>> August 26, 2023
>> Cancun, Mexico
Speech by Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica and Nobel laureate, to
>> The First Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty
>>
>> DREAM, AND DESERVE YOUR DREAM
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>> Twenty-eight years ago this month, I met a woman I would never forget. I do not know her name; I spoke to her for nothing more than a moment. She was an indigenous woman who stood in the plaza in Guatemala City, waiting quietly in the middle of a jubilant crowd. She watched as the presidents of Central America walked out into the street after signing the Central American Peace Accords that would end the civil wars in our region. We had emerged from the darkness of violence, into the sunlight; we had emerged from the stuffy pressure of the negotiating room, into what felt like a fresh breeze of hope.
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>> I was shaking one hand after another, a little astonished and overwhelmed, when I reached this woman.
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>> She took both my hands in hers and said, “Gracias presidente, por mi hijo que está en las montañas peleando y por el que tengo aquí en el vientre.” Thank you, Mr. President, for my child who is in the mountains fighting, and for the child I carry in my womb.
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>> She said just those words, and then she was gone.
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>> I don’t need to tell you that I have wondered about that woman’s children ever since. I never met them, but they are never far from my thoughts: those children of conflict. Those children, and others like them, were the audience of the peace treaty I had drafted. They were its true authors, its reason for being. Theirs were the human lives behind every letter we put onto the page, every word we negotiated. For the presidents who signed the treaty, achieving peace was the most important challenge of our lives. For those children, it was life or death.
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>> I know that each of you has at least one child like that in your mind: the child you think about when your own work seems hard or pointless, when you are tired or full of doubt. It might be your own child or grandchild, whose future is more important to you than your own. It might be a child you once taught, or met on an official visit, or even a child you read about or whose haunting face you saw in a photograph. It is the child whose face appears before you when you think, “Why am I doing this?”
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>> I want to invite those children into this room. I want them here in front of us. I want you to clear your heads of clauses and votes and obligations. Forget all of that, just for a few moments. Forget even this lovely building that houses us, and indeed all of the buildings surrounding us in Cancún, and picture this place as it once was: a bare sand spit, backed by jungle, facing the sea. Picture your child here, looking out at this great ocean, as vulnerable and alone as any child of conflict, as innocent and full of potential.
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>> Your child is looking at you, and asking you three questions.
>> First, the child asks you: “What is the world that lies beyond that sea, and what does it hold in store for me?”
>> Now picture yourself looking into that child’s eyes, and saying: “The world will send you whatever it cares to send. It can send you books and medicines. It can send you nothing at all. It can send you weapons more terrible than anything you can imagine. It can place those weapons into the hands of people who want to hurt you. And I will do nothing to stop it.”
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>> It sounds cruel. But my friends: this is the answer we have given these children throughout modern history. This was the only answer you could possibly have given – until now. Until the approval and ratification of the International Arms Trade Treaty.
>> I see in this room the faces of people who have been involved with this Treaty for many, many years. You know as well as I do that getting here today, to this First Conference of Parties to the Treaty, has been, not a sprint, but a marathon. My own race began after the signing of the Peace Accords I mentioned earlier, in 1987. In the following years, I watched my region suffer from the continuing effect of the many weapons that had been imported to our countries when we were still Cold War pawns. For years after arms suppliers channeled weapons to armies or paramilitary forces during the 1980s, those weapons were found in the hands of the gangs that roamed the countryside of Nicaragua, or of teenage boys on the streets of San Salvador and Tegucigalpa. Other weapons were shipped to guerrilla or paramilitary groups, as well as drug cartels, in Colombia, ready to destroy yet more lives.
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>> We learned the hard way that a shipment of weapons into a developing country is like a virus in a crowded room. It cannot be contained; we do not know whom it will attack; and it can spread in ways we would never have imagined. The weapons sold today might end up in anyone’s hands tomorrow. The only certainty is that the consequences will be out of our control, and they will be violent.
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>> I saw this happen in my region. I also learned that the international trade of arms, free from any regulations whatsoever, was feeding unnecessary violence like this all over the world. So in 1997, I began my call for a treaty to regulate the trade of arms, and was quickly joined by fellow Nobel Peace Laureates, and then by friends and allies all over the world.
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>> People told me it was an impossible dream. I had heard that before, when I argued that Central America could find its own solution to its civil wars. This time, however, I had to continue my struggle not for years, but for decades. I raised my voice for peace again and again. In front of any group that would give me a microphone, in any newspaper that would give me the time of day, in any meeting or conference or casual conversation, in any language I knew how to speak, I spoke out in favor of the Treaty. I continued even when it seemed no one was listening. I continued even when organizations as powerful as the National Rifle Association in the United States came out against me. I continued even when it seemed that all hope was lost.
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>> Yes, people all over the world told me that Central America could never achieve its own peace. People all over the world told me that convincing some of the world’s largest arms exporters to regulate their sale of arms was an impossible dream. But in 1987, the Presidents of Central America signed the Peace Accords that ended our civil wars. And this past Christmas Eve, the International Arms Trade Treaty became a part of international law. To tell you the truth, I never thought I would see this day. I am delighted that I have. I am also filled with new determination to make sure that the Treaty lives up to its potential, and to tackle the difficult work still left for us to do.
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>> For the Treaty is a powerful tool, one that can change the world, but it will only protect our children if we give it teeth. It will only protect our children if we implement it fully. It will only protect our children if we ensure that consensus is not used as an excuse for inaction. I urge this group to define an alternative to consensus so that one party cannot paralyze implementation. The perfect is the enemy of the good – and in this case, with human lives depending on our swift resolution of pending issues, inaction would be anything but perfect. It would be a travesty.
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>> We must also continue to raise our voices in the face of tremendous opposition from groups such as the National Rifle Association. The domestic positions of the NRA, and the impact of those positions on the safety of its own country’s citizens, are a matter for the people of the United States to resolve. But when the NRA seeks to impose its agenda on the rest of the world, I can no longer be silent. I cannot ignore an argument that defies basic logic, putting millions of lives at risk. I cannot ignore an argument that criticizes the treaty on the grounds of national sovereignty. No sane definition of national sovereignty includes the right to sell arms for the violation of human rights in other countries. No sane definition of national sovereignty includes the right to enable the oppression of the world’s neediest and most helpless. No sane definition of national security or self-defense allows room for such acts.
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>> And no amount of violence, or danger, or terrorism in the world today justifies a lack of regulation. Cicero, in his famed argument Pro Milone, made the first known use of the phrase, “silent enim leges inter armas.”Among arms, laws are silent. The phrase has often been used to support the mindset that the law does not apply during times of war. I believe the opposite is true. When violence threatens us, the law must speak. When weapons are circulating freely into the worst possible hands, the law must speak. When the lives of the innocent are placed in danger by an absence of regulation, the law must speak.
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>> My message today to groups around the world that oppose the Arms Trade Treaty on the basis on national sovereignty is this: Inflict that agenda on your own nations if you must, but spare the rest of the world. Spare us an approach that puts the right to any weapon before the right of a child to live. Spare us the twisted definition of sovereignty in which the interests of a single industry or interest group, in a single nation, should trump the health and well-being of the rest of the world. Spare us any argument that equates the right to put a rifle in your gun-case, with the right to put an AK-47 in the hands of a child soldier. Your countries have the right to make their own decisions about the sale of weapons, but not to infringe upon ours.
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>> I urge all of our opponents to read this treaty with the seriousness it deserves. Read it with the eyes of a scholar. Read it with the eyes of a parent. Read it and think of the child who inspires you, the child you want to protect, and you will see that it is the least we can do – a minimal effort to promote citizen safety, and freedom from fear and oppression.
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>> If we can do all this, then when that child asks us, “What is across that sea? What does the world have in store for me?” we will be able to answer, at long last, that when the world sends something harmful to the child, we are standing watch. We are on guard. Someone is finally ready to take action.
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>> That child now asks you a second question. The child asks: “What does my own country have in store for me?”
>> Picture yourself looking into that child’s eyes, and saying: “Your country may choose to give you a school and a hospital and enough to eat. If it does this, we will ignore your country. Or your country may choose to invest its money in weapons and war, taking the schoolbooks from your hands and the bread from your family’s table. If your country does this, we will reward it.”
>> It sounds cruel. But my friends: this is the answer we have given the children of the world throughout modern history. We have punished countries that invest wisely in their people, and rewarded countries that misspend their budgets on weapons and war. As the International Arms Treaty finally moves forward, this is another problem that we must address.
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>> Take the example of Haiti, which has been punished for one of the best decisions in its history. I worked closely with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995, helping to bring about his abolition of Haiti’s armed forces. However, current president Michel Martelly has reestablished the country’s army. Last year, this cost almost 48 million dollars in one of the poorest countries in the world. This means that the Haitian government spent more on its new army last year than on its Ministry of Trade and Ministry of the Environment, combined.
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>> As I wrote to President Martelly in 2013, that money “should be invested in education for your people, in health for your children, in strengthening your democratic institutions to guarantee a minimum of political stability.“ I believe those actions would do far more for his country’s security.
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>> But that is not the message that the rest of the world has sent. The developed world has done nothing to create an incentive for Haiti to invest funds in human development. In fact, it has done the opposite. I know this because my country and my region learned the same lesson. In the 1980s, the countries of Central America received no end of attention from the superpowers involved in our conflicts. They supplied the weapons, and we supplied the bodies. But after we signed our Peace Plan, we found that the rest of the world forgot us. When Costa Rica’s neighbors needed support to educate former soldiers, to rebuild destroyed economies, there was little help to be found.
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>> The rules our international community has established for aid and debt forgiveness, say that a country that makes good decisions must be punished. A country that invests wisely and achieves improvements in human development, is then told it is “too rich” for debt forgiveness or aid. A country that finds a way out of war is told that it is no longer of interest to its more powerful neighbors. That is one reason why, today, when homicide rates are considered, the northern region of Central America is the most dangerous in the world. It should have been different.
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>> Costa Rica has experienced this in its own way. As you may know, in 1948, my country became the first in history to abolish its army voluntarily and declare peace to the world. The results, sixty-seven years later, speak for themselves. Anyone who knows Costa Rica today knows that while we still have much to improve, we are a country where basic human needs are satisfied, where our education and health care have made us a regional leader. We are a nation enjoying the dividends of peace. It is the greatest frustration of my life that our international aid systems make other developing countries less likely to follow our example, because they know that if they do succeed, their aid might stop.
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>> That is why I have proposed a change: the Costa Rica Consensus. This simple idea would use international financial resources to support developing nations that spend more on environmental protection, education, health care and housing for their people, and less on arms and soldiers. It would change the way international aid is distributed. It would end the ridiculous policies that punish countries when they make good choices, and reward corrupt or misguided governments that create conflict and deprivation. It would make a real difference in some of the most dangerous and conflict-ridden nations on earth.
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>> During my recent presidential administration, I took this proposal to leaders around the world, including the World Bank and regional development banks. I was told that these organizations can’t easily modify their regulations without support from their donor countries. That is why I´ve called on the World Bank and on regional development banks to invite their donor countries to create funds designed to support nations that comply with the basic requirements of the Costa Rica Consensus. Specific funds already exist for technology, for water, and for climate change.
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>> Why not a fund that motivates countries to use their resources to improve human security? Why not allow rich countries to double the impact of their aid dollars by not only addressing human need, but also requiring developing nations to make changes from within, and promoting best practices in socioeconomic development? We are all familiar with Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” My friends: what is the plight of sub-Saharan Africa, if not insanity? What is the continuing suffering of Haiti, if not insanity? What is the continuing failure of my own region to overcome its past and join the developed world, if not insanity? What are the tragedies of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Syria, if not insanity? Revising the rules of the game is not foolish. It is the only sane approach.
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>> Of course, I do not suggest that international aid is responsible for the failures I have mentioned. But without a doubt, it has not been leveraged as it could be. Without a doubt, it has not fulfilled its potential to bring about a solution. And for those concerned with making the best use of limited resources, that must be an issue of utmost concern.
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>> Think back to the child in your mind, standing by the sea, asking: “What does my country have in store for me?” If we can make this change, then you will be able to answer that child: “If your country invests in your future, we will reward it. We will do all we can to put your leaders on the right path. We will do all we can to put you first.”
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>> Now the child asks you a third and final question. The child asks: “What about you? Will you help me? Will you help me go to school, and have enough to eat?”
>> Imagine looking into the child’s eyes and saying, “Nothing. I will do nothing for you.”
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>> None of us could say those words. And together, with the platform that the International Arms Trade Treaty has given us, we can start to create a different answer.
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>> My friends:
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>> Attending this event is not only a great honor for me. It is also a pleasure, because, as I mentioned earlier, it brings together so many champions of peace whose work I have admired for many years, and who together have made the international implementation of the Arms Trade Treaty into a reality. Thank you to the Mexican Foreign Ministry for hosting this event, and to the many co-sponsors who have made this possible.
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>> I cannot close any remarks in Mexico without referring to the great poet of this land, my friend Octavio Paz, who wrote: “Sueña, y merece tu sueño.” Dream, and deserve your dream. Today in Cancún, what we must do is deserve the children whose safety and happiness we dream about. We must be worthy of them. We must be worthy of the child or grandchild we adore. We must be worthy of the child who smiled at us as we traveled through his village, or the child who gazed at us through the lens of a camera. We must be worthy of the child fighting on the mountain, and the child in the womb. They do not know we are here, elbow-deep in legal documents and negotiations. They have no notion of our work. But our work can change, or save, their lives.
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>> Transforming the sealed book of peace on our shelves into a living letter for all of humankind is no easy task, but I know it can be done. I know that the power of words can change the world, for I have seen it in my own life. I have seen how words exchanged and signed at the negotiating table ended years of violence in my region. I have seen how the words of the Arms Trade Treaty can keep weapons from destroying the lives of the world’s needy and innocent. These changes, once so distant, are now within our reach. We can accomplish them, through the words and agreements to which so many of us have devoted our lives.
>> If we can play a part in that process, we will do more than deserve the dream. We will make it real.
>> Thank you very much. Enviado desde mi iPhone