Plaque Commemorating Panama Congress
This bronze plaque was created by the Venezuelan artist Marisol Escobar (1930 – 2016), who is known for her wood sculptures and carvings. On the plaque one can see various types vegetation and animals (prey and predators) as well as a human face (Simon Bolivar) with an inscription. The artist inscribed in Spanish a Bolivar quotation: “In the march of the centuries perhaps there will be one single nation covering the universe: The Federal Nation.”
The sculpture commemorates the 150th Anniversary of the Congress of Panama, sometimes called Amphictyonic Congress, created in 1826. It pays tribute to its founder, Simon Bolivar (1783 – 1830), the Liberator. Simon Bolivar was a Venezuelan leader who led a battle that achieved independence for a region that includes Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama from the Spanish Empire in 1821.
The plaque was presented on behalf of the Latin American Group by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Simon Alberto Consalvi and it was accepted by Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim on behalf of the United Nations. Consalvi described Bolivar’s universal vision “as a group of nations united in shaping their own destiny.”
The gift follows the 1976 General Assembly resolution 31/142, which recognized Bolivar's ideals and concepts that helped form the Congress of Panama as the direct predecessor of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations.