Message from President Oscar Arias

My friends:

Thank you for the honor of addressing this conference. I am sorry I cannot join you in person.

In his Third Inaugural Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt told us that “the democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase of human history. It is human history.” Without democracy, liberty is no more than a mirage.  Political stability, economic wellbeing and social justice are denied. By this point in history it is clear that noble ends cannot be achieved by immoral means, that liberty does not sprout from oppression, that dictatorship can satisfy people’s most basic needs but not their most important needs, like respect for their dignity.  Only democracy can do this.

This vital truth comes to the nations of Latin America as clearly and sharply as the pain from an old wound. The region is marked with scars that authoritarian regimes of all political stripes have left. The establishment of democracy in Latin America has been a long learning process, slow, prone to relapse, but ultimately invaluable. It has taken root in every nation in the hemisphere but one. Today Cuba is the only exception in the great Latin American transformation toward liberty, the only country in the region to deny that democracy, no matter its strengths and weaknesses, is the historical destiny of humanity.

Now is the time to open a long-postponed debate over a democratic transition on the island. It is a discussion in which the participation of countries such as Poland, who have themselves risen from perpetual one-party rule, would be especially appropriate and helpful. This participation does not mean setting a course for the Cuban people, it means creating the conditions for the Cuban people to truly choose a course for themselves.

And so I applaud your efforts here today, to help ensure that our Cuban brothers and sisters realize their democratic destiny. Best of luck and best wishes from Costa Rica.

Thank you.