Address by President Higgins, Acto De Reconocimiento
National Assembly, San Salvador, 24th October 2013
Sr. Presidente de la Asamblea Legislativa, Diputado Sigfrido Reyes,
Distinguidos Diputadas y Diputados,
May I begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the distinguished members of this National Assembly. The honour that you have conferred on me personally by the presentation of the Order of Merit 5th November 1811 and on my nation, with this Acto de Reconocimiento touches me very deeply.
El Salvador ocupa un lugar especial en mi corazón. Mientras estoy aquí de pie, mis ojos recorren las placas sobre las que ustedes se encuentran sentados y que portan los emblemas de los departamentos de su país. Muchos de esos nombres resuenan en mí profundamente.
[El Salvador occupies a special place in my heart. As I stand here this afternoon, my eyes are moving across the plaques above where you are seated, plaques that carry the emblems of your country’s departments. Many of these place names resonate deeply with me.
Recuerdo mis visitas pasadas a El Salvador, los días que pasé aquí, y los viajes que realicé a través de los departamentos de Morazán, Chalatenango y Cabañas durante el mes de enero de 1982.
[I am reminded of my past visits to El Salvador – of the days spent in San Salvador, and of the journeys I took across the departments of Morazán, Chalatenango and Cabañas during the month of January 1982.]
I am reminded, above all, of your compatriots – the women and men
I met in the early 1980s – whose commitment to the defence of human rights and the pursuit of social justice, whose courage and outstanding spirit in the face of the widespread violence that was then tearing apart the Salvadoran society, have remained with me as a living source of inspiration.
To find myself again in El Salvador, now as President of Ireland, moves me profoundly. To be received by you so warmly in this Chamber, this seat of democratic accountability for the citizens of this country, is a great honour. To be invited to be part of the El Salvador you have achieved as your present, and to hear of the future you envision is a privilege I cherish deeply.
Sr. Presidente,
Estimados Diputados y Diputadas,
This afternoon, I feel the warmth and solidarity that exist between the peoples of El Salvador and Ireland. I sense a spiritual bond between our countries that makes me feel at home – at home in El Salvador, and at home among its legislators.
It was as a legislator, as a member of an Irish parliamentary delegation, that I travelled to El Salvador three decades ago, at the invitation of those deeply concerned with human rights, to investigate the horrific massacre that wiped out the small rural community of El Mozote on 11th December, 1981.
I felt compelled, then, to bear witness, to share with a wider international audience a sense of what I had seen and the messages
I had heard.
My connections with El Salvador and its people influenced my outlook on the world; they informed my conviction that no level of repression and violence can extinguish a people’s thirst for social change, and that respect for human rights is the fundamental basis of the rule of law.
Estimados Diputados y Diputadas,
As legislators, you occupy a pivotal role in the shaping of your country’s present and future. You carry a clear and direct line of trust and responsibility that has been conferred on you by your fellow citizens. It is to this Chamber that the citizens of this country look for accountability, for the representation of their collective interest, and for the elaboration of policies that foster human rights and human flourishing. I salute you and wish you well from the bottom of my heart in all your endeavours on behalf of your people.
When I speak of human rights, I am not speaking of abstract theory, of legalism, of international instruments operating on a plateau removed from the realities of daily life. I am not just making reference to the crucial concepts of civil and political rights – of that most fundamental right to life and freedom – but also to economic, social and cultural rights.
I have written elsewhere about these rights, in Ireland and elsewhere, that:
“it is not only about the right to survive, it is about the right to flourish;”
and that:
“in a Republic, the right to shelter, food, security, education, a good environment, quality public services and freedom from fear and insecurity from childhood to old age, must be the benchmarks.”
I see in your Parliament, as in all Parliaments, a key role in giving shape to a society in which citizens are confident of having ample prospect of progress for themselves and their children. I also see in this Parliament a crucial role in making space for a robust debate that ensures that those commitments to which states subscribe in international law are given tangible effect at home.
I know that these fundamental objectives are of great importance to you. I know that some of you present here today have – alongside so many of your compatriots – struggled for the right, the most fundamental of rights, to live a life free of violence, free of oppression, free to pursue opportunities for economic and social development.
Estimados Diputados y Diputadas,
As President of Ireland, a member of the European Union, I want to emphasize that it has long been my belief that Ireland and the other member-states of the European Union can learn much from Latin America.
Between Ireland and El Salvador, there is an ease in our shared sense of understanding. We are two small countries – countries who have experienced colonisation, and have fought for national independence, who have experienced conflict but also the resolution of conflict.
In our own peace process, in Northern Ireland, we continue to face the difficulty of reconciling diverging narratives about the past. We are conscious of the need to continue with the task of building confidence between our communities, so that they can move on beyond the narrow alleys of sectarianism and the baleful narratives, or pseudo-narratives, of the past.
Ireland and El Salvador have another important shared experience – we share the experience of migration, and a concern for a deep connection with our very significant diasporas. We are both confronted, finally, with what constitutes the biggest challenge on the way to a thriving economy and society – that is, unemployment, and in particular youth unemployment.
In Europe as in Central America, I see the resolution to this most important problem within the framework of regional integration and cooperation. We need cooperation instead of unilateralism: cooperation in restoring the conditions for economic growth, cooperation in reforming the global financial system, cooperation in fostering inter-generational solidarity and territorial justice.
Ireland and our partners in the European Union are eager to deepen and upgrade our relationships with El Salvador and with the countries of Central America. We are anxious to foster cooperation between our respective regional integration institutions, as well as at the level of the United Nations, as partners addressing global challenges such as climate change, sustainable development and conflict resolution. I offer to you every assistance we can give, every cooperation that Ireland can facilitate in these relationships.
We are also keen to work together to ensure that the EU-Central America Association Agreement supports meaningful, just and lasting connections, which have both economic and societal benefits. We live in a shifting economic landscape: in 2012, for the first time in modern history, the GDP of developing countries surpassed that of developed economies. This surely is a sign that, in the decades to come, the role of Latin America, Asia and Africa in driving the motor of world economic dynamism and in proposing new economic and social models will become ever more important.
Trade is, of course, an important component of the prosperity of nations, which affects the livelihoods of citizens. The global geography of trade is also changing. 20 years ago, 60% of the world trade was made up of North to North trade flows and only 10% of South to South exchanges. However, it is now expected that by 2020, South-South trade flows will reach a third of the world trade. Let it be a just trade that reflects an ethical understanding of our fundamental interdependency as peoples.
This change owes a lot to the latest revolution in technology and transports – Internet and the development of intermodal containerisation – and also to the expansion of “value chains.”
Today trade is not so much about finished products and services anymore. It is about adding value by contributing to a stage of the production, or by providing a service.
In other words, the focus is no longer on how to export more, but how to add more value. The stretching of supply chains globally has thus allowed emerging countries – and in some ways, Ireland could have been counted as one of them up until recently – to find new means of inserting themselves into the world economy.
In January of this year, the WTO and the OECD launched a new set of data that measures trade in value-added, whereas traditional statistics attribute the full commercial value to the final link in the production chain. Importantly, this new measure helps identify the employment related to the value addition and to focus public policies on what really matters – that is, the creation of jobs. This is but the beginning of changes that are needed in the measurement exercises of what are influential global sources of opinion on policy options.
Estimados Diputados y Diputadas,
Later this afternoon I will make a return visit to the Universidad Centroamericana, La UCA. There I will ponder on my connection with the events that affected your country in the years 1980-1991.
I will have an opportunity to reflect on the women and the men who inspired us all to maintain hope by their bravery in their call for justice in difficult circumstances.
As I stand here today and celebrate how El Salvador has set about resolving issues of social and economic change through the peaceful means of democratic engagement, I think of those parts of the world where women and men do not enjoy the freedoms now enjoyed here.
Some ten years ago, as he introduced a poem that he had written to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the late Séamus Heaney, the inspirational Irish poet and Literature Nobel Prize Laureate, spoke movingly of the need to respond to “the call of conscience.” He said that:
“We must not waver in our trust in our inherited human values, that we must credit the rightness of our intuitions and know that we are called upon to keep faith with every good impulse. We must not forget the call of conscience and we must endeavour to keep others awake to it.”
Might I take this opportunity to echo this sentiment and also to suggest that it is not enough that we promote and protect fundamental rights and freedoms in our own countries. We must continue “to keep others awake to it” so as to promote the universality of human rights throughout the world.
Les felicito por sus logros, les deseo lo mejor en sus esfuerzos futuros en nombre de su pueblo y, desde el corazón, les agradezco la cálida bienvenida salvadoreña que recibimos mi esposa Sabina y yo, así como mi comitiva.
[I congratulate you on your achievements, wish you well in your future endeavours on behalf of all your people and I, from my heart, thank you for the warmth of your Salvadoran welcome to me, my wife Sabina and those accompanying us.]
Muchísimas Gracias.