Burkina Faso, 2005

Burkina Faso is delighted to see this

important session of the General Assembly being

presided over by an illustrious son of a great country,

Sweden, with which we have maintained exemplary

and fruitful relations of friendship and cooperation for

several decades.

I hasten to assure the President of the full

cooperation of my delegation. It is also my pleasure to

pay a tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Jean Ping, whose

talents as a seasoned and effective diplomat we have

been able to appreciate throughout the fifty-ninth

session of the General Assembly.

I would like to associate in this tribute the

Secretary-General, a man of great vision, who has been

the architect of this new United Nations that we have

so earnestly sought and who has had the courage to lay

its foundations.

The current session will receive specific notice in

the annals of the United Nations. Apart from its

coinciding with both the midterm review of the

Millennium Development Goals and the reform of the

Organization, this session is also being held at a

watershed in world history and international relations.

In Africa, despite the constant efforts of States

and regional groupings, the persistence of numerous

conflicts and hot spots continues to be a subject of

major concern. I am thinking particularly of the

situation in the Great Lakes Region, Darfur, Somalia

and Côte d’Ivoire. In the Middle East, the struggle for

survival is the daily battle of the Palestinian people. It

is our conviction that only the strict implementation of

the Road Map will make peace possible in that sorely

tried region.

The numerous terrorist acts throughout the world

claim our attention and remind us of how vulnerable

we are in the face of terrorism. We must, henceforth,

realize that no strategy, no matter how energetic it

might be, will be able to wipe out this scourge, unless

it attacks the underlying causes, which are injustice,

exclusion, humiliation and poverty. It is quite obvious

that desperate behaviour stems from those sources.

More than ever, the quest for democracy, good

governance and respect for human rights has become

part and parcel of the daily behaviour of peoples and

nations. It is this vision that makes it so necessary that

unprecedented reform be carried out of the United

Nations, which, 60 years after its creation, is duty

bound to take full account of the new challenges and

new problems that have arisen. In this connection, once

again we should welcome the Secretary-General’s

lucidity and farsightedness, whose report “In Larger

Freedom” (A/59/2005) gives us a thought-provoking

framework, indicating that comprehensive and

thorough reform is essential for our Organization.

Furthermore, the African position on this reform,

particularly that relating to the Security Council, is

now well known. Burkina Faso is convinced that

justice must be done to Africa and has fully joined the

other members of the African Union to formulate a

common platform that will make it possible for Africa

to reclaim without hesitation its legitimate place in the

essential United Nations decision-making bodies.

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Nevertheless, however committed and however

passionate our debate is on the reform of the United

Nations, it is of paramount importance that we give

even greater priority to the question of development.

Speaking of development, as is so aptly pointed

out in the final document of the High-level Meeting

that we have just adopted, it is not so much promises

and commitments that are lacking but rather their

diligent and consistent fulfilment, given the urgency

and acuteness of the problems we face. Under these

circumstances, Burkina Faso willingly associates itself

with all activities that promote genuine international

solidarity.

That is why we have associated ourselves with

President Lula da Silva’s anti-hunger initiative. That is

also why we support President Jacques Chirac’s

international solidarity contribution initiative involving

an airline ticket levy, which is aimed at helping to

finance the struggle against AIDS, tuberculosis and

malaria; Prime Minister Tony Blair’s International

Finance Facility; Qatar’s Fund for Development and

Humanitarian Assistance; and President George W.

Bush’s Millennium Challenge Account, of which my

country has just become a beneficiary.

Burkina Faso also welcomes the G-8’s recent

decision to cancel the multilateral debts of a number of

developing countries. We hope that additional

countries will be included on that list.

There can be no doubt that trade relations

between industrialized and developing countries

continue to be marred by inequality — even inequity. It

is therefore essential to recall the need to respect the

rules of the multilateral trading system, which are the

foundation of the World Trade Organization.

It should therefore be clear why Burkina Faso

continues to demand an end to the unfair export

subsidies of the countries of the North, particularly as

concerns cotton.

Burkina Faso is a staunch proponent of

democracy, good governance, respect for human rights,

and peace and development in Africa and throughout

the world. In that context, it is actively involved in

peacekeeping operations in Africa and in other regions.

Furthermore, my country, which currently holds the

chairmanship of the Community of Sahelo-Saharan

States and of the International Organization of La

Francophonie, is proud to serve the cause of regional

integration and of international brotherhood and

solidarity.

We believe that working for peace also means

respecting international conventions. We therefore

believe it to be our duty to discharge our international

obligations by acceding to most of the relevant

agreements and treaties, such as the Comprehensive

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which Burkina Faso has

signed and ratified. I should like to take this

opportunity to encourage other countries to do likewise

in order to speed up the coming into force of that legal

instrument, whose importance for world peace and

stability is fully evident.

I hardly need recall that the current session’s

leitmotif is the democratization of the United Nations.

It is therefore rather difficult to understand how we can

continue to disregard the rights of 23 million

Taiwanese people. The time has come to deal justly

with that people, which for decades now has

demonstrated its commitment to democracy, peace and

international solidarity.

Today more than ever, the fate of humankind is in

our hands. Moving in concert, in the same direction

and inspired by the same principles, we must assume

our new common responsibility: to build a world in

larger freedom, with development, security and dignity

for all.