Chile, 1997

It is with particular pleasure that I extend to you, Mr.

President, my sincerest congratulations, and those of my

Government, on your election as President of the General

Assembly. Your election will ensure that the business of

the General Assembly will be conducted skilfully,

impartially and very efficiently at this important moment

for the General Assembly, when it will have to make

decisions that may be vital to the future of our

Organization.

The General Assembly session that we are now

beginning is a particularly important one in that its

purpose is to ensure that in the future multilateral activity

will be assured of validity, effectiveness and credibility.

With the United Nations having completed more than 50

years of existence, we need new ways to view the world,

without forgetting the many achievements made and the

valuable experience gained both from successes and from

failures.

This is an appropriate time for us to renew our

commitment to multilateralism as the guiding principle of

international relations and the essential tool to resolve

crises and problems that are beyond the ability of any

State, however important or powerful it may be, to

resolve on its own.

This is particularly important in the face of a

growing unilateralism that has recently emerged as a

feature of the international scene. The new international

reality makes it essential for States to act together so as

to confront energetically and resolutely the problems of

the environment, organized crime, arms control, human

rights, democratization, poverty, unemployment, social

fragmentation and many other issues.

Chile has consistently contributed to the

Organization and, to the limits of its ability to do so, will

continue to lend its strong support to the great work of

the United Nations in all its forums.

I wish to speak first of the issue of the Security

Council and its reform process. I stressed before the

General Assembly last year the importance of greater

involvement by Member States in the decisions of the

Security Council in order to strengthen its legitimacy and

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give it the necessary political backing for the actions it

undertakes.

We reiterate once again the desirability of revising the

composition of the Security Council and its working

methods. In this connection, we appreciate the arduous

work conducted by the Working Group on this issue, which

has served to clarify the various positions and to allow a

proper appraisal of this enormously complex subject.

I wish especially to pay tribute to the outgoing

President of the General Assembly, Mr. Razali Ismail of

Malaysia, for his keen sense of responsibility and his

courage in taking the initiative to make specific proposals

on these matters in order to ease the difficulties

encountered within the Working Group and make it

possible to analyse and discuss them in specific terms.

My Government considers that any future composition

of the Council must combine the requirements of its

effectiveness with the need for an equitable representation

of the developing countries that properly reflects the

increase in the number of Members in the past 50 years.

Where these fundamental issues are concerned, Chile

supports and endorses the content of the Declaration on the

strengthening of the United Nations and the reform of the

Security Council issued by the Heads of State or

Government at the eleventh summit of the Rio Group in

Asunción, Paraguay, on 24 August of this year.

In that Declaration we expressed the great importance

we attach to the process of expanding and reforming the

Security Council, which must result in a broad general

agreement that will make it possible to correct the

imbalances in its current composition, improve the decision-

making mechanisms, make the conduct of its work more

transparent and represent with greater legitimacy all States

Members of the Organization.

With regard to the total number of members of the

Security Council, we believe that a membership of up to 25

would not impair its effectiveness, provided that the

expansion met the requirements of responding properly to

the increase in United Nations Member States since the last

reform of the Charter and the undeniably growing

importance of developing countries.

Chile shares in the broad base of agreement on

allowing the entry of Germany and Japan as permanent

members of the Security Council. Nevertheless, there is

also a conviction that this can take place only in the context

of suitable regional representation, including other

permanent members from Asia, Africa and Latin

America.

We support a process of regional consultation and

consensus to fill these seats. This, however, does not

exclude a possible role for the General Assembly in case

there is an absence of regional agreement. In this

connection, the Assembly will have to analyse carefully

the proposals that have been put forward regarding

rotation. These are undoubtedly attractive since they

include a larger number of countries, but they could

impair the effectiveness of the Council and increase

tensions between permanent and non-permanent members.

As far as the Latin American and Caribbean region

is concerned, its fundamental responsibility is to fill its

seats through a process that gives its members legal

validity and political legitimacy. In this process,

consideration must be given to all the possibilities that

will allow for appropriate regional representation. Chile

is prepared to accept any formula that reflects this.

Serious consideration must be given to the possibility that

only one of its members will occupy the permanent seat

allocated to the region.

The question of the veto will also have to be

discussed in greater depth, taking into account many

factors, such as legal ones relating to Charter obligations

and the evolution of modern international law, and

political ones, such as the evolution of the international

situation, which are today very different from those

prevailing at the time the United Nations came into being.

The outgoing President of the General Assembly has

made some very interesting proposals in this regard,

which need to be carefully considered by Member States.

Chile is concluding this year, with a sense of

satisfaction, its participation in the Security Council after

an absence of more than 30 years. Our decision to

participate was motivated by the need to assume our

international responsibilities, and we did so in the

conviction that we could make a contribution.

As a preliminary conclusion, I would like to

emphasize that the rich contribution of the non-permanent

members of the Council provides genuine balance and

enables the Council to renew itself over time. Our

experience has been a rewarding one, and we have sought

to focus our contribution, beyond our natural interest in

issues relating to the Latin American region, on a number

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of areas in which welcome progress has been made, to

which Chile has made an effective contribution.

We welcome the important progress the Council has

made regarding its responsibility in the humanitarian

sphere, which has necessarily become a major aspect of the

maintenance of international peace and security. This is the

foundation of the presidential statement issued by the

Council on the protection of humanitarian workers. The

strengthening of this aspect of the Council's work was one

of the main issues in which Chile participated. Motivated

by our concern about this matter, we proposed a mechanism

that establishes the modalities by which the Council

communicates with the humanitarian agencies working in

the field.

Similarly, Chile has been particularly concerned that

countries that have experienced severe conflicts should not

be abandoned by the system once conflict ends. We have

therefore insisted on the need for a United Nations presence

in the field when peace-building gives way to overall

reconstruction and development activities.

With respect to sanctions, it has been demonstrated

that, where authoritarian Governments are concerned, broad

sanction regimes merely penalize the population without

bringing about political change. We have noted the progress

made by the Council in devising sanctions, as in the case

of resolution 1072 (1996) on the situation in Burundi and

the one recently adopted on UNITA in Angola, which are

indeed capable of yielding the desired results without

harming innocent populations.

Lastly, Chile has attached special importance to

African affairs while a member of the Security Council. We

believed it important to assist the Council in taking

decisions on the problems that region is facing at this

historic moment when African countries are assuming their

own responsibilities for regional problems, as has been

apparent in the Organization of African Unity initiative in

the Arusha process and the activities of the Economic

Community of West African States, among others.

We are aware that the reform process is not confined

to the Security Council. The Secretary-General has told us

clearly and lucidly that we are facing the most extensive

and farthest-reaching reforms in the 52 years of this

Organization's history. Accordingly, we welcome his

comprehensive report of last July, entitled, "Renewing the

United Nations: A programme for reform". We agree with

his proposals aimed at transforming the leadership and

management structure of the United Nations so as to enable

it to act with greater unity of purpose, coherence and

agility in tackling the problems.

We wish to convey to the Secretary-General and his

colleagues our gratitude for the report, which the General

Assembly will have to analyse in depth, and Chile will

contribute to the debate with interest and dedication and

in an open spirit of consensus.

In this connection, we agree with the Secretary-

General's statement that the major source of institutional

weakness in the United Nations is the fact that over the

course of the past half century certain of its organizational

features have tended to become fragmented, duplicated

and rigid, resulting in their ineffectiveness in some areas

and superfluity in others. As Chile sees it, the main

obstacle to the reform process has been the fear of change

that exists in the Organization, which has paralysed the

process since it began here in the General Assembly four

years ago. The time has come for all of us, the Secretariat

and Member States alike, to show proudly our collective

creativity, courage and realistic inventiveness. The period

of bureaucratization in the United Nations must give way

to the era of creation.

Only through flexible and efficient management will

we be able to give new impetus to the Organization and

provide it with the proper tools for the true modernization

the international community demands. Reform is not

intrinsically an exercise in cutting costs or reducing staff.

Its aim is to ensure a real and growing increase in the

political effectiveness of the United Nations, from the

Security Council and the way it deals with and resolves

present-day conflicts in today's world to the Economic

and Social Council and the development agencies.

Many of the problems facing the Organization result

from the fact that Member States have been remiss in

responding to the need to adapt intergovernmental

machinery to the new requirements of the international

situation. This is perhaps one of the main aspects of the

reform process we have embarked upon.

Accordingly, it is essential to proceed further with

the reorientation and restructuring of the Economic and

Social Council in order to coordinate both the agencies

and its subsidiary bodies so that it may engage in

executive interaction with the functions of the General

Assembly. In that way, it can regain its leadership

position as a flexible and efficient organ and contribute

effectively to answering the challenges on the economic

and social agenda of the Organization.

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Given this mandate of the Economic and Social

Council, its future relationship with the World Bank and the

International Monetary Fund will be extremely important.

In this connection, the establishment of a substantive

secretariat of the Economic and Social Council seems to us

an interesting proposal.

Furthermore, the reform process should leave room for

the progressive regionalization that is taking place within

the United Nations system. In the review of the regional

commissions to be carried out by the Economic and Social

Council, there is a need to find mechanisms which, without

affecting the regional mandates of each commission, can

contribute to the definition and regional implementation of

the major agreements and consensuses reached by the major

conferences sponsored by the United Nations system over

the past decade.

We are following with interest the proposal to give to

the Resident Coordinator of the Secretary-General authority

over all United Nations bodies in the field. This new

integrated approach, in which the funds and programmes

will retain their autonomy, will contribute to the necessary

cohesion and reduce the natural tendency towards

divergence between the multidisciplinary agencies

represented, thereby strengthening their activities.

It also seems to us essential to evaluate the subsidiary

bodies in greater depth, using as the main criteria their

relevance and effectiveness, and to take the appropriate

decisions. Accordingly, we are concerned by the

recommendation to merge the Commissions on Narcotic

Drugs and on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, since

that would run the risk of limiting treatment of the problem

of narcotic drugs merely to its criminal dimension, losing

sight, in the process, of elements that are an inherent part

of the drug issue, such as education and prevention. At the

same time, the reform process must assign special

importance to measures and mechanisms designed to

accelerate economic and social development, especially in

Africa, by supporting domestic efforts at economic

restructuring, diversification of raw materials and increased

food security being carried out by the countries of the

region.

We welcome the proposals designed to strengthen the

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, both

institutionally and substantively, since they seem to us to be

of great importance for the future development of the

Organization. The protection and promotion of human

rights and fundamental freedoms, together with democracy

and equitable growth, are the three pillars of present-day

international society. As the Secretary-General himself

has stated, they constitute an essential component of

international peace and security. Any measure that

contributes to strengthening the ability of the High

Commissioner for Human Rights to take action will

receive the firm support of the Chilean delegation.

Similarly, we strongly support the initiatives by the

Secretary-General with regard to the proposals for

interaction between civil society and private enterprise,

which have become major actors at both the national and

international levels. The time has come for civil society,

including the business community, to participate in the

United Nations at a level that reflects the contribution that

it has been making for some time.

A series of measures have been recommended to us

that are designed to make more flexible the procedures

for deliberations in the General Assembly, to reduce the

length of meetings, apply a thematic approach to topical

issues, overcome delays and enable us to concentrate on

the most essential matters. While technically these

proposals appear to relate more to formal than to

substantive aspects, we know that in fact they will not be

simple or merely procedural decisions. In reality, their

aim is to promote the capacity of this Organization to

build consensus, so as to arrive at concise decisions in the

shortest possible time.

On financial matters, we endorse the proposal for

results-based budgeting, with few institutional

mechanisms having a major strategic impact. This seems

to us an innovation will have far-reaching consequences

for the Organization. We also support the idea of

reallocating savings to economic and social activities

through the establishment of a development account.

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We have focused our statement on the great task of

reform, which is difficult, complex and full of potential as

well as of problems. We are determined to find the

solutions that the United Nations requires if it is to

discharge all its mandates and satisfy the demands and

aspirations of an international community that is anxious to

place in the Organization great hopes for the future. We are

determined not to let this opportunity to restructure and

renew the United Nations pass us by. The full cooperation

of the Chilean delegation can be counted on in this effort.