Lima, April 21, 2005

I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the Andean Community General Secretariat on behalf of its Secretary General, Ambassador Allan Wagner Tizón, and in my own name, to participate in this Subregional Seminar/Workshop on Fighting Corruption.

The meeting that brings us together today is an activity that is part of the “Initiative for Andean Regional Stabilization” project being carried out with the generous sponsorship of the European Commission, which contributed in the initial stage to promoting dialogue and reflection on the preparation of the Guidelines for the Andean Common Policy on External Security and of the Quito Declaration on the Establishment and Development of the Andean Peace Zone, approved in July 2004.

The task we intend to carry out on this occasion is particularly important for strengthening and deepening the Andean integration process, considering that this is the first time we are addressing, within the Community framework, a problem that affects the entire Subregion, in compliance with the guidelines laid down by our Heads of State and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Meetings of the Andean Presidential Council, with a view to drawing up a Cooperation Plan to Fight Corruption.

In this way, we ratify that the Andean Community is truly committed to dealing with the challenges that arise in increasingly complex international contexts, characterized by growing economic and world market liberalization and interdependence in light of the dizzying advance in knowledge, technology and communications. These have revealed the need to redesign policies and strategies to reach higher levels of political, economic and social development in the subregion.

This is reflected in the implementation, within the Community sphere and under the responsibility of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, of a multidimensional agenda designed, through political dialogue and cooperation, to help create the necessary conditions to guarantee the full exercise of the human rights of Andean citizens and to reinforce democratic principles, practices and institutions and the Constitutional State.

It is important in this context to emphasize that the gradual resolution of differences among our countries allows us today to foresee a favorable environment in which we can jointly and in cooperation, through effective use of the tools and instruments provided by the integration process, confront threats that affect all of us equally and which, because of their nature or cross-border effects, have an impact on the international community as a whole.

It should be pointed out that those threats, among which we can mention, in addition to corruption, illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons, terrorism and organized transnational crime, must be confronted by means of policies that promote greater economic and social well-being in the region. From this outlook, the fight to control these scourges should contribute, in the national and subregional spheres, toward progressively overcoming the causal, structural or other contributory elements like poverty, social exclusion and institutional weakness.

Messrs. Participants:

Corruption, construed as the illicit interaction of one or more public agents and one or more private agents for the personal or institutional benefit of those involved, is one of the largest threats to strengthening and consolidating the political, economic and social systems and institutions of the Andean Community Member Countries, and to reaching higher levels of development and well-being of their citizens. By destroying the trust of citizens in their authorities, the dynamics engendered by corruption eat away at the very basis of the social contract.

The basic elements responsible for its spread and a major --though not insurmountable-- obstacle in the way of effective and responsible public management at the service of the State without submission to the arbitrary and illegitimate exercise of power are the exclusiveness of or “monopoly over” public decision-making by State officials, the discretion with which this is generally accomplished, the lack of responsive and independent institutions to control and monitor the process and, lastly, the impunity or lack of effective punishment of violators.

For that reason, the fight against this scourge calls for more transparency, oversight and control of the decision-making processes within society and for the involvement and joint responsibility of the private actors --businessmen, civil society and citizens-- whose actions frequently fail to be defined as a crime by national and international juridical instruments that fight this scourge.

The designing and implementing of an Andean Plan to Fight Corruption has become a pressing challenge for the Subregion as a whole, which needs not only to help strengthen national strategies to fight this crime and comply with international commitments in this area, but also to boost cooperation and coordination at the Community level.

The effort needed is so large that it requires a deep and sustained political commitment on the part of the Member Countries and of the international community, acting in keeping with the principles and objectives of the Inter-American Convention and of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.

The valuable involvement of the actors and agents of civil society of the Member Countries is equally essential to move ahead in identifying the principles, objectives, criteria and mechanisms to guide the fight against this scourge in the Andean Community and to promote the legitimacy and sustainability of the actions we undertake.

I am certain that this seminar/workshop will, with the support of all of you, produce important consensuses that will make it possible to lay the groundwork for formulating the Andean Cooperation Plan to Fight Corruption and to carry out concrete actions in that area. All that remains is for me to wish you the greatest success in your deliberations.

Thank-you very much.