Burkina Faso, 1995

On behalf of the Government and the people of

Burkina Faso, permit me to convey to you, Mr. President,

my sincere congratulations on your well-deserved election

to the presidency of this historic session of the General

Assembly.

Your country, Portugal, has ties of friendship and

cooperation with my own, based on the noble ideals of the

Charter, and it has always worked to promote friendship

and solidarity among peoples. Your election is therefore a

recognition of your personal skills and qualities and also a

well-deserved tribute to your country. I am certain that the

other members of the Bureau will place their recognized

skills at your disposal so that, together, you may guide the

work of this session successfully.

I wish also to convey our warmest congratulations and

gratitude to my brother and friend, Foreign Minister Amara

Essy, of Côte d’Ivoire, for the remarkable work he did as

President at the forty-ninth session. With his tact and

discretion he gave a tremendous impetus to the work of our

Organization throughout the year.

Lastly, let me once again pay a well-deserved tribute

to our Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who

has, ever since taking office as head of the Organization,

been working side by side with us to give real content to

the basic commitments embodied in the Charter. The

Agenda for Peace and the Agenda for Development he has

produced and the consideration they have been given since

their appearance have, we believe, been instrumental in

ensuring that mankind, now and in future years, will enjoy

an environment of peace, security and prosperity.

The creation of the United Nations 50 years ago

awakened tremendous hopes for mankind, which had, in

the space of a single generation, suffered from two

particularly savage wars with consequences that sorely

affected the entire world and for which all peoples paid

a heavy toll.

The ambitious programme of the Organization’s

founding fathers was to ensure for the future collective

security, peace among nations and the harmonious

development of peoples.

Fifty years after that profession of faith, the record

continues to reflect the contradictions and antagonisms

that undermine our own States. However, no Organization

has so successfully embodied mankind’s hopes for a

better world.

Admittedly, conflicts continue to exist and

development seems more than ever a fantasy. However,

thanks to the concerted action of States, the world has

experienced no widespread conflict. Indeed, whenever a

threat to world peace has arisen, the United Nations has

been able to bring machinery to bear to limit the

destructive effects.

Thus, we have faith in the United Nations even

though the half century through which mankind has lived

since its creation has been experienced many ups and

downs. But what would it have been like had the United

Nations not existed to channel activities for peace, to

oversee the post-war period and the cold war, to give its

moral sanction to the emancipation of peoples, to

coordinate assistance for economic and social

development and to set a moral standard and order

relations among nations and human beings?

Those are important achievements, but they ought

not make us forgetful of the fact that on the eve of the

Organization’s fiftieth anniversary there are still many

hotbeds of tension in many parts of the world.

In Europe, the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

notwithstanding some glimmers of hope on the horizon,

continues to cause concern to all States. We hope that the

talks now under way among the parties concerned will

lead to a comprehensive settlement of the situation.

In the Middle East the prospects opened up by the

Declaration of Principles signed at Washington on 13

September 1993 between the Government of Israel and

the Palestine Liberation Organization continue to yield

5

promising results. Despite the extremists of every stamp

who are incapable of accepting alternatives to violence and

death, negotiations have not been broken off. The signing

at Washington on 28 September 1995 of the Agreement

negotiated at Taba on a timetable for the second phase of

the Israeli Army’s withdrawal from the West Bank and the

transfer of additional powers to the Palestinian Authority is

a further step in the right direction. Burkina Faso

encourages this pattern of negotiation, which led to the

Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel of 26 October 1994

and to the opening of talks on the Golan Heights between

Israel and Syria. We also encourage talks on the Lebanese-

Israeli relationship.

In Asia, Burkina Faso welcomes the spirit of dialogue

and cooperation that prevails between the two Koreas and

between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and

the United States of America. We would note, however,

that a country like the Republic of China in Taiwan has not

been able to be among us again this year, at a time when

we are to celebrate a historic event.

With respect to the question of Jammu and Kashmir,

Burkina Faso urges India and Pakistan, two fraternal

neighbouring countries, to find a solution to that problem

through bilateral negotiations.

The African continent is facing many problems with

deep and complex roots. Many African countries continue

to be destabilized by savage conflicts that are causing

millions of refugees and displaced persons to take to the

roads and surge across international borders, where their

precarious living conditions demand our attention.

In Central Africa, the Great Lakes region remains a

powder-keg that can explode at any moment. The miasma

of the tragedy in Rwanda can infect other regions if the

problem of refugees and displaced persons is not very

rapidly and correctly settled. We urge the Government and

people of Rwanda to continue to mobilize against

extremism and to seek genuine national reconciliation based

on justice, equity and tolerance as well as on the country’s

economic and social reconstruction.

In Burundi, notwithstanding the efforts of the

international community, the situation continues to be

disturbing. It seems evident that that country will enjoy

peace and security only when there is a clear and manifest

resolve on the part of its political leaders to guide their

country to peace and concord without hegemonistic designs

or hidden ethnic agenda. In that respect the Government

Convention signed on 10 September 1994 is a starting-

point that should be respected.

The international community has a very great

responsibility in this region. Rwanda, Burundi and the

countries of asylum have an urgent and pressing need for

assistance. Thus, the United Nations Conference on peace,

security and stability in the Great Lakes region should be

convened as soon as possible so as to give the situation

all the attention it deserves.

For its part, Burkina Faso is contributing to the

process by participating, on the one hand, in the

Organization of African Unity Observation Mission in

Burundi while, on the other hand, under the auspices of

the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees, it is participating in the maintenance of security

in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire.

In Somalia, the warlords continue to wreak havoc in

the country, unmoved by the suffering of the Somali

people. We can only hope that as events unfold and

lessons are learned from experience they will come to

understand the vanity and incongruity of their behaviour

and that they will reexamine their course of action and

avert disaster for their country.

In Sudan, Burkina Faso supports the work being

done by the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and

Development to find a solution to the fratricidal conflict

that has divided that country for so many years. We

welcome the steps in that direction being taken by

President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya.

In West Africa the determination of the States of the

subregion and the efforts made to develop understanding

and some confidence between the factions in Liberia have

led to the signing at Abuja, in Nigeria, on 19 August

1995, of an agreement that offers prospects of peace for

Liberia. Burkina Faso, as a member of the Committee of

Nine on Liberia of the Economic Community of West

African States (ECOWAS), was privileged to act as

witness to that Agreement between the Liberian factions.

Like the other members of ECOWAS, it will be vigilant

in ensuring that its terms are strictly complied with until

the general elections scheduled for 1996 are held.

Sierra Leone, a neighbour of Liberia, has for a

number of years endured a cycle of violence that has

inflicted unspeakable suffering on the civilian population.

At a time when Liberia is committing itself to the path of

6

peace, we urge those involved in the conflict in Sierra

Leone to do the same, by opting for negotiations.

Burkina Faso welcomes the positive developments in

the situation in Angola. We hope that the spirit of dialogue

that now prevails through the Lusaka Protocol of 20

September 1994 will enable that long-suffering country to

return to the path of peace, democracy and development.

I want to hail the work of the United Nations and the

Organization of African Unity (OAU), which are making

enormous efforts to settle conflicts. We are firmly

convinced that peace is indivisible and that the United

Nations remains its primary champion throughout the

world, and especially in Africa. More than ever before,

Africa is seeking its proper course. While there is universal

agreement on the need for democratic regimes, good

governance and respect for human rights, the paths we must

travel to achieve those things are tortuous and difficult. Yet,

in our view, crises stemming from the transition to

democracy will be quickly overcome. The real grounds for

concern lie rather in the dangerous implosion we see today

in African societies that are based on poorly managed

democratic processes and chaotic governance and, above

all, whose populations suffer grinding poverty.

Here Africa must face up to its own realities. Without

questioning the need for international solidarity or the

primacy of the United Nations in conflict settlement,

Burkina Faso, like other African countries, knows that

Africa must be the first to invest in the solution of its

problems. That is what it is doing, without waiting for

adequate means to be provided. It is in that spirit that

Burkina Faso and its leader, President Blaise Compaoré,

have been supporting the efforts of our brethren in

neighbouring countries of the subregion and elsewhere on

the continent.

It was also in that spirit that Burkina Faso joined the

other countries of the Economic Community of West

African States (ECOWAS) in working towards the

agreement between the contending factions in Liberia. And

it is in that same spirit that Burkina Faso supports the

Mechanism of the Organization of African Unity for the

Prevention, Management and Resolution of Conflicts in

Africa, which is an African response to new crisis situations

on the continent.

In short, Africa has its problems. To be sure, it has

received bilateral support from members of the international

community. But on the multilateral level, unfortunately, all

the global programmes adopted to date have been

implemented only in a timid and inadequate manner. The

most recent of these, including the United Nations New

Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s and

the Programme of Action for the Least Developed

Countries for the 1990s, are suffering terribly from a lack

of financial resources and, to be frank, from a lack of

political will on the part of the majority of our partners

from the developed world. In this connection, our

apprehensions were confirmed by the results of the recent

high-level intergovernmental meeting to undertake a mid-

term review of the implementation of the Programme of

Action for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s.

Meanwhile, our debt burden has obstructed

productive new investment, and deteriorating terms of

trade have cancelled out earnings from commodities.

More and more, Africa is losing its share of the

international market, ultimately facing inescapable

marginalization at a time when the globalization of the

world economy is becoming apparent. But globalization

demands solidarity and interdependence. We must make

a choice: if wealth does not spill over borders, then

poverty and destitution will.

One of the problems calling for world solidarity is

that of the environment, and especially the fight against

drought and desertification. When, faced with the great

droughts of the 1970s in Western Africa, Burkina Faso

mounted a campaign to combat this scourge, the

international community did not seem to understand its

importance. Today, protecting the environment is one of

the priority tasks of States. The Rio Conference on

Environment and Development, the June 1994 adoption of

the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification

in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or

Desertification, Particularly in Africa, and the entry into

force of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the

Framework Convention on Climate Change have truly

given fresh impetus to greater awareness in this area. But

what good are all these instruments without the resources

needed to fight the evils they are meant to attack?

Burkina Faso made a substantial contribution to the

drafting of the United Nations Convention to Combat

Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious

Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, and

hopes that it will quickly enter into force, to give even

greater momentum to the efforts of our countries within

the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control

in the Sahel, and, with respect to East Africa, within the

Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and

Development.

7

On the eve of its fiftieth anniversary the United

Nations stands at a crossroads. It must turn away from

cold-war reflexes and stride resolutely towards the horizon

of the twenty-first century. It must adapt quickly to the new

context of a more open, globalized world, and must from

now on accept the clear determination of all States to

participate in world affairs. In this context, the United

Nations needs to make the changes that will enable it to

better profit from the contributions that States and regions

are ready to make.

But the most biggest challenge facing the United

Nations is undoubtedly that of the poverty and destitution

that still afflict one fifth of mankind. The world of

solidarity and brotherhood that we want to build will be

possible only if all human beings can live in dignity. In that

connection, we have been working for five years on

principles and objectives for children, women, the

environment, human rights, population and social

development. Let us implement them.

It is with that hope that we approach the work of the

fiftieth session of the General Assembly. On behalf of

Burkina Faso, I reaffirm our complete devotion to the noble

ideals of the United Nations.