Bangladesh, 1999

This year is very

special to Bangladesh at the United Nations. It is the

twenty-fifth anniversary of Bangladesh’s admission to this

“Parliament of Man”. I bring greetings from the people of

Bangladesh.

It is gratifying to us that on this twenty-fifth

anniversary, we have you, Sir, presiding over the General

Assembly. You are a freedom fighter. You lead a country

which was liberated in recent times, and yet, in its short

membership in the United Nations, it has contributed so

much to the work of the Organization.

We convey our sincere appreciation to Foreign

Minister Didier Opertti of Uruguay, our President during

the last session, for his excellent work. I would also like to

welcome the three new members of the General Assembly:

Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga. We sense their joy and

excitement, as we experienced 25 years ago.

I convey our sincerest thanks and gratitude to the

Secretary-General and to all Member States for their

support and assistance in helping us overcome the aftermath

of the disastrous floods that hit our country last year. The

magnitude of the disaster was unprecedented in our history.

The support of the international community was a source of

inspiration and encouragement to our people in facing the

challenges of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

I stand here today with pride and satisfaction. The

Father of our Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur

Rahman, 25 years ago delivered our first address to the

General Assembly as head of Government of the

sovereign and independent State of Bangladesh. His

message on that day expressed the nation’s gratitude to

the international community for standing by our people in

the darkest days of oppression; to apprise the international

community of our great struggle for freedom and self-

determination; to articulate to the world our faith in

democracy, justice, freedom and human rights; and to

spell out the basic elements of our foreign policy.

Despite the political upheavals in the country since

then, none ventured to alter the foreign policy guidelines

laid down by the Father of our Nation. We were thus able

to contribute positively to the United Nations by serving

in several important commissions and executive bodies in

its system and participating actively in United Nations

peacekeeping operations. We were privileged to preside

over the forty-first session of the General Assembly and

to serve one term in a non-permanent seat on the Security

Council.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman carried the

torch of an indomitable people to the United Nations

when he stood at this very rostrum before the General

Assembly in 1974 and said,

“The noble ideals enshrined in the Charter of

the United Nations are the very ideals for

which millions of our people have made the

supreme sacrifice. I know that the souls of our

martyrs join us in pledging that the Bangalee

nation fully commits itself to the building of a

world order in which the aspiration of all men

for peace and justice will be realized.”

(A/PV.2243, para. 2)

Twenty-five years later, I am here to renew that

pledge. In these 25 years we have seen the partnership

between Bangladesh and the United Nations mature. From

our early reconstruction needs for national development

to steps for empowering people and establishing social

justice, the United Nations has been with us. We have

also been able to lend support to the strengthening of the

Organization and have contributed in its efforts to

eradicate poverty and disease, maintain peace and security

and support the fulfilment of the rights of the oppressed

and the subjugated. We sincerely hope that the

development of cooperation between Bangladesh and the

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United Nations agencies in our country will be expanded

and strengthened in future years.

Bangladesh has noted with great concern the recent

decline in commitments by donor countries to the United

Nations development system, and to the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP) in particular. Bangladesh

attaches great value to multilateral assistance as a reliable

and trusted source of impartial expertise and urges donor

countries to meet the commitments made in the Executive

Board of UNDP for the multi-year funding framework,

enabling countries such as Bangladesh to plan development

programmes accordingly. Recalling the recent statement of

the G-8 in Cologne, Bangladesh wishes to note with pride

that it is already utilizing over half of the country funds

available from UNDP for programmes relating to improving

governance, which are helping us to address fundamental

constraints to faster development. Now is the time for

donors to recognize the commitment we have made and the

success we have achieved by increasing resources for these

valuable programmes.

Within months of his historic address to this world

body in 1974, my father and the Father of our Nation,

along with my mother and three brothers, the youngest one

being 10 years of age, were brutally assassinated by a

group of murderous and misguided military officers on 15

August 1975. Amongst those killed were my uncles, my

two sisters-in-law, two cousins and a host of other relatives.

My sister and I were the only survivors, as we were out of

the country at the time. Coups and counter-coups followed

one another at regular intervals, leading to military rule of

one sort or another. I was forced to live in exile from the

late 1970s to the early 1980s. I began to struggle from exile

against the autocratic rule. After coming home in 1991, I

stepped up that struggle for the restoration of people’s right

to vote and their right to freedom and to food. I was

harassed and arrested by the authoritarian regimes, and

several attempts were made on my life. But nothing could

deter me either from my path or from my goal, the

restoration of democracy. The movement grew in strength,

and finally victory was on the side of the people. Today

democracy has taken firm root in Bangladesh for all time

to come.

We have strengthened the parliamentary system. Prime

Minister’s question time has been introduced. The session

is televised and broadcast live. To institutionalize

democracy and make it sustainable, we have ensured the

people’s right to vote by introducing the institution of a

non-party, caretaker Government to be formed three months

before each election. My struggle now is to guarantee the

people’s right to food; in other words, economic

emancipation to a sustainable livelihood. I am driven by

a desire to create a just environment, not only for my

own people but also for all of humankind.

The creation of the United Nations was aimed at

sparing the world from the scourge of another world war

and to ensure that human beings are guaranteed their

basic rights. During its more than 50 years of existence,

it has stood the test of time. National and internationally,

we have taken peace and development as two vital and

integrally linked objectives. We have taken steps to foster

peace regionally. Immediately after it came into office,

my Government took the initiative to solve the Ganges

water-sharing issue with our neighbour, India. We solved

this long outstanding issue successfully in December

1996. I visited India and Pakistan following the nuclear

tests in South Asia and urged that we all must do our

utmost to deserve peace in our region and devote our

limited resources to economic and social development.

An accord was concluded in December 1997

between the Government and representatives of the tribal

people living in the south-eastern part of our country

without third-party mediation. The accord brought peace

after more than two decades to the strife-torn area of the

Chittagong Hill Tracts. Peace now reigns in the area: the

former insurgents surrendered their arms and returned to

peaceful lives; all 63,000 refugees from across the border

have returned; and there have been no incidents of

violence there since the signing of the accord.

We have no illusions that the key to our

development and progress is directly linked to investment

in our people. Our efforts are now being directed towards

transforming our vast human resources into a productive

force. Our development programmes are targeted on rapid

poverty alleviation. We have adopted policies to

strengthen the socio-economic infrastructure of our

country. We have given priority to the various social

sectors, including education, health care, poverty

alleviation and population growth control, and we have

allocated more than 30 per cent of the budget to the

social sectors with the objective of poverty alleviation,

empowerment and human development. Our programmes

include shelter and sustainable livelihood through the

Ashrayon programme, housing for the poor, health care,

education for the poor, microcredit, old-age pensions,

income transfers to destitute women and targeted poverty

alleviation programmes. This effort towards the economic

emancipation of the people is our preoccupation now: we

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want to build the golden Bengal dreamt of by the father of

our nation.

We have adopted specific policies to ensure equality

between women and men. We have promulgated laws and

set up institutional mechanisms to promote women’s rights,

to ensure that they have choices and opportunities, that

victims are given redress and that stern punishments are

meted out to rapists for their deeds. The effectiveness of

microcredit in empowering women has been phenomenal.

We have also brought women into decision-making at all

levels. During the last local Government elections, more

than 14,000 women were elected to office.

In our foreign policy, we adhere to the principle of

friendship towards all. It is a constitutional requirement to

base our international relations on the principles set out in

the United Nations Charter.

How do we address the critical issues of the new

millennium? We consider peace to be a fundamental human

right to be attained, sustained, promoted and carried

forward at all times. Without development there can be no

peace, and without cooperation, no development. There is

no option, then, but to have genuine cooperation between

the developed and the developing countries for the

eradication of poverty and the fulfilment of the people’s

aspirations for development.

Bangladesh has been the coordinator of the least

developed countries for the last two decades.

We believe strongly that special measures should be

taken by the international community to help these

countries in their efforts to develop and to participate fully

in the global economy. Human rights is the essence of

peace. Unless we ensure that citizens live a life of dignity,

where their rights are secure, we cannot have a just and

peaceful world. This is equally true for communities and

nations. In our region, we have nurtured the South Asian

Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which has

taken many initiatives to improve the lives of the peoples

of the region. At the subregional level, we are cooperating

with Bhutan, Nepal and India in the South Asian

Development Quadrangle.

The United Nations is the only universal body that

deals with all fields of human activity. It has been a

catalyst in many initiatives and has bettered the lives of

people around the world. In the 1990s the United Nations

convened a series of global conferences to address major

challenges facing humankind. They addressed problems

which were beyond the capacity of individual countries to

solve and which called for wide-ranging international

cooperation. I believe that the international community

should ensure coordinated and integrated follow-up for

effective and full implementation of the decisions of those

conferences. In Bangladesh, we have taken concrete

measures in this regard.

We need to ensure that the United Nations can

continue to meet the evolving needs of humankind in the

next century. For that, we must have an effective and

efficient United Nations. I am happy that Bangladesh has

been at the forefront of the adoption of these steps at the

United Nations. In this regard, I would like to put on

record our great appreciation of the Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan. He has made remarkable achievements

in the short time that he has been at the helm of the

United Nations. He fully deserves our wholehearted praise

and support.

There is no denying the fact that the world needs the

United Nations. But we must remember that it is equally

true that the United Nations needs the world. All

countries must do their best to fulfil their commitments to

make the Organization strong and durable. This has been

the endeavour of Bangladesh for the last 25 years.

May Bangladesh live forever. Long live the United

Nations.