Gobierno de Reconciliación y Unidad Nacional
Unida Nicaragua Triunfa
SPEECH BY AMBASSADOR LUIS ALVARADO AT THE EXTRAORDINARY VIRTUAL SESSION OF THE PERMANENT COUNCIL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES ON JUNE 10, 2020
Thank you very much Mr. President.
The Delegation of Nicaragua greets the distinguished Permanent, Alternate and Observer Representatives of the Organization of American States and we take due note of their presentations.
In the context of the current global pandemic, national responses to the crisis generated by COVID-19 cannot be unrelated to cooperation between States; it is about promoting solidarity
and harmonious cooperation that respects State Sovereignty, in which no conditionalities of any nature are established, nor is it a question of supplanting the public policies designed by each State according to its national reality.
This cooperation should be aimed at promoting alliances in strategic sectors in order to preserve life, health, safety and integrity of the human person, under a holistic approach that will allow us to face the crisis caused by Covid-19 and its consequences on all the nations of the planet.
In her briefing on June 4 of this year, the Vice President of the Republic, Compañera Rosario Murillo, thanked the peoples and governments of Italy and Taiwan for their contributions to the health of the Nicaraguan families through their significant donations of medical equipment and masks for the fight against COVID-19. She also reported that more than 5 million 200 hundred thousand visits have been made during the four cycles that the authorities of the Ministry of Health carried out with the families in the different regions and communities and now we have updated the National Map of Health and Health conditions.
Nicaragua, despite its scarce resources, faces this COVID-19 Pandemic, currently having a greater modernized infrastructure, with 19 new hospitals, 36,649 trained health workers and 6,045 doctors providing care to the population, distributed equitably, throughout the national territory.
In the same way, this health structure in coordination with other national instances is prepared to face natural disasters caused by climate change, such as hurricanes, droughts, floods and / or geological phenomena, such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, mainly due to reasons of its own Health Model, which is eminently preventive and based on the active participation of the family and the community.
Since February 9 of this year, the Ministry of Health has delivered to the population a “Protocol for the Preparation and Response to the Risk of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nicaragua”, in order to ensure surveillance, early detection of suspected and confirmed cases. Preventive measures were established to reduce the transmission of the virus
and a robust permanent communication plan has been implemented ever since, aimed at the population, along with border control and education actions, always based on the Protocols of the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.
In the framework of regional cooperation, as we addressed COVID-19, the response by the Government of Nicaragua have been made in coordination with the regional authorities of SICA and we have had the cooperation of sister nations such as Taiwan, Cuba and the Republic of Korea, among others.
Nicaragua, like many other nations in this region and the world, reject and consider it inadmissible that in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, powerful countries continue to apply
unilateral, extra-territorial, illegal and coercive economic measures, contrary to International Law, against various countries of the world; measures that make it impossible to effectively attend the coronavirus pandemic, strengthen health systems and work to eradicate poverty, insecurity and social exclusion.
The Nicaraguan people demand an end to the aggressions against our country, incorrectly called sanctions and we condemn the existence of economic and financial blockades, destabilization and disinformation campaigns against the sovereign nations of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Only respect for the principles and norms of International Law, and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, can ensure the maintenance of international peace and security, seriously threatened by maintaining wars of aggression against sovereign nations. Only the suppression of hostilities and the peaceful settlement of disputes will contribute to the cessation, once and for all, of these acts of aggression and breaches of peace.
As recently expressed on June 3 by Dr. Paul Oquist, Minister Secretary for National Policies of the Presidency of the Republic of Nicaragua, during the videoconference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Latin America, the Caribbean and Germany, about 30 countries with more than two million inhabitants suffer from unilateral, coercive and illegal measures. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, all developing countries urgently need medical equipment and supplies, he referred.
He also expressed in his speech that if the achievement of the zero emissions society were to be financed by eliminating the modernization of nuclear weapons, progressive nuclear disarmament and a firm reaffirmation of the prohibition of weapons in space, humanity could, at the same time, eliminate the other great threat to our existence.
Mr. President, there is an urgent need to establish a new international economic order, which requires profound structural changes in the current economic and social model, which allow for the creation of new patterns of production and consumption, with the aim of fighting poverty and achieve greater social equity, in accordance with lifestyles and sustainable living conditions, that help to preserve nature and eco-systems, with a new focus on the need for greater social protection of health.
It is time to turn the page of the history of international relations and to put down hegemonic attitudes and visions about other peoples, refraining from resorting to the use of force or the threat of force against territorial integrity, sovereignty or political independence of any State and contribute to the promotion of friendly and fraternal relations between the peoples and nations of the world, especially in times of pandemic, with the objective of strengthening peace, international security and the development of world trade to overcome the current world crisis.
The fight against the current pandemic of COVID-19 requires the strengthening of international cooperation and solidarity. Nicaragua will continue to strengthen its policies based on the defense of the health and life of families and communities. We will continue to work on preventive actions for diseases, epidemic and non-epidemic and to protect the family and community economy -local and national - which contributes to obtaining new achievements in the fight against poverty, which favors the socio-productive development of the nation, even in adverse times of economic crisis, the great world recession and the adverse effects of climate change, even in times of COVID-19.
Thank you very much Mr. President.