Brunei, 2003

My congratulations go to you, Sir, and to the people of

Saint Lucia on your election, together with my thanks

to your predecessor, Mr. Kavan, for his work over the

past year. You have our full support and best wishes in

all your efforts to promote the interests of the members

of this Assembly.

May I couple these greetings with my great

appreciation to our Secretary-General and his staff. We

are very grateful indeed for their dedication and service

during one of the most difficult years in United Nations

history.

In particular, I wish to add once more the deepest

sympathy of the Government and people of Brunei

Darussalam to the families of Sergio Vieira de Mello

and of all who lost loved ones, colleagues and friends

in the attack on the United Nations headquarters in

Baghdad. His Excellency and his staff were our public

servants, our representatives and our people. The attack

on them was an attack on us all. As such, we condemn

it and all other acts of terrorism.

When Brunei Darussalam had the honour of

becoming a Member of this Organization, we

committed ourselves to two principles. The first was

nationhood and all that this implies in terms of the rule

of international law and the procedures that govern the

affairs of this Assembly. The second was multilateral

decision-making and, in turn, all that this also

implies — respect for fellow members, sensitivity to

their deep concerns and the need for dialogue and

consultation as equal partners in the conduct of

international affairs, no matter how long and how

frustrating the process involved may be.

We continue to maintain our belief in these

principles in spite of many disappointments in the past

year, both here in the United Nations and earlier this

month at the World Trade Organization. We feel that

they are the only basis upon which international affairs

can be conducted fairly. They apply to all the great

political and economic organizations of which we are

members and we especially look to the United Nations

to uphold them.

By this token, the United Nations is whatever we

ourselves make it. We form the largest coalition in

history and we share responsibility for its successes

and its failures. Among those is our failure to bring in

the changes that are necessary if we are to evolve with

the times in which we live.

Since 1992, this Assembly has been debating

reform. It has the support of a large majority here,

including all members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The results of our failure to build on this support can

now be clearly seen. Our Security Council has been

gravely divided and the past year has left a legacy of

bitterness. The consequences for the ordinary people

we represent — the people of developing nations year

after year, the people of Iraq for the past 10 years or

more, and the citizens of Palestine for over half a

century — have been ever more disastrous.

In all this time, Members have been well aware

that decision-making at the United Nations needs to be

more inclusive and genuinely multilateral. On many

occasions, they have expressed the desire that the

Organization reflect today’s world rather than the

world of half a century ago. They wish to feel truly part

of the decisions it makes.

As it operates now, however, many observers feel

that the actual Members of this Organization are too

weak to act effectively in solving the great affairs of

the day. It is claimed that international affairs are now

beyond the control of individual nations. They are

global — global finance; global economics; global

development; global poverty; global crime; and, of

course, global terrorism. Consequently, some voices

declare that an Assembly of individual nations, many

of them small and still developing, has no power to

address such matters.

That is a depressing scenario and, of course, none

of us here really wants to believe it, but it does have

one merit. It forces us to examine what the United

Nations can actually do most effectively and what it

can realistically achieve. The reply from too many of

our people today would be, we fear: not much. This

presents a powerful case for reform.

I therefore feel that we must frankly acknowledge

our part in the feelings of hopelessness and frustration

that are being voiced by ordinary people and indeed by

many Governments. At present, restoring belief in the

United Nations ability to act on their behalf may be our

most important immediate task. On the one hand, the

great world institutions are technically multilateral.

They are run by the Governments of the world. Yet, in

21

fact, many of these Governments feel excluded from

the most important decisions. Many interested parties

feel that they are also on the outside.

Multilateralism, in other words, appears to have

its limits. Beyond them, it seems, the stronger nations

take over. This basic division, we hope, can be brought

to an end. That is why we were so pleased to hear our

Secretary-General emphasize the need for reform in his

address last week. We congratulate the Secretary-

General on the structural reforms he has overseen. We

also thank him for the many times he has kept us in

touch with his thinking and that of his staff and we

thank him for the hopes he has continued to express

about the future of our world Organization.

We still share his optimism. Nevertheless, that

feeling can be maintained only if agreement on reform

of the whole United Nations system is a real

possibility. We accept that the task of bringing about

this kind of overall change is extremely hard. The

reports of your own Working Group, Mr. President,

show a difficult pattern emerging over the past 10

years. There are more and more proposals and basic

approaches continually diverge. Even though we

largely share the same objectives, we remain divided

on the means to achieve them.

The divisions we have seen this year, however,

suggest that we cannot keep postponing change. They

offer a test of whether the United Nations is indeed

capable of evolving. That test must be passed, so we

continue to support work on Security Council reform

and offer our strong encouragement to the Secretary-

General in the proposals he outlined last week.

In the face of today’s problems, the United

Nations must continue to offer powerful reasons for

optimism about the future. We believe that this calls for

a determined and united effort to address the root

causes of the anger of all who feel unjustly treated. To

do this, the United Nations as a whole must be a

genuine partnership between nations. It must stand for

shared idealism and a shared sense of human justice.

That is what no other body can do.

That is what the work of Sergio Vieira de Mello

and his colleagues was dedicated to. In their memory,

and in that of all who have given their lives to this

Organization, we all need to do a lot better at working

together than we have over the past year.