Burundi, 2009

It

is an honour to take the floor at the sixty-fourth session

of the General Assembly.

At the outset, on behalf of His Excellency

Mr. Pierre Nkurunziza, President of the Republic of

Burundi, and our entire delegation, we join preceding

speakers in warmly congratulating you, Mr. Ali

Abdussalam Treki, on your election to the presidency

of the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session.

Your election is a tribute to you and to your country.

My delegation and I personally wish you every success

in your noble mission. Our congratulations go also to

the other members of the Bureau. We also take this

opportunity to pay a well-deserved tribute to your

predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Miguel d’Escoto

Brockmann, for his commitment and for the quality of

the work accomplished during his mandate.

Here, we wish to reaffirm our support for His

Excellency Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Once

again, we wish him every success and assure him of

the full cooperation of the Republic of Burundi in

seeking peaceful and courageous solutions to the

problems facing today’s world. We hail him in

particular for his devotion to the cause of peace and

development, which he has continued to demonstrate

for the world in general and for Burundi in particular.

Finally, our gratitude goes to the international

community, the Peacebuilding Commission, the United

Nations Integrated Office in Burundi, the European

Union, the Regional Initiative for Burundi and the

Republic of South Africa for their efforts to restore

peace, which is now a reality and which we hope will

be irreversible in Burundi. We urge all States in the

Great Lakes region to continue to engage in dialogue

and cooperation to ensure comprehensive political

stability and development in the region. We take this

opportunity to request that consultative status in the

General Assembly be granted at this session to the

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.

The present session of the General Assembly is

taking place at a time when the Burundian people are

welcoming the progress made on the path of peace.

Indeed, the war in Burundi is now over. The last rebel

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movement, the Forces nationales de liberation, has laid

down its weapons and has become a political party that

is actively participating in the country’s democratic

life. The movement’s top leaders have been appointed

to posts in the area of public administration. Some

former combatants have joined the army or the police,

and the others have been demobilized and are

benefiting from the process of reintegrating into

normal socio-economic life. We wish to thank all our

partners for their support for Burundi’s considerable

peacebuilding and democratization efforts.

With the return of peace and democratically

elected institutions, the Burundian people are

beginning to regain confidence in the institutions of the

Republic. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are

returning to their former villages, and Burundian

refugees who were in neighbouring countries have

returned. However, the reintegration of former

combatants, IDPs and refugees is not taking place

without difficulties or constraints.

Indeed, Burundi, as an African country with one

of the highest population growth rates, has an acute

land-shortage problem, which has given rise to

property disputes. In order to preserve social harmony,

a commission for land and other assets has been

established to resolve all disputes arising between

repatriated persons and their fellow citizens who have

remained in the hills, where land is considered a

unique treasure.

Burundi is facing the problem of financing the

professional reintegration of thousands of men, women

and even children who have served as combatants. The

international community’s support is thus essential to

assist us in the process of socially reintegrating those

sectors of the needy population so that the gains of

peacebuilding will not be undermined.

Furthermore, the Burundian Government

recognizes that illegal firearms in the hands of the

civilian population constitute a serious threat to peace.

In order to address that problem, the Government has

established a commission to encourage people to

voluntarily turn in their weapons. As the commission

has a time-bound mandate, the Government has

launched a large-scale programme to recover all

weapons and clamp down on crime linked to firearm

use. A decree regulating legal firearms possession has

just been signed by the President.

Judicial reform is being carried out to ensure

equitable justice and combat impunity. The

Government welcomes the support of the international

community in this area. To further consolidate the

peace dividend, we must meet the challenges of

knowing the truth so that we can achieve national

reconciliation. It is imperative that the Burundian

people succeed in the transitional justice process. That

will enable them to bury the hatchet of war and build

their future on a solid foundation of peace and mutual

trust.

Mindful of the fact that it would not enjoy peace

for long in a troubled Africa, our country has

responded positively to the international community’s

appeal to contribute to peacekeeping in countries at

war. Thus, Burundi is participating in the United

Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire, to restore peace to

Côte d’Ivoire; the United Nations Peacebuilding

Support Office in the Central African Republic, in

Chad and the Central African Republic; and the African

Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, in

Darfur and Somalia. Unfortunately, our contingent

deployed in Somalia as part of the African Union

Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has, over a two-year

period, been the target of three suicide attacks that

have claimed the lives of 25 soldiers and left 35 others

wounded. To that grisly toll, we must add three victims

of the crash of an Ilyushin aircraft into Lake Victoria in

March this year.

Those facts show that Burundi is paying a heavy

price in the international mission to contribute to the

quest for peace in Somalia. Because of this loss of life,

some in Burundi are calling for a troop withdrawal. We

believe that, in its current configuration, the Mission

can continue and be completed only with considerable

efforts by the international community.

To that end, the Government of Burundi believes

that AMISOM’s mandate should be changed to allow

contingents to protect themselves against deadly

attacks and to take the offensive or pursue aggressors,

if necessary, in accordance with Chapter VII of the

Charter. We believe that contingents must be equipped

with sufficient resources in terms of quality and

quantity. We believe that strike helicopters and funds

for information-gathering on the ground must be

provided. We also believe that additional troops should

be deployed without delay in order to make the

Mission truly continental in character. And we believe

that the long-promised sanctions against countries,

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organizations and individuals who support Islamist

groups should at last become a reality.

The Government of Burundi remains steadfast to

its commitments vis-à-vis AMISOM. However, we

would like to see the international community respond

as soon as possible to the concerns that I have

expressed here, which are well-known to all partners

who wish to see the return of peace in the Horn of

Africa.

This meeting is taking place a few months before

the holding of general elections in my country aimed at

reinvigorating institutions at every level. I would like

to underscore here that the Government is committed

to making sure that those elections are transparent and

that they are held in an atmosphere of calm. An

independent national electoral commission has already

been put in place, based on a political compromise

between the various parties. In addition, a new

electoral law has just been promulgated. The Ministry

of the Interior has also been strengthened in order to

support the commission. The partnership between the

electoral commission, the Government and donors has

just been formalized through an agreement between the

United Nations Development Programme and the

Government of Burundi on a project to provide support

for the elections.

In that regard, the Government will provide the

independent national electoral commission a $7 million

package for the entire endeavour. We are counting on

the varied support of the international community to

mobilize all the necessary resources to make the

electoral process a success. We welcome the

willingness expressed by the Secretary-General to

bring BINUB’s mandate in line with the electoral

environment. I need not recall that BINUB’s mandate

should be agreed between now and the end of

December of this year. A successful outcome to the

elections will enable us, in coordination with the

Secretary-General, to redefine the mission of the

United Nations in Burundi by focusing major attention

on programmes aimed at lasting development.

Burundi must make a success of its electoral

process if it is to be able to pursue its economic

development. Our strategic framework to combat

poverty, which is the point of reference for all efforts

in that regard, has been in the process of

implementation since 2007. An assessment of that

effort over the past two years reveals satisfactory

results overall, despite the fact that the performance

indicators we wanted to achieve with regard to certain

macroeconomic policies have not yet been realized.

In an effort to improve the effectiveness of the

assistance provided to Burundi, the Government,

working in partnership with donors, has put in place a

partners’ coordination group that provides a forum for

discussion in which development partners are

consulted on all technical and policy issues in

connection with the implementation of our national

strategy on development and peacebuilding. Today,

genuine dialogue and active partnership take place

throughout the process, from the planning to the results

assessment stages.

With the support of the World Bank, Burundi

hopes to hold a meeting of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group

on Burundi next month in Paris, with a view to

mobilizing funds destined for sectors that have been

identified as having the potential for quickly

contributing to economic growth and playing a

catalysing role — namely, those of the energy,

agricultural, private sector, tourism, information

technology and communication infrastructure sectors.

We count on the existing partnership to provide the

necessary financing.

The Government has come to understand that, in

order to fully restart economic growth, it needs to

promote good governance in the management of public

affairs and further improve the business environment.

To that end, the Government, with the support of its

partners, has begun a series of reforms aimed at

improving public finance management and facilitating

private domestic and foreign investment in our country.

A new investment law has therefore been promulgated,

which the Government has adapted to bring it in line

with the East African Community’s model. A value

added tax is already in place and an agency to promote

investment will soon become operational.

Burundi aims to meet the challenge set at the

international level to achieve the Millennium

Development Goals, as underscored in the Outcome

adopted at the September 2005 World Summit of heads

of State or Government (resolution 60/1). We are

pleased to inform the Assembly that, thanks to our

policy of free primary education and health care for

children under the age of five and pregnant women,

Burundi is achieving results that merit support. For

instance, thanks to that policy, the number of pregnant

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women giving birth in hospitals or health centres

increased from 22.9 per cent in 2005 to 56.3 per cent in

2008.

In July 2009, the Government of Burundi decided

to provide free malaria treatment and mosquito nets for

its entire population. The Government has also decided

to take responsibility for the medical treatment and

follow-up for women beginning in the first month of

pregnancy, with a view to better protecting the health

of mothers and children. That policy includes an

information campaign aimed at curbing the number of

births. A national body will soon be established that

will be responsible for providing health insurance for

people living in rural areas or working in the informal

sector.

Education for all is another of the Millennium

Development Goals that the people of Burundi are

working to achieve. Thanks to community development

efforts, our people built more than 700 schools and

health centres in the course of 2008, so as to allow all

school-age children to benefit from free primary

education, as decided in 2005 by our country’s

President. However, we still face the ongoing problem

of providing the necessary financial resources to equip

those schools and health centres, provide them with

drinking water and pay their staff. I need not point out

that these exceptional steps have been taken to

contribute to our country’s progress in the run-up to

2015.

Moreover, the Government would like donors to

mobilize additional resources to ensure the

sustainability of our achievements. We would like to

take this opportunity to heartily thank partners that

have already supported the implementation of our

policy to provide free primary education and health

services for pregnant women and children under the

age of five. We appeal to those who are still hesitant to

come to our assistance in order to help us to overcome

the numerous challenges to which I have referred here.

The global financial crisis has not spared

Burundi. While the cost of raw materials has dropped

in general, the decrease has been especially sharp in

the price of coffee, which is our main export product.

The Assembly will of course understand that, when our

gross domestic product and our economy’s

macroeconomic indicators perform poorly, they

undermine the social protection efforts undertaken by

the Government.

The volatile market for petroleum products also

has a destabilizing impact on Burundi’s economy, as it

produces external shocks that are difficult to bear.

Despite the economic policy interventions that have

been taken to counteract the negative effects of

disturbances in international markets, the economies of

developing countries must nevertheless reiterate the

appeal for restoring order with regard to such current

issues as those pertaining to the stability of

international financial markets, the implementation of

trade agreements, technology transfers and the need to

increase assistance and investment in Africa.

Given the situation, we would like once again to

invite developed countries and the Group of Eight in

particular to translate into action the commitment they

undertook to raise official development assistance

contributions to 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2015, as well

as to honour the promise made in Scotland to increase

development aid by $50 billion per year starting in

2010, with half of this sum allocated to Africa.

Climate change constitutes a threat to peace and

food security in Africa and around the world. We

therefore call for the adoption of courageous measures

to limit the production of greenhouse gases and for

incentives to encourage reforestation policies, the

protection of equatorial forests, the responsible

management of water and energy resources, and the

use of clean and renewable energies. Burundi endorses

the common African Union position that was set out by

the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and will be reaffirmed

at the Copenhagen Conference. We welcome measures

announced by President Barack Obama, the European

Union and Japan to considerably reduce greenhouse

gas emissions, manage toxic waste responsibly and

provide financial and technological resources to least-

developed and landlocked countries.

Burundi renews its pledge to the United Nations

to continue working to ensure that the peoples of the

entire world cooperate in peace and defend the values

of freedom, solidarity and tolerance. These values must

guide the international community in resolving the

bloody conflicts that threaten some parts of Africa, the

Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan, and will help us to

fight terrorism and other forms of transnational crime

effectively.

I cannot conclude my address without reaffirming

the commitment of my country to multilateralism,

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which represents our single best hope for responding to

all threats to peace and security in the world.