68º United Nations General Assembly: Words of the President of the Nation
Words of the President of the Nation Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the 68º United Nations General Assembly, in New York, United States of North America.
Good evening everyone; Mr. President of the United Nations General Assembly, a special congratulation, in representation of Antigua and Barbuda, member of the RULAC (The Rule of Law in Armed Conflict Project) and of the CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), a honor for all the Latin Americans, your presidency, in this 68º United Nations meeting.
First of all, our solidarity with the victims of terrorist attacks in Kenya, Pakistan, in general, of all the victims of the terrorist attacks that take place today, in different parts of the world. Ours is not a solidarity, or protocol mention. In our country, Argentina, next to the United States of North America, is the unique two countries of the American continent that have gone through terrorist attacks. In our case, two times: in 1992, with the explosion of the Israel Embassy, in the City of Buenos Aires, and two years later, the explosion of the AMIA, the Jewish community centre in Argentina. Some of their relatives-as always-are here with us and I can see them from here.
Therefore, it is clear that we are before real victims because they are neither combatants, not soldiers, but people that got on a bus, into a bar, into their work places and were surprised by a lethal device, they had not decided to participate in any war, they were not combatant, they were not soldiers, they had not chosen to go fighting. I believe, then, that mainly to those victims and their relatives is with whom we should express our solidarity and our strongest condemnation to all kind of terrorism.
It cannot be avoided in this 68º Assembly, the issue of Syria, almost like a premonition I was here some time ago, at the United Nations, presiding over the session of the Security Council. Argentina is a non-permanent member, during the years 13 and 14 and that August 6, less than a month and half, we proposed the much-needed reform of the Security Council because we upheld that its functioning, its logic dated back to the post-war, dated from the Cold War where the fear to the nuclear holocaust had created that organism made up by the powers that had beaten the Nazi Germany and that then, produced the bipolar world and the Cold War, in views of the fear of a nuclear holocaust that functioning emerged, with the veto power, in order that nobody could press a button and the world blows up in pieces.
That instrument that run since 1945 today has been proved to be absolutely non-functional and obsolete not only before the Syria case, but also before other fronts against the peace and against the world insecurity.
I have heard and I thank, also, the fact that for the first time we can speak in a session so advancely, because there was a little break in the logic and the inertia of what these meetings used to be, where each one comes with a speech format, almost a monologue that prevents to interact, or maybe, to argue or to counter- argue against other speeches and other talks that have taken place here.
I have listened to many attentively, almost all the speeches that have been pronounced, today, on this date. Obviously I have paid much attention to those that have an impact in the global system of decisions, and also-of course-I have paid a lot of attention because I am a strong defender of the multilateralism to the first speech, that of Mr. General Secretary of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. In many of them, I have heard that as on August 21st, we had spoken on August 6th of the need to reform that Security Council, that the veto right no longer existed, and was adopted-for example-the system that we have in the regional organisms of America, as the UNASUR, as the CELAC, as the MERCOSUR, where the decisions are taken by consensus. Why? Because contrary to an organism of government's administration, where the veto right is necessary to be able to rule, when it comes to conflict management, if one of the parts in conflict, or with interests in the conflict, is entitled the veto power, this right to veto becomes an obstacle to solving the problem. We didn't know what was going to happen 15 or 16 days after. And many mentioned, here that on August 21st the crisis of Syria came out.
In fact, it is quite incomprehensible that they became aware that there was a crisis going on in Syria only on August 21st, when the scandal of the chemical weapons broke out. Syria faces a confrontation since two and a half years ago, more than 150 thousand people have died, and 99. 99 percent of those people have died by means of conventional weapons, not chemical ones. I remember that in the last G-20 Meeting, when the Syria issue was approached and discussed I set out : “What is the difference between a person killed by a machine gun, by an anti-personal land mine, by a missile, by a hand-grenade or by a chemical weapon?”. Maybe I caused some impression, more or less, neither is the first time that the chemical weapons issue is addressed, as if we were for the first time before a phenomenon of chemical weapons or massive devastation weapons.
I remember a leader that participated in that date, in the gas chambers of the Nazi, terrible, the trenches, and also chemical weapons on other places. I also remember, because I was told so and because I read it, because I had not been born yet, about the nuclear holocaust in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the consequences of those weapons use during many generations of Japanese people. When already much younger- as the president of Uruguay recalled, when I was young-I was also young, I remember when I was less than 20 years old and many of you may also remember the use of napalm or phosphorous, at the Vietnam War that immortalized those photos receiving the Pulitzer Prize and there were small naked children, a naked girl-I remember it as if it were today-running through a road and having been target of a napalm bombing. I also remember-to be fair-the pain of the North American society seeing at the opening of their airplanes, to disembark, in black bags, the corpses of their soldiers that have left to fight. I imagine each mother's pain, each girlfriend, each sister, each wife, each daughter of each one of those soldiers that died, who knows why, many without knowing why, thousands and thousands of kilometers from their country. How much irrationality, how much injustice. There are not fair wars, there are not fair wars, only the peace is fair.
And we said that on August 6, when we approached the concept of how to deal with the peace and the security and I said that the peace and the security are not military concepts, but political concepts. Today I had a great satisfaction, when listening to the General Secretary of the United Nations, he mentioned this concept that we had given at the Security Council: The peace and the security are not military concepts, but political concepts.
That is why we welcome the fact that an agreement has been reached in the Syria issue. We condemned the direct intervention, the bombing. It was simple: the argument that to avoid deaths we will cause more deaths was groundless from any argumentative and rational point of view. But, besides we didn't speak from any place, we spoke from a very respectful country of those written norms of the international right. My country is signatory of the Non Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, being Argentina one the countries with the most nuclear development of Latin America. Nuclear development that we carry out for peaceful and scientific purposes, we sell nuclear generators to Egypt, to Algeria, to Australia. We also have the nuclear energy intended for medicinal aims, so we do not go around condemning the use of nuclear energy with military ends, and at the same time send out nuclear submarines, as it happens to us Argentines, where the United Kingdom have militarized the South Atlantic and sends nuclear submarines. That is to say we do not take a stance of hypocrisy or double standards. We are not only signatory of the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, we are also members of the Penal Court, of Rome, also mentioned in his speech by the General Secretary of the United Nations, so when we speak of the condemnation to dictators we speak that we are part of that tribunal and therefore we can be subjected to that tribunal.
We are also part of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, with headquarters in Washington; what is curious is that much of those who talk about human rights, about respect to the institutions and to the international right, and to the Penal Court of Rome and to any wandering around speech on human rights, have not signed any of these treaties. And what to speak about the human rights, the Argentine Republic, we have been founding members and prime movers, first, of the creation of the Human Rights Secretariat, in the scope of the United Nations and, then, the Forced Disappearance of People Treaty.
Today, I am also accompanied by the head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, who was also with me in Paris to sign that treaty, in which we are also founders. I make mention of the human rights issue because I don’t want to make a mistake, today it was said: “If that is the world in which people want to live”, it was referred to those countries where we really believe that a cultural diversity exists, and that there are values that perhaps, seem to be absolute to us, and relative to others, and vice versa, I have heard speaking about tolerance. I don't like the word tolerance, the word tolerance always implies: “I tolerate you because I don’t have other choice”. I like the word acceptance, to accept the other, to accept that the other is different and that the other accepts that I am different. It was said, here, today, that “if that is the world in which people want to live they should say it and count on the cold logic of the common graves”. Argentina can also speak about common graves, yet-in the middle of XXI century-we are finding out graves with the remains of the thousands of detainees and missing people, during the genocide dictatorship, on March 24 of 1976, similar to the one installed on September 11 of 1973, in the sister Republic of Chile, overthrowing Salvador Allende’s democratic government.
How much we would have liked that so many speeches condemning genocide dictators had existed at that time, how much we had liked that they come to help the Argentine and Chilean nations and many others of the American continent that amid the Cold War, we were the favorable victims of dictators and murderers. But it was also said here, that even if the human rights were respected, it could be the case of somebody that if coincident with the interests of some power, other treatment will be applied. We speak about these aspects, this double standard, the need to end up with this double standard, and that the resolutions, the decisions of this multilateral organism, like the United Nations, are abided by the weak and the strong ones, by the big and the small ones. We are waiting for it, for example, since 1965, when the plenary of the resolution and many other resolutions after this Assembly and the Decolonization Committee had approved numerous resolutions calling for the two countries to solve the issue through dialogue. Dialogue, another word that I have heard recurrently in all the speeches, to dialogue because there is a sovereignty controversy on Malvinas territory. However, regrettably, the United Kingdom had been disregarding those calls and we go on with the double standard, which some people don't like they are mentioned, for the hypocrisies, but that are like the witches, you may not believe in them but there are witches indeed.
I have also heard and I should say with pleasure, I will not only say the things that seem to be double standard, but also with those we agree, that has been recognized at last, the need like essential ground to be able to undo that Gordian knot the Middle East question represents, the need to recognize the Palestine State and the right of the Israel State too, to live within its frontiers safe. Even more, I believe it has been said very accurately, that it is impossible to achieve security for the State of Israel if it is not recognized as well the existence of the Palestinian State. We fully coincide with this characterization.
I have also listened to the new President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and I have listened to the comments that the major powers have made about this government's change. I seem to understand, if I didn’t hear wrong, that there is a sort of new expectation of change in view of the reshuffle of the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran that, as you know, we have a difference, since the AMIA case and the Argentine Justice have formally accused 5 Iranian citizens of having had participation in the explosion of the AMIA.
Ten years have gone by since for the first time, who was president of Argentina as from May 25 of 2003, President Néstor Kirchner, requested in this very place, cooperation on part of the Islamic Republic of Iran for investigating the facts.
Year after year, Néstor until year 2007, and since year 2007, who is now speaking, have been calling on cooperation…even more, a year ago, we received a response of the then Iranian official to engage in talks to seek a solution.
Why? Due to a very simple reason: because the lawsuit is deadlocked since 19 years ago, it is not treated and there are 5 Iranian accused, with the only ones that I can and I have to speak so the judge can take a statement to these 5 citizens is, obviously, with the Republic of Iran. It seems too obvious, but many times in this world so peculiar and in my country is peculiar too, it is necessary to explain the obvious stuff.
I also heard today to speak about imperfect elections. I liked the term that a president used, “imperfect elections”. I believe that when Argentina called on cooperation during 10 years and suddenly somebody that has been calling on cooperation says “Well, we will talk, we will cooperate”; it seems to me that there was not other choice but to sit down. This was used domestically in our country to attack us politically.
And also here in the United States for the vulture funds to place us against the American Congress and to say that we were making an agreement with Iran. Yes, right, a treaty with Iran but on what grounds? On nuclear weapons? No. On a strategic alliance to attack the Western? No. On an agreement to convert us to the Islam? Absolutely not.
The agreement was only to unlock the procedural question and to be able to take a statement to those accused by the Argentine Justice and, at the same time, the guarantee of the due process with a commission of international jurist, who were neither Iranian nor Argentineans, that guaranteed, being non-binding, the due process.
In my country, that treaty was already approved 9 months ago, I can almost say that the baby is to be born, if I take it to biological terms and childbirth terms. It was approved by all the corresponding organisms, the Parliament, was published in the Official Gazette, the world knows that Argentina has fulfilled this treaty, to those that used to say that it was highly convenient for Iran, we would say that after 9 years without news neither notification nor approval on part of the authorities, I allow myself to doubt if we were not on the right path when we signed it and said that it was an instrument to unlock the question.
What is true is that there is a new government; and we expect that this new government, to whom I also listened to attentively in the speech and I also read declarations of the current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who said that in no way the Holocaust is refused, I believe it is something very important, at least for me and I think that it is for many global citizens, world citizens that today, even in his speech expressed that the Iranian society had given proofs through this election, removing who had stances, that we all have heard, it is not worthwhile to repeat them, by choosing more moderate stances, a vocation, at least what it was said here, in this very place, with these very microphones, a will of agreeing, speaking, being open, being a democratic society, of peace and of good will.
Well, the President of France mentioned the nuclear file as the important issue of Iran. I want to mention the file AMIA like the other major issue.
They said that they will give proofs opening up to a negotiation in the non use of weapons for military aims, that is to say that they will join -at least I understood so - what we support, the non proliferation. Now we wait they tell us if the agreement has been approved, when it will be approved if negative and if we can have a date of a line-up of the commission, a date so the Argentine judge can travel to Teheran, yes, to Teheran, we are not afraid, we will go to Teheran, we are not afraid. Because we also believe in the goodwill of others and in their wish for peace, we don't have reason not to believe so. All those present here, said that they want peace, that they loved each other. So, we believe them all, but we expect from all of you, coincident opinions between what it was said and what is to be done.
So, I lay out this issue specifically, that I don't have doubts, if being true the words pronounced here, we will have positive response.
I say this so in order that our deep conviction is neither mistaken with the norms of the International Right, nor mistaken our patience with ingenuousness or stupidity. We want answers; I believe that more than prudential time has gone by. The victims deserve it and I believe that very Islamic Republic of Iran deserves a chance to show the world that it would be different and that there are different actions. I have confidence that it be; I don't have reasons not to do it.
With regard to other questions that I would also be interested to lay out, these would be…I said that we are serial trustworthy of the norms of the International Right and we are also serial victims of other non- written norms, non- written rules but that today, have a great importance in the economy and the finances world, norms not written by the huge financial centers, by the risk rating agencies, but for those who speculate like the vultures funds with those countries that like Argentina defaulted its debt in the year 2001...
It was also addressed in this place the poverty issue, the need that the boys and the girls have education.
I want to read 2 paragraphs of the General Secretary of the United Nations speech: one that refers to the weapons, where the poverty is addressed and remarks that “meanwhile in moments of urgent human needs, the expenditure in weapons keeps being absurdly high, let´s correct our priorities, let us invest on people instead of wasting thousands of millions in lethal weapons”. Argentina, I´m clear, does neither produce chemical weapons nor even sells conventional weapons.
It would be interesting to know who supply weapons to the groups, I said this at the G-20, to the rebel groups fighting the government of Syria, because, well, it's logical that the government of Syria has the weapons that the State has, we would like to know who provide the weapons of those who face the Syrian government. And this does not mean at all to take part by anyone, it's just to set out things very logical and that today are a real business like the arm business. My God, why we had to wait that 1.000 people have died with chemical weapons to find out that 150.000 had died? Why it was not decreed the arms embargo two years ago to prevent many people died? Well, it should be answered by those who sell weapons, we don't sell them, so we don't have any answer in this scope, although we can imagine it.
I want to read also a very important part where the UN General Secretary was talking about the economic situation. Because, even though in all this Assembly the Syrian issue was addressed, it's clear that the economic crisis that started here in the United States with the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and despite of the speeches and despite of the things, it still producing a volatile situation, fragile, as it was said... Fragile is a term that it was used very much, not here but in the G-20, fragile, we see million of unemployed in the world, a similar situation to the one that Argentina went through in the year 2001, with the default of the debt.
And this is what I was about to say, we are serial victims of those unwritten rules of the lobbyists, the rating agencies, the financial derivatives that keep speculating as vultures on countries that fall into default, buy bunds at very low price and then they seek to collect millionaire amounts. This is the story of Argentina, but it could be the story of any other country very soon.
Argentina, since the administration of President Kirchner, on May 25, 2003, started to analyze how we could get out of the debt that represented 160 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of our country; 25 percent of unemployment; 54 percent of poverty; more than 30 percent of indigence. Many countries today could also be reflected on them.
In 2005, it was produced the first restructuring of the debt: a 76 percent of the creditors joined. During my administration, in the year 2010, the debt swap was reopened and we reached a 93 percent of the debt creditors. You have to take into account that in any country that has a bankruptcy law when the companies go bankrupt, it's required to reach an agreement, at least in Argentina, that 66 percent of the creditors reach an agreement for the bankruptcy judge obliges the rest of the creditors to accept that agreement.
Here in the United States I think it is the same figure, 66 percent. Even more, here in the United States the municipalities can also go bankruptcy and a judge can determine if it is necessary the sustainability of the municipality, there can be less than 66 percent.
The truth is that Argentina in 2010 had reached and has reached an agreement with 93 percent of its creditors. And since then, since the year 2005 up to now, it has paid on time and rigorously each debt maturities. Up to the point of making its last payment a few days ago, it was a bond with local laws, with Argentine laws, payable in Buenos Aires, US$ 2.070 million were paid and from that 160 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, today we are at 45 percent, a little less, of the debt GDP, from which a very great part is within the public sector and foreign currency.
Argentina owes only 8.7 percent of its GDP, both domestic and foreign private holders. But I repeat: we keep fulfilling foursquare.
In the year 2008, seven years after Argentina has defaulted its debt, vulture funds, as they are called, I say that this is a UN encounter between the debt vultures and the war hawks, worst than the birds of Hitchcock; at least Hitchcock was a good director.
But the truth is that they buy for US$ 40 million bonds that today they seek to buy out of the creditor’s agreement that agreed removals, deadlines, periods of time, as every group of creditors that agreed has, and so they established removals and payment terms, they want to received the full amount at face value of the bond, without any deadline, neither removal nor delay. In other words, of the US$ 40 million that they bought in this blessed self-regulating markets, they want to receive today US$ 1.700 million or more. A dollar yield since year 2008 up to now that exceeds 1,300 percent.
I ask myself and the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, where are we going to find businessmen dedicated to create jobs, to innovate, to invest in production, in generating jobs when actually, thanks to a sort of economics of casino gambling, someone buys 40 million dollars in defaulted bonds and then get a Court ruling that tells them that they are able to collect 1.3, 1.7 billion dollars.
This is not a problem of Argentina; this is a World’s problem. That is why we also thank the Republic of France for having appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States as “amicus curiae” (friend of the court). We also thank the former chairman of the (International) Monetary Fund, Anne Krueger, who is not particularly a friend of Argentina, who did the same.
And we also remember the US Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neil, who, when they decided to leave Argentina on its own, in the year 2001, undergoing a social and institutional crisis and with more than 30 deaths due to the repression in the streets, said that American or North American plumbers did not have to pay for the Argentines’ party.
I say today that the million of Argentines who have recovered their jobs, the million of Argentines who are hopeful and able to dream again, the scientists who have returned to the country, the children who have education again, do neither have to pay for the lobbyists’ party, who take part in political campaigns and finance the campaigns of the politicians here, have the sufficient lobby power to make the international financial system to stagger.
Unbelievable! And look, little time has gone since Paul O’Neill statement and my words today. And we are not asking for anything, we are just asking them to let us pay.
Unbelievable! If we had not defaulted our debt, today they do not let us to pay the debt. It is almost absurd in a world that is debated in debt restructuring, in millions of men and women, even here in the United States, one can see men a women who have no job, who have lost their homes, who have seen their employment diminished, not to mention in a devastated Europe.
Obviously, Argentina and many that are sitting here are not lucky enough to be countries that issue reserve currency. But the truth is that we have proved our will to pay, which I believe should be acknowledged unless, well, that actually a doctrine to punish Argentina wants to be set up because Argentina was able to climb out of the hole, it was able create jobs, generate growth, to pay to its creditors without the recipes that from the International Monetary Fund wanted to impose.
By the way, also the need to define a global law, a global regulation of markets and an intervention. Because there have been fantastic statements at the G-20, regarding the tax havens, the risk rating agencies, the capital transfers. But the truth is that the world requires a global regulation for global governance, the same way that the respect to the resolutions of the Security Council, of United Nations' Assembly is asked, we ask also for regulations and the respect to the countries' sovereignty, mainly to the countries that want to honor their commitments.
At last, I want to address you all in this special day when the war, the violations to human rights or other violations, maybe more subtle such as losing the job, losing the rights, losing your home, losing the hope, are mixed together.
I believe that, definitively, our obligation as global leaders is to build a really different history. Many of those who have come here had a little bit ambiguous speeches, between hopeful and disappointed because they had not been able to do what they wanted, as if suddenly, it would have been a sort of caprice, as wanting to do something, they were not allowed to and they got upset.
I believe that the only thing that one cannot do when has the responsibility to lead a country and, most of all, when you have the possibility to lead a powerful country; it is getting angry and much less making mistakes. This is the only thing that we cannot do: make mistakes. Because mistakes are not paid by the leaders that make the decisions or make the imperfect choices, the mistakes are paid with human lives, in a war, but also with human lives if they are of the economy, with unemployment, lack of healthcare, lack of education, lack of dwellings, lack of security, and cheap labor for the drug trafficking that we firmly decide fighting.
One of the keys to fight drug trafficking is to end cheap labor in emerging and underdeveloped countries and also putting an end to the money laundering coming from the drug trafficking in the central countries. Because the truth is that the drug trafficking money, it’s not laundered within the countries that produce the raw material. The drug trafficking money is laundered in the central countries. It is also good to mention it, given that much has been said about drug trafficking and many other things.
I will finish with a phrase that the Secretary General of United Nations has said, I liked it very much, it seemed very appropriate to me the call he made and that was, precisely, a call to turn hope into action through hard work, commitment, the ability and the integrity, and he finished by saying: “With passion but most of all with compassion,” - and I am a person with so much passion, sometimes they say I go too far with passion and that I am a bit strong in my speeches, but well – “we can build the future our people want – and that our world needs.”
Compassion, it is not the first time I hear that word, I must confess that I have heard it many years ago and very often in my country. Perhaps, at that moment I understood this passion thing, didn't I? An Argentine Cardinal that today is the Pope pronounced that word and still pronounces it, who I also thank as a Christian for the fundamental intervention he did in the Syrian situation. Compassion, passion for hope, passion for the future and compassion towards those in need, those more vulnerable, the ones that wait for everything, the ones that have done nothing to deserve the extreme poverty and to be far from God’s reach. With compassion for all those who are victims of war, of unemployment, of extreme poverty, of our own failures as global leaders.
Thank you very much and good evening everyone
*NOTE: This is a translation of a transcript.
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