YouSaid · the spoken record

Alberto Fujimori

THE RECORD WRITES THIS SPEAKER AS ALBERTO FUJIMORI

lines on the record

19

first

1993-09-24

most recent

1999-09-24

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

1. “It is important to promote democracy within countries, but also to promote it between countries and between peoples. Democracy applies not only to the internal structure of States, but also to the international relations that will determine the fate of the world. Human rights raised to their maximal power and highest expression are the rights of peoples, and all peoples have a right to the future.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

2. “In some cases, these criminal activities have created power sufficient to challenge States as well as to upset the world economy: illicit drug money may have infiltrated productive, commercial and even political activities. Terrorism and drug trafficking therefore represent a threat to modern society and to good governance. In general terms, poverty, terrorism, drug trafficking and racial discrimination are the main barriers to our glimpsing the new era that as civilized peoples we propose to reach. Our task and our commitment is to overcome these obstacles with firm political will if we want this transitional period in which we live to mark the threshold of a new era for mankind. The concepts of democracy and fairness must prevail.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

3. “The 1998 peace agreement between Peru and Ecuador was the product of two equally important factors: the political will of two Governments taken to its ultimate conclusion; and the capacities, energy and awareness of two peoples determined to overcome old prejudices and work towards a future of development. Ecuador and Peru intend to reach the twenty-first century without the baggage of the nineteenth. Peace has opened up possibilities for the development of Peru and of Ecuador thanks to savings in resources once earmarked for defence, and it has shown again that Latin America is a mature region that rejects warlike tension. But tranquility in our region has been disturbed by the alliance of drug trafficking and terrorism.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

4. “The destructive capacity of such criminal activity is on the increase thanks to access to new technology, and today it threatens every region and every continent. If it is not duly stopped, it will undoubtedly become the nightmare of the twenty-first century. Both internal and external peace are essential for the coming of the new era that we are championing. In 1998, Peru and Ecuador were at a crossroads: either to pursue the path of armed conflict, the situation typical of the entire century, which has led to the destruction of peoples; or to follow the path of peace, the only possibility for development. Peru and Ecuador chose peace.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

5. “Such frustrations could arise if our national economies, rather than growing stronger, are weakened by economic opening based on unequal or unjust terms of trade. The reaction, which no one wishes to see, could be a return to defeated economic ideas. In speaking of my own country, Peru, I can say that, like other peoples, it inherited a heavy burden of injustice and backwardness, but it also has an extraordinary future- looking calling that has made it possible over the past 10 years for our country to become an emerging economy. That future-looking calling has enabled us to defeat the totalitarian, terrorist designs of the Shining Path and of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. It was the latter group that seized the residence of the Japanese Ambassador in 1996.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

6. “At the height of the twentieth century, the majority of the world’s peoples remain mired in the social, cultural and technological conditions of the nineteenth century — or even of earlier centuries. We shall be able truly to speak of a new era only if our aspirations for the twenty- first century and the third millennium become tangible reality for those peoples and if those peoples succeed in fulfilling their own legitimate aspirations: in other words, if a globalized world can globalize well-being and dignity. The conversion of our economies to adapt them to globalization has social costs which we can bear provided that this process assures us a future of development and well-being, not one of additional frustrations.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

7. “The delegation of Peru is greatly pleased, Sir, at your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session, especially since Peru was an active participant in Namibia’s independence process, which was advanced by the United Nations. As the first speaker at this morning’s meeting I am particularly pleased to congratulate you and the other officers of the General Assembly. The arrival of the new millennium is a great historic opportunity to initiate an era of peace, progress and well- being, from which no people on Earth should be excluded. That requires a greater commitment on the part of the international community to create conditions that will enable developing nations properly to channel their own energy and potential with a view to achieving comprehensive national development.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

8. “Peru is beginning to be a viable country again - an attractive country visited by thousands of tourists, who can confidently bear witness to its new look, a country with hope, one into which foreign capital is flowing, thereby generating more employment and wealth. In the near future, the Peruvian people will have the historic opportunity to decide upon a constitution incorporating the thoroughgoing reforms that will guarantee peace and progress in our country. This will be the end of a grim cycle. Peru is now a country open to the world - one which, like other countries all over the planet, is beginning fully to exercise its right to be a free and prosperous nation through the implementation of a true democracy and of a system of government that will benefit our people.”

   1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

9. “It has some unusual elements: the common man’s awareness of his chronic exclusion from the mainstream of civic life; his experience and sacrifice as a survivor of one of the century’s worst economic crises; and his equally successful involvement in the war against the nation’s terrorist threat - within the framework of the full exercise of his right to self-defence and the universal rights of the individual and of every citizen. Peru can once again see the light of day. The nightmare of war is now behind us. Those who doubted that this was possible must now admit that it has happened and must recognize that the decisions taken in April 1992 were absolutely necessary.”

   1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

10. “Twenty-five thousand deaths; hundreds of thousands of refugee peasants displaced from their villages; thousands of widows and orphans; hundreds of handicapped and maimed, including civilian, police and military; thousands of children who have grown up in the middle of a cruel war; $25 billion of material waste; an entire country paralysed by terror and uncertainty: this is the sum of 13 fateful years, during which a State considered to be democratic appeared not to exist in the face of totalitarian terror. The end of this vicious circle is approaching after 17 months - barely 17 months - of the counter-terrorist strategy developed by my 8 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session Government. Now we can talk about the State and democracy in Peru. In our country, a new and exemplary democracy is being devised.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

11. “If they really wish peace to be achieved as soon as possible, they should immediately and unconditionally stop terrorist actions and their methods of propagation, as a preliminary step enabling the Peruvian State to prevent further bloodshed and suffering for the Peruvian people and to take the further steps required to facilitate the process by which the Government will fully consolidate national peace before the date I promised to my fellow citizens, that is, 1995.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

12. “The Government of Peru is fully aware of its obligation to respect the international principles of the Geneva Convention. Nevertheless, it will make no concession in any way that would jeopardize the process of restoring peace completely to Peru. Through the attainment of peace in our country and the definitive eradication of terrorism, we are also preventing the spread of terrorism to the rest of the Southern Cone of our continent. The Peruvian Government and its people will tirelessly continue their effort to fight terrorist violence, with or without requests from the heads of these organizations.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

13. “But a "peace agreement" implies negotiation between two belligerent groups considered to be equal - equal not only militarily but also from a moral and ethical standpoint. This is inadmissible, for there can be no negotiations with a genocidal terrorist group - described as such by the United Nations itself - whose leader, having been captured, tried and sentenced last year to life imprisonment, has absolutely no power to negotiate. Moreover, there is no correlation of forces between the Peruvian State and these criminals that could put them on an equal footing. There can be no doubt that it has been completely recognized that the State, the Armed Forces, the National Police and the people of Peru are prevailing over terrorism.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

14. “After being captured a year ago, Abimael Guzmán made a fiery proclamation to all his followers to continue relentlessly the war against the Peruvian State and its society. Today, in a 180-degree turn, he appeals to your speaker, the President of Peru, in order to retract his previous atrocious objectives. This shows essentially that he has inevitably come to terms with the total defeat of his totalitarian project. In fact, I recently received a revealing communication from the leader of Shining Path, Abimael Guzmán, who is in jail, in which he asked for "a peace agreement". I repeat, Abimael Guzmán Reynoso has asked the President of Peru to talk about a "peace agreement".”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

15. “This is why, for 10 years, that group’s activities were directed toward destroying the existing system: industries, laboratories, electrical towers, machinery, bridges, highways and public buildings, costing the country US$ 25 billion in material damages and losses. New York learned what terrorist insanity is all about with the criminal attack on the World Trade Center - an isolated case, thank goodness. We had reached a clear and elemental disjunction: either we stopped the crisis and the terrorism which steadily nourished it, or the country would collapse completely. My responsibility was to govern, not to serve as Peru’s undertaker. Our anti-terrorist strategy has led to the reinstatement of the principle of authority throughout the country, particularly in places as dissimilar as state universities and penitentiaries.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

16. “In exceptional circumstances, when the civilized existence and survival of a nation is at stake, each country has to find its own course and its own solutions and then reconstruct its democracy in touch with its own reality. Failing this, it will simply become ungovernable - a situation that most often leads to anarchy, which in turn inevitably generates violence. The institutions of Peru’s incipient political system proved to be among the most inefficient on the continent. That was the context within which Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement came into existence. The model for Shining Path is Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

17. “I ask myself, and I ask all those present, the representatives of all the nations of the world, "Which is the first priority: the narrow, blind defence of an institutional formality that is now worthless and obsolete, or a better destiny for millions of human beings?" Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 7 We in Peru have experienced this disjunction which the Government of President Boris Yeltsin in Russia is experiencing so dramatically today. Why should we fear making corrections in the course of our history, however radical they may be? To govern is to confront problems firmly, and not to defer, much less to evade, decisions.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

18. “The so-called traditional democracy, which solved none of Peru’s serious problems, had been nothing more than a struggle between privileged minorities, the elite and party leaders who took turns in power while the country sank deeper and deeper into misery. Nations, however, do not disintegrate in such crises; rather, they are roused to carry out moral and material reconstruction. Such has been the case in Peru.”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)

19. “In 1990 the Peruvian people - heirs to an ancient culture, who, like other peoples of the third world, suffered the consequences of colonialism and later various frustrations caused by our history - began to ask themselves more and more why they had not reached a truly dignified level of existence comparable to that of the developed countries. Why was it that a rich nation, known for its hard-working population and enjoying apparent democracy, should have to suffer from hyperinflation, isolation from the international financial community, terrorism, drug-trafficking, corruption and internal and external debt? In short, why was it ungovernable?”

    1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)