Address by the President of Peru, Valentín Paniagua, at the ceremony held in the Andean Community to celebrate the Thirty-second Anniversary of the Signing of the Cartagena Agreement
Lima, May 28, 2001

It is a pleasure for me to participate in this act commemorating the thirty-second anniversary of the signing of the Cartagena Agreement, which gave birth to a process closely attuned to Peru’s longstanding and continuing integrationist vocation that it cannot disown without renouncing its most genuine historical and cultural roots.

It was Raúl Porras Barrenechea who said that "Inca Peru carried its language, it social organization, its technological advances to the most distant regions; it civilized Quito, Charcas, and northern Argentina." The historian went on to add that "Hispanic Peru in the sixteenth century assumed this same task of coordinating the spirit and that this was perhaps the reason why the great expeditions of the sixteenth century in this part of the continent –that of Chile, those of the Río de la Plata, that of the Amazon— departed from Cusco, the oldest metropolis in South America." Cusco was also the starting point of the Qhapacñan, the great Inca road that through a gigantic network spanning 23,000 kilometers linked up Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and northern Chile and Argentina–and continues to do so physically today. When it is reconditioned, it will once again become, as in the past, the road to solidarity and sisterly union among our countries.

When, in 1966 in Bogota, President Fernando Belaúnde Terry committed Peru to this process of integration on which we are embarked, he honored this ancient vocation and returned to an already long diplomatic tradition of our Republic, which had been expressed at the American Congresses of 1847 and 1868. In doing so, he also confirmed the country’s early decision expressed in 1826 at the Amphicthyonic Congress of Panama that Bolivar summoned from Lima and which was attended by the National Tribune José Faustino Sánchez Carrión, who was also the Libertador’s secretary. Many leaders and popular caudillos, who felt the need the establish closer ties with the other peoples of the Americas in order to emerge from underdevelopment, have been inspired over the years by this longstanding hope for integration.

By 1966, however, a new aspiration guided the rebirth of this undertaking. No longer was it a matter of preserving the hegemony of an ancestral culture or of republican independence from the threat posed by the imperial and European powers. What was now sought was to ensure the comprehensive development of our peoples, the preservation of their historical and cultural identity and, of course, their presence in the universal concert of nations.

Economic transnationalization and scientific and technological revolution have brought us face-to-face with a globalization that enfolds an enormous possibility but, at the same time, poses a huge risk. For that very reason, it constitutes a new and different challenge for our nations on the economic level and also in the sphere of our national and regional cultures and identities. It is a contest that we must face up to and from which Peru will never shirk. We will help to consolidate and deepen all undertakings thus far initiated without losing sight of the new horizon that has been opened up for integration by the new conditions that exist.

The dream of the Common Market requires obtaining the unhampered circulation of services, capital and people, in a follow-up to the free circulation of goods already attained. In line with that conviction, the transitional government has introduced a new tariff level for inputs, parts and pieces, bringing Peru’s tariff closer to the existing Community tariff structure and thereby facilitating the attainment of an Andean Customs Union in the short term. The country is determined, of course, to reach an agreement on standards and measures for attaining the other objectives within the stipulated timeframes.

Integration, as you so aptly remind us, Mr. Secretary General, is not merely an economic enterprise. It is necessary to reinforce the Andean Community’s external presence and projection as a reflection and expression of the united and solidary future of our nations. The design of a Common Foreign Policy as a result of the efforts of the Andean Council of Foreign Ministers, can and should be an effective instrument for this fundamental purpose. Of course, this must be based upon the existence of constitutional states that will always guarantee the stability and continuity of the policies of states and governments that are committed irrevocably to respecting the freedom and rights of their peoples, as has been precisely established in the Andean Community’s Commitment to Democracy. In this context, a Democratic Charter which, at Peru’s initiative, will most likely be adopted at the next General Assembly of the OAS, will endow the hemispheric community --and, of course, the Andean Community-- with a single face and with new legal and political backing for moving ahead with our undertaking. In that environment, we will achieve some of the aims to which the efforts of our nations have been committed via specific strategies such as, for example, the control of illegal drugs and common offenses, and, of course, in other spheres and activities, inasmuch as the defense of human rights necessarily involves controlling those who threaten the integral development of man.

Integration, which is basically a political process, as you have properly reminded us, should link together our nations, and not only businessmen and officials, actively and dynamically. The case of integration is the same as that of our democracies. Our people no longer want governed democracies that are at the whim of the decisions and discretion of their representatives. They aspire to governing democracies that are permanently open to the people’s participation through the mechanisms of coordination, dialogue, and consensus. In that sense, integration, like democracy should be embodied within the cultural roots of our societies and should become a deeply-felt need and aspiration. Active ideological and political advocacy is urgently needed in order to win over consciences and wills. Integration, like democracy, may also involve a form of living, however. For that reason, it should come to fruition in a project suggestive of a life in common that would deal effectively with the problems that afflict the masses in our countries; a project that would give priority to and fight steadfastly against poverty, that would recognize that true equality in the era of knowledge lies no longer only in a fair distribution of possessions, but above all in a fair distribution of knowledge, in a true defense of human life that safeguards the health and social security rights of all people and, of course, in the creation of job opportunities that make homes of our nations, where all of their sons and daughters are able through their work to realize their own potentials with dignity.

Peru has just created the National Council for Border Development as an answer to the aspirations for viable and effective border integration and development policies. It was motivated to take this step not only by its Andean commitment, but also by the impetus that was brought to bear by institutions like universities and municipalities located along the country’s borders which, before official policies were adopted on the matter, had already taken steps and started up programs to mobilize the people around common aims, without always obtaining the cooperation to be expected from the bodies responsible for their direction and guidance. Therein lies a task of searching creatively for mechanisms and instruments to channel this autonomous impetus that has been the major driving force of Europe’s economic and social integration.

Globalization imposes the need to recognize that integration is a process that is open to the age-old dream of South American integration and that it allows for free trade between Mercosur and the Andean Community, its incorporation under fair and balanced terms in the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and eventually the establishment of an association agreement with the European Union that would also result in free trade and a larger flow of investment.

The Andean Community’s institutional bodies certainly ensure appropriate participation in and leadership of the process. Even so, no guarantee is stronger than the full authority of democracy and the constitutional state. The latter provides precisely the necessary stability and safety for our institutions and societies and confidence in the playing rules and in the process of integration on the part of our trading partners and foreign investors. At this point, it is especially important to guarantee compliance with the decisions of all Community bodies, particularly the Andean Court of Justice, for only in that way will cooperation among the countries be strengthened with the full backing of the Community body of law.

Here, then, are a series of tasks involving provocative and suggestive mandates for the future, which we can now view optimistically and with faith, if we consider the course we have already traveled, whose basic features the Secretary General has so aptly described. A space has effectively been created, which is starting to become significant for our countries’ economy and trade. It both offers conditions and imposes the need for us to project ourselves in all spheres of our nations’ lives. Looking back at the recent past and scanning the horizon, convinced as we are of our will and decision to achieve integration, and as a realistic wager on the future, we can express our faith and determination to move ahead in our undertaking, using for this purpose the words of the historian:

"And despite all efforts, an immense task to be accomplished."

"And despite all accomplishments, a beautiful promise yet unfulfilled" -- one that we must achieve.