Sri Lanka, 2003

Allow me to

extend my congratulations to the President on his

unanimous and well-deserved election as President of

the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly. This

is a difficult period for any person to preside over the

General Assembly, and I wish him every success. I also

wish to thank Mr. Jan Kavan of the Czech Republic for

his exemplary work as the outgoing President.

Last year, while addressing the General

Assembly, I referred to the commencement of the peace

process in Sri Lanka and promised to report on its

progress. Progress in the peace process in Sri Lanka is

due to the fact that we stopped talking about talking to

each other and actually began to talk. We have been

lucky, because the international community did not

simply talk about helping us, it actually did so.

In moving from conflict to peace in Sri Lanka we

initiated fundamental change in policy and strategy. We

shifted from confrontation to negotiation, identifying

and recognizing the root causes of the conflict. The

success story that Sri Lanka is fast becoming also

demonstrates the value of the support of the

international community acting in concert. That the

global community, moving with a common purpose,

can succeed in re-establishing peace, democracy and

prosperity has been amply demonstrated in the Sri

Lankan experience. After 20 years of conflict, our people

are now enjoying the fruits of 20 months of peace.

The role of the international community in

enabling us to move from war to peace has been

outstanding. The facilitation provided by Norway has

had the result of bringing the Government and the

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) together in

several rounds of negotiation. President Chandrika

Kumaratunga's continuing declaration of commitment

to a political solution has been invaluable. The moral

and material support that our other frontline sponsors

India, the European Union, Japan, Canada and the

United States, along with the multilateral institutions of

the United Nations and the rest of the international

community have given, and continue to give to us,

has guaranteed that our efforts to consolidate and

maintain the peace will strengthen and develop.

Last November at Oslo, our international partners

endorsed and underwrote a paradigm shift in policy

when the Government and the LTTE accepted that the

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future political order in Sri Lanka would include

moving towards a federal polity where the unity and

territorial integrity of the country would be ensured.

Again, in June of this year at Tokyo, 52 nations and 21

multilateral agencies, many of them of the United

Nations system, pledged their support to Sri Lanka's

peace efforts, rehabilitation and development

programmes. The massive and unparalleled financial

contributions alone totalled $4.5 billion over a four-year

period. Those are indeed landmark events underlining the

value and strength of international action.

I must, however, inform the Assembly that, like

in all negotiations in a peace process, we find ourselves

today at a temporary impasse in the talks. Within the

next few weeks we should know the results of a

comprehensive review undertaken by the LTTE in

response to our earlier proposals regarding an interim

administrative arrangement for the north and east of our

country. That they should take so much time and effort

can be seen as a positive sign. We in turn will look

positively at the proposals put forward by the LTTE, and

will do everything in our power to keep the peace

process moving forward to a successful conclusion.

Meanwhile, our collective efforts, which have

been handsomely supported by the international

community and multilateral agencies, at providing

relief, rehabilitation and development to the conflict-

affected areas of the country are proceeding apace.

Economic growth is marching ahead, from a growth

rate of -1 per cent in the year 2001 to possibly 6 per

cent this year. And tourism is booming.

That has thus far been the story of Sri Lanka. In the

recent past there have indeed also been some success

stories in the United Nations: in Haiti, Somalia, Angola,

Kosovo and East Timor. But they are not enough.

The United Nations represents a unique concept

for international order formulated by the Allied Powers

to address challenges to peace and security and to

development and democracy in the aftermath of the

Second World War. President Roosevelt, in his 1943

Christmas Eve radio talk, said that as long as Britain,

Russia, China and the United States stuck together in

determination to keep the peace, there was no

possibility of an aggressor nation arising to start

another world war.

But the world that the United Nations is called

upon to represent today is an immeasurably changed

world. Today's problems, as the Secretary-General has

reminded us, are problems that respect no borders and

no laws. The proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction, environmental degradation, alienation and

exclusion, conflict, global terrorism, disease and endemic

poverty are foremost among those problems. Inescapably,

the United Nations remains the central, indispensable

forum in which we can collectively and democratically

respond to the challenges that we face in common.

But the United Nations is under enormous stress.

That strain comes from the structure of the Organization

itself. As a result, the adequacy and effectiveness of the

rules and instruments devised over 50 years ago to bring

order and reason to the post-Second-World-War

international scene are being questioned. The apparent

irrelevance of the current multilateral rules and

institutions to deal with the manifold problems of today

compel our urgent attention. In the words of the

Secretary-General, it challenges our ability to deal

with the least difficult issues and to do so effectively'.

Hence the rationale for reform which is insistent,

compelling and radical cannot be averted; for words

without action are meaningless, as we in Sri Lanka

have learned at a bitter cost.

Take for example the profound issues surrounding

Iraq. There are members in the Hall today who believe

passionately that the United States and its allies were

wrong to intervene in Iraq. Then there are those of us

who feel that the United States and its allies had no

choice but to intervene, that the failure of the United

Nations had created the need for a world policeman,

however reluctant it might be. But Iraq is more than a

divergence of views on a major issue. It shows the

inadequacies of the present collective security system,

a decision-making system which grappled with the

issue of Iraq for over a decade without a solution and

created a deadlock at a most critical time.

The United Nations has already paid a dreadful

price. The attack on United Nations headquarters in

Baghdad not only deprived the world community of

some of its most devoted and talented servants but

raised to the fore issues relating to the mandates

entrusted to the United Nations by its Member States.

It represents, undoubtedly, a direct challenge a

challenge which must be met.

Any reform must be radical, so that in this

changed world so different from the one it was

called upon to serve in 1945 the United Nations can

have the capacity to cope with war, poverty, human rights,

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terrorism and a dramatically changed environment in

which weapons of mass destruction have become so

potent a symbol. We have to move beyond rhetoric and

from cosmetic change to major surgery if we are to

overcome the challenge ahead. Rhetoric is not a

substitute for decisive action. Frantic activity is not a

substitute for concerted action, and the adoption of

resolutions does not make a tangible difference in the

day-to-day lives of our peoples. Above all, let us recall

that inaction in itself is a deliberate and a considered

decision to do nothing. We should not rival the League

of Nations' impotence on Abyssinia.

The problems we are encountering at the present

time compel us courageously and resolutely to address

and overcome the fundamental inadequacies that afflict

our international institutions and processes.

This year has seen the propitious coming together of

three events which have framed thus far the political,

financial and economic ordering of our world. I refer to

this session of the General Assembly, the gathering of the

Finance Ministers at the Bretton Woods institutions,

and the discussions at Cancun on the reordering of the

world trade regime. At all three meetings, the call for

structural reform was insistent and compelling. All

three the United Nations, the Bretton Woods Twins

and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

(GATT) were born out of the trauma and dislocation

of the Second World War. For over 50 years they have

served our many causes in varying ways, at times with

limited success, at times with despair at their inability

to effectively deal with the fundamental problems of

the day. After the Asian crisis, the Bretton Wood

institutions came under close scrutiny, and today we

are discussing how the developing countries can have

greater say in their decision-making.

Recent experience under the Doha Round of the

World Trade Organization (WTO) process at Cancun

further illustrates the problems that face us. No one

expected an agreed formula to come out of Cancun. On

the other hand, it need not have ended in collapse.

The Secretary-General's report has identified

many of the defects of the system that need to be

addressed. Other speakers, too, have made proposals in

this regard. At this stage, I should like to mention that,

in our view, any expansion of the Security Council as a

result of reforms must involve a manageable number,

and Asia must be given its due. This was ignored in

1945.

While many have urged a radical reform of the

structure of the United Nations so as to make it able to

respond to the challenges that confront multilateralism

at the present time, most have been hesitant to suggest

ideas that are both practical and doable. I believe that

the time has come for all of us who accept in principle

the value of this institution, the United Nations, and the

objective it stands for to think out of the box to

think creatively, imaginatively and unconventionally.

If I were to hazard an approach, it would be along

the lines of going back to our roots. The outline of the

United Nations prepared at Dumbarton Oaks in August

and September 1944 was agreed to at Yalta in February

1945 at the level of head of Government. The Charter

was signed at the final meeting in San Francisco, in

June 1945. All this was completed in just 10 months.

I, for one, would like to suggest that the Secretary-

General and a carefully selected group of political leaders

themselves come up with recommendations for United

Nations reform. Their recommendations could be placed

before a special session of the General Assembly, at

which heads of State or Government would be present.

I suggest that the time frame for this need not be

any longer than at the inception of the United Nations,

58 years ago.

In conclusion, let us remind ourselves that 11

September was a tragic wake-up call for all of us. The

19th of August was a tragic wake-up call for the United

Nations.

We have before us a historic opportunity to build

a United Nations worthy of the people whom we have

the honour to represent a United Nations where

honesty is not clouded by diplomacy, where realism

replaces rhetoric, and where action supplants treaties.