Encounter of Two Worlds

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Dominican Delegation would first like to thank Ambassador Carmen Montón, Permanent Observer of Spain to our Organization, for having made possible this special meeting of the Permanent Council to commemorate the Five Hundred Twenty-Ninth Anniversary of the “Encounter of Two Worlds.” We also take this opportunity to express our solidarity with that country at a time when the eruption of the volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma continues to threaten the lives of so many of its citizens.

As is by now a tradition in our Organization, we meet here today to commemorate the arrival on our continent, on October 12, 1492, of a group of Spanish voyagers. A few weeks later, those voyagers reached Quisqueya, or the island of Hispaniola, and founded the town of La Isabela, the first Spanish settlement in the region, and later Santo Domingo, the first city of the Americas.

More than five centuries have passed since that event, which made possible the “Encounter of Two Worlds” and of several civilizations and which marked the history of humanity in a transcendent way. The discovery of our continent, which we all now call America, with its lights and its shadows, created the conditions for our Hemisphere to become an inexhaustible source of contributions to humanity in science, literature, culture, sport and the development of our peoples.

The indigenous, Spanish and African components present in our people are something that fills the Dominican Republic with great pride and are reflected in every element of social, political, economic and cultural life, in which all its inhabitants, regardless of their ethnic origin, mingle and feel proudly bound to a single identity and unity that we usually call Dominicanness. We are the result of that heritage, chiefly in the cultural sphere: our language, Spanish; our cuisine, indigenous and African; and our music, with its strong African roots, to mention a few.

Since that “Encounter of Two Worlds” more than five hundred years ago, and throughout these five centuries, our region has gone on receiving great numbers of people from the rest of the world, chiefly from Europe and Asia. This migration has occurred for different reasons: in many cases as a consequence of political situations and wars and, in others, in search of greater security and of economic and social well-being.

In their immense majority, those migrants have made great contributions to our societies and, through their lives in these lands, have become Dominicans, Argentines, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Americans and Brazilians, to mention only a few. Whatever their social, racial or religious condition or their level of education, those immigrants have been received with solidarity and dignity. The Americas have without doubt been a land of opportunity.

As regards the particular case of our country, the Dominican Republic: after the United States, Spain is the country that receives the largest number of our migrants in the world, with more than two hundred thousand Dominicans living in its various cities. In that regard, we value the great openness and welcome, and the dignified treatment and respect for human rights, that the Kingdom of Spain has shown our citizens.

In recent decades, Spain has been an example of solidarity and responsibility toward our peoples. We likewise value the bilateral cooperation and the support the Kingdom of Spain has provided to a great many of our Member States through the Organization of American States (OAS) to finance projects in the areas of human rights, gender equity and the empowerment of women, electoral observation missions and the fight against corruption, among others.

This collaboration, and the active participation of the Permanent Observer Mission of Spain, shows the great interest of that sister country in our continent and in this Organization, an interest which, we are convinced, as Ambassador Carmen Montón has reiterated, will continue in the years to come.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.