In the final stretch of his mandate, President Luis Arce will participate in the 80th session of the United Nations Organization (UN), from September 22 to 26 in New York, United States. His intervention will occur after Bolivia was accumulated debt of $ 762,957, pending for more than two years, which had made him lose the right to vote.
The appointment will mark the international farewell of the Bolivian president, amid questions about the relegation of diplomacy and breach of obligations with different multilateral organisms.
“We went to negotiate, we explained that obviously on the part of the State there is the greatest will (for payment). We are negotiating with many agencies to pay in Bolivians and the good news is that it has been accepted (by the UN). We are recovering the vote precisely in the next General Assembly of the United Nations, where our President Luis Arce Catacora will be present,” said Vice Chancellor Elmer Catarina to journalists.
The authority reported that the Government formed a technical team with personnel from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Foreign Ministry, the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) and the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to negotiate the payment of the debt, but in national currency.
Bolivia lost the right to vote at the UN at the beginning of this year, the situation generated a crisis in the foreign service of the country that resulted in the resignation of Diego Pary, former permanent representative of Bolivia before the agency. The former Diplomatic questioned the “lack of commitment” of Luis Arce’s administration with multilateral diplomacy and described the suspension of Bolivia as a sign of inefficiency.
“The UN is the most important multilateral organism in the world and Bolivia, as a founding country, has always had an active participation. Losing vote means weakening our voice on the global stage,” Pary warned last March.
Vice Chancellor Catarina attributed the delay in payments to the lack of currency and held the Legislative Assembly responsible for blocking international credits.
However, the deputy and former Diplomatic Gustavo Aliaga, rejected the accusations of the Vice Chancellor and remarked that the default of the membership fees in multilateral organizations, is the responsibility of the Government.
“What Catarina says is a terrible beauty. He says that everything is the fault of Congress, but no one believes it. The credits are not to pay (debts), or buy gasoline, they are for infrastructure works. They cannot blame all the failure of the Lord Arce to Congress,” he said.
Aliaga argued that the real problem lies in the mismanagement of the Executive, which did not pay the attention due to diplomacy.
Diplomatic embarrassment
International relations specialists agreed that the default of fees to the UN meant a “diplomatic embarrassment” for Bolivia and reflects a deterioration in foreign policy.
The diplomat Javier Viscarra stressed that the sanction of suspension of the vote at the UN occurs to the third consecutive year of breaches in the payment of membership, and it is not something that happens overnight, which in his opinion is not only administrative carelessness, but a responsibility that seriously damages the national image.
“We are disabled to influence debates and resolutions on peace, on human rights or sustainable development. It is not a symbolic punishment, but about the effective voice loss in the largest international forum, but this is not the only case, the mora in the United Nations is only the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
For his part, the internationalist expert Álvaro del Pozo said that the last minute payment seeks to save President Arce’s decorum before the UN General Assembly. He also noted that the next government must assume a better role for the country to be projected effectively to the international community.
“These contributions are not an expense, they are an investment. Bolivia pays less than many countries and receives more benefits. Does not affect the national image. The current foreign policy has led us to a place of isolation and of little visibility in the international context and it is time to change that hermeneutics,” he said.
While the internationalist analyst, Andrés Guzmán, recalled that Bolivia also has the task of appointing a representative before the UN and emphasized that the country sent a negative signal by being out of crucial voting, such as the recent resolution on Palestine.
“The government’s speech has been to defend multilateralism, but is absent from the most important forums. Government’s priorities are somewhere else, it is spent a lot in advertising, in creating new companies, but the issue of the projection and image of Bolivia in the world, that is in the background,” he questioned.
