Belgium, 1999

I should

like first of all to congratulate you, Sir, on your election as

President of the General Assembly and to thank you for

having accepted the weighty task that you will be carrying

out during this session. We also wish to express our best

wishes to your country, Namibia, which you so ably

represent. We also pay tribute to your predecessor, Mr.

Opertti, for the manner in which he guided our work

during the previous session.

I should also like to take this opportunity to extend

my sincere congratulations to the Republic of Kiribati, the

Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga on their

admission to our Organization.

My statement is in line with the statement made here

by the Presidency of the European Union. I wish merely

to highlight some of the issues that are particularly

important for us.

Early in the month of August, two young African

children, Yaguine and Fodé, were found dead, stowed

away in the landing gear of a Sabena aeroplane, victims

of an idealism and an innocence that led them to embark

on a reckless voyage in search of the mirages of western

society.

Yaguine and Fodé left us a moving message, of

which I would like to quote some passages here:

“To the people in charge in Europe: it is to

your solidarity and to your kindness that we make

an appeal for help for Africa ... We are suffering

enormously ... We have war, disease ... We have

schools, but in order to get a good education and

good teaching, one needs large amounts of money;

and our parents are poor.

“So, we Africans, especially African children

and young people, ask you to create a great and

effective organization for Africa ... We need you to

fight poverty”.

The great organization of which Yaguine and Fodé

dreamed is here before me in its most universal form. It

was conceived from the outset for the maintenance of

peace and for economic and social development. The

authors of the Charter regarded those two aspects as

inseparable. Over the last decade, this great Organization

has succeeded in laying a worldwide foundation for

economic and social values aimed at creating a more

civilized world, a world in which globalization has

gradually come to the fore.

Here I am thinking of the discrete but tenacious

work at the great United Nations conferences and

summits to find new directions for development. That

significant work must be continued and consolidated. The

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universal commitments made at Jomtien for education, at

Rio de Janeiro for the environment, at Vienna for human

rights, at Copenhagen for social development, at Cairo for

population and development, at Beijing for women, at

Rome for hunger and at Istanbul for human settlements

constitute irreversible gains for mankind. It is gratifying

that the concerns debated and the conclusions adopted at

those conferences have increasingly become the inspiration

for our national policies and are helping to bring about the

indispensable convergence among those policies.

But the tragedy of Yaguine and Fodé brings us face to

face with the harsh reality of unbalanced development. As

I speak, 1.3 billion women and men are surviving — or

trying to survive — on less than one dollar per day; 840

million of them, including 160 million children, suffer daily

from hunger or malnutrition. Even more serious, as those

two teenagers remind us, 260 million children have no

access to primary or secondary school because of a lack of

means. Every day, 250 million children go to work instead

of to school. At the dawn of the third millennium, it is

increasingly difficult for our civilization to tolerate such

social and human marginalization and such a lack of

solidarity, in particular for our children.

We must forge stronger solidarity within the United

Nations. We must restore humanism to its rightful place in

international relations. For this fight against poverty and

this campaign for emancipation to succeed, we must agree

to a decisive review of the mechanism that underlies the

economic fluctuation, that causes financial tension and its

attendant social consequences, and that tolerates massive

exploitation of the weakest by forces that are often

impersonal and unidentifiable.

Hence, we are deeply convinced that we must restore

the primacy of political leadership in our globalized society.

We must endeavour without hidden agendas to organize a

new world political order. We need stronger and more

coherent United Nations action for economic and social

development, which requires the use of all available global

tools for economic, financial and commercial governance.

This means we must be more determined to restoring the

primacy of policy and no longer to permit democratic

legitimacy to be circumvented or even flouted by selfish or

speculative interests. The rights of peoples must always

prevail over the power of money.

Belgium will support United Nations efforts to restore

the Organization's mission to protect against the

unacceptable side-effects of globalization. In that spirit, my

country attaches great importance to the success of the

coming Millennium Assembly. In that context, Belgium

is pleased that it will serve as host to the Third United

Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in

the spring of 2001, which will bring together in Brussels

all development partners. We hope that this major event

will lead to a renewed commitment to the integration of

these countries in the world economy on the basis of

concrete and quantifiable objectives. The Belgian

Government, which recently came into office, has clearly

expressed its political will gradually to increase our

funding of bilateral partnerships and cooperation. We

shall pay particular attention to the quality and the

coherent implementation of the projects we sponsor.

I express the wish that this Assembly session be

conducted under the banner of Africa. Your stimulating

opening statement, Mr. President, and the addresses by

President Mbeki of South Africa and by President

Bouteflika of Algeria, sent a strong message in that

regard. We Belgians have a traditional interest in the

political, economic and development prospects of Central

Africa. Belgium must reestablish the bonds with that

region which history and experience have bestowed upon

it. This also implies responsibilities which my

Government will endeavour to shoulder in a responsible

and coherent manner. I am thinking in particular of the

twofold task of the United Nations as an organization

both for the maintenance of peace and for the promotion

of development. I also have in mind human rights issues,

of which my Government is particularly aware.

Against this backdrop, the new Belgian Government

has placed cooperation with Central Africa at the top of

its agenda. To us, it is important that peace and stability

should return to Central Africa. The Lusaka Ceasefire

Agreement offers hope. It requires the political will of the

various parties concerned to address the root causes of the

present conflict and to seek solutions at a regional level.

A significant effort by the international community will

be necessary to encourage and support them. My country

will do its share, and will intensify its direct contacts and

its financial support. Belgium has responded to the appeal

of the Security Council by placing liaison officers at the

disposal of the Secretary-General. They will be deployed

in accordance with Security Council resolution 1258

(1999) of 6 August 1999.

It goes without saying that we fully respect the wish

of African leaders that they should find their own political

solutions to the conflicts that undermine the continent.

But this can imply no ambiguity about the roles of the

Security Council and of the General Assembly. Nor does

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it mean that the rest of the world should refrain from

action: achieving peace in the Great Lakes region will

require tremendous efforts and resources.

Here we must think about concluding a true

partnership pact with the countries of Central Africa.

Inspired by the Stability Pact for the Balkans, this would

form part of a genuine strategy for cooperation among

countries. With the support of the major financial

institutions, such a pact could revitalize the economic

mechanisms of partner countries and reinvigorate their

social and democratic development. We believe such s

partnership pact should be based on the voluntary and

mutually respectful cooperation of each African and non-

African signatory country and should in no way be

construed as an attempt at neo-colonial domineering of that

part of the world.

Other regions of Africa deserve more attention and

effort on the part of the international community. I think in

particular of the bloody conflict which has plunged Angola

into unspeakable humanitarian tragedy. I also think of the

war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which must be prevented

from extending into Somalia. In Sierra Leone, the efforts of

neighbouring countries, which Belgium and other partners

have supported, give reason for optimism. We also hope

that Guinea-Bissau will regain civil peace. But much

remains to be done to improve the situation of the peoples

of southern Sudan and of Somalia.

Whatever the media's focus, now turned towards other

parts of the world, it is important that we do not forget the

suffering of men, women and especially children of those

countries of Africa, who aspire to education, health and

development. The new international policies, based more on

balance and on the sharing of prosperity, should be directed

towards them, too.

I turn briefly to North Africa. The presidency of the

European Union recalled that the Maghreb countries are

experiencing significant growth. They remain an essential

partner for Europe and for world peace, prosperity and

development. Economic, social, cultural and political ties

with the southern Mediterranean basin will have to be

strengthened in the coming months and years.

I also hope that the international Community will fulfil

its commitment to support the Middle East peace process.

There, too, it will be a matter of releasing the financial and

human resources to ensure the economic, social and

democratic development of the various regions and peoples

who are committed to peace. My country is ready to

respond to calls for cooperation in this regard.

There is another region where the United Nations

has been called upon to play a crucial and difficult role.

The Kosovo crisis has implications for the security of my

country and Europe as a whole. It also obliges us to ask

a sensitive question about the limits to the right of the

international community to intervene in the internal affairs

of a State.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

intervention has appreciably reinforced the idea that moral

and ethical considerations are in the process of

overshadowing the traditional concept of national

sovereignty in international relations. If there is one

lesson for our Organization to learn from the twentieth

century, it is that for no State can the massacre of its own

people be considered an “internal affair”, under any

pretext. This legal formalism would ultimately amount to

admitting that, as the head of the United Nations Interim

Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Bernard

Kouchner has said, it would be “legitimate, although not

elegant, to massacre one's own people”.

Yet the Security Council is well-equipped to deal

with massive violations of human rights. Article 42 of the

United Nations Charter allows the Council to qualify such

violations as a threat to international peace and security

and to authorize armed intervention, as it has on several

occasions — for example, in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991; in

Somalia in 1992; in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994; and

in Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1997.

If the Security Council could not fully play its role

at the beginning of the Kosovo crisis, this was due less to

a divergence of views between States over the essence of

the problem than because there was a rift between the

advocates of the right of humanitarian intervention and

the defenders of the traditional legal system, which

regards national sovereignty as the absolute foundation of

international relations. My country deeply regrets that a

potential double veto constituted an insurmountable

obstacle that was inappropriate given the extreme urgency

of the situation. We hope that resorting to force without

the Council's approval will not constitute a precedent. The

world needs an international legal order that prevails over

the law of the jungle. In this respect, we all hope that

resolution 1244 (1999) signals a return to international

legality.

17

Belgium welcomes the decisive attitude of the Security

Council regarding East Timor. We hope for a speedy

restoration of normality there, with the return of its

inhabitants, reconstruction of the country and the

establishment of a state of law resulting from the expressed

will of its people.

Here it is opportune to recall the urgent need for the

international community to provide itself with the tools

needed to prevent and punish barbaric acts. We need a

tribunal charged with prosecuting those responsible for the

gravest crimes affecting the whole international community.

The adoption in Rome of the Statute of the International

Criminal Court is an important landmark. I appeal to all

States to sign and ratify it so that the Court can start to

operate as soon as possible. Belgium's ratification of the

Statute is imminent. This new tribunal must be endowed

with the human and material means necessary for the

accomplishment of its mission.

This leads me to the issue of United Nations reform,

and primarily the reform of the Security Council.

For six years a Working Group under the guidance of

the President of the General Assembly has attempted, with

more or less success, to ascertain which reforms would

make it possible to re-gild the coat of arms of the Security

Council. In spite of the efforts of successive Presidents,

little progress has been made. Nevertheless, the scope of

the issue and possible improvements have been identified.

I believe that new momentum can come only from a new

determination on the part of our Governments.

In the view of my country, the Security Council is an

anachronistic reflection of the world of 1946. In 53 years

the number of independent countries has grown fourfold,

and new great Powers can, whether on economic,

demographic or geopolitical grounds, legitimately claim a

larger share of international responsibility.

The reasons for reform are evident. Lack of it,

continuance of the status quo and opposition to change

involve the following dangers.

Countries which are legitimate candidates for a

permanent seat on the Security Council, frustrated in their

ambitions, will be less inclined to contribute to the

collective effort to maintain peace, prevent conflict and give

multilateral development aid. Equally, other countries,

unable to justifiably claim a permanent seat, will be

deprived of participation in shouldering global

responsibilities, because of their number and the lack of

objective rotation criteria. That will bring about a loss of

representativeness and legitimacy, and ultimately of the

Council's authority.

My country chairs a group of 10 Member States

seeking a solution that can command the broadest

possible support. In spite of the obstacles, we intend to

persevere.

The reforms that we are considering are not limited

to the Security Council; they also aim at rendering the

machinery of the United Nations more effective and

efficient. I pay tribute to Secretary-General Kofi Annan,

who has thrown himself into the task with great

determination.

The United Nations continues to be an indispensable

Organization. It must be strengthened so that it can carry

out the tasks and responsibilities given it by the Charter.

Reform is therefore essential to strengthen the

mechanisms for the solidarity and harmonious

development to which we all aspire.

This reform must be accompanied by a sound

financial outlook. There has been no improvement over

the last 12 months; this situation must be redressed.

Belgium, like the many other States which pay their

contributions on time and unconditionally, calls for all

Member States to do the same. It will be understood, of

course, that here I am looking particularly towards

Washington. Belgium, a friend and ally of the United

States, reaffirms that it is essential that that country play

its role in the United Nations. We all need the United

States, but it must shoulder its responsibilities, including

its financial responsibilities, within our Organization.

So far I have mostly spoken of what is not working.

But there are many areas where progress, even

considerable progress, is being made. The Organization

has played a considerable role in giving an ethical

dimension to the criteria governing international relations.

My country welcomes this. As the first victim of

chemical weapons — gas used on the battlefields of the

Yser — Belgium was a passionate advocate of the

process that led to the conclusion and the implementation

of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Similarly, we are

supporting the efforts to combat biological and

bacteriological weapons and the fight to abolish anti-

personnel mines. We are also presently engaged in efforts

to reduce the spread of small arms.

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The anarchistic accumulation of small arms and the

scourge of anti-personnel mines remain among the most

acute problems at this close of the century. These weapons

exacerbate conflicts and are instruments of death and terror,

in Africa as well as in Asia, Latin America and the

Balkans. Nor do the societies of Western Europe and North

America escape this cancer, the full extent of which has yet

to be felt.

Several initiatives have been taken to tackle these

problems, and my country was fully involved in them. By

way of example I would like to mention the Brussels

conference of October 1998 and the Code of Conduct and

the common action of the European Union, as well as our

participation in and financial support for the expert groups

set up by the Secretary-General.

We will continue our policy of prevention and

reduction with regard to accumulations of small arms, as

well as our fight for the abolition of anti-personnel mines.

In general, in the appropriate forums we will continue

to take initiatives to promote arms control and disarmament.

I am thinking, for example, of the reinforcement of the

Biological Weapons Convention, limitations on arms-

trafficking, the intensification of the fight against the

violation of embargoes on weapons transfers and the fight

against the increase of nuclear arsenals.

From economic and social development to

disarmament or humanitarian intervention, there is a central

theme that underlies all our actions: human rights. It has

become clearer and clearer in the past few years that human

rights are intertwined with the promotion of international

peace and security, economic prosperity, sustainable

development and social justice.

In all the reforms of the activities and the structures of

the United Nations that have been carried out with the

impetus of the Secretary-General, the promotion of human

rights is a cross-cutting theme involving all the

organizations and agencies that operate on a global scale.

Belgium supports this global and integrated approach

without reservations; but the task is immense. Thus, it is in

the interest of the United Nations to ensure the

collaboration of regional organizations, whose competencies

and potential in this field can help in the achievement of

these common objectives.

The inaugural address of the new Belgian Government

unequivocally put human rights at the top of its agenda and

announced its intention of pursuing an active policy

within all the relevant international organizations.

I would like to pay particular homage to our

Secretary-General, whose patience and tact have often

made the difference in extremely difficult circumstances.

My Government remains a steadfast supporter of all his

initiatives to prepare our Organization for the challenges,

known and unknown, that lie ahead in the next century.

Through the Secretary-General I would like to pay

special tribute to the United Nations personnel, and

particularly to all those who died on the field of honour

in humanitarian or peacekeeping missions. Every year the

list of victims gets longer. My country appeals to the

global conscience to respect United Nations personnel and

to ensure that crimes against them do not go unpunished.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope that the actions of the

Secretary-General will make our Organization more

credible and more effective, for the United Nations

remains the indispensable universal instrument to achieve

our common goals. It is a beacon in an increasingly

interdependent world, a source of hope for the Yaguines

and Fodés of all the continents.