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A. F-A. Esparza, Address to World Summit 2022, Session VI
Written by Antero Flores-Araoz Esparza, Prime Minister (2020) and Defense Minister (2007-2008), Peru
Saturday, February 12, 2022
Address to World Summit
February 11-13, 2022
Greetings. I’m a lawyer from the Republic of Peru. I have belonged to the Universal Peace Federation for several years and I’m a follower of its quest in search of peace. I have held various public positions: I have been a parliamentarian for 16 years, president of the Peruvian Congress, Prime Minister, and Ambassador of Peru to the OAS. I feel very comfortable belonging to this great Federation and being at this World Summit 2022 today to greet all the attendees of this Summit that takes place in Korea and with the leaders of world peace.
We know perfectly well from the history of the world that since the creation of humankind there have been conflicts. People have always had a warmongering mood. There have been wars for territories, wars for economic interests, even wars for ideological issues and religious beliefs. The conflict status brought about the need for people to find solutions in order to realize world peace. This is why, for a long time, international organizations were created by countries to contribute as a facilitation mechanism to reach agreement. The current organization of the United Nations should serve for this purpose worldwide, but there are also regional organizations like the OAS, the Organization of American States.
The result has not been auspicious. World peace hasn’t been achieved yet. Moreover, in the latest decades the world has become bipolar. There were two great countries that accumulated all the power with all strength: one was the United States of America and the allied countries, and the other was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, with its satellite countries. This bipolar situation ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the iron curtain. This situation generated the dismantling of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and a country with less extension and less power was born: the Russian Federation. Consequently, the United States maintained power but Russia weakened, and this led to a transition from a bipolar system to a unipolar system. It lasted for a short time because China emerged, a country with two systems, and was taking the lead in the world. On the other hand, the Russian Federation was recovering. From this unipolar system with just the United States, it became a power system with three poles: the United States of America, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.
However, have these efforts contributed to world peace? No. It has contributed to a certain balance, but it is clear that peace has not been achieved. In addition to the fact that we have conflicts like we see in Afghanistan where the Taliban continues to create violence, there is conflict in the Persian Gulf; Syria, Iran and Iraq have problems; there are conflicts and instability in Morocco which faces Arawi’s claims. In America, especially in Latin America, we have countries that have gone over to communism, such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with anti-democratic regimes. Even economic jewels that were already recognized in the world, such as Chile and Peru, which were in the process of extremely important development, have suffered a severe political blow, with left-wing governments, and I would say socialist governments. Furthermore, outside of this situation of conflict in the world, there are ideologies that generate conflict. There is a narrative of hate; there is a confrontation between the rich and the poor; there is the idea that power must be taken within the democratic system, not with political violence but using the democratic system to destroy it from within. This is the famous theory of the Italian philosopher and political scientist Antonio Gramsci.
Now, this situation of global conflict between facts and doctrine is aggravated by the misuse of new information technologies and scientific advances, unlimited artificial intelligence, inequity in foreign trade, terrorism, drug trafficking, genetic manipulation, global warming, the pandemic that continues to affect us, and the whole world protests all of this. In addition, we see volcanic eruptions, storms, cataclysms, overflows, floods, forest fires and finally, lots of calamities. The earth protests against this belligerence and lack of peace status on our planet.
Thus, it’s important to create alternative mechanisms to seek peace, not only peace in Korea, but to seek tolerance and coexistence between South Korea and North Korea first, and then to seek their unification in a second stage. To achieve this, it’s convenient to understand that, at the failure of multilateral organizations and multilateral diplomacy in the world, it’s necessary to create other systems, such as interreligious dialogue, and organizations such as the United Nations, taking action, promoting a culture of peace and values from civil society, as the Universal Peace Federation does.
For these reasons this Summit is very important. We need to look for alternative systems to search for peace, from civil society, from human beings without the need for governmental organizations. Hopefully this Summit can give us other ideas, give us greater dynamism and open the way for a general understanding to achieve the long-awaited peace in the world.
My warmest greetings and I wish you every success in this summit.
To go to the World Summit 2022 Schedule page, click here.