Burkina Faso, 2000

Exactly one week ago, the Millennium

Summit was held in this very Hall, in which more than

150 leaders, heads of State and Government took an

active and interactive part.

This Summit, which my delegation wishes to

salute once again, has played a great service in

bringing together so many eminent personalities to

truly take stock of the state of the world through a stark

re-reading of the mission of and the basic strategic

objectives assigned to the United Nations.

What more can be said? How can it be better

said?

The conclusions arrived at by our leaders, which

go to the very substance of the diverse and changing

problems that undermine humanity, frame the items

inscribed on the agenda of the fifty-fifth session. They

also give us the opportunity to strike while the iron is

hot and to embark immediately on their

implementation where it is possible.

In that context, the general debate in progress is a

real challenge; a challenge to stay the course, but also a

challenge to our ability to get down to basics.

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But before I go on, I wish to convey to the

President, on behalf of my delegation, heartfelt warm

congratulations on his election to the presidency of our

Assembly. This election is a well-deserved tribute to

him and his country, Finland, with which Burkina Faso

enjoys an excellent relationship of friendship and

cooperation.

My country is a Bureau member and we wish to

assure the Bureau of our full willingness to cooperate

with it.

Our congratulations also go to His Excellency

Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Minister for Foreign Affairs of

Namibia, on the effectiveness of his guidance of the

previous session of the General Assembly.

I also wish to renew Burkina Faso's appreciation

and support for the work of the Secretary-General, Mr.

Kofi Annan, who guides the work of our world

Organization with courage, lucidity and determination.

The waning millennium will no doubt forever be

etched in the memory of humankind. Unfortunately, it

will be etched in blood, as during it we witnessed, as

virtually powerless bystanders, the rise of slavery,

colonization and racial discrimination; the escalation of

the most atrocious kinds of war; the ongoing

degradation of the environment; and the deterioration

of the terms of trade. But it will also be etched in gold,

for we witnessed prodigious scientific and

technological progress and economic and industrial

growth, even though the structure for sharing their

fruits was slow moving and unfair.

No continent more than Africa, no people more

than Africans, bear more heavily today the stigma of

the scourges they have suffered, which will for ever

mark them, or of their sharing but little if

anything of the benefits of progress. My delegation

therefore believes that we should embrace that history

together and in a spirit of solidarity, agree to be the

living and collective memory of it and learn its lessons

so that we may strengthen our capacity to solve with

greater efficiency and equity the problems of security,

peace, development and a better quality of life that

make up the core of our priorities. Whether that

involves resolving the smouldering or open conflicts

that continue to decimate our populations and to force

them to flee by the thousands into exile, or whether it

entails looking for lasting solutions to the problems of

underdevelopment, the unbearable debt burden, the

AIDS pandemic, malaria or natural and environmental

disasters, we must, whatever the cost continually go

back to our sources and history.

I therefore make a solemn appeal to the

conscience of the peoples of the United Nations to

prevent hegemony and domination from being the

hallmark of our Organization during the third

millennium. That would be a betrayal of this history,

and make our collective memory a selective memory.

As the Assembly is aware, despite the progress

made during the second millennium, there still remain

questions and concerns among developing countries,

particularly those in Africa. Their questions and

concerns are not caused solely by the acceleration and

unprecedented worsening of their continued

impoverishment. Unfortunately, they also stem from

the fact that today, at the dawn of the twenty-first

century, international relations continue to be based

essentially on force. That sad fact is made worse

because, with the end of the cold war, we are passively

and almost with a resigned attitude witnessing a single

mind-set developing.

As most heads of State and Government have said

from this rostrum, the time has come to undertake the

necessary reforms at the national, regional and

international levels to build a more just, equitable,

unified and fraternal world. Let us hope that the basic

challenge, I would even call it heroism, of the new

millennium will be to move forward together in

solidarity, calmly and democratically towards

globalization while we remain ourselves that is,

retain our intrinsic values and our dignity as free

individuals.

With regard to the United Nations, we are

convinced that making it more democratic is absolutely

necessary. That democratization must include a

thorough reform of the decision-making processes of

the system, and of the Security Council in particular,

and should go hand in hand with giving greater

attention to development issues, particularly through a

more thorough examination of the idea of a

development council, as proposed by the Millennium

Summit. It also means making the Organization truly

universal. In this regard, Burkina Faso welcomes the

admission of Tuvalu as the 189th Member State. We

also think it is unfair to continue to marginalize the

Republic of China, a country that meets all the

requirements of a sovereign State to take its place in

the United Nations.

35

Throughout its history, and particularly since the

1990s, Burkina Faso, learning from its own

experience experience grounded in a culture of

dialogue and negotiation has based its contribution

on the quest for solutions to national and subregional

conflicts on the basis of dialogue and agreement. We

have done so because we are convinced that dialogue

and agreement which are certainly not the weapons

of the weak are the only way to reach lasting peace.

We are therefore very surprised and disappointed

that for some time now my country has been forced to

confront accusations and all sorts of completely

baseless recriminations. Is this the result of a deliberate

desire to harm, or simply of misunderstanding? It is

wrong and unfair that in efforts to find lasting solutions

to conflicts one should yield to the easy temptation of

accusation, recrimination, condemnation and exclusion.

Burkina Faso has never hesitated to demonstrate its

good faith, to show its willingness to cooperate with

the United Nations and the international community, or

to express its desire for transparency.

That is why we set up an inter-ministerial

committee on Angola and Sierra Leone to follow up

and monitor implementation of the sanctions decreed

by the Security Council. We also invited the Council to

undertake any investigations in Burkina Faso that it

deemed necessary to find the truth. Two United

Nations delegations therefore recently visited the

country. Their leaders stated that they had

accomplished their missions freely and peacefully.

Similarly, in the face of the recent surprising, to

put it mildly, allegations by Guinea, we would like to

reassure that beloved, fraternal country, as well as the

international community, that Burkina Faso had no

part, directly or indirectly, in those unfortunate events.

We repeat our readiness to welcome or support any

initiative that could shed light on this matter, which we

find profoundly distressing.

At the national level, Burkina Faso is resolutely

continuing to consolidate and anchor the democratic

process begun in 1990. That process is essentially

characterized by the regular and systematic holding of

elections at the municipal, legislative and presidential

levels, in objective, transparent and fair conditions

recognized by the international community; the

strengthening of public freedoms and the promotion of

human rights; public financing of political parties,

unions and an independent press; recognition of official

status for the opposition; reform of the judicial system

to allow it to play its full role in consolidating and

regulating the rule of law; and strengthening

decentralization and local governance.

Turning to the economy, our Government is

concentrating on a truly unified type of development.

Its priorities are poverty eradication, environmental

protection, food self-sufficiency, and education and

health for all.

We welcome the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries

(HIPC) Debt Initiative, which seeks to reduce the debt

of poor, highly indebted countries, and the election of

our country to that body, which strengthens our anti-

poverty strategy.

At the African level, Burkina Faso has

consistently worked to strengthen good-neighbourly

relations and to promote subregional and regional

integration as well as peace and security.

That is why we are committed to the institutional

stability and the strengthening of the subregional

cooperation or integration organizations of which we

are a member, in particular the West African Economic

and Monetary Union, the Economic Community of

West African States and the Economic Community of

Sahel-Saharan States. We hope that the latter will be

accorded the status of observer at the United Nations.

For that reason we have spared no effort to help

create the African Union, which the African peoples so

fervently desired.

These are the main ideas that Burkina Faso

wanted to share with the international community and

which attest to our unswerving commitment to the

ideals of the United Nations and to our unshakable

faith in our common ability together to forge a better

future a glorious future for the whole of humankind.