United Nations
|
A/59/307
|
General Assembly
|
Distr.: General 30 August 2004 Original: English |
Fifty-ninth session
Item 26 of the provisional agenda*[1]
The situation in Central America: procedures for the establishment of
a firm and lasting peace and progress in fashioning a region of peace,
freedom, democracy and development
The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) is slated to close in December 2004. This is its final report on implementation of the 1996 peace agreements. The report indicates that Guatemala has made significant progress and laid a firmer foundation on which to construct a better future. Yet serious problems persist whose resolution will require the dedication of all Guatemalans. The United Nations system will continue to accompany Guatemala as a more just, equitable and peaceful society is built. |
1. The present report is the ninth and final report of the Secretary-General on implementation of the Guatemalan peace agreements. In addition to summarizing political developments during the past year, it aims to assess progress in consolidating the peace and building the better society envisaged in the agreements. This evaluation is being delivered at a critical juncture for Guatemala. The third democratically elected Government to hold office since the signing of the peace is in its first year and the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) is preparing to close after 10 years in which its presence has been a crucial support to the implementation of the accords.
2. The departure of MINUGUA at the end of 2004 will mark the end of United Nations verification and the beginning of a new and necessary phase of the peace process, one in which national actors assume full responsibility for monitoring and promoting peace accords implementation. In anticipation of that day, MINUGUA has been engaged in a two-year phase-down of operations and in carrying out a transition strategy designed to build national capacity to promote the goals of the peace accords. The efforts are directed at key State institutions, such as the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, and at civil society organizations likely to remain engaged in peace-building efforts in the future.
3. The centrepiece of the transition effort during 2004 has been the National Transition Volunteers Programme, through which 60 young Guatemalan professionals, mostly indigenous, have gained valuable experience as verifiers and promoters of the peace accords. The strategy has also sought to guarantee followthrough on peace accords priorities by the United Nations system in Guatemala, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which reached an agreement with the Government of Guatemala to establish an incountry office that would provide observation and technical assistance following the exit of MINUGUA.
4. MINUGUA has also used this final period to reinforce the peace agenda in the emerging policies of the new authorities who took office in January 2004. The Mission produced a comprehensive set of policy recommendations and has reviewed them with senior government officials, governors, mayors, legislators, justice officials and leaders in civil society. During his visit to Guatemala in May 2004, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, underscored that the peace accords should remain Guatemala’s basic blueprint for development.
5. The combined impact of MINUGUA efforts during this final year should be to help place implementation on the most solid footing possible as the Mission departs. A more detailed description of the Mission’s closure and transition efforts will be provided later in the year in the end-of-Mission report requested by the General Assembly in its resolution granting MINUGUA a final one-year extension through 2004 (resolution 58/238).
6. The political environment has improved considerably since my last report (A/58/267), issued amid a tense electoral campaign that sorely tested Guatemala’s democracy. The candidacy of former military ruler Efraín Ríos Montt had further divided a country already polarized over the administration of President Alfonso Portillo, whose term was chequered by corruption allegations, weakened rule of law and stagnation in important areas of the peace process. The decision of the Constitutional Court to permit Ríos Montt’s candidacy — and mob violence by the former general’s supporters in July 2003 — raised fears that the elections would be subverted by fraud and intimidation.