Peru

Madam President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock, Mr. Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, Fellow Heads of State present, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Peru is the center and cradle of great millennia-old civilizations, the last of which, the Inca Empire, left a legacy of greatness. We are also heirs of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which encompassed two-thirds of South America. We are a mestizo country, a fundamental mixture of Hispanic and Andean peoples. Proud to be heirs of the two greatest empires of Europe and America of the sixteenth century, the Peruvian people are today resilient, entrepreneurial, supportive, lovers of peace, freedom and democracy.

Our great writers, Mario Vargas Llosa and José María Arguedas, shared the idea that Peru is a country of all bloods. Our identity creatively expresses that we are the unity of the diverse, united under the same red and white Peruvian flag. In our country live the original peoples and the peoples of the world in Peace and Unity, as a great synthesis of Peru, a country in which Pope Leo XIV lived and worked for 40 years, naturalized Peruvian for his deep love of our people; both for his supportive and peaceful character, and for his Catholic and Christian faith.

All studies indicate that we are the most entrepreneurial country in the world, which is why, after the Covid-19 pandemic which, due to disastrous government administration, reached more than two million deaths, we have begun to recover, achieving today more than 17 months of consecutive growth of our economy.

We have defeated the recession and inflation caused by political violence and corruption, a failed coup attempt and the flight of more than 20 billion dollars between 2021 and 2023. We have recovered the confidence of national and foreign investment and embraced freedom. We are a solvent and stable country.

Due to the coup d'état of December 2022, which sought to install a dictatorship subjugating all branches of the State, I had to constitutionally assume the Presidency of the Republic. From that date, a narrative was established in which the coup plotter became the victim and the president who assumed the presidency constitutionally and legally was accused of being a coup plotter and usurper. The lie turned into truth and the truth into a lie. This is one of the issues of our time: the construction of false narratives that seek to build anti-democratic political projects.

The reflection is that ideologies of hatred, with their projects of failed States that grow like all-powerful States, require, in order to impose themselves, a false narrative to achieve their objective through violence which, once in power, crushes freedoms, crushes the press and the democratic opposition, violates human rights and initiates the control, confiscation and expropriation of private companies, creating a corrupt bureaucracy that destroys the economy, society and public morality. The first step for all of this is the construction of a narrative in which one lies, deceives and manipulates.

The ideology of class hatred is very skilled at distorting reality and constructing false narratives, because it uses the totalitarian method of repeating a lie ad infinitum, as was done in the world before the Second World War and as is being done again, because totalitarianism renews itself, presents itself with other faces, and thus remains a grave threat to countries and to the world. The cynical narrative is reinforced by interventionism in the internal affairs of countries, supporting and spreading falsehoods to destroy democracy and eliminate freedom.

In Peru we have overcome strong, organized and persistent political violence that sought a return to power of the coup plotter, and, since 2024, progress has been made in restoring stability and confidence, which is why the Peruvian economy managed to grow 3.3 percent that year, and in this year 2025, it is exceeding 3.5 percent growth, with the trend of economic expansion expected to continue in 2026. The government guarantees three years of economic growth, leading the figures for South America.

Inflation is below 2 percent annually. International Reserves exceed 88 billion dollars, and our currency remains stable and is strengthening. Our external debt is less than 32.2% of GDP, one of the lowest in the Americas and the world, and our fiscal deficit, this year, will be 2.2 percent annually.

POSITION TOWARD THE UN

The UN was created on October 24 after the Second World War, when one of the greatest totalitarian political projects—built under an ideology of hatred—that produced the gravest genocide in the history of humanity, the Holocaust, which we must never forget, was defeated. That nefarious war caused the death of 60 million human beings.

Every ideology of hatred—class hatred and its elevation to a principle and engine of history; racial hatred, nationalist hatred, religious hatred, ethnic hatred, hatred of women, among others—are the causes of the worst crimes in human history.

Ideologies of hatred construct narratives as absolute truths that instrumentalize people and peoples. The Political Constitution of Peru affirms that the defense of the human person and their dignity is the supreme end of society and the State. Peru therefore rejects the two main narratives of hatred in the world: class hatred and religious hatred, the origin of wars and inhumane violence.

In Peru, we have suffered more than 20 years of a messianic, dogmatic, violent and genocidal terrorism that cost the lives of more than 70,000 Peruvians. The terrorist hates elections and the citizen's right to choose. When it participates, it does so to destroy democracy from within.

However, the narrative that has been sought to be imposed is a flagrant lie: the Armed Forces and Police who defended the life and freedom of Peruvians are accused of violating human rights; thus turning the heroic defenders of life, democracy and freedom into perpetrators, and the terrorists into victims. Thus, the heroes who defended democracy are persecuted in trials that drag on for decades, while the terrorists are compensated and considered victims.

The UN has been a fundamental milestone in the twentieth century. But in the twenty-first century we must be more vigilant. It is our duty to prevent the world from rushing toward new genocides and new violence.

It is not acceptable in a civilized world for a country to invade another using a false narrative to justify a war that mainly attacks the population. The killing of civilians, the capture of hundreds of young people, women and even children to use as hostages, is not admissible.

We live under the threat of organized international crime. In Peru, international crime dedicated to extortion resorts to terrorist methods such as bombings to subjugate citizens. These criminal organizations, which use weapons of war, have created financial mechanisms to launder blood-stained money, sending large sums to their countries of origin.

There is an attempt to normalize this violence, which, to be defeated, requires recognition by the UN as terrorist organizations and new national and international legislation that stops its threat to the democratic system and to development.

It is also imperative to act against drug trafficking and illegal mining, which destroys the environment, pollutes rivers, and condemns peoples and persons to slavery. International crime holds thousands of women captive, taken from their countries through violence and deception, exploited and deprived of their freedom.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are living through moments that remind us of the darkest episodes of our modern history, and Peru is convinced that the world does not need less UN, but more and better UN. One that is attuned to the times in which the ideologies of hatred that have caused so much harm to humanity have taken refuge in lies, in false information and in the penetration of democratic societies.

Peru, as a founding member, is committed to an open multilateral system, based on international law and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and sees in the UN the pillar of the model that has brought peace and prosperity to the world and that today must enter a process of adaptation in the face of new threats.

Each of our countries has the duty to contribute to the development of solutions to the common problems we face. And my country strives to do so. But the interconnection of our societies and economies means that only through international cooperation can we resolve the crises we face.

If we do not reform the United Nations, our common home, to restore representativeness and effectiveness to its action, we run the grave risk of seeing the disappearance of one of the most precious instruments the international community has for the stability of the world.

For this reason, Peru supports the work of the UN80 Initiative, launched by the Secretary-General, placing special emphasis on the need to refocus the organization on its fundamental functions, bringing it closer to the needs of peoples, while making it more efficient. UN80 must be an opportunity to strengthen multilateralism and ensure that the organization is better prepared to fulfill its essential objectives.

This reform can only bear full fruit if it is complemented by a transformation of UN governance, that avoids institutional blockages in decision-making, while ensuring its fitness for purpose.

Madam President,

In Peru, our government works to fulfill its commitments both to its population and to the international community, confronting the threat of organized crime resulting from the decomposition of tyrannical governments.

From the first day of my government, we have fought to restore governability in the country and defeat polarization and violence. In Peru, full separation of powers prevails, the rule of law, respect for freedom and human rights. My government is the most stable in a five-year period in which five presidents have succeeded one another.

We are fighting for citizen security, confronting crime, which takes advantage of the rise in the price of gold, and drug trafficking, with positive results that can be verified.

We work to strengthen human capital. We are fighting the battle against child malnutrition and anemia, and we are building schools and hospitals throughout the country, as has not been done in recent years.

The priority is children, women and the Peruvian family.

We are modernizing the country's infrastructure: ports, airports, roads, bridges, designing an economy better connected to the world. As well as a firm policy of fighting corruption.

Our objective is to guarantee free and impartial elections, defeating the attempt of a violent minority seeking its failure.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The United Nations has always been present in the modern history of my country, particularly in its most difficult moments. Simultaneously with what is happening in the world, and despite our efforts, Peru today:

• Finds its democratic institutions and the rule of law under attack from political polarization, cause and consequence of the return of extremist violence.

• Suffers the scourge of transnational organized terrorist crime that causes deaths, attacks and insecurity, and of drug trafficking that destroys the social fabric.

• Faces the threat of climate change that deteriorates its Amazon, causes the melting of its glaciers and puts its biodiversity at risk, and

• Fosters inclusive and sustainable growth in a context of opposition between powers.

But none of these problems is merely national, but global. For this reason, we need the United Nations to once again become an agora of dialogue and cooperation.

I wish to recall the legacy of Ambassador Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who managed to exercise a relevant action of the Organization despite the Cold War. With that example, and in view of our region's attachment to the purposes of the Charter and for the sake of better representation, we believe it is time for whoever occupies the next Secretary-Generalship to come from Latin America.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Peru is committed to ensuring that this General Assembly is not a mere commemoration, but the reaffirmation of our commitment to a collective action that revitalizes the United Nations as a tool that supports global Peace and Unity, as well as development.

We must be firm in the truth in the face of narratives that hide it, pervert it, or openly lie about it in order to conceal agendas that do not correspond to our time, and much less to the destiny of humanity.

For this reason, it is imperative to strengthen the truth in the face of narratives based on hatred, the repeated lie that seeks to impose itself and that only engenders destruction.

Despite all obstacles, truth makes its way and sets us free.

Peace and Unity for Peru and the world.

Thank you very much!