Index
Uruguayan
Foreign Policy: An Introduction
Uruguay
and the International Community
September 2005, By President Tabaré Vázquez
Previous statements
September 2004
Uruguay
- US Bilateral Relations
Other Information
National Symbols
Gallery of
Uruguayan Presidents
Uruguayan Ministers of Foreign Affairs
Chiefs of Mission to the US
The
main characteristic of the design of the foreign policy of
Uruguay is that it has to be conceived as a State—or National—Foreign
Policy (NFP, “Política Exterior de Estado”, o “Política
Exterior Nacional”). The NFP is a national
consensus among
political parties and the civil society dedicated to such principles and
objectives as, non-intervention, multilateralism, respect for national
sovereignty, reliance on the rule of law to settle disputes, and
an
active promotion of all the Principles contained in the Charter of
the United Nations.
To achieve these goals
Uruguay actively participates in the international community,
through universal, hemispheric, regional and sub-regional, organizations and
institutions.
Over the past two decades several
Ministers of Foreign Affairs have administrated this policy
and led Uruguayan Diplomacy. Under the Presidency of
Julio M. Sanguinetti (1985-1990): Enrique Iglesias (1985-1988,
who is at the moment President of the IDB)
and Luis
Barrios-Tassano (1988-1990). Under the Presidency of Luis Alberto Lacalle-Herrera
(1990-1995): Héctor Gros Espiell (1990-1992) and Sergio Abreu-Bonilla (1993-1995).
Under the second Presidency of Sanguinetti (1995-2000): Alvaro Ramos-Trigo
(1995-1997) and Didier Opertt-Badán, who served also under the
Presidency of Jorge Batlle-Ibáñez (2000-2005).
Nowadays, Uruguayan Minister of Foreign Affairs is
Gonzalo Fernández, under the Presidency of
Tabaré
Vázquez (2005-2010).
Uruguay is part of
MERCOSUR, together with Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay (as well
as Chile, Bolivia as associate members, other countries of the
region are currently negotiating their associations with the
block), a regional initiative
to integrate the economies of the South
Cone of America, between them, and at
the same time with the rest of the world (“Mercado Común del
Sur”, o Southern Common Market).
Uruguay looks
for the liberalization of trade beyond its own region.
It is an
active member of the World Trade Organization, where it seeks the regulation of trade according to multilateral norms,
with a special emphasis on agricultural, and for that reason
also a member of the CAIRNS Group.
Uruguay also enthusiastically
participates in the creation of the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA).
President Batlle
firmly backs MERCOSUR, which he sees as instrumental for an
open regional integration into the world economy. He favors
MERCOSUR’s entry in associations such
as the one envisaged in the so-called "Four Plus One"
agreement with the US. President Batlle is set firmly against
protectionism and subsidies of any kind; he has been a
consistent spokesman for unhampered free trade.
In 2001 he promoted the
reestablished negotiations between MERCOSUR and the United
States under the Rose Garden Agreement.
Today, to some extent as a
result of this policy, less than twenty years after
the restoration of democracy (1985), Uruguay proudly boasts the highest
combined average ratings of democracy possible. Uruguay is, in
fact, the only Latin American country to have ranked 1.0, the
highest status in the "Freedom in the World" rankings
(published by Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
 Photo:
"Mare Liberum" by José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín.
The painting depicts the first international treaty signed
by our Nation (Purificación Headquarters, 1817).
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I come
from Uruguay, a small South American country, whose
main wealth is its vacation for peace, its
libertarian drive and the democratic compromise that
have been nurtured and developed generation after
generation.
I bring
with me a greeting from the people and Government of
Uruguay, to the currently broadest, most
representative and most important forum.
It is a
demanding, committed and hopeful greeting.
Demanding
because we live in a very particular moment of the
history of mankind.
In fact,
few times throughout history there have been
circumstances as rich in paradoxes and as poor in
paradigms as the current one.
Mankind,
as never before, has had at hand such scientific and
technological advancement and such a wide cultural
capital to guarantee its life under dignified
conditions, however mankind, as never before, as
suffered such inequality, intolerance and
uncertainty.
We know
we have reached this point, but we are uncertain
about where we are heading…
We cannot
bear passive witness to this situation; no one can
remove himself from the problems that may sometimes
look alien. We cannot give up and think that the
future is the inertial extension of the present:
there is no reason whatsoever to give up to a utopia
without which, darkness may be out destiny.
Our
greeting is committed because we bear the
inexcusable responsibility to be the leaders of our
own lives and architects of our own future.
This task
is a road where no privileges or eternal
condemnations are admitted; we all walk it in equal
terms. This road does not allow shortcuts neither,
history is neither a gallery of heroes nor a
calendar of outstanding events; history is made by
the people day by day.
In this
context, those to whom their people have granted the
task of a government, have a very demanding
responsibility ahead. And that is become governing
is managing with efficiency and transparency the
present, articulating in a democratic way this rich
and complex web that is a society. But to govern is
also to envisage the future and to convene the
people to build such future among all and for all.
Our
greeting is hopeful too become although we do not
ignore the risks, the difficulties and the
limitations within the national, regional and global
scenarios, we believe in mankind, we trust mankind.
We believe in society. We believe in democracy as a
means to govern, but also as a human drive and as a
state of society.
Mr.
President,
Although I have already
expressed it during out intervention at the High
Level Plenary meeting, which took place in this
same hall a
few hours ago, I wish to reiterate before this Assembly
that Uruguay reaffirms the principles that have
characterized its foreign policy:
-
The
firm commitment with peace, sovereignty,
democracy and solidarity.
-
The
firm rejection against any kind of terrorism,
violence and discrimination.
-
The
inalienable right of ever State to have safe and
stable boarders and to exercise in its widest
freedom its sovereignty and self determination.
-
The
respect of the international law, as the best
guarantee for the sovereignty of people and
their peaceful coexistence.
-
The
non-alignment and non-intervention in affairs
that do not belong in the domestic jurisdiction
of the States.
-
The
reaffirmation as a means to strengthen the
international law, enhancing the role of the
United Nations.
-
The
acknowledgement of the indivisibility of all
humans rights, be them political, social,
economic, civil or cultural, including those of
a collective nature such as the right to
development and to the environment.
Along
these principles, Uruguay:
-
Deems
necessary to advance in those reforms which will
allow the United Nations to fulfill its mandate.
Being such reforms of a complex nature, they
should be undertaken with a historic approach
and with political will.
-
Renews it commitments with the millennium goals,
which in our country represent the design and
implementation of a system of integrated and
global social policies which take care of
poverty and extreme poverty suffered by almost
one million Uruguayans, together with a strategy
for reform and development.
-
Reiterates its will to continue participating in
UN peacekeeping operations, offering its
experience and efforts to improve the conditions
under which those missions take place and are
carried out.
We also
wish to express our support to the initiative of the
Secretary General to create a Commission for Peace
to which we believe Uruguay could bring its own
experience and expertise, gathered while helping to
recover and rebuild devastated countries.
There is
no peace in intolerance and terrorism, no freedom in
poverty, and no democracy in inequality.
It is
imperative to reject every expression of violence,
but before rejecting it, is important to avoid it by
attacking its roots.
This is
simply because every human being has the right to
live in dignity. Societies where the opulence of a
few contrast with a majority being neglected, are
not prosperous. Societies where to be born is a
problem, to be young is suspicious, to get education
and a job is privilege and where to grow old is a
curse, have no place in the future.
This is
the way we see it in Uruguay; we learnt it from
those generations that preceded us in building a
country, which although bearing unique features, is
not alien to the Latin American context.
While it
is true that the first half of the XX Century was a
good time for Uruguay, it is also true that as a
result of the combination of a series of foreign
circumstances together with some domestic structural
frailties, the last fifty years have been of
deterioration for the economy, impoverishment of the
population and even an institutional breakdown in
1973.
We,
Uruguayans, recovered democracy in 1985 and the
current government that took office exactly 200 days
ago, is working hard to heal those wounds that the
dictatorship caused in the field of human rights
violations.
We are
not hostages of the past, but our society needs to
know the truth about what happened, to avoid living
it again.
Regardless the former, and fulfilling the
compromises acquired before out society, whose will
is our mandate, the Government I represent is
promoting changes: necessary, possible, responsible,
progressive and with a political and social support.
Changes
which do not ignore the reality but that do not give
up the concrete utopia of a Uruguay with a human
development, with a productive economic growth, with
a safe environment, fully integrated to its own
region and actively inserted in the international
arena.
We are
not starting from scratch but we have a lot to do
towards this utopia, which drives us as a nation.
What I
wish to convey to you as the last comments of my
intervention on behalf of the people and the
Government of Uruguay is that in the south of South
America there is a country which is not giving up to
difficulties, which is building its own future and
from it, wishes to follow its tradition and add its
strength to build a better world.
Thank
you."
UN
photo: President of Uruguay Addresses General Debate.
Tabaré Vázquez, President of Uruguay, addresses the General
Debate of the Sixtieth Session of the General Assembly, today at
UN Headquarters [September 17th, 2006]. The General Debate
focuses on the follow-up to the 2005 World Summit.
"Mr. President,
No one denies today that globalization is here to stay.
Not only has it changed the world of communications so that
everything now happens at the same time throughout the world,
but it has also made frontiers fixed by history now meaningless.
The current generation of young people has more contact with
others living thousands of kilometers away than with their
neighbors or relatives. A global culture is emerging among us.
While this is happening the world is still experiencing its
nationalisms, cultures, age-old habits, interests and projects
that are inherent to nations and which are often alien to the
new realities.
The question that we Governments ask, and in particular those
that represent small nations, is whether this inexorable change
can be handled by the organizations that we have created or
whether these organizations still have a long way to go in
adapting to the new reality.
Looking at the impressive success achieved since San Francisco
in 1944 to today, two things emerge clearly. Firstly, the
institutions that we have created represent the greatest and
most successful effort made by mankind to organize its peaceful
coexistence and to equip the planet with appropriate instruments
for dealing with the most important aspects of the lives of
human beings in society.
Secondly, it is equally clear that the world of that time has
changed so much that its reality now far exceeds the capacity of
its institutions, which were created to address and resolve
issues that today have taken on totally different
characteristics.
It suffices to recall that the founding Members of the United
Nations were 51 - today the number of member States amounts to
191. What is more important is that only half the number of
people alive today lived on the planet at that time. And the
total will soon reach 9 billion.
Over the last forty years, moreover, advances in science and
their subsequent technological applications have multiplied the
resources of a small group of nations, leaving far behind many
other countries, some of which recently gained their
independence, most of them rich in natural resources but lacking
the basic structures needed to achieve sustainable growth and
where, in addition and no doubt as a consequence of this, the
population is increasing at very high rates and emigration will
create in other continents serious difficulties of coexistence.
Again I ask, are the United Nations, which has recognized this
situation in its Millennium Declaration, and its various
agencies adequately equipped to deal with these problems?
The need for change, for adapting to the times, becomes even
greater and more urgent.
Uruguay, which has been a Member of the United Nations since its
founding and which has faith in the Organization and in the
various multilateral agencies that support the Organization’s
efforts to improve the quality of life for its people,
understands the need to examine the reform of the Charter so
that nations that did not represent at that time what they
represent today can assume greater obligations in the
inescapable tasks that the situation of mankind now imposes on
us.
It is time for them to share greater responsibility, together
with those five nations that assumed such responsibility sixty
years ago.
Uruguay has also been participating for many years in the
various United Nations peacekeeping operations. Uruguay is one
of the largest troop contributors in the world, and the first if
considered the relationship between population and peace
keepers. We have participated in operations in Asia and Africa
and we are currently deployed in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Haiti, Eritrea and other locations.
Uruguay acknowledges and welcomes the wise and farsighted effort
by the European Union to equal at the highest level that of the
nations with marked differences in income levels. The examples
of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece, which will surely be
emulated in the new countries that recently became members of
the European Union, clearly point to the way forward in Congo
and Haiti.
Mr. President,
Achieving peace would be futile if at the same time the United
Nations lacks a ready source of funding that could be
immediately spent for the benefit of none other than the peoples
for whom it is intended.
We must create global and largely autonomous financial
instruments to achieve these goals. This is the only way in
which we can succeed.
A nation like Haiti, with 27,000 square kilometers of territory
and 9 million inhabitants, where the average number of children
per mother is 4.7, and which is lacking the necessary
institutional and material infrastructure, cannot resolve its
problems merely because a contingent of military forces from
MERCOSUR countries are ensuring peace.
Another type of action is needed. If our aim is to respond to
the demands of a different world, we must do so with different
objectives, procedures and resources. Only the United Nations
can undertake this task.
Just three years since the fateful day of 11 September and just
over six months since the tragedy in Madrid, new and terrible
forms of violence continue in other parts of the world claiming
hundreds of innocent victims, in Russia, in the Middle East, and
are taking place with all their destructive power, thereby
posing a permanent threat to the world as a whole, a source of
irresistible sadness and a cause for despair about the human
condition itself.
Over and beyond their dates and precise location, all of these
acts of terrorist violence constitute a new diffuse and
indiscriminate enemy of peaceful coexistence. They have altered
the international agenda and the lives of people everywhere,
claiming thousands
of victims in an unending spiral of violence and aggression.
Terrorism and a genuine commitment to combat and defeat it must
therefore be the first item on the domestic and international
agendas. And this is certainly much more than mere words.
In our view, each State, each nation and community and,
certainly, each human being must contribute to this common
endeavor and in doing so help the United Nations to fulfill its
role as universal guarantor.
Naturally, the international system with its global and regional
institutions must be in the forefront in organizing the struggle
against this scourge, as it has been doing and will continue to
do in various parts of the world.
The fight against this and other evils—hunger, poverty,
underdevelopment, marginalization, exclusion, in short
inhumanity—needs a United Nations that is more united and
capable of more rapid and effective responses. This is why it
must be more representative, balanced and reliable, so that it
could continue to be a reference point for the weak and a
restraining influence on the strong.
Our country has recently adopted legislation aimed at
strengthening the system of prevention and control of money
laundering and financing of terrorism. With regard specifically
to the fight against terrorism, the law:
-
Punishes terrorist activities and their financing, basing its
provisions on the principles contained in the International
Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and
the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism;
-
Establishes a procedure for freezing the assets of terrorist
organizations and persons connected with them, in accordance
with the provisions of the above mentioned instruments. It is
also in compliance with the mandate contained in resolution 1373
(2001) of the Untied Nations Security Council.
The law also provides for improvements in the international
cooperation mechanisms for combating money laundering and the
financing of terrorism. Lastly, Uruguay has ratified eleven of
the twelve treaties against terrorism of universal scope, apart
from two regional ones.
Mr. President,
At the Millennium Summit and in the Doha Declaration and
Monterrey Consensus, we agreed on principles, goals and
priorities and we made commitments which we have just reaffirmed
a few days ago at our Summit of World Leaders on the Action
against Hunger and Poverty.
We wish to affirm here once more that if one of the current
goals of the multilateral system is to discipline and
effectively operate in a globalized world, then the elaboration
of more just and equitable rules of international trade becomes
a key chapter in the march towards social and political
stability, which is today in serious jeopardy.
This is particularly important since it is well known that
States that preach and demand freedom of trade and opening of
markets impose and institute obstacles to trade, subsidize their
production in distorting ways, and engage in disloyal
competition with countries such as ours and many others that can
only offer to the world the fruit grown from their land and the
fruit of the labor of their people.
Uruguay attaches great importance to the economic and financial
questions. The most tangible demonstration of this is the fact
that Uruguay has dealt with the worst crisis in its history with
frankly positive results, which has permitted us to complete our
constitutional mandate with growth in the national product in
the order of 9%, thanks to the joint efforts of our people and
Government, of the Governments of friendly countries and of the
international financial system.
Mr. President,
We wish to reiterate our firm support for the Doha Round and to
express our strong hopes that its deliberations will lead to a
greater opening of markets. People will become strong only if
they are able to create their future from within themselves and
in freedom.
Freedom is an indivisible whole.
Mr. President,
One does not strengthen democracy if at the same time women and
men cannot find decent work to which to dedicate their efforts.
This cannot be achieved with only assistance but with freedom of
trade.
Lastly, Mr. President, Uruguay is a country that is committed to
the international system and to the progressive development of
international law, whose most recent expression has been the
establishment of the International Criminal Court, of which its
Statute we have ratified.
Uruguay reaffirms its conviction that multilateralism is the
main principle upon which the conduct of the international
affairs must be based and aspires, from an operational
perspective, for the region and the world to combine their
efforts, in a realistic and committed approach.
It therefore continues to believe in the United Nations as an
institution that can always be improved, recognizing in it our
best collective instrument in the search for peace."
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Uruguay and United States
relations are based on shared principles and values, with emphasis on democratic ideals, individual
liberties, and political pluralism.
Uruguay works closely with
the United States bilaterally and internationally to foster this
objectives.
May 4th, 2006, President Tabaré
Vázquez meets with the President of the United States of
America, George W. Bush. Photo opportunity in the Oval office, The White
House, Washington, DC.
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Uruguayan National Symbols (according to Decree form February 18th,
1952)
-
Uruguayan
National Flag (Pabellón Nacional).
-
National Coat
of Arms (Escudo de Armas del Estado).
-
National
Anthem (Himno Nacional).
-
Artigas Flag
(Bandera de Artigas).
-
Treinta y Tres
Flag (Bandera de los Treinta y Tres).
-
National Pin
(Escarapela Nacional).
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