Equatorial Guinea, 1982

It is a great honour for me to avail myself of this opportunity to

address the Assembly in the name of the people of the Republic of

Equatorial Guinea and their President, Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo,

whom I represent here, and to express to the vast family of the

international community the brotherly greetings and solidarity of my

country.

4. I am particularly pleased to pause here to express, on my own

behalf and on that of the delegation over which I have the honour of

presiding, our most sincere congratulations to you, Mr. President on

your well-deserved election as President of the Assembly to direct

and preside efficiently over the debates that will be held throughout

these days during which we shall be trying to find viable solutions

to the innumerable problems which affect our world of today and

constantly threaten peace and the civic and harmonious coexistence of

peoples. It is our profound hope that your presidency will be carried

out with the equanimity, foresight, wisdom and high diplomatic skills

which have always characterized you and won for you the respect and

esteem of us all. I should also like to transmit to your illustrious

predecessor, Mr. Kittani, our appreciation for the effective manner

in which he discharged his functions during the last session. We

particularly wish to congratulate Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, the

Secretary-General, on his election to the lofty responsibility of

ensuring the administrative and political functioning of the Head

quarters of our great community. We are certain that his stature as

an accredited diplomat and his vast knowledge of the machinery of the

United Nations system will ensure that the difficult tasks entrusted

to him will be carried out with guarantees of certainty and

effectiveness.

3. On my delegation's behalf, it is my pleasant duty to express our

sincere gratitude to the Government of the United States of America,

and in particular to the authorities of the State of New York, for

the hospitality that has always been lavished upon us and for making

available to us the material and spiritual conditions necessary for

the success of sessions of the General Assembly.

6. Three years ago a representative of the people of Equatorial

Guinea came before the Assembly at this podium to announce to the

international community the action taken by the Equatorial Armed

Forces which, on the dawn of 3 August 1979, decided to do away with

the blood-stained regime of the wretched tyrant Macias Nguema.

7. Three years ago, in the same statement, the Government of the

Supreme Military Council, established by that liberating action of

the people of Equatorial Guinea undertook freely and resolutely,

before the world and history, the sacred obligation of making every

necessary effort to remove my people from the abandonment and

destruction in which it had been plunged by the former regime.

8. Of course, the Government of the Supreme Military Council had

no idea of the enormous difficulties that would later arise in the

country's reconstruction. Indeed, the difficulties were and are

enormous and multiple, since our task consists in eliminating the

trauma from the minds of the citizens of Equatorial Guinea and

building a new and different society. To this end, we have the urgent

need to give priority to rehabilitating those fields of activity most

important to the normalization of life in Equatorial Guinea, namely,

health, education, agriculture and, above all, the economy-the

decisive factor in the entire process of our reconstruction and

development.

9. Today we can be proud of having worked honestly and

resolutely, facing every difficulty and overcoming all kinds of

obstacles to achieve some positive goals along the Ions and difficult

road of reconstruction. Our achievements can be seen by all in

Equatorial Guinea, and it would be too much for me to try to list

them here, achievements which, I must add, would not have been

possible without the decisive support of the international community.

10. When, in order to bring about the economic relaunching of

Equatorial Guinea and in response to the pathetic appeal made by my

country, the United Nations approved the holding of an international

pledging conference at Geneva, we could not have guessed the

significance it would have for our country. That Conference, held at

Geneva in the month of April last-and attended personally by Colonel

Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the Republic-represented for my

country a propitious opportunity for us to present in a clear,

concise and detailed manner to the international community an

inventory of our most urgent needs and the projects we have for

solving them gradually, and at the same time to request assistance

from international financial circles in obtaining contributions for

the financing of those projects.

11. Through not only the assistance but also the interest and

understanding of the international community, we were able to revise

our forecasts, which were a source of great satisfaction to us, and

we are very grateful to the countries which attended the Pledging

Conference and showed interest in several of the projects we

submitted there. We are also grateful to the governmental and

non-governmental organizations which also showed an interest in our

projects and to the United Nations system which, with special zeal

and sincerity, worked ceaselessly to ensure the smooth running and

success of the Conference, whose results are already being made

visible in Equatorial Guinea through the large number of

representatives of countries and international organizations who have

come to maintain the first contacts and evaluate on the spot the

possibilities of carrying out the proposed projects within the

context of that Conference.

12. I have been specially asked by the President of the Republic

to avail myself of this opportunity to express, on behalf of the

Government and people of Equatorial Guinea, our sincere gratitude to

all those who participated in or contributed in any way to that

Conference, and our thanks for the fruitful results it achieved. It

is an obvious proof of solidarity which the people of Equatorial

Guinea will never forget, and we are confident that the spirit of

that Conference will be kept alive and fervent, and that there will

be increasing interest in assisting our country both on the part of

the countries which attended the Conference, and on the part of those

which, while not having been able to attend, feel a sense of

solidarity with the cause of my country's reconstruction.

13. One of the most serious injuries suffered by the people of

Equatorial Guinea during the dictatorship was the undisguised and

unprecedented suppression of our fundamental rights, leaving the

citizen of Equatorial Guinea deprived of his minimum rights. There

are numerous examples that bear eloquent testimony to the acts of the

past regime which with impunity cruelly jeopardized those rights.

Therefore, one of the main goals of the Supreme Military Council,

when it took power on 3 August 1979, was to restore those fundamental

rights to the people of Equatorial Guinea; and from that very year a

gradual but firm process of democratization of the country was

initiated and measures adopted for the scrupulous and strict respect

of the human person. On past occasions we listed in various

statements the measures we have taken, from the liberation of all

political prisoners to the drafting and presentation to the people of

a Constitution, which our Government has been implementing

faithfully, to comply with the promise and commitment entered into

before our people and history.

14. Indeed, the Government of the Supreme Military Council,

faithfully following the line of conduct it established when it first

came to power, and in compliance with General Assembly resolution

34/123 which established the programme for the gradual

democratization of our country, has lived up to its promise made to

the people on the occasion of the second anniversary of the freedom

cooup , and has drafted the text of a constitution which, in order to

comply with the requirements of our time regarding guarantees of

human freedoms and the principles of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, it submitted for revision to United Nations experts

appointed for that purpose by the Division on Human Rights.

15. On 2 August 1982 that Constitution was officially and

solemnly presented by Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the

Republic, to the people of Equatorial Guinea. On 15 August the people

was consulted in a popular referendum about whether or not it

accepted the text of the Constitution. On 21 August, the National

Referendum Committee announced the official results of that

referendum.

16. It is my pleasure here to announce with pride to the

international community that the people of the Republic of Equatorial

Guinea, in a referendum conducted through a direct, free and secret

ballot, has provided itself with a new democratic constitution,

supported by an overwhelming majority of 95 per cent of the votes

cast, or the basis of a 96 per cent voter turnout.

17. On the same occasion, and in accordance with another

provision of the Constitution, Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, by the

acclamation of the people and in expression of its free will, was

charged with guiding the sacred destiny of Equatorial Guinea for the

seven years following the adoption of the Constitution.

18. That massive, unanimous election of Colonel Obiang Nguema

Mbasogo to the nation's highest office was free from any trickery and

resulted from the desire of the people of Equatorial Guinea to

maintain continuity in the process of democratization it has

undertaken, and that the same guiding hand should complete it, before

proceeding to the general elections to take place at the end of the

seven-year term of the presidential mandate.

19. Our Constitution, the basic code which now rules and guides

the sacred destiny of my people, provides for a Council of State, a

People's House of Representatives, a Court of Justice, a National

Council for Economic development and Community Councils. The latter

are adapted to our national situation for democratization by giving

the power structure its roots in the communities, in the countryside.

20. We think we have kept our word to the international

community, given in the Assembly, and are pleased to have done so

before the time set in a programme drawn up in collaboration with the

United Nations. Our devotion to the people, and our historic

commitment to it, have enabled us to provide that people, only three

years after taking power, with a democratic constitution, with all

the organs and conditions required to ensure scrupulous respect of

its basic rights and the enjoyment of a state of law, in keeping with

the standards of the second half of the twentieth century.

21. We are fully convinced that, just as it responded massively

and affirmatively in favour of the Constitution, our people will also

be able to live up to it by safeguarding and respecting it, so that,

with the Constitution as our cornerstone and beacon, we shall go

forward together in peace and national harmony to accomplish the very

difficult task of reconstructing the country.

22. Basic difficulties-such as those we face in the area of food

and, above all, in restoring the country to economic health-have

shown us that our strength is limited, although our efforts are

enormous. We are therefore certain that we cannot travel this hard

road on our own, without the steadfast assistance of the

international community, whether bilateral or multilateral.

23. Regarding bilateral relations, we have sought to break with

the isolation which the past regime imposed on our people for more

than a decade, and we have not only succeeded in re-establishing

international credibility and trust, but have greatly strengthened

the links that unite us with neighbouring countries, with the African

continent, and the world in general, without ideological or bloc

discrimination.

24. in this connection it is my honour to mention the excellent

relations of co-operation between the Republic of Equatorial Guinea

with Spain, whose assistance has always been decisive for our

country, as well as the relations we maintain with France, the United

States of America, the People's Republic of China, Morocco, the

Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland and Egypt, to name but a

few. These are countries whose co-operation has already taken

positive form in Equatorial Guinea.

25. Our relations of co-operation with the neighbouring brother

countries of the United Republic of Cameroon, the Republic of Gabon

and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are excellent, for those

countries have spared neither effort nor moral and material means to

encourage us and spur us on to continue resolutely the great task of

reconstruction express, before the Assembly, our deepest gratitude to

them. We have signed agreements on bilateral co-operation with Sao

Tome and Principe.

26. As to the community of Hispanic nations, we are aware of the

affinities and identity which unite us to it, and we are making every

effort to achieve greater integration and to establish solid links

with our brothers in Latin America and the Caribbean region. There

are already joint projects with the Argentine Republic, and our ties

with other countries such as Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico, are

strengthening and are becoming increasingly positive.

27. In a world like ours in the second half of the twentieth

century, our concerns can only grow. We believe that this rostrum-the

Assembly-is the most appropriate place to denounce the alarming and

growing abandonment by nations of the principle of dialogue in favour

of the spirit of war and confrontation. The cold war, which, during

the post-war years, had itself been a threat hovering over the

peoples, has dangerously given way to the proliferation of armed

confrontations.

28. National leaders are growing more intransigent, and the

results of this are there to be seen: self-destruction and the tens

of thousands of human beings who are paying with their lives for wars

waged for sterile claims. Such problems are of profound concern to my

Government; they are to be seen far beyond the walls of this Hall,

and it is imperative that practical solutions be found. I refer

especially-but only by way of example-to the conflict between Iraq

and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the question of the Malvinas, the

occupation of Cyprus, the situation on the Korean peninsula, a

practical satisfactory solution for which has been sought since 1966

without success, the untenable status of Namibia.

29.All these problems have a significant effect on the noble

principles of the self-determination of peoples, respect for human

rights and non-interference in the internal affairs of States,

principles to which my Government adheres and abides by. Along with

this, there is the constant tension in the Middle East, which has

become more acute with the invasion of Lebanon and the killing of

Palestinians by Israel forces, which constitute flagrant flouting of

the inalienable rights of an entire people. Further, terrorism runs

rampant in Europe.

30. The African continent continues to be the theatre for

military operations and adventures by non-African Powers. Those

Powers are fomenting discord and confrontation among our States, in

order to weaken us and freely to exploit our resources, imposing on

us truly humiliating trading conditions.

31. The tensions which exist are well known and do not need a

special review at this time, for they are always a part of the daily

life of our continent and pose a grave threat to the Organization of

African Unity [OAU]- This is not the time for a detailed analysis of

this tragic problem, for we believe that that analysis and a solution

to the problem are an inter-African responsibility.

32. Nevertheless we appeal to African States to show maturity and

find a single firm and decisive solution to the crisis, one

respecting the integrity and inviolability of the fundamental

principles of the charter of the OAU. We cannot permit the

disintegration of the OAU because our solidarity would thereby be

profoundly affected, as it is our best weapon in our struggle against

the political, economic and social injustices from which the African

continent suffers.

33. We are pleased at the return to order in Chad and we wish

that brother people peace and prosperity.

34. In accordance with this line of thinking, the people of

Equatorial Guinea, in the person of its President, Colonel Obiang

Nguema Mbasogo, whom I have the honour to represent in the Assembly,

is in favour of finding immediate and positive solutions to these

disputes by way of dialogue and mutual understanding, involving the

consistent, clear, and literal implementation of the relevant

resolutions on these disputes adopted by this great Organization.

35. As Vice-President of the Supreme Military Council, and having

the honour of representing the President of the Republic, it remains

only for me to reiterate to the Assembly that my Government is

resolutely determined to promote the social and economic development

of our country, strictly and faithfully to comply with the process of

democratization which we have started, to respect the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights and to make every effort to help

establish solid foundations for peace in the world.