Djibouti, 1993

I wish to take this opportunity

to congratulate Ambassador Insanally on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its forty-eighth

session. I am confident that his great experience and

wisdom will guarantee the success of this session.

I wish also to pay a tribute to the President of the forty-

seventh session, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria,

Mr. Stoyan Ganev, for his significant achievements and his

constant, unfailing commitment to the work of the

Assembly.

Let me pay a well-deserved tribute also to His

Excellency Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a man ready to face

any challenge and an ardent champion of human rights, for

the masterly and enlightened way in which he is heading the

Secretariat of the Organization. My country appreciates the

tireless efforts of the office of the Secretary-General as it

strives to keep the peace throughout the world.

I take great pleasure in welcoming the States that have

just become Members of the United Nations, particularly

Eritrea, which by dint of courage, self-denial and sacrifice

has regained its dignity and its place in the great family of

independent States.

The opening of a new session of the General Assembly

gives us an opportunity to share our thoughts on important

world events and to mark a line of collective conduct in

human affairs. The most striking trend over the past few

years, one which has borne fruit, is that of the protection of

human rights vis-à-vis the State. This ideology of human

rights and minority rights has been decisive: today, evils

that had plagued the international community have

disappeared or are disappearing, for example the seemingly

unbridgeable ideological gap between East and West, the

situation in South Africa, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Entire regions see the possibility of releasing significant

intellectual and material resources which were once devoted

to preparing for conflict but which now can be used to

establish genuine, welcome peace.

We must hail the courage of visionary leaders who,

fighting against the current, have dared to challenge those

who saw security concerns as the only political wisdom and

to blaze new trails for their peoples and for the world.

The sight of the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation

Organization and the Prime Minister of Israel signing their

historic agreement in Washington, D.C., and shaking hands

with each other has been for many of us a source of hope,

inspiration and the will to persevere. They deserve our

praise for having recognized each other and engaged in

dialogue, thereby taking the first step down the long road

that we must now follow to arrive at a viable and lasting

peace.

That courageous decision shows all those who refuse to

speak save through the voices of their guns that it is still

possible to break free from the grip of hatred and denial of

each other’s existence.The process that has been set in

motion in the search for a comprehensive and lasting

settlement must of necessity be based on Security Council

resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). It deserves the full

political and financial support of the international

community.

In an equally explosive context, the white minority

regime of South Africa has embarked on a process of

political reform by signing an agreement for provisional

power sharing with the country’s black majority. That

crucial measure will have a lasting effect on the political

stability, economic progress and prosperity both of that

country and the entire region.

This development represents a threat to the extremist

and intransigent minorities, which threaten chaos and

anarchy if their demands are not met. However, we are

convinced that the Government of South Africa and the

African National Congress, acting in a spirit of openness and

compromise, will oppose any concession or half measure

that might jeopardize the long march towards a multiracial

and egalitarian society. In that connection, we support the

appeal made by Mr. Mandela that the economic sanctions

imposed upon his country be lifted to facilitate the transition

to democratic rule.

Unfortunately, South Africa is not the only battlefield

for extremists. We must recognize that Mozambique,

Somalia, Bosnia and Angola, to mention but a few, are still

the victims of fratricidal conflicts. What we are witnessing

is a phenomenon that was long contained and suppressed by

the antagonisms that existed between the two power blocs

during the cold-war period, when super-Power pressures

were so great that satellite countries were often employed as

intermediaries in the settlement of accounts. As a result,

internal conflicts were promptly nipped in the bud. Today,

the concept of two blocs is no longer valid, and

conflagrations are breaking out almost everywhere.

Unfortunately, the task of dealing with these hotbeds of

conflict has fallen to the United Nations, and, as a result, all

nations must now participate in one way or another in the

activities of the Organization.

We are convinced that there are other ways of halting

the renewed outbreak of such conflicts than through a

systematic recourse to force. Naturally, violations of

international law and human values and the ever-increasing

contempt for human life are of central concern to the

international community. However, we must recognize that

the United Nations is suffering from inadequate structures,

from poor organization and from a lack of financing, as well

as from a personnel shortage that renders it impotent to deal

with such situations. It is therefore vitally important that the

Organization be provided with the financial and human

resources it needs to remedy its shortcomings.

My Government believes that the United Nations should

have its own volunteer rapid-deployment force under

Security Council control and the command of the Secretary-

General, prepared to be deployed at any time in hotbeds of

tension, for we are constantly being made aware that the best

method of dealing with conflicts is to prevent them. We

believe in preventive diplomacy. Such a force should be

trained and armed for limited and defensive actions and

provided with a logistical support capable of dealing with

any eventuality.

However, we are aware of the difficulties such a force

would face. The principle of humanitarian intervention

would conflict with the notion of State sovereignty, but at

the present juncture the United Nations is still the only

available "fire department," if I may use that term. It is thus

high time that its finances were put in order, even if that

entailed granting it the power to seek access to other sources

of financing, while reinforcing integrity and austerity through

the establishment of a general inspection body.

Apart from those financial questions, we believe that

the United Nations system also needs reform. The Security

Council should be expanded by the addition of a permanent

member for each region, thus modifying the monopoly on

the right of the veto. Indeed, the United Nations must be

perceived as an international body that expresses the

concerns of every sovereign country and in which

transparency and globalization prevail.

All of those questions arise each time the Organization

intervenes in a given conflict. In Somalia, in Angola, in

Mozambique, the Organization has suffered from its inability

to mobilize the military personnel required for the scheduled

period, to such an extent that its mission finds itself at a

standstill. In Angola a tragic situation exists owing to the

Organization’s inability to disarm the combatants.

Fortunately, in Mozambique a spirit of compromise has

prevailed over deadly passions. As for Somalia, the United

States initiative under the auspices of the Unified Task Force

has made it possible to avoid an unprecedented disaster.

The United Nations experience in Somalia is far from

the negative one it is casually described as being. A mission

designed to ensure a safe environment and the distribution

of humanitarian aid has achieved remarkable progress.

Hunger exists only in a few remote areas, violence is

sporadic and limited but controlled. Training centres and

hospitals have been opened, and there are signs that business

is beginning to pick up. Political reconciliation meetings

have been held by the clan leaders in various parts of the

country, and the creation of a basic political framework, the

district council, is well under way. We can confidently look

forward to the groundroots development of the regional

council that will elect future political leaders. Somalians are

participating to a greater degree in the development process

of planning, identifying and setting priorities.

We believe that the police services and judicial system

that will soon be re-established will be capable of assuming

a large part of the responsibilities for the maintenance of

order and security in Somalia.

As a result, we would reiterate our appeal to donors to

fulfil the financial commitments they have made to the

Organization, because the complete success of the United

Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II) will depend

on it. Should they fail to do so, the procrastinations and

failings of UNOSOM II will be a great encouragement to the

so-called warlords, skilled as they are in clan violence, and

destroy any chance of the development of democracy and

the rule of law.

We would also recall that in its initial desire to bring

about the prompt restoration of political structures the

Organization agreed to work with the elements that were

available, which gave the Somali "hawks" an exaggerated

idea of their own importance. It is vital that such detractors

be stripped of their ability to do harm, so that true

democracy can be established. In our opinion, that is the

only way to avoid getting stuck in a rut of passivity, as has

occurred in the United Nations experience in Bosnia, where

the worst violations of basic human rights have merely given

rise to expressions of indignation or verbal condemnations,

apart from a few resolutions that have remained a dead letter

while extortions and "ethnic cleansing" continue, in defiance

of international law.

In addition, the excessive delay in setting up the War

Tribunal has only aggravated the morbid passivity of the

international community. Nevertheless, we are hopeful that

that Tribunal will soon begin to hold sessions, with the

personnel, powers, funding and cooperation of Member

States that will be vital to its effective operation. We are

stressing this point because we deplore the policy of double

standards being pursued by the United Nations, a policy that

allows the criminals in Bosnia to operate with impunity

while mercilessly pursuing others elsewhere in the world.

This unquestionably discredits United Nations activities and

exposes collective security to the insatiable appetites of

aggressors and warlords of all kinds.

When resolutions are adopted, the United Nations must

ensure that they are respected and complied with, or

"collective security" will come to mean "selective security".

Unfortunately, ethnic and community conflicts are not

the only threats to world peace. The poverty of the

countries of the third world, compounded by artificial

borders inherited from the colonial era, constitutes another

catalyst for conflict, because this completely misguided

carve-up created territorial entities that are scarcely

economically viable. These countries, once buffer States for

the super-Powers, have become veritable arsenals, and, with

the added element of poverty, the regimes in power thus

tend to opt more often for force than for reason.

In the face of so many constraints, building a

prosperous and harmonious nation with a common identity

and inspired by the values and principles of democracy has

been a daunting challenge. Many developing countries

embroiled in internal strife and turmoil have become bogged

down in chaos, leading to the disintegration of the State.

Hence, populations fleeing these regions invade such

countries as Djibouti, which is currently groaning under the

burden of 130,000 refugees, equivalent to 23 per cent of its

population.

We bear this immense burden nevertheless, because, in

the end, the only driving force of the great global village

that the world has become is interdependence. Thus,

assistance to developing countries should be increased, as

should the provision of skills and technology through

multilateral cooperation. Furthermore, we believe that

Forty-eighth session - 27 September l993 43

regional economic integration is the basis for continuing

progress and lasting prosperity.

With the emergence of important regional economic

blocs, our countries are threatened with marginalization. In

the context of economic stagnation, the great hope born of

the end of the cold war has gone up in smoke. We are still

awaiting the extra resources that might have been allocated

to development. Worse still, the commitment of developed

countries to contribute 0.7 per cent of their gross national

product - a modest goal set by the United Nations for

development aid - has been met by only two countries. The

others have barely managed to achieve 0.2 per cent at the

most.

Despite a difficult and sometimes chaotic situation, a

number of developing countries have made substantial

progress and present the necessary conditions to benefit from

significant and ongoing assistance, while others are regarded

as insolvent by international lending institutions.

It is obvious that we desperately need increased

multilateral and bilateral aid to enable us to meet our

budgetary and investment needs because our private sources

of investment have dwindled. To this gloomy picture we

must add the misappropriation of aid or mismanagement of

it. Nevertheless, many countries have committed

themselves to economic reform and structural readjustment,

which require increased aid, especially from the international

financial institutions.

My country, responding to the rapid developments

taking place in international trade and navigation - the bases

of our economy - has revamped its port facilities, financial

services and communication networks.

Anxious not to sail against what has been called the

wind of democracy, we have undertaken political reforms,

elections have been held and a new Constitution has been

adopted defining and guaranteeing individual rights.

Despite a very hostile and very unstable regional

environment, Djibouti has always been an island of stability

and a safe haven. The ill effects of the deep turmoil in our

region have considerably weakened the Republic of Djibouti,

and the deployment of enormous quantities of armaments in

the region has not helped to maintain a peaceful climate and

environment.

Thus, the Republic of Djibouti will come to have its

own share of political troubles, a natural extension of

regional instability. But these troubles will be contained,

because Djibouti will strengthen its nation by discouraging

violence.

Such are the road taken and the commitment made by

the Republic of Djibouti to preserve and strengthen peace at

home and throughout the world.