Belarus, 1994

Let me congratulate Mr. Amara Essy on his unanimous

election as President of the General Assembly at its forty-

ninth session. This is both a tribute to his country’s

contribution to the work of the Organization and an

acknowledgement of his personal achievements in

multilateral diplomacy.

Almost half a century ago, the founding Member

States — and my country is one of them — set for the

United Nations a task of paramount importance: to unite

our strength to maintain international peace and security

and to promote the economic and social development of all

nations. It was necessary to create a mechanism for

coordinating states’ efforts that could offer mutually

acceptable solutions to international problems. Experience

has shown that the United Nations can play the part of such

a unique mechanism. Thanks to the great efforts of this

prestigious international Organization, we have managed to

avoid military flare-ups and conflicts in many parts of the

world.

The world has changed dramatically. The political,

ideological and military confrontation of two social systems

has become a thing of the past. The ice of the cold war

has melted away completely. These changes brought to the

world hopes for a better future but, unfortunately, have

failed to solve all international problems. Tragedies whose

underlying cause is ethnic, religious and national enmity are

being played out in Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Nagorny Karabakh, Abkhazia and Tajikistan. Unsettled

bilateral relations between some States, including those

relating to the areas of human rights and protection of

national minorities, are also factors. And there is also

terrorism, drug-trafficking and uncontrolled arms exports,

including arms supplies into areas of conflict and hot spots

in countries where bloodshed continues.

Under these circumstances, the role of the United

Nations as a universally recognized uniter of peoples

becomes much more significant. I am deeply convinced

that there will come a time when the collective reason of

the United Nations will have a much greater impact on

the processes taking place in the world. Our duty is to do

everything we can to achieve that. Here in the United

Nations, we have to find the answers to many questions

of concern to our countries.

For Belarus, this is especially important. For four

years now Belarus has been building a democratic,

independent and sovereign State. Our ideal is one of a

free citizen in a free country. After decades of

totalitarianism and sham collectivism, we are gradually

giving back to our people freedom, which the great

humanist Leonardo da Vinci called the main gift of

nature.

One significant milestone in the life of Belarus was

the adoption of a new Constitution and — a historic first

for us — truly free and democratic presidential elections.

Henceforth Belarus has a President elected by the people,

Alaksandr Lukashenka, who has testified to his basic

commitment to progressive market reforms. Presidential

power and the trust of the people guarantee that

democratic reforms in our country will be irreversible.

And today we also have regular elections to the Belarus

Parliament and for local authorities.

In foreign policy, the Republic of Belarus believes

in the principles of sovereign equality of states, non-use

of force or the threat of force, inviolability of borders,

peaceful settlement of disputes, non-interference in

internal affairs and other universally recognized norms of

international law. Our Constitution contains a provision

that Belarus should be a neutral State and its territory a

nuclear-free zone. Our Republic is ready to cooperate

with the whole world and is seeking its rightful place in

Europe in the regional structures of collective security and

economic cooperation.

The President and the Government of the Republic

of Belarus believe that implementation of market reforms

will guarantee success in the democratic transformations

in our society. We have embarked on this path firmly

and irreversibly. The legal and organizational bases for

moving to the socially oriented market economy have

now been created in the Republic. Appropriate legislation

has been enacted. The ideas of having a state of law,

dividing power into different branches and improving the

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system of executive authority are now being put into

practice.

However, as in other countries of Central and Eastern

Europe, transition to a market economy is very difficult.

Our greatest difficulties occur in privatization, fighting

monopolies and stabilizing the monetary-financial system.

Moreover, we inherited from the past a national economic

structure in which an excessively large share was given to

the military-industrial complex. Internal and external

national debt is also high, leading to budget deficits and

inflation.

The situation is aggravated by the long-term

consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear

power plant. The adverse effect of the unprecedented

radioactive contamination on people’s health is not

decreasing. On the contrary, it increases as this tragic day

recedes. On top of all of this, we had a drought this year

the likes of which our country had not seen for at least 100

years. Modest estimates put the overall damage from the

drought at more than $300 million.

Under these difficult circumstances, the Republic has

elaborated a programme of measures for pulling the

economy out of crisis. This programme will be the basis

for an agreement with the International Monetary Fund,

which we plan to sign sometime next month. Firmly

resolved to carry out wide-scale reforms, we intend to curb

inflation, reduce the budget deficit and reduce the deficit in

the balance of payments. Full liberalization of trade and

prices, speeding up privatization, should, we think, make it

possible to lessen the crisis in our economy. Relying on

our own forces, we nevertheless understand that without

support from the outside we cannot carry out our reforms

fully and in a reasonably short time.

The Republic of Belarus does not intend to withdraw

into its own problems. We are open to the concerns,

anxieties and problems of the whole world, and we wish to

make our own contribution to the activities of the world

community of nations. Not just rhetorically, but in reality,

Belarus was the first State in history voluntarily, without

reservations or conditions, to renounce the possession of

nuclear weapons. We support proposals on the indefinite

and unconditional extension of the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In 1990, from this rostrum, the delegation of the

Republic of Belarus put forward the idea of establishing a

nuclear-free belt from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Recent

steps taken by Belarus to withdraw nuclear weapons from

its territory ahead of schedule make it possible to consider

a substantial part of this region as nuclear-free territory

already.

Belarus supports the efforts by Members of the

United Nations to speed up the negotiations on concluding

a comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty. We believe such

a treaty could be signed as early as next year. We also

support the proposal made here to elaborate a treaty on

nuclear security and strategic stability. And, of course,

we advocate multilateral discussion of issues relating to

regulating the international arms market and military

equipment.

I would like to stress that, despite our economic

crisis, our Republic is endeavouring to comply fully with

our obligations to reduce nuclear and conventional

weapons, even though this requires enormous additional

expenditures. In this connection, we feel we can expect

the international community to support our actions.

The noble quest of peoples for peace following the

Second World War led to the establishment of the United

Nations. The people of Belarus paid a great price in

delivering of world from fascism. The deadly fires of

war scorched our land and touched literally every family

in it. The tragic price of freedom was the life of every

fourth citizen in my country. Not until 25 years after the

war did our population once again attain its pre-war level.

Thus, the General Assembly’s decision to make 1995 the

United Nations year of tolerance and to proclaim it the

world year of commemoration of victims of the Second

World War evokes a particularly profound response in

Belarus. The Belarus delegation also considers that next

year would be the appropriate time to delete from the

United Nations Charter the outdated concept of the

“enemy State”.

We must use the forthcoming United Nations golden

jubilee to seek new ways of improving our performance

in the changed world conditions. It is a truism that nature

cannot tolerate rigidity and that everything in nature is

constantly changing. That law is certainly applicable to

the United Nations. If the Organization is to work

effectively, its major organs must undergo profound

reform.

In the application of the principle of representation

of countries and regions in the Security Council, the

interests of all groups of States, including the Eastern

European Group, must be taken more fully into account.

Of course, no Security Council reform should detract

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from its role as the body responsible for the maintenance of

international peace and security, so needed by all Member

States, and particularly the smaller States.

The Government of the Republic of Belarus has

reacted positively to the proposal to increase the number of

permanent members of the Security Council with the

addition of members selected from among the countries that

make an exceptional contribution to achieving the purposes

of the United Nations Charter.

We believe that greater account should be taken of

existing realities, including the complex problems

confronting countries whose economies are in transition and

the poorest countries, as well as of global problems of

population, unemployment and environmental deterioration

in all parts of the world.

Political and economic dialogue between donor and

recipient countries must be given new content, going

beyond the traditional framework of relations between

them.

The Republic of Belarus hopes that the movement that

began in the Philippines at the International Conference of

New or Restored Democracies and developed further at

Managua will make it possible for countries in transition

and developing countries to unite and to develop a

coordinated approach within the framework of the United

Nations to consolidate democracy and create a free market.

Countries with economies in transition find themselves

at different stages on their road to democracy and a market

economy, and for that reason the success of reforms

depends to a large extent on support from the international

community. Hence, the Belarus delegation would propose

that in 1996, under the auspices of the United Nations, an

international conference on sustainable development in

countries with economies in transition should be held. Co-

organizers of the conference might include the United

Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the European

Regional Bureau of the United Nations Environment

Programme, the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development, the European Bank for Reconstruction and

Development and other interested institutions.

We also believe that the granting of most-favoured-

nation status, giving countries with economies in transition

broad access to international markets and integrating them

fully into the world economy, would be in the interests of

the international community as a whole.

There is a growing need to broaden cooperation and

strengthen coordination between the United Nations, the

Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other

regional organizations and arrangements. In this

connection we welcome the granting of observer status in

the General Assembly to the Commonwealth of

Independent States. Belarus advocates a clearer definition

of areas of cooperation between the United Nations and

the CIS. Such cooperation could include joint efforts in

peacemaking, disarmament, the environment, anti-

terrorism, drug control and industrial conversion.

We believe that peace-keeping operations should not

be allowed to overshadow the crucial problems of socio-

economic development. Administrative and financial

reform must become the most important aspect of United

Nations renewal. One way of achieving that would be

through a more rational distribution of the financial

burden between the United Nations and other international

institutions, including regional organizations. Another

way would be to reject existing approaches to calculating

the scale of assessments of Member States for the regular

budget of the United Nations and for peace-keeping

operations. It would be fairer to assess the contributions

of States primarily in light of their actual capacity to pay.

In conclusion, may I say that the general debate at

this session attests to the genuine interest of Member

States in achieving the full realization of the United

Nations potential as a truly effective international

organization, as a centre for harmonizing and coordinating

the activities of the nations of the world. The Republic

of Belarus fully shares that commitment and is ready to

cooperate with all countries of the world community to

achieve that goal, so that the end of this century may go

down in history as the time when the aspirations and

hopes of all mankind were finally met.