Discourse by the President of Honduras Xiomara Castro to the UN General Assembly
New York, USA- For the first time, the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, takes the podium of the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations Organization (UN) to address the international community about the problems that afflict Honduras.
The Honduran president stressed that her presence at the UN is historic for being the first female president of Honduras in her country and because she also represents the first democratically elected government after thirteen years of dictatorship.
President Xiomara Castro takes advantage of the trip to go on a work tour and meet with different personalities and international organizations, to discuss issues related to food, immigration and TPS, as well as the installation of the CICIH in Honduras.
Discourse by the President of Honduras to the UN Assembly
Distinguished Mr. President of this General Assembly
Distinguished Secretary General of this United Nations Organization
Distinguished Heads of State, Representatives and Delegates present
Citizens of the world
I appear before this world forum, in what for my country means a historical fact, not only because I am the first woman who has the honor of leading our Central American nation, but also because I represented the first democratically elected government after transiting 13 years of dictatorship, the 2009 coup d’état, loaded with cruel murders and death squads, two separate electoral frauds, a pandemic and two hurricanes, it is impossible to understand Honduran men and women and the great caravans of migrants without acknowledging this context of cruel suffering that we have had to go through.
But electoral democracy is not enough to obtain the material and spiritual well-being of our people.
Thirteen years of dictatorship, protected by the international community, led the country to multiply its public debt by six times and reach a poverty rate of 74 percent, the highest rate in the history of Honduras.
5 out of 10 of my compatriots live in extreme poverty, but I am clear that none of these figures impress anyone in the world that today lives under the monetary dictatorship, that the poorest are imposed the most dachronian measures of fiscal discipline that it increases the suffering of the neglected majorities and speculative capital has no limits.
It is evident that today for our country to survive we must reject this presumed austerity that rewards those who concentrate wealth in few hands and increases inequality exponentially.
Since we arrived at the end of January, we have shown a strong desire for consensus, always expressing the strongest decision to achieve agreements on our commitments without denying any of them, but the task of undermining the will of the people comes to us from all directions, while conspiracies are fomented between the same sectors that looted the country and their coup allies emboldened by the brazen anti-democratic attitude, sometimes disguised as diplomacy.
The public policies endorsed by the rentier model from the international financial community of the last 13 years have dragged us into a world full of violence and poverty with failed and abandoned projects, corruption, looting and drug trafficking.
None of the international witnesses to the electoral frauds of 2013 and 2017 ignored those who were condemning our people, and yet they were complacent about the worst plague that has hit our country.
The arrogance of capital and petty interest made many opt for deception while organized crime led the country to the gorge.
The poor nations of the world no longer support coups, we do not support the use of law fare, nor Color Revolutions, usually organized to plunder our vast natural resources.
The industrialized nations of the world are responsible for the serious deterioration of the environment, but they make us pay for their onerous lifestyle, and for this, they spare nothing, to plunge us into their plans and into an endless crisis, pretending that we are tied hand and foot.
The Honduras that I direct is being built under a vision of humanistic refoundation, impregnated with dignity and sovereignty, which will do what is legally important to recover our environment, and achieve the common good for all our population.
For this reason, this arbitrary world order is unacceptable to us, in which there are third and fourth category countries, while those who think they are civilized do not tire of carrying out invasions, wars, financial speculations and crucifying us with their inflation over and over again. I take this platform to demand that we be respected, we want to live in peace, DO NOT continue trying to destabilize Honduras; and dictate its measures or choose with whom we should relate.
The people are sovereign demonstrated it on November 28 supporting my victory, a victory that has been the greatest in the history of my country. The resistance, the one that fought against the imposed dictatorship during these 13 years, this September 15, the day of our independence, accompanied me en masse in the streets, conjuring up public threats and the bad habit of continuing to deliver national assets to the highest bidder, as If we were no man’s land Never again will we bear the stereotype of the Banana Republic, we will end the monopolies and oligopolies that only impoverish our economy.
A generous people that has watered the defense of forests and rivers with blood, will not forget that during the dictatorship, hundreds of murders of young people and that of our colleague Berta Cáceres were committed; nor the forced disappearance of Honduran men and women for their way of thinking, like 5 Garífuna comrades who disappeared two years ago.
Every millimeter of the Homeland that they usurped in the name of the sacrosanct freedom of the market, Zedes, and other regimes of privilege was irrigated with the blood of the original peoples. My social and democratic government will resume the state of justice and the rule of law, so that this does not happen again.
We work hard to prioritize stimulus, and the elimination of fiscal abuses. We have already started promoting an energy law as a public good, restoring the right to workers and supporting our internal market by investing in agriculture for food security, subsidizing the poorest who do not pay more for electricity.
We have proposed renegotiating free trade agreements. We have made the sovereign decision to invest in our development by substituting imports, but competing in international markets without subsidizing the excesses of developed nations.
To Women, who have been denied their inclusion in development for centuries, we will recognize their importance in society as part of its backbone, we will provide health, quality education, security and food sovereignty to our children and youth.
For Honduras, each caravan of migrants fleeing from the dictatorship that was set up for more than a decade is a hard loss for our country and their families. The numbers tell us that this process of exodus caused by neoliberal injustice generates more unemployment and undesirably binds us to dependency.
In our country, paradoxically, emigrants generate more foreign currency income than many of the traditional exports, our solidarity and accompaniment with the Tepecianos. In Honduras we cannot continue to support the hypocrisy of a system that judges for crimes related to drug trafficking; to the character that, however, they supported and supported for more than a decade in the commission of crimes, two electoral frauds, and crimes against millions of Hondurans.
For all this, we are going to set up an international commission to combat corruption and impunity with the support of the Secretary of the United Nations. Honduras will only have a future if it takes firm steps to dismantle the Neoliberal economic dictatorship. That is why we have already begun the refoundation of the Homeland and of education with the ideals and values of our national hero: Francisco Morazán Quezada.
In Honduras, my government has begun a process of refoundation and profound change that is based on 4 fundamental pillars:
First the revolutionary transformation of education, elevate the human spirit and end colonialism.
(Second) Build a profoundly sovereign alternative economic model.
Third, build a system whose center is the exaltation of humanism, solidarity, integration with brother peoples, peace and respect for human rights.
Fourth, the progressive de-privatization of public services, such as health, drinking water, electricity and the Internet.
Today, that the war is once again punishing the poorest in the world and that we are invaded countries, we proclaim a return to respect for the self-determination of the peoples, rejecting the infamous and brutal blockade of the people of the sister republic of Cuba. It is time to seriously discuss the multipolarity of the world.
President Barack Obama took the first steps towards ending this infamy. Already the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, decreed that the aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela must end.
Peoples of the world, as our colleague Berta Cáceres said, «World reactions, we are still on time».
Thank you so much!
Xiomara Castro assumed power on January 27, after twelve continuous years of the conservative National Party, the last eight at the head of Juan Orlando Hernández, who has been facing trial in the United States for drug trafficking since April.
“Today, when war is once again punishing the poorest in the world and we are invaded countries, we proclaim a return to respect for the self-determination of peoples, rejecting the infamous and brutal blockade of the people of the sister republic of Cuba,” he said. the Honduran president, who also highlighted that Gustavo Petro, in Colombia, decreed that «the aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela must end.»
Castro closed his speech with a phrase from the Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres, assassinated on March 2, 2016: «Let’s react world, we are still on time.»
