Opening Remarks- Senator. Jorge Pizarro

It's an honor to have all three of you here. So we will talk about the regional security perspectives in regards to what's happening with security at a regional level. And I really like that we can have see a broad stroke, not only money laundering with the FIU of Panama, in a very strategic country for the region, which is Panama. And on the other hand, we could have the parliamentary vision from the president of the chair of Parlatino, how we can work on the different model laws, how Parlatino is able to support harmonizing legislations in Latin America and the Caribbean, something that's very important that we need to work on. And also the comprehensive and holistic vision of Mr. Severino Mejia from Panama with a vision, because I think Severino has such a broad vision because he comes from the academic world, but also from the private and public force. And he's worked on both of them. So, Senator Pizarro, the floor is yours. Good afternoon, everyone. To the dearest colleagues in the panel, I think Alejo gave us a really good introduction as to anyone's opinion for the regional perspectives of security for Latin America and the Caribbean. I would also like to recognize how rich this debate has been with the interventions and all the different panels focusing from different aspects, the challenges that we now have globally with the current health situation, political situation, and social and economic situation that our different countries are now going through. Globalization, as it has already been mentioned, in the 1990s had an economic character. And in a positive approach, it was able to make changes in technology, the social, political arena, and also from the environmental point of view. And this is something that started to change the way in which the structure of the states, countries, nations worked, but also society, people, and democracy, liberty, and expanding the rights of people. So, this globalization today is showing how effective it has been, but in the worst manner, because now that we have a health emergency, coronavirus, COVID-19, and the very dramatic effects that is generated in each and every one of our countries. So, now when I talk about globalization and the way it has affected the health, political, economic, and social arena, and if we think about what the Latin America society should think about in regards to its future, a future that would allow us to have a perspective in regards to security in the broadest sense of the word, the very first conclusion we should arrive at is that any strategy that we could think of for the next years needs to be able to address in a very efficient manner the health emergency. Dearest friends and colleagues, this is something that we are not doing correctly. Now, if we think of May of last year, March, April, when we started to make the very first decisions right at this parlative with the representatives of all the countries, we thought that the pandemic was something that would be controlled or rather overcome in a period of six to eight months. In this year, the world and the region have started another phase. We're halfway through the year and the truth is that nobody can say for sure how much longer it will take before we have safety, peace, and strategies that can be implemented that are not conditioned by the health problems. If we talk about security, the very first thing that we need to talk about is to think about the security of people. Just like we mentioned this from the political point of view in the morning, we've talked about all sorts of security, cyber crime, and how we're able to adapt to new technologies, how we're able to avoid or work collectively to be able to fight organized crime, money laundering, abuse, illicit trade, and many other points. But from the politic point of view, in a political forum such as this, as a parlative, or any other, from the executive level, the priority should always be the people. People. If our priority is not focused on people, what we are doing is making a situation worse in this health crisis that has had economic and social effects. This morning, we talked about the security of people, which is related to their daily lives, which is related to the certainty of that person being able to go to work and the certainty that they know that they will be able to get to work because there's a public transportation system that would allow them to get to work with peace of mind. But for that, they need to have a job, and that is not a guaranteed certainty today due to the economic crisis we're suffering today. That person needs to have the peace of mind that they will be able to have mobility and transit through the streets. They will be able to go back home and their home would not suffer due to criminal activity or that their life would not be marked due to the collusion in the economic arena where consumers or people have to simply accept what very specific economic powers decide to collusion and abuse. That democracy in the public system needs to be able to guarantee individual liberties, freedom of mobility, to be able to guarantee freedom of democratic expression, even if there are restrictions in the rights of people. And this is a task and responsibility of the democratic systems, responsibility of Congress and executive branch and the responsibility of citizens. In our Latin America, we have an example for every flavor as to how this emergency was handled. Unfortunately, we have very bad examples in regards to corruption, abuse, arbitrary acts and even the corruption of those that thought that they were using the few vaccines that they could have. They were only providing it to those that were closest to them or those that use very scarce resources within our countries for their own benefits. When we talk about security, it means having a strategy for our region and I think it needs to change the way which we think of the role that states need to play, the role of authorities, Congress and even the role that the academic world, the private sector, the judiciary, the police and law enforcement, everything that the system should be able to guarantee to any citizen. So I go from the micro to the macro. In the parlantino, we've had so many forums and assessment meetings to be able to generate a coordinated behavior on behalf of the states, coordination from the governments, coordination of international organizations, coordination of parliaments at a national and regional level. And I think we have failed at that. Today in Latin America, there is no multilateral integration that allows the coordinated act of the executive branch. ECLOC does not exist. OAS is unable to implement action. Prosur, conusur, unusur, you can call it whatever you like. Multilateralism, which should be our main objective from our state and our executive branch in practice, does not exist because it does not work. Everything is left up in theory. So the question for the political perspective is, can we build a security strategy at a sub-regional or region level for our future? Are we capable of guaranteeing our citizens that they will have the certainty for their people, family, development, work, and to be part of societies that guarantee the rights, democratic societies, that their rights will always be guaranteed? The reality of Latin America and the different movements that we're having, regardless of ideology, are no longer guaranteeing any of those points. We are not being efficient at this. I wanted to move away from the script of what this forum entails, but it's still our responsibility of those in a political arena to be able to represent and to ensure that everybody understands what millions of people are living through in every one of our countries without access to vaccines. And as long as they don't have access to vaccines, they will have more uncertainty. They are not concerned with the international or global issues. They are concerned about their daily life. If we cannot overcome the health crisis, we cannot think of economic reactivation. If we do not control the health crisis, it does not work. It has not worked in any country because it comes back to the same point. And we go back to restrictions. We're back to a state of emergency. We're going back to quarantines. We restrict people's rights. And that means complication of the economic activities. It means unemployment. It means greater poverty. It means more hunger. And it means challenges for a future. And there's no other way to face this rather than in a coordinated manner. So I make a call to this forum that if we're going to talk about security and the challenges that we currently have in our countries, it should not only about in regards to crimes. We should understand that a strategic vision means that we're able to generate the conditions in a coordinated manner for the health crisis. It's international cooperation that can allow solidarity to allow the reactivation of economy to guarantee jobs for people. And those developed societies will have to give more. And those that are not in that position will need to establish criteria that allow us to act united. And we're not doing this. The Latin American parliament has a fundamental mandate to ensure multilateralism, to supervise executive branch, to ensure that they comply with the mandates that they've received through democracy by the citizens, to supervise that that is complied and the rights of people are guaranteed. Thank you very much.