The other September 11

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, I arrived at the headquarters of the Argentine Embassy in the United States of America, in the city of Washington – where I was stationed between June 2000 and 2003 – when I heard the first news on the radio of a plane that had crashed into one of the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York. At this time of the morning, around 8:45 am, everything was amazement and shock, and it was still unimaginable to foresee that this day would go down in history like another annus horribilis. Then in a little over an hour and a half history accelerated, generating events that still condition us: as Jean d’Ormesson said very well, there are endless days, months, years. where almost nothing is happening. There are minutes and seconds that contain a whole world.

The barbarism that unleashed in this kairos, a terrorist attack that killed thousands of innocent people, has had an impact on many of our daily habits and customs; The unthinkable has happened and fear has shifted many of our certainties.

Twenty years later, this September 11 is still in force, and calls us to the memory of the victims and to the condemnation of barbarism.

But that day there was another 9/11 which, in the face of the magnitude of that horror, fell into oblivion. That same morning in Lima, Peru, the foreign ministers of all the countries of the hemisphere They met to unanimously adopt one of the most relevant documents of recent times: the Inter-American Democratic Charter. This document, in the noblest tradition of hemispheric values ​​- let us recall that article 5) d of the OAS Charter says: The solidarity of the American States and the high goals which are pursued with it, require the political organization of themselves on the basis of the effective exercise of representative democracy – is inspired by the so-called democratic clause adopted at the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Americas, which took place in May 2001 in Quebec.

Continental democratic tradition which, with imperfections, is nourished by the Tobar doctrine – postulated by the Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos R. Tobar in 1906 – and the Betancourt doctrine – enunciated by President Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela, in his speech to inauguration in 1959 – both aimed at condemning the collapse of democracies. Thus, the democratic DNA of the region reached its maximum expression on September 11, 2001.

And in this noble exercise of reaffirming continental values, the Argentine Republic has played a relevant role, according to its best democratic values ​​and traditions which, in the face of dark and violent periods of our history, have always triumphed. The then Argentinian chancellor Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini He led our country’s delegation, and on this day of global infamy, I advocate for the adoption of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. For all these ministers gathered in Lima, there was no better response to the terrorist atrocity than the strength of democratic values.

On that day, as nineteen terrorists brutally attacked the United States of America, thirty-four hemispheric foreign ministers put one more link in our regional democratic chain.

It is in this context that it is important to remember, twenty years later, that other September 11th. This September 11 of democratic construction and hemispheric solidarity with what was happening in New York and Washington.

Twenty years later, we must save the Inter-American Democratic Charter and ensure that it is respected. We must put aside the democratic upheavals in the hemisphere because, as Article 1 of the Charter clearly states:

The peoples of America have a right to democracy and their governments have an obligation to promote and defend it.

Democracy is essential to the social, political and economic development of the peoples of the Americas.

Democracy thus constitutes a system of normative and institutional values, as well as the necessary condition for the progress and development of our peoples. Democracy is not only a choice of our peoples and our countries, it is a necessity and a prerequisite for going through this turbulent and complex twenty-first century.

Twenty years later, how necessary is it to strengthen the firm attachment to democratic values, which we have all embraced since our independence, and then to integrate them into the institutional legal framework of our region.

If history teaches, let us learn that prosperity depends, among other things, on respect for individual freedoms and a legal system that protects and guarantees it; elimination of inequalities; respect for coexistence with the other in a framework of harmony; harmonious growth of all members of society, and that this is only possible in a democracy.

Twenty years later, let’s not question these values, let’s respect and defend the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

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