The Speech delivered by Oydén Ortega Durán

The Kingdom of Spain does us the enviable honour today of conferring the Award for Latin American Cooperation upon us for our efforts to foster peace in the area of Central America. I thank the Prince of Asturias Foundation on behalf of my country and the other members of the Contadora Group for recognizing the joint efforts that we launched in January 1983, whose success is seen as an example for Mankind and as a methodology for a balance between nations. Dialogue became possible despite the nature and complexity of the problems shared by five states at an extremely serious time.

Throughout our actions to foster understanding and conciliation, we were fortunate to have the staunch, effective, honourable and constructive support of this Nation - Spain - to which we are linked by profound ties founded in history and confirmed today by destiny. There could have been no other outcome, for in the Cátedra Salmanticense, when commenting upon the conquest of the Indies, Brother Francisco de Vitoria laid the foundations for International Law and made the rules for peaceful coexistence amongst nations part of Mankind´s Heritage.

Contemporary historiography points to the three centuries of Spanish involvement in America as a blueprint for institutional organization and social humanism. It was also a Spaniard, Miguel de Unamuno, who highlighted the profoundly Spanish roots of Simon Bolivar, the Liberator. When one recalls that Venezuela was his birthplace, Columbia was the setting for his glorious victories, Panama the hub of his defensive alliances and Mexico the venue for the end of the Anfictionic Conference, it is as if his ideals were to take on contemporary significance. For this reason, it is fair to say that in our work we have enjoyed tradition from Spain and inspiration from Bolivar.

The body of his history and the soul of his politics - if I might quote Gracian - is what makes close collaboration between the former overseas provinces turned modern sovereign republics and their mother country meaningful. In our quest for peace in the region, we have worked with tenacity and faith but also with the composure born of experience, the patience that perseverance instils and the shared materials that Spain left behind as its spiritual legacy in America. All this has enabled us to reconcile points that appeared irreconcilable and interests that were at first diametrically opposed. Today, on the verge of commemorating the V Centenary of the Discovery of America, such deep-seated links, which become a numen that inspires and a logos that explains, deserve to be emphasized.