Gabon, 2000

I welcome

the opportunity and the honour afforded me to speak on

behalf of Gabon at this session of the Assembly which,

although a regular one, is no less an exceptional one.

Indeed, not only does this session prepare us to

enter fully into the third millennium but also, and

above all, it is being held at a time in the history of

humankind that gives rise to new encouraging

prospects in the minds of men throughout the world for

a better future.

This is why, Mr. President, we welcome your

election to the presidency of the fifty-fifth session of

the Assembly.

We are in fact convinced that your qualities as a

statesman and your wealth of personal experience are a

guarantee for the success of our work.

With this in view, Gabon, as a Vice-President,

will give you its full cooperation so that this session

might effectively meet our expectations.

I am pleased to express my deep gratitude to your

predecessor, Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Minister for

Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Namibia, for the

efficient way in which he discharged his mandate.

We, in our turn, would like to warmly welcome

the State of Tuvalu, which has just joined the great

family of the United Nations.

I should like to pay a sincere tribute to our

Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his steadfast

efforts to realize the ideals of our Organization.

It has been 55 years since We the peoples of the

United Nations decided to maintain international

peace and security, to achieve international cooperation

in solving international economic and social problems

and in encouraging respect for human rights and

fundamental freedoms without distinction as to race,

language or religion.

These are the primary missions set out in the

United Nations Charter, which, in Article 55,

recommends the creation of conditions of stability and

well-being necessary for peaceful and friendly relations

among and, I would add, within nations.

The San Francisco Charter clearly established a

close correlation between peace and development.

Indeed, without peace there can be no development,

and without development there can be no just and

lasting peace. We acknowledge that it is difficult to

create conditions of increased prosperity for the

greatest number in an environment where chaos and

disorder reign. In this regard, the case of Africa is

particularly revealing. When, after the end of the cold

war, the world seemed to be developing towards a

promising situation because of the gradual reduction of

inter-State conflicts, the African continent suddenly

fell victim to armed confrontations of unprecedented

violence. Dormant antagonisms have been reawakened,

with the primary manifestation being the clash of arms

and disdain for fundamental humanitarian norms.

Several of our countries have come under the

yoke of warlords and become chaotic, ungovernable

entities that now require humanitarian assistance.

Despite the 50 or so peacekeeping operations that it has

undertaken since the creation of the United Nations,

the Security Council has shown its limitations in the

face of crises, especially in Africa. The Democratic

Republic of the Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone and

Somalia are all cases that, in recent memory, have put

the solidarity of the United Nations to the test.

In the area of development, the world has seen

unprecedented economic progress in the past 55 years.

Countries that were underdeveloped not very long ago

have become dynamic centres of world economic

activity. But there is another fact: the vast majority of

our countries and peoples remain desperately poor.

In his message to commemorate the World Day of

Peace, His Holiness Pope John Paul II wrote,

At the beginning of a new century, the one

issue which most challenges our human and

Christian consciences is the poverty of countless

millions of men and women.

According to the report (A/55/1) of the Secretary-

General on the work of the Organization dated

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30 August 2000, almost half of the world's population

must content itself with living on less than $2 per

person per day. So it is that 300 million Africans do not

have even $1 a day on which to subsist. Furthermore,

this poverty is being made worse, in particular by the

rapid spread of AIDS, another scourge that has

ravaged, brought suffering to, divided and decimated

entire families in Africa and throughout the world. In

some African countries, AIDS has even become the

main cause of death.

These are factors for destabilization. While they

are all different, together they create disorder and make

international relations uncertain. But I do not intend

merely to provide a list of all the evils with which the

Assembly is only too well acquainted and the United

Nations is constantly dealing. Nor should we neglect

the efforts undertaken and the progress achieved.

Rather, I should like to stress here I am in

agreement with the Assembly that the United

Nations and the multilateral system do not have

sufficient resources to face these major challenges. We

have been working at this for a long time now. We

cannot now give in to discouragement. We are duty-

bound to give the necessary impetus to our action.

How are we to do this? First, by moving from a

culture of war to a genuine culture of peace. Gabon's

dedication to the ideal of peace, which is a constant

element of its foreign policy, draws its strength from

the same roots as the Bantu civilization. We have a

duty to give pride of place to the virtues of dialogue

and tolerance among peoples and nations virtues

that we practise in our homes and families, and that my

country, through the personal intercession of President

Omar Bongo, a tireless mediator, has made into a

principle of political and diplomatic culture.

We must therefore return to our roots. That is, we

should go back to those traditional precepts that have

greater force today than ever before, given that today,

peace is most often threatened not from outside our

territories but from within. We must adapt the United

Nations Charter to these new situations, in particular

by adjusting the mandate of the Security Council with

regard to internal crises.

It is in this context that we welcome the issuance

of the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace

Operations, presided over by Mr. Brahimi. We are

convinced that this report will help to promote a new

approach to peacekeeping operations. Although

peacekeeping operations are necessary as a means of

responding, they are nevertheless insufficient. What is

at stake in the third millennium is not simply the

achievement of ceasefires among adversaries in open

conflicts, but the ability to nip conflicts in the bud

through action designed to eliminate the deep-rooted

causes of violence.

An important step would be the creation or

strengthening of regional security machinery to allow

us to resolve conflicts through dialogue and

negotiation, thus enabling us to considerably reduce

military expenditure and allocate the resources thereby

released to other development needs.

At the subregional level, therefore, Gabon is

contributing, in cooperation with the other States of

Central Africa, to the establishment of a climate of

confidence after implementing preventive diplomacy.

The heads of State of our subregion have, for

example, set up the Council for Peace and Security in

Central Africa (COPAX), a body for military and

political cooperation between the member States of the

Economic Community of Central African States, to

promote measures to maintain and consolidate peace

and security. COPAX has a multinational force for

Central Africa and an early-warning mechanism for

Central Africa.

The Gabonese Government has taken practical

and financial steps for the effective start of MARAC's

activities, for which it is the headquarters. However, it

goes without saying that it is with the support of the

United Nations and other partners that this instrument

will play its role fully.

In a broader regional context, a similar

framework for joint action, cooperation, development,

prevention, management and conflict resolution, the

Gulf of Guinea commission, made up of neighbouring

Nigeria and seven coastal central African States, was

created on 19 November 1999 in Libreville.

Finally, it is important to strength the multilateral

disarmament and non-proliferation machinery. Gabon,

which ratified the Convention banning anti-personnel

landmines, the Convention banning chemical weapons

and the Treaty banning nuclear testing, will continue to

actively support international disarmament efforts by

encouraging the process that has been set in motion of

combating the illicit trade in light arms and small

weapons. The convening, in the summer of 2001, of an

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international conference on that trade is important,

since it is quite clear that most conflicts in Africa and

elsewhere in the world are fed by traffickers in arms,

drugs and diamonds, and are supported by, among

other things, a number of major multinational

corporations that benefit from ill-gotten gains,

providing arms and drugs to the conflict zones and

participating in money-laundering operations.

We also unreservedly support the creation of the

International Criminal Court, and strongly advocate the

rapid entry into force of the Rome Statute.

With regard to strengthening the fight against

poverty and the initiation of new cooperation in the

service of development, the African continent accepts

that it bears the primary responsibility for its economic

recovery and that success in this task depends mainly

on its own efforts. But, at a time when the world is

happily entering the twenty-first century, Africa,

marginalized, is prey to destitution and poverty. The

scope of the crisis it is experiencing and the importance

of the resources to be made available require that the

international community support its efforts through

increased concessional resources, expansion of

commerce and trade and debt relief.

Cooperation on this painful issue of poverty was

discussed last January in Libreville by the heads of

State and Government of sub-Saharan Africa and the

Bretton Woods institutions, at a conference where a

new approach to poverty eradication was proposed,

with a target date of 2015. During that economic

summit the heads of State and Government made

recommendations on considering the continent's

prospects at the dawn of the new millennium and on

the challenges to be faced in speeding up economic

growth and eradicating poverty.

There is no doubt that poverty eradication

requires much quicker economic growth, with its fruits

benefiting the greatest number. In this regard, social

justice is a useful guide if we wish development and

economic growth to produce beneficial results that are

more equitably shared.

Our heads of State and Government committed

themselves to redoubling their efforts to promote solid

and sustainable growth in order to reduce poverty.

Furthermore, they reiterated their determination to

speed up the process of subregional and regional

integration already begun with the creation of the

African Union this year in LomÈ.

An open and interdependent world needs

mechanisms to retain its balance and to help promote

justice by preventing aggression against individuals

and nature. It also needs participation in development

for all countries and peoples and efficiency in

economic relations by encouraging transparency,

predictability and stability in international relations.

One solution would be and on this point I

agree with the view of many experts for

international development cooperation to cover not

only assistance, but also all activities necessary to

guarantee sustainable development throughout the

world based on the individual.

We could then agree that development assistance

first contributes to creating national conditions for

development and to combating poverty, which is

obviously incompatible with justice, popular

participation and effectiveness.

As necessary as the achievement of food self-

sufficiency throughout the world may appear, the

national capacity of the developing world should be

strengthened in order to facilitate the effective

implementation of international agreements on

environmental protection, trade liberalization,

macroeconomic management and banking supervision,

which are so essential to the proper functioning of a

globalized economy.

Looking back at history, one can see that after the

Second World War development cooperation was

synonymous with solidarity and aid: assistance from

the richest countries to the poorest. It is time for this

cooperation to be transformed, made more dynamic

and, above all, become part of the new fact of

globalization.

The recent ministerial meeting initiated by Mr.

Mark Malloch Brown, the Administrator of the United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP), highlighted

the need to strengthen the institution's capacity in order

to fulfil its mission more effectively. This

strengthening is particularly necessary, since today,

more than ever before, it is not possible to conceive of

development without taking environmental

requirements duly into account. UNDP could, for

instance, intensify its assistance to countries that draw

part of their resources from forest products to achieve

sustainable and ecologically viable management of the

forests.

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With regard to strengthening protection of the

environment, the debate under way in the United

Nations, which consists of blaming only the forest

countries, is unjust, since we know that the greenhouse

gas emissions produced by the industrialized countries

are largely responsible for the harm done to our planet.

Passing responsibility back and forth would not be

constructive. To the contrary, we should rather search

together, in the spirit of the 1992 Rio Conference, for

ways and means to enable us all to preserve the balance

of our natural ecosystem.

I turn to the alleviation of the crushing external

debt burden. On this crucial point, my country devotes

nearly half its annual budget to repaying debt, thereby

compromising its efforts and chances for development.

The debt relief mechanisms advocated in recent years

have been discriminatory with regard to our country by

excluding us from their application. We say that the

reasoning is unfair, being based on our high per capita

gross domestic product, without taking into account

either our ability to pay or the seriously

disproportionate distribution of national income

between capital, labour and taxation.

A study carried out recently by a team of

university specialists in Gabon shows that less than 40

per cent of our gross domestic product is likely to

cause a multiplier effect locally.

The peculiar situation of Gabon, the only country

in the so-called intermediate-income category in sub-

Saharan Africa, is due to the fact that its wealth is

produced by, and for, external protagonists.

Thus the appeal made to the international

community for a fairer treatment of my country's debt

and that of others is not simply a form of begging.

What is at stake is the strengthening of the

international trading system for the benefit of all, so

that globalization, as the Secretary-General has quite

rightly said, might become a positive force for all of

humankind. The debt problem remains a major source

of concern for African countries, not just my own. We

believe that our partners should show some

imagination rather than coming up with the same tired

solutions.

That is why, in considering the debt problem,

account should be taken not only of socio-economic

indicators but also of the efforts made by a State to

combat poverty and the deterioration of the

environment. We will say it again: helping the South

helps the North and helps everyone.

The status of the developing countries,

particularly those of Africa, requires broad-based

action on the part of the international community in

order to translate into reality our duties of solidarity

towards peoples.

Official development assistance continues to

decline. Following up on the recommendations of the

Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development,

recently reaffirmed in Geneva, my country, in its fight

against poverty, is now implementing the 20/20

initiative that is, 20 per cent of its national budget

and 20 per cent of official development assistance are

allocated to basic social services. We all know here that

the 20/20 initiative is an excellent way to combat

poverty.

Regrettably, Gabon's efforts have been hampered

by the dizzying decline in official development

assistance and its exclusion from the benefits of

external concessional financing.

I turn now to the protection of vulnerable peoples

and the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Another aspect of political and social problems in

Africa and throughout the world is the status of women

and children in society. In my country, women have the

same rights as men. Our educational system ensures

free schooling for all school-age children, in the

interests of the Gabonese nation as a whole. School

enrolment has risen from 27 per cent in 1950 to more

than 90 per cent today.

Furthermore, my country is resolutely committed

to promoting and protecting the rights of the child.

Accordingly, we hosted in February 2000 in Libreville

an international conference on trafficking in children

and on child labour.

We call for the implementation of the

recommendations of that conference, which are a direct

follow-up to the United Nations Convention on the

Rights of the Child and its two additional Protocols,

signed here by the head of State of Gabon.

Regarding the campaign against HIV/AIDS, I am

pleased to inform the Assembly that, at the initiative of

President Bongo, the Gabonese Government has just

created a national solidarity fund to combat this

pandemic. Gabon believes that the creation of an

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international solidarity fund to combat AIDS would no

doubt help the 35 million people stricken with this

illness, the majority of whom are in developing

countries, especially in Africa.

I turn now to the reform and restructuring of the

United Nations system. In his report entitled We the

peoples: the role of the United Nations in the twenty-

first century, the Secretary-General emphasized the

need to renew the United Nations. This renewal

requires that we identify the major assets of the United

Nations, rebuild its infrastructure and information-

technology capacities, and continue the peaceful

revolution that is, the reforms begun in 1997.

In this context, it is necessary to revise the scale

of assessments. It is in the interest of us all that we

readjust the scale of assessments, so that the burden of

the Organization's expenditures, and thereby its

freedom of action, does not rest on the shoulders of

only a few Member States.

The current millennium, a symbol of divine

generosity and perfection to which we are bearing

witness, has the potential to give rise to further

progress in the building of a more just and peaceful

world. Every nation represented here is a reflection of

humankind, whose common values were recalled by

the founders of the United Nations. Humanity is itself

in the image of God, and we must therefore together

bring to fruition the precious gifts bestowed by our

Creator: love, peace and freedom.

The United Nations must retain what has shown

itself to be tried and true, adapt where necessary and

devise new forms of regulation.