Hemispherising
Hope: Maintaining Momentum from the Summit
of the Americas
Notes for an Address by the Hon. David Kilgour
Secretary
of State for Latin America and Africa
To the 2001
Diplomatic Forum
Victoria,
B.C.
November 24,2001
Greetings,
Bonjour, Buenos Dias, Bom Dia!
Consider
this true story about someone I’ll
call X, who worked in Latin America for
a large company. One day, he received a
phone call from his bank inquiring about
an account containing almost a million dollars
that had been opened in his name. Having
had nothing to do with the opening of the
account, X began to suspect that the firm
that he worked for was using him to launder
money.
After discovering
further transfers, X sought guidance from
his Ministry of Justice. He was advised
that his situation fell under the responsibility
of the equivalent of our Revenue Minister
and was later offered complete protection
by that ministry in exchange for cooperation
in exposing his employer.
When the
offices of X’s company were raided,
it became clear that several of its operations
were involved in criminal activities. X
was pressured by his company to withdraw
accusations, but when he did not he was
accused by management of stealing company
documents. He was jailed without a trial.
Through the help of a local human rights
organization, he was eventually freed, but
continued to be harassed and was threatened
with death. X's enemies were never prosecuted;
his situation became so dangerous that he
was forced to seek refugee status and flee
the very homeland whose government promised
to protect him.
I tell this
story for two reasons:
1 - to highlight
a problem that plagues governments throughout
our hemisphere, and
2 - to remind
that everything we do comes down to individuals.
All of our meetings, charters, agreements,
declarations, summits - each must ultimately
be designed with the well-being and inherent
dignity of every human being at its root.
Over the
course of this Forum, you have and you will
continue to discuss the principles, execution,
and intricacies of Canadian foreign policy.
But fundamentally, our approach is simple:
it is about individuals and families.
C’est a propos de notre engagement
envers la dignité de chaque
personne:
la dignidad de cada nino, de cada mujer,
de cada hombre en cualquier parte del
mundo.
Nous croyons profondément que chaque
être humain a le droit de vivre en
paix et dans un climat de prospérité.
As the highly
respected children’s advocate Graca
Machel reminded us last weekend in Ottawa,
“behind every statistic is an individual
- a face”. As we all negotiate words
and anguish over semantics, it is the results
of our words upon which we will be judged
- by our children, voters, and history.
The vision
of most Canadians is a world where no country
has refugees. A world in which individuals
can travel from Yukon hasta Tierra del Fuego
without significant concerns for their safety.
And where they can enjoy enough prosperity
to be able to afford to pay some airline
to make the trip!
C`est nôtre
rêve. Il s`agit d`un principe sur
lequel nos politiques intérieures
et nos relations avec les autres pays du
monde doivent se construire.
En réalité,
le défi est de mettre en oeuvre ce
rêve. We see four key actions key
to the realization of our dream: strengthening
democracy, creating prosperity with equity,
realizing human potential, and supporting
stronger institutions.
Suite à
plusieurs années de travail conjoint,
de nombreuses rencontres préparatoires
et de progrès, trentequatre (34)
pays membres de l`OEA (Organization des
Etats Américains), bien reprèsentés
ici, ce sont réuni à Québec
le mois d`avril dernier.
Nos efforts
ce sont concentré sur la personne,
comment offrir de meilleures occasions à
nos citoyens pour participer à la
vie politique, économique, sociale
et culturelle de la sociéte dans
la sense le plus large?
We had substantive
discussions, some honest dialogue, and came
away with a solid Plan of Action. Permit
me to update you on the progress to date.
Strengthening
Democracy
The Summit
Declaration contained an unequivocal commitment
to democracy, making it an essential condition
for participation in the Summit of the Americas
process. Progress in the area of strengthening
democracy has been significant since the
Summit.
We all remember
where we were on September 11th
I was in
Lima, Peru, for the meeting of a special
assembly of the OAS. As delegates arrived
that morning to pass the Inter-American
Democratic Charter, the last thing that
one thought might happen was an attack on
the most powerful democracy among us. In
fact it was really an attack on all of humankind.
The importance
of the Charter was clearer to all of us
when after learning of the catastrophe,
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told
us that he still wanted to remain in Lima
until it was passed. Approximately an hour
after the second passenger aircraft ploughed
into the World Trade Towers, 34 hemispheric
representatives unanimously passed the Inter-American
Democratic Charter, and the first major
deliverable from the Summit of the Americas
was thus achieved.
Creating
Prosperity
Corporate
social responsibility, infrastructure development,
environmental and labour concerns, disaster
management, poverty, and inequalities in
wealth are all addressed in the Plan of
Action. One of the most significant elements
of prosperity is trade.
Canada’s
trade with the region (outside the USA)
has tripled from $8 billion to nearly $25
billion in the last ten years. In the first
eight months of this year alone, our exports
to Latin America and the Caribbean grew
by more than 12% in comparison with the
same period last year. That is four times
the average growth of our exports to the
rest of the world.
Our host
province's exports to the region for the
same period jumped by more than 40%, relative
to 4% growth in B.C.'s exports to the rest
of the world. Clearly, B.C.'s exporters
are now taking advantage of the huge and
attractive markets that lie south of the
US border. Our investment in the region
has grown ten fold to almost $45 billion
since 1990.
It seems
clear that the smallest, weakest economies
have been those hardest hit by the fallout
from September 11th, and that many will
need additional Canadian help such as technical
assistance for the new WTO round of free
trade negotiations which is to be a developing
nations one.
Realizing
Human Potential
We have all
now heard of the digital divide. The small
proportion of individuals who are able to
access and harness the power of technology
are leaping ahead of those who can't.
Le Premier
Ministre, Jean Chrétien a annoncé
lors du Sommet des Amériques, que
le Canada contribura 20 millions de dollars
pour la création de l`Institut de
la Connectivité des Ameriques. Ceci
fait partie de notre objectif de faire du
Canada le pays le mieux connecté
au monde.
Je crois
comprendre que le CRDI (Centre de Recherche
pour le Développement International)
doit nomer un directeur général
pour l`Institut dans un avenir proche.
When many
of us think of connectivity, images of a
dynamic cyberspace and flashy multimedia
presentations often come to mind. There
are some much more basic motivations for
digitizing and connecting our nations: I
have visited countries where every file
related to criminal trials exists only on
paper - and are often not even locked up
at night. Technology certainly has the power
to affect human security in many ways!
Institutional
Involvement
Canada promotes
close cooperation between the governments
and all hemispheric institutions.
However
good words cannot be turned into action
by governments alone. Civil society, labour
organizations, NGOs and individuals need
to be fully engaged. Many now buy into this
ongoing process and continue to coordinate
their efforts.
Security
Hemos creado
un plan de accion realista en Quebec. And
we're going to stick to it. The events of
September 11th haven't changed our focus
- rather they have emphasized that the Summit
Plan of Action is a key to minimizing new
threats. On September 21st, the hemisphere's
foreign ministers passed by acclamation
a resolution saying that, that under the
Rio Treaty, all states party "shall
provide effective reciprocal assistance
to address such attacks and the threat of
any similar attacks against any American
state, and to maintain the peace and security
of the continent."
The Road
from Here
To quote
a respected diplomat, scholar, and friend,
former Austrian ambassador to Canada, Dr.
Walther Lichem, "Human dignity is not
only an affair of the state, but one of
the community of nations." The security
of states ultimately depends on the security
of citizens everywhere.
Canada is
determined to be a leader in people-centered
institution building in the Americas. We
have experience in helping build a global,
rules-based international system, a privileged
relationship with the United States and
Mexico, an active role within the equal
partnership of the "gran familia"
of the OAS.
I hope that
today we'll have another candid discussion
and that you'll share your ideas, vos commentaires,
y sus preguntas. Let me close with a thought
from one of the best known liberators of
the Americas, Simon Bolivar. With a remarkable
understanding of the vulnerability of nations,
and an incredible precision as to Canada's
future approach to the strengthening of
the Americas, he wrote in his 1815 letter
from Jamaica:
"When
success is not assured, when the state is
weak, and when results are distantly seen,
all men hesitate; opinion is divided, passions
rage, and the enemy fans these passions
in order to win an easy victory because
of them.”
Muchas gracias.
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