Notícias
Discurso do Ministro Celso Amorim por ocasião da abertura da “Global South-South Development Expo 2010” - Genebra, 22/11/2010
Discurso proferido na sede da Organização Internacional do Trabalho (OIT).
(Original em inglês)
Ambassador Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO;
President Michelle Bachelet, great Latin American leader of whom we are very proud and Director of UN Women;
Mr. Yiping Zhou, Director of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation;
Mr. Marius Fransman, Deputy Minister of South Africa.
First of all, Juan, let me tell you that I really feel at home here. Here, I was able to expose some ideas, to fight some battles, normally in favor of cooperation in general, but also of South-South cooperation and in favor of solidarity and tolerance, which I think are very important values that we should have in mind.
If I may, since this is probably my farewell - at least at this stage - from Geneva settings, and there could be no more appropriate setting than ILO, let me just mention to you that in my office, if you allow me to be a little bit personal, in my office there is a big map. Actually it is a tapestry based on a 16th century map in which what is North is at the bottom of the map and what is south is on the top of the map. And most of my visitors who come there ask why is this map inverted? Why is it wrong? And I say: “well, it is not necessarily wrong. It is only our prejudices that make it wrong.” I mean, there was no one from Mars or from the Moon that would see the world as necessarily the north being on top and the south being at the bottom. This is purely prejudice. I just mentioned that because, probably as in relation to so many other things, in relation to South-South cooperation - and I am seeing Mr. Martin Khor here who is a very strong fighter for South-South cooperation for a long time, among other friends -, I think in so many other things, the most difficult thing is to break mental barriers. And this is true, also, in relation to South-South cooperation.
I remember - Alberto Dumont is here and I don’t know if the same thing happened in Argentina - but I remember when, maybe 20, 25 years ago, we started the first steps towards MERCOSUL, many people in Brazil, including, I’d say, distinguished people would say: “why are you losing your time with poor countries? You should be dealing with the United States or with Europe. What will Argentina and Brazil do together?” I mean, you are just joining the poverty of both countries. Well, this was the embryo of MERCOSUL - which we have the pleasure and the honor of having Chile as an associate, which has grown into UNASUL in a certain way, presided for some time by Madame Bachelet - and nobody would question the importance of MERCOSUL or UNASUL today. Actually, when we were creating UNASUL, many critics in Brazil even asked me: “why do you worry so much with South America?” And I said: “well, I worry with South America because I live here. If I lived in Europe I would worry with Europe. But I live here. So I have to worry with South America and see if it is right and see if the things are right.” So, it took, maybe, a long time for people to get accustomed and maybe unfortunately - I say unfortunately because it still shows that we still have a very strong colonial mindset - it took an invitation by President Obama to have a meeting to UNASUL for people, even in our own country, to see that UNASUL was a legitimate way of organizing ourselves, without necessarily confronting other groups.
So, I mentioned this question of the mental barriers because I think if you are not able to break them you won’t go anywhere. And I am very happy to be here and to speak a little bit - not much, I promise - about South South cooperation. And I am happy to say that because South South cooperation, to a large extent, has been one of the Leitmotifs of President Lula’s term of office, two terms of office. Because we didn’t have prejudice. And, of course, we wish to have good relations with the North. The United States continues to be a very strong and important partner. No longer the most important. The most important now is China; the second one is Argentina; but the United States still has an honorable third place which, of course, is important for us and all this happened at the same time as our exports to the United States increased. And at the same time as the United States has with Brazil its biggest surplus in the world.
So, the relations continue to be strong, we continue to receive investments from the United States, as we receive from China and so on, and we are very happy. But we had in mind this possibility of breaking mental barriers, and we have to break mental barriers even in relation to our region, so we can imagine beyond our region, proposing a meeting between South American and Arab countries. Again, I must say, we had a great honor to see President Bachelet presiding South America for the South American Union in the meeting in Doha. [The] First meeting took place in Brazil and the second took place in Doha. Then I said, maybe with some, how should I put it, hyperbolic tendency that I have, that when we created the South American-Arab Countries Summit, we were somehow affecting the tectonic plates on which international geopolitics is based.
I will tell you just one story, just to be very quick in relation to that. When we started doing that, I remember a young lady, who was a journalist, an Egyptian journalist, who said, “but why are you trying to do this summit between South America and the Arab countries?” And I tried to explain all the past and the influence that the Arabs had in our countries, in all of our countries by the way. She was not totally convinced, but it was ok. Then, two years later, we had the first summit, and this same lady came to me and said: “why didn’t you have this idea of having this summit before?”
So, you know, this shows very clearly that the biggest barriers that we have to overcome are the mental barriers. And the same thing happened in relation to Africa. So, everyone, when President Lula started his visits to Africa, again, the same question that was posed, of course on a different level, about South-American integration, it was put again: “but why is president Lula losing his time with Africa? He should go to Washington DC, or Brussels, or Paris”. Of course, he would go, and he did go, also to Washington DC, Brussels and Paris, but he also went to Africa many times. And nowadays, and it may be, and I must say, Mr. Yiping, it took the visit of Hu Jintao to Africa, for people to say “why doesn’t President Lula go more often to Africa?” But it was a difficult thing. Nowadays, Africa, if you take Africa as a single country, and I admit it is an artificial way of putting it, but it would be our fourth trading partner. After China, Argentina, and the United States. Well, Argentina depends on exports and imports; maybe it would be China, United States and Argentina. Anyway, and then it would be Africa. Again, it is breaking barriers; why am I saying that? I don’t think that South South cooperation should be only the icing of an empty cake. South South cooperation is part of an attitude, a broad attitude that has to do with trade, with investment and with politics. And as I said, and have being saying some times, not to confront the north, or not to ignore the North.
I think President Somavia very well put it that we are all on the same boat. And of course, the United States, Europe and Japan continue to be of extreme importance for us. But it was, I believe, thanks to the possibility of our better coordination. Take the trade field for example, the coordination that we started in the WTO G-20 that made us more respected. And which changed, I mean, for people who know the WTO, it changed forever, forever - I am able to say those things, maybe there will be other changes in the future - but it changed forever the pattern of the negotiations in the WTO.
I mean, I am an old hand in those things, I don’t say that with pride, necessarily. But I am an old hand on these things. I remember when there were the meetings of the Quad, and the Quad was United States, European Union, Canada and Japan. And then, during these rounds, which unfortunately we did not conclude yet - but I still hope that we will be able to conclude at some point, and I am saying we, in a general sense, in a mankind sense -, when people said for one time G- 4, which will be the equivalent of the Quad, it was United States, European Union, Brazil and India. But Brazil and India representing by and large the G-20 and other developing countries.
So, these are sea-changes due to South-South Cooperation. So, I say that because, of course, I agree with Mr. Yipping that we should fight for solutions, solutions, solutions. But solutions, solutions, solutions cannot be sought, [or] only be seen at the micro level, they have to be seen at the broad level, at the broad picture, and we have to be happy to be dictated by an attitude in which we respect ourselves, and therefore, as president Lula likes to say, become also respected by others.
Well, I am sure there will be many seminars and fora in which our people, as well as people from other countries, will be mentioning concrete projects. We are very proud of our projects with IBSA. IBSA itself was again some sort of revolutionary thinking, because what have brought the countries of IBSA together? Well, these three big democracies, not the only ones, but three big democracies; these are multicultural societies, multiethnic, proud to be multiethnic, living in three different continents. This was an important thing and from there we develop projects in Haiti, Guinea Bissau and many others.
When it comes to our own cooperation, I don’t want to give you numbers or describe projects in detail, because I think that this would be too boring, but let me mention two projects, apart from so many others. One is the cotton farm that we are helping in Mali and the other one is the retroviral unit of medicament in Mozambique. Why do I mention these two? Because the project in Mali is linked not only to improve the quality of the cotton produced not only in Mali, but in the four countries of the so-called cotton four, which are very poor countries and I visited them and I have been there, not only project for that, but also project that is trying, in the sense of aid for trade, which people talk so much about it in the WTO, to face one of the greatest injustices, which is the presence of strong subsidies in rich countries.
Because, very often, what happens to the cooperation that we receive from the north is that they give with one hand and they take away with the other hand. What we are trying to do here is the opposite. We are trying to fight for our rights in the WTO, at the same time enabling poorer countries, for example the countries of the C-4, to produce something that can be sold in the world market and which is essential to their own survival. And the same goes to Mozambique. In Mozambique, we are opening now - and it is very difficult, because we have to fight with our own bureaucracy, with their own bureaucracy, with international bureaucracy, with all kind of pressure that also exists - we are establishing a factory of anti-retroviral drugs, an anti-retroviral generic drugs, again it is a way of showing that we are not only fighting in abstract for rights that we will never exercise, as it might be the case, but when you fight for having the right to put life before greed in the question of patents and medicaments. We are also trying to produce them and to help people to be able to save the life of children and women and so forth.
I would like to mention a third project, if I may, and then I’ll finish, because I have spoken too much. One week ago, I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo, because we made a small contribution, but big for Brazil, one million dollars for the project of violence, especially sexual violence against women, in situation of armed conflict. And why do I say that? Because all of you here, myself also in the past have been there, we are all members, or from time to time, we are members of the Human Rights Council and all of us fight for human rights. Our Ambassador here, Madam Farani Azevêdo, is now one the facilitator of some of the negotiations. But we know that, very often, at the Human Rights Council, people are not actually trying to improve the real situation of people on the ground. They are just trying to have a diploma to put behind their desks, such as my map, to have it behind their desk to say: “I condemn such and such a country”. But did you see if the situation on that country improved? Did you see if the miserable people in Haiti got a better life? Did you see if the women who have been violated during the civil conflicts in Congo are being treated? These are the real problems. I’m not saying that from time to time we shouldn’t condemn or criticize some one, because that is also an encouragement to improve, but the most import thing is to establish a dialogue and to have concrete action in the field that would certainly improve life of people.
Final comment, I always had a great difficulty with these nomenclatures in international cooperation, this idea of donor and recipients, in which donors give, including not only money but they also give orders; and recipients receive some money and a lot of orders. I think we should not be donors and recipients, we should be partners; we are partners fighting for the improvement of the world. Because the way the situation goes in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in Haiti, in a way or another, will affect us. So we are buying our own peace of mind, our own certainty that no cholera epidemic will spread over the continent, and that no conflict will do to our border. So this is the way we try to see and this is the way President Lula tries to implement and thank you very much once again, Juan Somavia for bringing us together.
Thank you.