Fiji, 1996

My delegation joins others in warmly

congratulating Ambassador Razali Ismail on his election to

the presidency of the fifty-first session of the General

Assembly. His election is indeed, and in fact, a tribute

both to him and to his great country, Malaysia. I would

assure him of my delegation’s full cooperation during his

tenure of office.

It also gives me great pleasure to extend the

profound gratitude of my delegation to the outgoing

President of the historic fiftieth session of the General

Assembly, Mr. Diogo Freitas do Amaral of Portugal, who

presided over the session with such great skill, dexterity

and expertise.

Lasting peace and security on our planet are the very

cornerstones of progress and prosperity in our nation

States. They are the cornerstones of accelerated

development, to which we all, developing and least

developed countries, aspire.

Mankind has fervently sought to live in peace and

security throughout the ages, but lasting peace and

security in our world have been very elusive, particularly

during this century. In the early part of this century, we

became embroiled in the First World War. We all thought

that that was the war to end all wars, and then came the

Second World War, two decades later. It was the worst

destructive war of our times, and it left many challenges

to peace and security in its wake.

The end of the war saw our world bipolarized and

busy with the pursuit of spheres of influence by the two

super-Powers, which culminated in a new era, the cold-

war era. Prospects for peace and security in our world

faded as the super-Powers and other major Powers began

a race for the production and stockpiling of new weapons

of war and mass destruction.

The world entered a new phase, the nuclear age,

when several Powers began to develop, test and produce

nuclear weapons. The testing of those weapons to make

them even more powerful took place in many parts of the

world, including my country’s own region in the South

Pacific. In such a milieu, peace and security became a

constant prayer but a distant hope, as many of us in the

non-nuclear world were filled with foreboding that our

world was on the brink of nuclear extinction.

In such a horrific scenario, common sense began to

prevail, and that common sense, buoyed by the initiatives

of this important Organization, the United Nations, led to

the conclusion of several important but limited treaties

and to the Conference on Disarmament. Those initiatives

12

were ultimately crowned with success when, on 10

September 1996, in an extended fiftieth session of the

United Nations General Assembly, the vast majority of the

world’s nations adopted the text of a Comprehensive

Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the CTBT.

In the context of the South Pacific region, with the

adoption of the CTBT, the signature by the United States

of America, the United Kingdom and France of the

Protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear-Free-Zone Treaty —

the Treaty of Rarotonga — and the ratification by France

of the Protocols, my country and the countries of the region

can breathe a sigh of relief at the cessation of the assault on

our environment. Now our Governments can focus on the

economic and social utilization of our natural resources to

improve and increase the standard of living of our peoples

without having to worry as much as we have in the past

about the effects nuclear testing was having on the health

of our people and the environment of the region. To further

enhance this positive and welcome development, we urge

the United States and the United Kingdom to ratify the

Protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear-Free-Zone Treaty.

My country hails the adoption of the CTBT as one of

the greatest achievements of the international community

this century. It represents an imposing foundation for the

establishment of lasting peace and security in our world.

The CTBT may not be the paragon of virtue most of

us probably expected it to be. It is, nevertheless, a bold and

constructive initiative that is meaningful and at the same

time a reassurance of our survival of the nuclear menace.

All of us must take the responsibility of assuring the

success of the Treaty. My country calls on all nations of the

world, in the interest of lasting peace and security on our

planet and in the interest of all mankind, to sign and ratify

the CTBT. Fiji signed the CTBT the day it was opened for

signature. My Government has already decided to ratify it.

In the final analysis, we do not see the adoption of the

CTBT as the final nail in the coffin of nuclear weapons. To

achieve our ultimate and pre-eminent aim and our desire for

lasting peace and security in our world, my country would

like to see the CTBT as merely the first step towards an

end to the production of all nuclear weapons, an end to the

stockpiling of all nuclear weapons, the ultimate destruction

of all nuclear weapons, the establishment of a nuclear-

weapon-free world and general disarmament as a whole.

Today, while we rejoice with a degree of relief at the

adoption and signing of the CTBT, it is at the same time

also incumbent upon us not to relax our vigilance with

regard to the moves and proposals in certain quarters to

import and dump nuclear waste and other forms of

hazardous waste in our region. I refer specifically to

reported plans afoot by certain unscrupulous nuclear-

waste dealers to use the Palmyra Islands and certain other

sites in the Pacific as permanent disposal facilities for

nuclear waste.

My country wishes to make it clear to all concerned

that we in the Pacific region will not sit idly by and allow

any further reckless and mindless destruction of our

environment and detriment to the health of our people

through any form of nuclear contamination.

The stark reality of international affairs in our world

today is that total nuclear disarmament and general

disarmament, or even accelerated movement towards

those goals, will not end tensions and conflicts and threats

to peace. Even when weapons were made of stone,

tensions, threats to peace and conflicts existed. And when

we look at the events that are happening at present in a

number of countries around us, my country recognizes,

and I am sure we all do, that we must create in our

international life a system of preventive diplomacy that

can respond promptly, positively, peacefully and

effectively to potential conflicts and threats of genocide,

and de-escalate internal tensions and threats to internal

and regional peace. My country wishes to recall its

recommendation to the fiftieth session of the General

Assembly that earnest and urgent action should be taken

to set up a special United Nations department or unit to

pursue preventive diplomacy in conflict prevention and

conflict resolution. The department, in collaboration with

competent countries and authorities, should have the

capacity to receive, collate, analyse and interpret

intelligence information and reports with a view to early

detection of potential conflicts and early reaction to

contain, minimize and resolve such conflicts in

collaboration with relevant Member States. We should

take every step within our power to prevent fires rather

than having to put them out, to save lives rather than

having to condemn the loss of lives.

Accordingly, my country welcomes the offer made

by Norway in the General Assembly to establish a fund

for preventive action at the United Nations and that

country’s pledge to provide some financial contribution to

the fund annually.

In our efforts to promote, establish and maintain

peace and security in our world, it is incumbent upon us

13

to recognize and realize that security has several

dimensions, not the least of which is economic security.

Sluggish economic development and limited

development growth have affected developing countries and

in particular, small island States, threatening national

regional stability in one way or another. My country

therefore calls on the international community, first, to

increase official development assistance and to improve the

quality of such assistance to developing countries; secondly,

to cooperate in the creation of a more equitable

international economic environment and thereby help to

promote sustained economic growth and sustainable

development, and at the same time, help to eradicate

poverty; thirdly, to dismantle trade barriers and restrictions

to market access; fourthly, to improve the access of

developing countries to capital from international financial

institutions and commercial sources; and lastly, to facilitate

and assist the flow of investment capital and appropriate

technologies to developing countries.

We have noted with concern that donor countries have

failed to comply with the internationally agreed targets of

official development assistance and commitments for new

and additional resources. There is urgent need for a

substantial expansion of official development assistance and

for qualitative improvements in official development

assistance by donor countries through a reduced cost of

repayment. In fact, my country has noted with deep regret

that while some developed countries have been making

efforts to meet the official development assistance level,

such assistance from some rich countries has been declining

noticeably, and the decline has been taking place in the

post-cold-war era, when it was to be expected that such

countries were in a better position to increase the flow of

official development assistance as a result of greater

stability in the world and reduced tensions between former

antagonists. In fact, in the case of a few traditional donors,

aid has almost completely dried up. In some cases, aid is

being systematically reduced. It appears that our region is

no longer a strategic area for competition by the former

cold-war antagonists to gain our favour.

My country is concerned to see the recent trend in

some countries to seek to impose alien norms on countries

with a unique, traditional and customary nature of society,

especially indigenous societies. On the other hand, with

respect to Japan and some South-East Asian countries such

as Malaysia, development assistance is provided with no

intention of interfering in their internal affairs.

International cooperation for development lies at the

very heart of improving the living conditions of the great

majority of people in our world who live in developing

and least developed countries. My country fully supports

an Agenda for Development, which is aimed at restoring

the imperative of development as a central concern. Such

an agenda should contain specific, concrete and pragmatic

proposals that could be translated into action programmes

and implemented on the basis of global priorities.

The Agreement amending the fourth Lomé

Convention between the countries of Africa, the

Caribbean and the Pacific and the European Community,

signed in Mauritius on 4 November 1995, includes a

Second Financial Protocol that ensures that the European

Development Fund will be available for development

projects in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries up to

the end of February 2000. This commitment by the

European Union is a direct endorsement of a multilateral

accord and a North-South development instrument that

has worked and that has been widely acclaimed

throughout the world. Many critics are predicting the end

of Lomé by the year 2000. However, within the

Community itself, and within the 70 African, Caribbean

and Pacific States, the idea of a successor agreement to

Lomé IV is a fait accompli. That in itself is a firm and

unambiguous recognition of the dire need for such an

instrument beyond the year 2000.

It is therefore our — and indeed everyone’s —

responsibility to protect and defend the principles and

philosophy behind an accord such as the Lomé

Convention. Those who are carried along by the

liberalization of the so-called winds of change that are

sweeping through the continents must realize that parts of

our international community will still require preferential

arrangements in the interest of economic and political

parity and of equity, peace and stability in the world.

It is sad to note that the developed countries have so

far failed to fulfil their commitments to provide new and

additional financial resources and technology transfer to

the developing countries on favourable terms. The

implementation of such commitments is most necessary

for international economic cooperation, as is meaningful

and effective follow-up to major conferences.

My country calls for the prompt and full

implementation of the commitments and recommendations

of the United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development (UNCED), which are more relevant today

than ever before. We believe that under UNCED

14

developing countries should have the right to benefit fully

from the utilization of their natural resources if they are to

achieve sustained economic growth and maintain

sustainable development.

We wish to highlight the continuing urgent need to

promote and facilitate industrialization as an instrument to

facilitate rapid economic and social development in

developing countries, which will contribute to the

elimination of poverty and the generation of productive

employment. The strengthening of the industrial bases of

developing and least developed countries should become an

international imperative.

My country calls on the international community to

ensure an open, rule-based, equitable, secure, non-

discriminatory, transparent and predictable multilateral

trading system with the aim of achieving the complete

integration of the developing countries into the world

economy and the new international trading system.

We call upon Member States to implement fully the

commitments agreed to in the Final Act adopted by the

World Trade Conference, which confers special and

differential treatment on developing countries. We believe

that the carefully balanced package of rights and obligations

with respect to the World Trade Organization should be

carefully preserved and that the essential priority should be

the implementation and fulfilment of such rights and

obligations and the adoption of measures to mitigate

adverse consequences on the developing countries.

The present unfair trading system is stagnating the

economies of small island States when the international

community is committed to protecting them. Fiji has

deregulated its economy and its trade system, but we are

deterred in our efforts to gain access to the markets of

some developed countries, which still retain regulatory

barriers of one kind or other.

My country therefore warmly welcomes the statement

by the British Foreign Minister in this Assembly that the

developed world must demolish the barriers it still

maintains against imports from the developing world and

the concomitant commitment to bring a vision of global

free trade to reality by the year 2020.

It is sad to note that the debt crisis persists as one of

the main constraints to development in developing

countries. We wish to stress the urgent need for the

international community, particularly donor countries and

international financial institutions, to adopt an effective,

comprehensive and equitable development-oriented and

durable solution to the debt problem of developing

countries.

My country strongly supports the World Food

Summit to be held at Rome next month. It is the first

time that world leaders will meet to debate and renew a

commitment to eradicate hunger and malnutrition and to

address the issues of food security for all peoples through

the adoption of policies and actions at the national,

subregional, regional and international levels.

As we pursue initiatives on several fronts to promote

and facilitate lasting peace and security in our world, we

have to be mindful of areas of tension that exist

concurrently.

The Washington Middle East peace summit has

come and gone, but at least it succeeded in bringing

together the leader of Israel and the Palestinian leader in

dialogue and discussion. We urge the parties to pursue in

a meaningful way the initiative set in motion by the

Washington summit. We also urge continued restraint by

all. Killing and lamentations may have become an

established way of life in the region, but peace and

peaceful coexistence are the only civilized way towards

progress and prosperity for all. We call upon the parties

to undertake genuine and constructive action to negotiate,

achieve and maintain a just and lasting peace in the

Middle East.

The Dayton accords succeeded in bringing a halt to

armed hostilities in war-torn Bosnia. General elections

have been held, but the situation remains fragile and the

conclusion is inescapable that the international

peacekeeping presence in Bosnia should remain for some

time to come to consolidate the gains that have been

achieved so far.

Recent events in Cyprus have reminded us that the

tense situation in that country persists, and my country

continues to urge all parties to accelerate the pace of the

negotiations in the interest of finding a constructive, just

and lasting solution as early as possible.

Recent events in the Straits of Taiwan have

highlighted the tension that exists in that region of the

world, a region which is otherwise currently witnessing a

most dynamic economic growth. Both the People’s

Republic of China and Taiwan, which are also active

participants in post-forum dialogue with the island

countries of the South Pacific Forum, contribute

15

significantly to the development of the South Pacific region.

My country welcomes the spirit of cooperation between

Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China and encourages

the continuation of such dialogue and cooperation.

The genocide in Rwanda and Burundi imposes an

obligation on our community of nations to pursue every

possible initiative to prevent tragedies of such magnitude

and to avoid a recurrence whenever and wherever they

occur, and not on a selective basis or to serve the self-

interest of one or another major Power. The conclusion is

inescapable that such problems should not be left entirely

to regional organizations to resolve, since they may have

neither the capacity nor the resources to deal effectively

with the situation.

My county condemns international terrorism and will

fully support all international efforts and measures to

eliminate international terrorism. We will also support

initiatives to negotiate an international agreement to ban the

use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel

mines.

We fully support international efforts in crime

prevention and criminal justice and are fully appreciative of

the preparatory work being done on the establishment of an

international criminal court.

My country would like to reemphasize its strong view

that the question of the protection and security of small

States should remain a central concern of the United

Nations. For as long as drug traffickers, international arms

dealers, money launderers and international white-collar

criminals continue their criminal activities, and as long as

mercenaries and terrorists exist, small States will remain

vulnerable to acts of aggression from without as well as

from within. Small States especially look to the provisions

of the United Nations Charter for the respect and

preservation of their sovereignty.

My country continues to urge all parties to the United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to

move speedily towards the conclusion of an effective

protocol that would ultimately bring about improvements in

the global climate system. My country is one of the many

that is vulnerable to rising sea levels, hurricanes and other

phenomena associated with disastrous climate changes. Our

physical survival could be affected if immediate action is

not taken to address the problem of climate changes in our

world. The meeting of the South Pacific Forum held in the

Marshall Islands from 3 to 5 September this year

highlighted the Forum’s concern that climate change has

become a crucial issue within the region. It called — and

we share that call — for urgent action, particularly in

view of the second assessment report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated

that the balance of scientific evidence suggested a

discernible human influence on the global climate. The

Forum welcomed the outcome of the second session of

the Conference of the Parties to the Framework

Convention on Climate Change and called for acceleration

of negotiations on the text of a legally binding protocol or

another legal instrument to be completed in time for

adoption at the third session of the Conference of Parties

in order to achieve significant progress towards the goal

of lower greenhouse-gas emissions.

The South Pacific Forum also called upon all

countries to support the activities of the Ad Hoc Group

on the Berlin Mandate and reaffirmed its support for the

inclusion of the draft protocol presented by the Alliance

of Small Island States for consideration in the negotiating

process.

My country warmly welcomes the recent

establishment of the International Seabed Authority and

the election of the judges of the International Tribunal for

the Law of the Sea. These new developments, together

with the successful completion last year of the United

Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly

Migratory Fish Stocks, will maintain the momentum in

the implementation of the Law of the Sea Convention. In

particular, we support the promotion of the regime for the

sustainable utilization of the living resources of the sea.

It is our sincere hope that the International Seabed

Authority will administer the resources of the sea for the

benefit of mankind. My country calls on the international

community and the United Nations, in accordance with

the decision of the General Assembly taken in July 1994

to provide adequate funding and adequate technical

support to the International Seabed Authority so that it

can competently discharge in a most effective and

efficient manner the responsibilities we gave it under the

Convention. My delegation is pleased to be a sponsor of

a draft resolution seeking the granting of observer status

in the United Nations for the International Seabed

Authority.

The United Nations has done a remarkable and

excellent job in carrying out its mandates during the 51

years of its existence. It has played a significant,

discernible and indispensable role in human affairs, from

the peaceful resolution of conflicts and peacekeeping to

16

economic development and social progress, from food and

agriculture to employment and labour standards, from

helping the children of our world to fostering human rights

and justice. The international community is deeply indebted

to the United Nations, which should continue to be a forum

for multilateral cooperation and not an instrument that

major Powers may use to serve their own national self-

interests. My country acknowledges with profound gratitude

the assistance and cooperation it has been receiving from

the United Nations in its national and regional development

efforts. Fiji continues to pledge its commitment to the

United Nations and to what it stands for.

It is appropriate to observe, however, that in order to

respond to the many demands of this complex world in

which we all live, the United Nations has had to expand.

Over a period of years, it has become very heavy, thereby

greatly increasing the cost of its operation. The unhealthy

state of United Nations finances does not derive, however,

solely from the Organization’s enhanced and expanding

structure. It has also been exacerbated by the non-payment

of dues and assessments. We call on all Member States that

have not paid their dues or assessments and are in arrears

to pay them promptly, fully and without conditions.

My country appreciates the steps taken this year by the

United Nations administration to improve management, to

make services more efficient and more effective and to cut

costs. Notwithstanding the action that has been taken, my

country believes that more can and should be done to make

the Organization leaner and more streamlined and at the

same time to reduce costs further. The various organs,

agencies and departments of the United Nations need to be

rationalized in line with the modalities of today’s world,

and structural changes and more personnel reforms must be

instituted to make it more responsive to the constant

demands of a continuously changing international

community.

My country believes that the scale of assessments for

the apportionment of expenses should be reassessed to

make it more equitable and less burdensome for small

island States.

My country believes that the time has come for the

reform of the Security Council. We submit, as we did last

year, that the organs of the United Nations should reflect

changes in the global political landscape as well as the

principles of geographic representation and equity. The

Security Council should, in our view, be enlarged to

accommodate the existing global political landscape.

Since peace and security underpin the very

foundation of this Organization, my country fully supports

the international peacekeeping missions of the United

Nations. We are committed to the maintenance of

international peace and security and, despite the fact that

we are a small, developing island State with a small

population, we have actively participated in the vast

majority of United Nations peacekeeping missions. Fijian

soldiers are serving in the Middle East with both the

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the

Multinational Force and Observers, as well as in Iraq and

Kuwait. They have served in Afghanistan, Somalia and in

Rwanda. Our policemen, too, have served in Angola,

Cambodia, Namibia and Iraq, and are currently serving in

Eastern Slavonia and in Croatia. Several of our men have

lost their lives in the service of the international

community and in the pursuit of peace and security in our

world.

Peacekeeping is the responsibility of all Member

States, whether they contribute troops and personnel or

not. We therefore urge all countries concerned to expedite

the settlement of the assessments for peacekeeping due to

the United Nations. And in turn, we urge the United

Nations expeditiously and fully to settle the amounts or

arrears outstanding to Member countries for their

participation in peacekeeping operations.

As I stated previously, international security has

many dimensions. The security of the world’s indigenous

peoples is one such dimension. The history of the world’s

indigenous peoples is replete with wholesale slaughter,

genocide and, in some cases, total annihilation during the

era of exploration, discovery and colonization.

The Prime Minister of Fiji, the Honourable Sitiveni

Rabuka, told the United Nations last year that it:

“must guarantee that external values and forces do

not continue to coerce political concessions,

economic reforms and social changes not desired by

indigenous peoples themselves”. (Official Records of

the General Assembly, Fiftieth Session, Plenary

Meetings, 40th meeting, p. 49)

At the opening of the regional workshop on the draft

United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous

peoples held in Fiji last month, the Prime Minister of Fiji

declared that:

17

“In our Pacific home, we have been sole proprietors

in most places for no less than three thousand years;

in most other places, for much longer.”

Our Prime Minister stated that it must be legally

accepted that:

“We are the first settlers, first dwellers or proprietors

of our land. Secondly, we are a collective group that

was imposed upon by uninvited external forces who

disrupted the normal march of our history. As victims

of what continues to be described as imperialism and

colonialism, we cannot, in our quest for freedom,

allow the vestiges of foreign domination to encroach

upon us, either through internal machinations or

external collusion.”

The Fiji workshop agreed in principle that, wherever

possible, efforts to strengthen the text of the current draft

declaration should be encouraged. The unanimous view of

the workshop was that efforts by States to undermine the

existing language of the draft should be actively resisted by

indigenous peoples. The workshop further resolved that

Pacific indigenous peoples should seek to promote greater

support for the draft declaration within the United Nations

system so that the overall objective of achieving an

effective and meaningful declaration on indigenous peoples

is reached.

My country, which has had a multiracial population

for the last 150 years, warmly welcomes the observance of

the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

We strongly urge, during the International Decade, the

adoption of the declaration on the rights of indigenous

peoples. My country believes that the declaration should not

be the alpha and the omega of indigenous rights, but should

be merely a first step towards the negotiation, under the

auspices of the United Nations, of a comprehensive legal

convention on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Tension and fears among the indigenous people in Fiji

led to the military overthrow of the Government in 1987

and the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1990 by an

interim Government. That Constitution provided indigenous

Fijians majority representation in Parliament. That

Constitution was reviewed by a three-member commission

headed by Sir Paul Reeves of New Zealand. After over 12

months of review, the commission recently submitted its

report and recommendations to the Government. The

Government has duly submitted the report to Parliament

and a Select Committee, comprising representatives of all

the political parties in Parliament, has been appointed to

consider the Commission’s report and recommendations.

Lasting peace and security in our world has been an

illusion for the greater part of this century. With the new

global changes, with our recent adoption of the CTBT,

with rising optimism regarding the Conference on

Disarmament, with what can be perceived as a genuine

desire for peace, and with more meaningful international

collaboration in the areas of economic cooperation and

development, there is some hope for achieving lasting

peace and security in our world.