to
look for what little positive outcome the Copenhagen
Accord represents. Therein lies the potential for all of
us to reach beyond our narrow national and regional
interests in Cancún and embrace our collective
responsibility and duty to each other as nation-States,
particularly to those States that are most vulnerable,
least responsible for this situation and least able to
address the capricious whims of climate change.
 In taking forward the work of the Pacific SIDS on
the consensus resolution entitled “Climate change and
its possible security implications” (resolution 63/281),
we would join others in strongly encouraging current
and prospective members of the Security Council to
seize the moral imperative and follow the momentum
by taking positive and proactive action on the
resolution. As the final arbiter of international peace

7 10-55408

and security, the Council must ensure it positions itself
in an active leadership role on this issue.
 Tonga continues to follow the course of the
ongoing exchanges among our membership on the
reform of the Security Council and the limited progress
that has been made to date. An organization such as
ours that wishes to retain its broad relevance and
global primacy in this day and age has to be open and
willing to seriously reconsider those elements that give
it a unique and distinctive quality. In our view, the
Security Council and its composition constitute one of
those elements.
 We maintain our support for Council reform. It is
already somewhat self-evident that there should be an
expansion in both categories of membership,
permanent and non-permanent, with certain States —
Japan, Germany, Brazil and India — being worthy of
permanent membership on an enhanced Council. The
permanent membership category must also take
favourable account of seats for Africa.
 Tonga remains supportive of the substantive
efforts for direct talks by President Obama and his
Administration, the Quartet and regional neighbours to
find a comprehensive, just and enduring peace in the
Middle East. Despite the pursuit of the seemingly
elusive goal of two States living side by side within
secure borders and in lasting peace and genuine
security, including a viable Palestinian State that can
realize the true potential of its people, we encourage all
parties to continue this fresh round of dialogue with a
renewed sense of purpose and conviction.
 Tonga was one of the 13 Pacific SIDS that
participated in an historic summit between Pacific
leaders and the League of Arab States earlier this year
in Abu Dhabi in order to share perspectives on the
current and future challenges faced by our respective
regions. That historic summit and its outcome represent
the ever-expanding development of Tonga’s foreign
policy interests to include countries and regions that
had hitherto not been considered. That development
comes firmly on the heels of our active engagement
with the International Renewable Energy Agency and
our continuing interest in the potential of renewable
energy and the first-time visit to Tonga and a number
of other Pacific SIDS by His Highness Sheikh
Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan to develop relations
with our region. In that regard, we acknowledge with
appreciation the Partnership in the Pacific Programme
and its potential to meet the development aspirations of
the peoples of the Pacific.
 Earlier this year, Tonga, in compliance with its
obligations under the United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea, formally presented its partial
submission to the Commission on the Outer Limits of
the Continental Shelf. One issue of concern that arose
as a result of our formal presentation to the
Commission is the likely lengthy time frame for
consideration of submissions such as Tonga’s. We
encourage our fellow States parties to the Convention
to thoughtfully consider the adjustments necessary for
the Commission to fulfil its mandate with respect to all
States parties in a reasonably timely manner.
 Tonga welcomes the successful conclusion of the
2010 review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons, particularly, the continuing
acknowledgement of the concerns of SIDS over the
safe transport of radioactive materials by sea and the
announcement by the United States of its intention to
pursue ratification of the Protocols to the Treaty of
Rarotonga.
 When my Prime Minister addressed this body last
year, it marked the tenth anniversary of Tonga’s
admission as a State Member of the United Nations.
Our admission was culmination of a journey towards
statehood that began with tentative steps 135 years ago,
in 1875, with the granting of Tonga’s Constitution by
King George I.
 And after 135 years, we realize that our domestic
system of governance needs to be strengthened in ways
that align itself more readily with the strong and
vibrant systems of democratic governance prevalent
today. And so, simultaneous with my delivery of these
remarks here today is the historic closure of the current
session of Tonga’s Legislative Assembly, the last under
the existing system of governance. Elections under the
new system are scheduled to take place later this year,
on 25 November. So while the modalities for
improving democratic representation have been
enhanced, the fundamental values and freedoms
guaranteed in the Constitution continue to protect and
support all Tongans.
 As any small island developing State appreciates,
a presence here in New York represents a significant
sacrifice of already scarce resources, but it is made in
the knowledge that despite our size, our remoteness
and our geographical isolation we are not immune to

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the global challenges that beset us all. Therefore we
have a responsibility to our Government and our
people to be more than mere bystanders in the work of
our Organization.
 As such, Tonga reaffirms the rights and
responsibilities bestowed upon it by the United Nations
Charter, and we pledge in our own way to continue to
participate actively and constructively to give an
enduring Tongan voice to the global issues of concern
to us all. And while many subgroupings and variations
of States such as the Group of 20 or the Group of Eight
may convene from time to time for a particular purpose
or timely nuance, whether it be reforming the
international financial governance institutions or
reinvigorating international environmental governance,
the pivotal role of the United Nations as a viable
institution remains constant against an ever-changing
backdrop.
 Finally, any other 65-year-old might be
contemplating retirement, but our Organization’s
strength rests as much in the principles of the Charter
as it does in the people it must continue to inspire and
remain relevant to, especially our young people.
During this, the International Year of Youth, the United
Nations and all of us must ensure a legacy worth
passing on to the next generation.