[misc.headlines.unitex] UN ASSEMBLY SESSION -- TAKE 3

unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/12/89)

UN ASSEMBLY SESSION -- TAKE 3

     Posting Date: 10/09/89        Copyright UNITEX Communications, 1989
     UNITEX Network, USA           ISSN: 1043-7932

     Continuing, Mr. SERRANO CALDERA (Nicaragua) said Central America
     was still living through the most serious crisis of its history
     -- a crisis rooted in poverty, underdevelopment and
     exploitation; the region's role as supplier of raw materials in
     conditions of exploitation and misery, as a banana enclave and
     zone of strategic and geopolitical interest, determined its
     destiny for many decades.

     Local oligarchies, he went on, allied to military establishments,
     served as instruments of merciless foreign exploitation.  Crude
     and brutal military disctatorships were, for many decades, the
     dominant political system in almost all the countries of the
     region, he added.

     The Central American crisis had not only been politicl and
     military in nature, it was and continued to be economic and
     social as well.  Therefore, he said, alongside political
     accords, all necessary support must be given to solve grave
     economic problems and even more critical social problems.
     Economic assistance for Central America must be given
     immediately, without waiting for the political problem to be
     resolved.

     He said the commitment assumed by the five Central American
     countries to have United Nations and Organization of American
     States' (OAS) observers verify the fairness of electoral
     processes, agreements on the demobilization of the
     counter-revolutionary forces, as well as their voluntary
     resettlement and repatriation, and the commitment not to attack
     other countries undoubtedly constituted the essential points of
     the regional peace process.

     In compliance with these accords, Nicaragua had invited the
     Secretaries- General of the United Nations and OAS to designate
     commissions in Nicaragua to verify the entire electoral process
     due to culminate 25 February 1990.

     Observers from the European Parliament, as well as ex-Presidents
     Jimmy Carter of the United States and Raul Alfonsin of
     Argentina, had been invited, he said, adding the hope that other
     Central American countries would proceed to invite the United
     Nations and OAS to observe their respective electoral
     processes.

     All countries, he said, must respect the sovereign character of
     this process, put a halt to any policies of electoral
     interference or manipulation, and immediately provide support to
     the economic effort required by this 58 6 October 1989

     Current "so-called humanitarian aid" to the contras must cease,
     he said, inasmuch as it served as logistical support and
     prolonged the conflict.  The CIAV should immediately establish
     the mechanism for administering those funds for purposes of
     demobilization and repatriation.

     Nicaragua supported United Nations-supervised free elections in
     Namibia; direct negotiations between Morocco and the Popular
     Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro
     (POLISARIO); and appealed to Iran and Iraq to reach a rapid,
     total and lasting solution to that conflict.

     He upheld the right of the Afghan people to free determination,
     supported the reunification of the Korean people and expressed
     support for the resolution adopted at the extraordinary Arab
     summit on Lebanon; supported the peace forces in Angola and
     hoped for a prompt resolution of the conflict, as well as
     efforts to obtain peace for Cambodia.

     Nicaragua also endorsed the negotiations between the Farabundo
     Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Government of El
     Salvador; and supported the right of the Panamanian people to
     demand compliance with the Torrijos-Carter Treaties on the dates
     agreed upon, as well as Panamanians' right to non-interference
     in their internal affairs.

     In the field of international law, Nicaragua and 14 other
     countries had presented at the Foreign Ministers' Conference
     held in Nicosia in September 1988, a draft resolution that had
     been approved unanimously, calling for a special
     ministerial-level meeting of the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations,
     with the objective of proclaming the last decade of this century
     and this millenium, the decade of peace and international law,
     he said.

     On international debt, he said there would be no peace and
     development until the problem of foreign debt was resolved on a
     global basis, by means of a restructuring of the system.
     Bilateral solutions were "partial and fictitious" because they
     left the underlying cause of the crisis intact.

     Ecological destruction must be halted, he said.  Regarding
     environmental problems in Central America, the interest of
     Nicaragua and other countries of the region was reflected in the
     creation of the Central American commission on environment and
     development, which had had its first meeting only days ago.

     Drug trafficking must not be considered exclusively from the
     perspective of production, he said, but must inevitably take
     into account production, distribution, consumption and financial
     mechanisms.  The drug problem was part of the same structural
     situation of relations between poor and highly developed
     countries, he added.

 * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)


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