Fiji, 2001

Fiji mourns the recent losses

and world-changing tragedies which the United States

of America has endured. We remember the many lives

lost in that adversity, and we express the hope that

peace and goodwill may prevail. Now is the time to

make haste to galvanize collaborative efforts by

developed and developing nations in the global fight

against terrorism.

We congratulate His Excellency Mr. Han Seung-

soo and the Government of the Republic of Korea on

Ambassador Han’s assumption of the presidency of the

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General Assembly at its fifty-sixth session. We pledge

complete support during his term of office, fully aware

that the qualities that have marked his eminent and

distinguished career promise a resounding conclusion

to the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly

despite its difficult start.

Fitting tribute is also due to his predecessor,

Mr. Harri Holkeri of Finland. His leadership over the

previous year successfully concluded a truly hectic and

full schedule of business, including some difficult

issues and special sessions during the period of the

fifty-fifth session. He leaves an indelible mark in the

annals of the United Nations.

My Government congratulates His Excellency

Mr. Kofi Annan on his appointment as Secretary-

General for a second term; this signifies the trust and

confidence that the United Nations places in him. He

has aptly been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which

he shares with the United Nations. Fiji welcomes the

road map he has outlined for the Organization, which,

under his creative and competent leadership, will

deliver the reforms needed to launch the Organization

into the twenty-first century.

In the wake of the political crisis that triggered

instability in Fiji in 2000, my Government set itself

two immediate tasks: to restore constitutional

democracy and to stabilize our fragile economy. Those

goals are being achieved. Moreover, my Government is

continuing to pursue strong economic performance

through increased investment and development.

I am honoured to inform the Assembly that, only

18 months after its political crisis, Fiji successfully

concluded the general elections and formed a

multiparty Government in September 2001. My

Government is confident that, with the support of the

United Nations and the international community, Fiji’s

forward-looking policies will steer it ahead on a path of

democratic rule and sustainable economic

development.

Fiji acknowledges the support rendered to us by

the United Nations and by Member States in the

deployment of the United Nations electoral observation

team during our elections. The team discharged its

duties professionally and impartially. We are confident

that it will provide the Assembly with a positive

appraisal of the conduct of the elections as free and

fair — conduct to which we have been well

accustomed throughout our electoral history.

I should like to convey my Government’s deep

gratitude to those Member States that supported Fiji

and to those that sponsored resolution 55/280, which

enabled the participation of the United Nations

observer team.

Our leaders are committed, under the Millennium

Declaration of 2000, to the principles of human dignity,

equality and equity, especially with respect to those

who are most vulnerable, in particular the children,

who are our future. It is a timely and constructive

commitment that creates the necessary global

framework for addressing the plight of the poor and the

vulnerable in the face of the accelerating impact of

globalization and trade liberalization.

Poverty is at the root of many problems. As the

most powerful destabilizing force, it threatens

democracy and good governance. It is thus our most

insidious enemy. Successive Human Development

Reports amply document abysmal accounts of poverty

and poverty indicators. A total of 1.2 billion people

live on less than $1 a day, more than a billion people in

developing countries lack access to safe water, and

more than 2.4 billion people lack adequate sanitation.

We are talking not millions, but billions.

Poverty reduction is therefore our greatest

challenge today. The Millennium Declaration set a

target to halve global extreme poverty by 2015. This

goal must be the cornerstone of all development

efforts. It demands an ongoing commitment and

effective measures on the part of the international

community.

In this connection, my Government has created a

new Ministry for Poverty Alleviation, which is a key

policy factor in our triennial Strategic Development

Plan. We recognize that economic, social and political

stability are inextricably tied to reducing the gap

between rich and poor. That equation must also

recognize the unique vulnerabilities that beset the

fragile economies of developing countries such as Fiji.

Complementary legislation is also being

developed in the Social Justice Bill to translate into

policy the constitutional provision for social equity.

Primarily, the Bill will regulate affirmative action

policies for disadvantaged groups in the areas and in

the manner prescribed in the Fiji Constitution. This is a

critical step in Fiji’s efforts towards national unity and

nation-building and its efforts to address issues of

social, ethnic and economic development and harmony.

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Today, in our journey in this world, we are

meeting with unprecedented challenges and

uncertainties, ranging from widespread global conflict

to escalating terrorist activities and economic

marginalization. The Assembly and the United Nations

system must devise appropriate, creative responses to

these difficult questions, in ways that are compatible

with the goals of world peace and security, as

enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

Current organizational reform plans present

constructive and necessary platforms for meeting these

specific challenges. An amicable agreement on the

expansion of the permanent or non-permanent

membership of the Security Council could well present

us with new and fresh avenues for solutions. My

delegation reiterates our full support for an expansion

of both membership categories of the Security Council.

We congratulate the Security Council on the support

that its landmark resolution 1325 (2000) received, a

resolution whose implementation will allow for

increased involvement on the part of women in the

process of achieving peace and security.

Fiji has excelled in its efforts to achieve the

peacekeeping goals of the United Nations Charter. We

remain fully committed to this goal and to the Brahimi

recommendations for reform. Our military is serving in

various United Nations missions, including in Lebanon,

East Timor and Kuwait. Our police officers are serving

in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is gratifying to see positive

conclusions to several peacekeeping mandates and their

impending withdrawal or downsizing. We would

caution, however, against any exit without strategy, in

order to give credence to the huge investment of

goodwill and resources by the United Nations and the

international community, and to avoid a situation of

double jeopardy for the people trapped in armed

conflict.

In this regard, we support new measures to

strengthen the protective regime of the Convention on

the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel.

Its scope needs to include United Nations and

humanitarian personnel on the ground, who need real

protection and security while working to ensure the

safety of, and caring for, civilians.

Fiji has consistently advocated decolonization

and self-determination since joining the United

Nations. We note the delay in the implementation of

the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to

Colonial Countries and Peoples. Fiji supports the

ongoing work of the Committee of 24 and recognizes

the political and diplomatic constraints involved.

Early on in this Second Decade for the

Eradication of Colonialism, the 17 Non-Self-Governing

Territories, mostly small island Territories in the

Caribbean and Pacific regions, need our focused

attention, so that their legitimate aspirations for self-

determination can be recognized.

The Declaration of Commitment on the

HIV/AIDS pandemic demands that we exercise greater

vigilance and focus sincerely on safeguarding our

development gains and on our future goals. We in the

Pacific are seeking to maintain our low infection rate

trend, as we stand to lose the most if we fail to abide

by that Declaration. Only collaboration and solidarity

at the international, regional and national levels can

save humanity from this invasive scourge.

Despite the recent political disturbances in Fiji,

respect for the rule of law and for international human

rights standards has been maintained. The continued

existence and independence of the Fiji Human Rights

Commission is testimony to our commitment to human

rights.

Fiji, along with several of its Pacific Island

neighbours, is for the first time facing the dilemmas

posed by refugees and asylum seekers. International

human trafficking has brought them to our shores,

despite the vast distances between our lands.

International refugees are the direct result of violations

and breaches of human rights. As a State party to the

Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and to its

Protocol, Fiji pleads with Member States to respect the

rights of refugees and to support the work of the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. At the very

least, Member States are obligated to protect the rights

of their citizens in their own homeland.

Fiji co-sponsored the resolution on Korean peace,

security and reunification during the fifty-fifth session

of the General Assembly. We are elated to see peace

and reunification initiatives in the Korean peninsula.

Likewise, the small island developing States are

seeking continually to enhance our international

participation. Strengthening future relations between

the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum is a

mutually beneficial avenue. This will allow for our

effective participation in the United Nations system. It

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also affords the United Nations with a unique and

authentic Pacific perspective and voice. Cooperation

between the Pacific Islands Forum and the United

Nations is a welcome addition to this session’s agenda

and promises greater returns, with the support of

Member States.

Our Pacific Islands Forum leaders will meet in

Fiji in 2002. It is therefore opportune to renew our

invitation to Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, to

visit the Pacific Islands Forum region. Recent political

events in the Pacific and the successful domestic,

regional and international initiatives to address these

concerns can only be positively reinforced by such a

high-level, goodwill visit by the Secretary-General, to

take place early, rather than later, in his second term of

office.

Our global development agenda demands of the

United Nations an increased facilitating role in the

coordination of economic, financial, trade and social

issues. At the International Conference on Financing

for Development in March 2002, stakeholders will

deliberate on enhancing coherence and coordination

between development and social objectives. Fiji hopes

that the Conference will inspire the international

community and financial institutions, including the

Bretton Woods institutions, to support and devise new

standards and indicators, such as the vulnerability

index, to effectively address poverty and other

disparities.

Growing imbalances and marginalization in the

world economy are a threat to humanity, in particular

to Fiji and other small island developing States (SIDS).

Sustainable development depends on a given level of

resources to propel our fragile economies forward.

Moreover, these resources are needed to sustain long-

term, sound, economic and environmentally friendly

development. The critical role of the international

community is to assist us in nation-building and

efficient resource utilization so that we can fulfil our

social obligations.

Fiji has long expounded to the international

community how vulnerable and heavily dependent our

economies are on the vagaries and whims of the global

economy. Our small size, extremely remote distance

from the international markets and increasing

susceptibility to natural disasters do not lend

themselves well to economies of scale of production, to

building export-based trade or to gaining competitive

access to foreign markets for our products. Clearly, our

ability to benefit fully from globalization is doomed

from the start, further aggravating the divide between

the rich and poor. It is my Government’s aspiration that

the scope of equitable and tangible benefits from

globalization and trade liberalization is still to be fully

realized if we are to meaningfully tackle global and

human poverty.

As a member of the World Trade Organization,

Fiji is concerned at the fast erosion of trade preferences

in the world trade in agricultural products, sugar being

a mainstay of our economy. Increasingly, we fear that

small island States like my own, which depend

predominantly on agricultural export commodities, will

be seriously affected without adequate market

safeguards. We are forced to question the efficacy of a

multilateral trade framework as a fair mechanism in

promoting the interests of SIDS like Fiji.

In this context, we welcome the current work on

financing for development and preparations for the

World Summit on Sustainable Development. Targeted

assistance and official development assistance

programmes to enable us to fully implement and

strengthen investment and productivity must

necessarily complement our efforts through regional or

multilateral trading agreements. We are optimistic that

next year’s high-level conferences will flag our

concerns in line with the Barbados Programme of

Action and the development goals that are set out in the

Millennium Declaration.