Ambassador George Roballo of Argentina hosted a reception at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul on May 23, 2014 to celebrate the 204th anniversary of “The May Revolution.”
Many distinguished guests came from Korean society and the foreign community in Korea, who included, from the Korean side, Deputy Minister Lee Kyung-soo of Foreign Affairs.
From the Seoul Diplomatic Corps came many mission chiefs who included (in al Ambassadors William Paterson of Australia, Mr. Ramzi Teymurov of Azerbaijan (CDA), Guadalupe Palomeque de Taboada of Bolivia, Petar Andonov of Bulgaria, Hernan Brantes Glavic of Chile, Tito Saul Pinilla of Colombia, Manuel Lopez Trigo of Costa Rica, Grecia Fiodalicia Pichardo of Dominican Republic, Nicolas Fabian Trujillo Newlin of Ecuador, Rolf Mafael of Germany, Nikoloz Apkhazava of Georgia, Dionisios Sourvanos of Greece, Gustavo Adolfo Lopez Calderon of Guatemala, Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla of Holy See, Michel Idiaquez Baradat of Honduras, Aingeal O’onoghue of Ireland, Sergio Mercuri of Italy, Bessho Koro of Japan, Omar AL NAHAR of Jordan, Ngovi Kitau of Kenya, Dato Rohana binti Ramli of Malaysia, Paul Menkveld of the Netherlands, Krzysztof Majka of Poland, Antonio Quintero Nobre of Portugal, Konstantine V. Vnukov of Russia, Hilton A. Dennis of South Africa, Mohamed Ali Nafti of Tunisia, Hakan Okcal of Turkey, Vasyl Marmazov of Ukraine, Dr. Alba Florio Legnani of Uruguay and Ms. Yadira Hidalgo de Ortiz of Venezuela (CDA).
Speaking to the guests, Ambassador Roballo said: “Today, we celebrate the 204th anniversary of what we call “THE MAY REVOLUTION” that took place back in 1810. Since then, we have come through a different a difficult times for liberation, until we could declare our independence in 1816.” Excerpts from the speech follow:
I wish to thank the Deputy Minister for foreign policy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Lee, Kyung-soo, Ambassadors for accompanying us representing the M.O.F.A.
After so many years of struggle and a long process for social and economic growth and political stability, we are very proud to tell that Argentina is today a genuine democracy, with all its political institutions functioning, preserving and defending our sovereignty, consolidating social and economic development in order to improve the quality of life of its citizen, promoting social justice and the reduction of poverty.
In multilateral forums we actively promote the values of democracy, freedom of the people, full respect to human rights, national sovereignty and territorial integrity, multilateralism, the strengthening of international law, world peace, humanitarian assistance and the democratization of international organizations.
This is my first national day in Seoul, since my arrival at the end of August last year and I feel very proud and honored to represent my country before the Korean government and its people.
I have visited Korea before but-after fifteen years- I found a new country in a full process of building a modern society, showing an amazing social and economic recovery and growth and thus, transforming the country into a significant active partner in the international scene.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations back in 1962, Argentina and the Republic of Korea have always maintained friendly bilateral relation and broad cooperation.
These close relations were once more confirmed during the last high level political consultations between both foreign ministries, which were held in Seoul at the end of February.
In 2013, we celebrated 60 years of diplomatic relations between our two countries and next year (2015) we will celebrate 50 years of the first Korean immigration to Argentina.
As many of you may know, in the 70s and 80s Argentina received around 50 thousands Koreans, a hard working group that ?due to their good spirit, adaption and sort of “LATIN WAY OF BEING”- integrated easily with the local society and their children and grand children are today full-grown professional and businessmen, strengthening therefore our mutual knowledge and understanding.
