Bangladesh, 2011

I warmly

congratulate Mr. Al-Nasser on his well-deserved

election as President of the General Assembly at its

sixty-sixth session. I am confident that under his able

and dynamic stewardship, we will achieve our goals. I

thank former President Joseph Deiss for the success of

the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly. I also

thank Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the wise

selection of the theme “The role of mediation in the

settlement of disputes by peaceful means” for this

year’s general debate.

I take this opportunity to welcome South Sudan

as the 193rd Member of the United Nations and

warmly congratulate the people of the newest State on

attaining their freedom and independence.

I believe that peace is the basis for development.

I also believe that peace prevails when justice prevails.

Therefore, justice at home and abroad is important for

ensuring the peaceful mediation and settlement of

disputes. My father and the father of my nation,

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who espoused

the principles of “friendship towards all, malice

towards none” and “peaceful settlement of disputes”,

also believed in this, and declared it from this rostrum

37 years ago.

Thus, justice for peace found its place in my

Government’s domestic and foreign policy and has

contributed to strengthening Bangladesh’s secular,

democratic and progressive ideals. A strong foundation

in the rule of law has also helped in the peaceful

settlement of disputes with our neighbours and formed

the basis of our participation in United Nations

peacekeeping operations. Emphasis on peaceful

negotiations has also enabled Bangladesh to maintain

an annual gross domestic product growth rate of 6 per

cent, create thousands of jobs, reduce poverty and

expand social safety net schemes to the poor,

disadvantaged, elderly and deprived women.

41 11-51360

The role of the United Nations has changed since

its establishment. The maintenance of international

peace and security now includes the new challenges of

intra-State ethnic strife, terrorism, transnational crimes,

climate change, poverty, energy and water security, as

well as the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

However, the successes of the United Nations have

reinforced the belief that, in the twenty-first century, it

remains the most legitimate and universally accepted

international body with the ability to harness the global

collective will necessary for the peaceful settlement of

disputes through mediation.

Bangladesh therefore commends the Secretary-

General’s report on enhancing mediation and its

support activities (S/2009/189) for promoting the better

use of the United Nations mediation mandate, and

co-sponsored resolution 65/283 on strengthening the

role of mediation in the peaceful settlement of

disputes, conflict prevention and resolution.

To demonstrate its strong commitment to conflict

resolution, Bangladesh has partnered in many United

Nations endeavours for peace, democracy and

development. Our contribution to United Nations

peacekeeping of 102,294 peacekeepers in 52 missions

and 36 countries has sadly led to the loss of the lives of

103 brave Bangladeshis. Our involvement also includes

the first all-women United Nations police unit in Haiti.

As Non-Aligned Movement Coordinator in the

Peacebuilding Commission, Bangladesh is always

advocating in favour of peacebuilding, development

and preventive diplomacy in post-conflict societies.

Unfortunately, we remain woefully underrepresented at

the planning and strategy-making levels of the

Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which should

be promptly redressed. As a member of the Human

Rights Council and the Economic and Social Council,

we conscientiously promote democracy, secularism,

justice and the rule of law, and equal rights for women,

children, minorities and other vulnerable groups. As a

member of the executive bodies of the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations

Population Fund, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Food and

Agriculture Organization, we are committed to setting

global norms and standards in development practices.

Since I believe that justice brings peace, in 1997,

during my previous term as Prime Minister, I mediated

the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord for the

marginalized communities of the Hill Tracts region.

The Accord, which was signed after intense

discussions, ended a 20-year conflict that cost over

20,000 lives. During the same term, I mediated the

signing of the 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty

with neighbouring India. During my current term, this

month we mediated and signed memoranda of

understanding with India on our border demarcation,

an issue that had been pending for the past 64 years,

causing obstructions in the everyday life of my people.

I am committed to settling all our problems with

neighbouring India through discussion.

During my current term and soon after forming

the Government, one of the most dangerous challenges

that I have faced was the mutiny of our border forces,

which took 72 lives. Yet, that time, too, I chose a

mediated settlement, thereby avoiding possible further

loss of life. As a result, I came to believe that there can

be no peace without justice. We have established an

independent International Crimes Tribunal to try those

responsible for war crimes committed during our

liberation war in 1971. Their eventual punishment will

strengthen our democracy and show that the State is

capable of just retribution.

As a State party to the Rome Statute of the

International Criminal Court, we believe in the

Statute’s mandate of bringing perpetrators to justice. I

am fully committed to battling terrorism in all its

forms, having personally suffered from acts of terror.

Here, I recall with profound sadness the brutal

assassination of my father, the first President of

Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,

and 18 of my immediate family members, including

my mother and three brothers, on 15 August 1975. I

also recall the grenade attack on me and my followers

at a peace rally on 21 August 2004, which left 24 dead

and nearly 500 injured. I miraculously escaped but

with permanent loss of hearing.

I often think of all the victims of terrorism,

especially those of the 11 September 2001 attacks in

New York, as well as attacks that have taken place

elsewhere in the world. Indeed, if peace is to prevail,

these terrorists must be brought to justice.

Our Government has a zero-tolerance policy

towards terrorism. Our aim is to break the nexus

between terrorism, extremism and radicalization and

eliminate all of them from Bangladesh, a State party to

all United Nations counter-terrorism conventions. At

the same time, we are strengthening our democratic

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institutions, such as the commissions on elections,

anti-corruption, human rights, information, as well as

our judiciary, legislature and law enforcement

agencies, which are tools for eliminating terrorism and

extremism.

Since justice begets peace and peace is vital for

development, our policies are attuned to ensuring

peoples’ rights. In pursuing the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs), we are also fulfilling our

people’s aspirations. The United Nations Award for

MDG 4 on reducing child mortality, which I received

last year, is a case in point. We are also on track to

achieve MDG 1 on poverty alleviation, MDG 2 on

universal primary education, MDG 3 on gender

equality and MDG 5 on reducing maternal mortality.

Our poverty reduction strategy is in tandem with the

Millennium Development Goals and intends to raise

12 million people out of poverty by 2015.

For development, we have integrated women’s

education into our State policy. There is a saying that

goes, “If you educate a boy, you educate a person; if

you educate a girl, you educate a family and a whole

nation”. Therefore, during our first term from 1996 to

2001, we adopted a national women’s development

policy that has been revised during our current term to

make it more relevant. The policy provides for the

empowerment of women, their participation in

decision-making, their protection, and gender equality.

Education for girls is free up to the twelfth grade, and

steps are on their way to ensure their free tuition until

graduation.

Following the 2008 general elections, women’s

participation in politics increased with their election to

12,828 reserved seats in local Government bodies and

64 members in the national Parliament. We also have

five women Cabinet ministers in charge of agriculture,

home, foreign affairs, women’s and children’s affairs,

and labour. The Opposition Leader, the Deputy Leader,

a Whip and, of course, the Prime Minister are all

women. For the first time in our history, two women

Members of Parliament have been made Chairs of

Parliamentary Standing Committees. Women now

occupy high positions in the Supreme Court, in civil,

police and armed services, and in United Nations

peacekeeping missions. Female business ventures also

receive support from the Small and Medium Enterprise

Foundation.

To achieve our election pledge of a digital

Bangladesh and to make Bangladesh a middle-income

country by 2021, the golden jubilee year of our

independence, we are expanding the reach of

information and communications technology

throughout the country. UNDP Administrator Helen

Clark was with us this year to witness the launching of

e-connectivity through our 4,500 information and

service centres, which provide Internet access to

millions of rural people. We have also set up an

e-centre for rural communities, which connects 8,500

post offices, a high-tech park, e-governance

capabilities and an e-infrastructure-building process.

I believe in that health for all is an essential

precondition for development. Primary health-care

services are delivered through 11,000 community

health centres in rural areas, with each providing

services to 6,000 people. My Government has also

recently started raising awareness about autism and

developmental disorders in children. Last July, we

launched the Global Autism Public Health Initiative in

Dhaka to help those disadvantaged with such disorders.

However, to pursue those efforts and to develop

socio-economic security, least developed countries

(LDCs), such as Bangladesh, need international

support. The support must come from granting us

market access, removing trade barriers, the fulfilment

of overseas development aid and combating climate

change. The commitments made in Istanbul this May

on agriculture, energy, infrastructure, water and

migration would also strengthen the economic stability

of LDCs. It is now time for development partners to

implement the commitments made in Monterrey, Paris

and Brussels before the conclusion of the Doha

Development Round. Support must continue to enable

LDCs to fulfil their Millennium Development Goals.

Such support is especially important for

Bangladesh under the extra tension of climate change.

A metre rise in the sea level due to global warming

would inundate a fifth of our landmass, displacing over

30 million people. That would be the largest

humanitarian crisis in history. In order not to lose time,

we have prepared a 134-point adaptation and

mitigation plan that includes river dredging,

afforestation of 20 per cent of the land, increasing food

production with crop varieties adapted to climate

change, et cetera. We also established the Climate

Change Trust Fund with $300 million from our own

43 11-51360

funds and the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience

Fund with $110 million from donors.

Bangla is spoken by over 300 million people

worldwide. I earnestly appeal to Member States to back

my proposal to declare Bangla one of the official

languages of the United Nations. I also seek their

support for Bangladesh’s annual flagship resolution on

a culture of peace, which I launched in 2000, when I

was Prime Minister for the first time.

Throughout my half-century in politics, I have

always been a crusader of peace. I believe that peace is

achievable by eliminating injustices, which includes

Repression, the absence of the rule of law, inequality,

economic disparity, deprivation, poverty, the

suppression of self-determination, the denial of

secularism and multi-ethnicity, the negligence of equal

rights for women and the marginalized, and the lack of

transparency and accountability of Governments.

Those types of injustices, according to the Uppsala

Conflict Data Programme, led to the loss of more than

5 million lives from 1964 to 2011. I believe that such

deaths could have been avoided by strengthening the

mediation instruments of the United Nations and by

placing people at the centre of peace and development.

In fact, my life experiences have inspired me to

come up with a new peace model, based on the

empowerment of people. It is a multidimensional plan

that champions democracy and places people’s

empowerment at the centre, with six mutually

reinforcing peace multipliers. They are: first, the

eradication of poverty and hunger; secondly, the

reduction of inequality; thirdly, the mitigation of

deprivation; fourthly, the inclusion of excluded

persons; fifthly, the acceleration of human

development; and sixthly, the elimination of terrorism.

I call it the people’s empowerment model. It

reaffirms that all people should be treated equally, and

emphasizes the empowerment of people and the

enhancement of human capabilities for the realization

of peace.

Prosperity is achievable with the removal of

injustice and disempowerment in an environment of

peace. That is possible by individual nations through

sincere implementation of what is right, sometimes

under the guidance of the United Nations. Let us all try

to test that model of people’s empowerment, which I

believe has the potential to transform our world of

7 billion people into one where our future generations

may prosper and live in happiness.

May Bangladesh live forever. Long live the

United Nations.