YouSaid · the spoken record

Alan Garcia Perez

lines on the record: 82
first: 1985-09-24
most recent: 2010-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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. 10-54827 38 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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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 10-54827 36 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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“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.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“And from this rostrum we greet mankind, all mankind everywhere, particularly the poorest in Africa and in Asia, who use their consciences as weapons so as not to be the passive objects of an irrational course of history and.an irrational world. My greetings go out to those who raise their eyes to the future and to justice. We have come here to say that, in poverty but with dignity, Peru has begun to walk forward towards peace, independence and justice. In the name of the poor of the earth, in the name of God, because it is the hour for action and the time for resolve.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We believe that the strategy defined in the 1950s and 1960s has not been implemented, and is still confining itself to such traditional categories as South-East Asia, the Middle East, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, thus ignoring the growing globalization of decisions and of conflicts. That is why we also address the peoples of the industrialized countries and of the major Powers, reminding them of our common humanity. And here I should like to present a greeting to the American people, to the people of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Luther King, and my tribute to its democratic conscience and the outstanding individuals here who understand Latin America and the Third World without any imperialist zeal.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“This is why I reiterate from this forum that we are poor but dignified people, free and ready to unite, and that in the face of the armed power and wealth of the super-Powers we exalt the moral power of justice. We call on a united Europe to reflect upon itself and to realize that it has more in common with the poor nations than with bipolar hegemonism. Europe is also a field of political and military strategy, its lands bristling with their own and foreign nuclear weapons; it is undermined by insecurity, and its economic development is, regardless of its own wishes, dependent on the technology and economic orientation of the great Powers. And in the broader framework of all countries, we affirm the interdependence of North and South.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We do not believe our peoples can in any way benefit from the Manichean East-West conflict. The only result of this conflict of fundamentalist views, is the outbreak of limited conflicts in the countries of the periphery. We affirm the role of the principles of non-alignment maintained by Nehru, Tito and Nasser,, and in Latin America by Haya de la Torre since 1924. He proposed as a principle of anti-imperialist action the integration of Latin America to build democratic socialism. On our continent, integration is the guarantee of nonr-alignment, which does not consist of freedom from one hegemony in order to sustain a natural alliance with the countries of the East.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We do not seek to arm ourselves and to achieve a false sense of power in regard to others. We have confidence in the peoples of the world. We do not feel attacked by anyone, and with that confidence, and sustained by our willpower, we are ready to take action consistent with the principles I have outlined. The poor peoples of the earth are not enemies to one another. But we do have a common enemy that has penetrated our borders and our history with poverty, with domination and with injustice. It is imperialism which divides us and which trades on our lack of unity. In the face of this imperialism, we affirm our participation in and identification with the Non-Aligned Movement, with its authentic and substantive originality because we are not instruments in the bipolar strategy of the big Powers.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The determination of each of our countries must be renewed: determination makes it possible for a country to set a maximum limit for debt payment; determination that compels us to subversion while respecting human rights; determination compels us to fight drug trafficking without asking for compensation. Determination also requires us to act. We have made a substantial reduction in the purchase of highly sophisticated war planes agreed with France. And, while we are not paying our debt, neither shall we use our money for the benefit of the industry of death. On the initiative of our own navy, we have dismantled war vessels, and our armed forces, in the context of a new world, are being oriented towards action for the development of the nation. We are moved by any fear of being weak towards others.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“But today, the sale of weapons that swiftly become obsolete is a very important part of world trade, and that renewable technology involves not only competition between our peoples but also high earnings for the weapon-selling nations which are jointly responsible for the crisis, and for the arms dealers. These professional death dealers are the promoters of intrigue between our nations and spur on our rivalries. In this, as in other subjects, we have not limited ourselves to proposing collective action while waiting passively for a consensus to emerge. We believe in consensus, but we also believe in our own determination.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We believe that the best defense is an affirmation of the nation as a people, and that the social requirements of our countries mean that we must limit our expenditures on arms. That is why we propose a regional agreement in Latin America for a substantial reduction of expenditures on weapons and will spare no effort to achieve this. I am convinced that more human beings have died because the money channeled into weapons was not used to help them, than the sum of all the dead from all the wars that have occurred in our history. Each bullet, which in 99 per cent of all cases is used in shooting practice, represents a food ration that could have been given to a child to save him from death.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We wish to enter into bilateral compensated trade agreements that could free us from the use of hard currencies, and affirm our economic integration. We have already taken the first steps towards an agreement of this type with Brazil. But one subject now stands out on the international scene, and that is the arms race. We are a peace-loving nation, respectful of international treaties, and we are not part of the arras race. We do not represent the strategy of any Power, nor have we been infected by the egocentric view of security that characterizes the big Powers. For them, their own security involves the insecurity of others, but the arms race results in the insecurity of all. That is the logic and the neurosis of the weak.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“As a route towards that integration we support the peace efforts of the Contadora Group to safeguard the sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples of Central America, and as a committed continent we have, with other countries, constituted the Front for Support of Contadora, willing and united, ready to be present if a Power attempts to violate with its weapons the sovereignty of any country, for we understand that in that region the destiny of Latin Americans is also at stake. We affirm the need to strengthen the Andean Group, by working for a new and more up-to-date Protocol, and by proposing the expansion and more effective application of the Andean Reserve Fund, a financial organization which has already surpassed the International Monetary Fund in its disbursements within the region.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Lastly, I should like to refer to the position of Peru with regard to the rest of the world, which brings me to the fourth part of my statement. He are Latin Americans, and we are fighting for the integration of our continent in its anti-imperialist stance, because only in this way will we have a respected voice on the subject of the debt; only in this way will we be able to strengthen the multilateral treatment of the major problems facing the world; only in this way will we avoid the extension of the borders of the great Powers towards us.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“That is why we consider the fight against drug trafficking to be our duty, because it is a crime against mankind. He are not doing it for the granting of a loan; we are not doing it to receive assistance of a few million dollars that is us and that we will not accept in the future; we are doing it because our own conscience is enough to defend youth, whether Peruvian, American or.from any other part of the world. However, I affirm from this rostrum that another and equally serious crime against humanity is increasing in interest rates, reducing in the prices of raw materials and its wasting of economic resources in death-dealing technologies while hundreds of millions of human beings live in poverty and are encouraged to acts of violence.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“All of that means that the consumption of drugs in the United States of America will suffer a yearly reduction of approximately 80 tons, worth $5.6 billion. He could therefore ask the United States Administration, since we have done this in 50 days, what it is doing for the human rights of individuals who keel over in Grand Central Station and so many other locations. He might well ask when the United States Administration will act in a legal and Christian fashion to eradicate and condemn drug consumption here in the United States, which is the primary market thereby distorting our agricultural life. A liberal economist would recommend we keep our hands off this risky issue, but we believe that the State cannot be - indifferent to corruption and vice.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“The only successful multinational business originating in our countries has been drug trafficking. The most advanced efforts at Andean integration have been made by drug traffickers. But to what is this due? According to liberal economic theory, production is regulated by demand, and it so happens that the main market is in the United States of America. For Peru, drug consumption is not a national problem, but X can say that, in spite of that, within the first 50 days of our Administration we have dealt the most successful blows.to the international drug traffic. Twenty-two airports, three helicopter landing strips, five long-range light aircraft, hundreds of kilograms of drugs and eight large factories have been discovered and seized.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Corporations, banks and super-Powers have oriented the world towards serving the needs of production and consumption because by controlling consumption and publicity human beings can be made to serve the logic of that economy. I should like here to move to the third subject of my statement: narcotics traffic as an activity that corrupts institutions and degrades man. We believe that drug consumption is but the exacerbation of consumption as a logic of capital. To consume, to consume to the point of self-destruction, is the caricature of the economic system. The same greed for profit that dehumanizes capital is reflected in drug addiction, that is, the consumption of dissatisfaction. Drugs are thus revealed to be a different state of consumer capitalism. The only raw material to have increased in value is cocaine.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Nothing justifies torture, disappearances or summary executions; barbarism must not be fought with barbarism. True, the action of public order against anonymous and collective subversion produces reactions of irrational aggressivity, but in no case can that justify the suppression of facts or permitting such acts to remain unpunished. That is why the Peruvian Government has taken drastic decisions in recent days. He will energetically defend democracy with the law and with social justice, in the conviction that we are acting in the name of life. Because we act in the name of life, we believe that politics must be an ethical reflection of respect and of morality. Thus far, the expansion of economic interests has governed the world, sacrificing peoples and individual human beings.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Therefore, a close relationship exists between our economic history, our foreign debt and the poverty that promotes violence in the Andes. That is why I have dwelt at length on this subject, for in the case of my own country we may see the immediate future of other Latin American countries if poverty continues to increase and if advantage is taken of it by totalitarian and extremist forces. Thus, we are convinced that only a new international economic order can open the way for a lasting and democratic solution to violence. All of this, of course, must be accompanied by vigorous action that will firmly oppose subversives, but within the framework of law. Our bona fides of democratic introduction to the world is our respect for life and for the rights of individuals.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“That is why we cannot pay the foreign debt at a rate in excess of 10 per cent of our exports; that is why we call for regional agreement in order to stop spending millions of dollars on weapons, millions that could save the neglected from poverty. For the incidence of terrorism and violence also feeds upon political circumstances, and in order to fight it we must understand it as not only the action of a Messianic and totalitarian group. We must take political action and make an effort to incorporate these millions of human beings .into civilization by establishing democratic institutions and a State presence and by reclaiming agriculture and considering farmers as the very sustenance of our nationality.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“Ayacucho, the region where terrorism initiated its activities, is in that Andean trapezoid. In Ayacucho, out of every thousand births, over 270 die before the age of one, whereas the average in Latin America is 73 per thousand. In Ayacucho, 74 per cent of the population is illiterate. In some places only one out of every hundred houses has water and only five out of every hundred has electricity. That is Ayacucho, the historic center of the peoples of America, where the great final battle for independence was waged. And it is precisely by taking advantage of such flagrant injustices that terrorism found a fertile ground for profiting from the despair of the people by pitting them, precariously armed, against the forces of the State.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)
“We acknowledge that subversive action has been possible not only because of lack of foresight and the absence of a well-planned social and economic policy, but because subversion has been nourished by the exasperating poverty in which millions of neglected compatriots are living. It is no coincidence that terrorism has arisen in the most economically depressed zones of the country. It arose in what we have called the Andean trapezoid, whose population has been subjected from colonial times to exploitative bGdSism and to a rigid centralist system. Millions of Peruvians were left mired in a subworld of oppression. United by the same language, mainly Quechua, united by the same culture - the Andean - and united by the same system of agricultural production, these Peruvians were neglected and injured by a state that never represented them.”
1985-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 40 (1985)