Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

3 P rince of A sturias A wards 1981-2014. S peeches Laureates. Excerpts Although there is still much to do, Guatemala is today a very different country to what it was in the past. Political violence has disappeared from our land; in its place flourishes an inclusive democracy that is releasing the creative potential of the Guatemalan people and broadening the paths of tolerance, pluralism and the opening up to new ideas and diversity. Freedom reigns in our motherland and old wounds are healing with the disappearance of the impunity which was protected by the complicity or tolerance of power, insofar as opportunities for development are reaching a long-suffering and hardworking people who embrace modernity from the depth of their ancient cultural roots. Peace is not the absence of conflicts, but pacific, legal and democratic methods to solve them. Firm, long-lasting peace requires social and cultural justness and that is the path that the Peace Accords have taken. The fight against poverty, privilege and discrimination is and should be a permanent national priority, because the broadening and strengthening of the unity of the Guatemalan people depend on this priority, a unity which is their main resource for building the present and the future. It is still early to evaluate the period we have experienced and earlier still to value that which has arisen anew in our society. The urgency to overcome so much lost ground and the longing that this causes us prevent a just appraisal of what we have achieved, particularly the foundations for the future that we have built. We still do not enjoy the necessary historical perspective to recognize the rich sediment that the tragedy itself produced, and ten months of peace after four hundred months of war are not enough to reveal that broad paths open up ahead of us, paths that our first forbears entreated with all their heart of the sky and the earth in the dawn of their lives. To tread these paths and not get lost depends on us alone. Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, on behalf of the Government of Guatemala — Government of Guatemala and Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity — Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation 1997 Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen was President of the Republic of Guatemala from 1996 to 2000. — Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation on 24/10/1997.