Malta, 2014

I would like first to

congratulate Mr. Sam Kahamba Kutesa on his election

as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth

session. I also wish to express my appreciation for the

able manner in which the outgoing President presided

over the Assembly.

Allow me also to pay tribute to Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon for his tireless commitment in the service

of peace. I also thank the men and women serving the

United Nations in the field. They do so often at great

personal risk, and their courage and determination is a

source of inspiration for the Organization.

It was 50 years ago that Malta became an

independent State. That was the year when Nelson

Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in South

Africa, and when Martin Luther King received the

Nobel Peace Prize. For a small, nascent State such as

Malta, it was a year of promise and new beginnings

as it took its place among the Members of the United

Nations. It is with a deep sense of pride that I stand

before members here today to note the role our country

has played over the past 50 years to uphold the purposes

and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Time and again, this family of nations has found

a trusted and reliable partner in my country, willing

to contribute, in ways large and small, to the cause of

international peace and security. I shall mention just

two. The first is Malta’s association with the Law of

the Sea — a widely acknowledged role, as we were

instrumental in the launching of the international

process that would eventually lead to the 1982 United

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The second

example, which came shortly after that, in 1988, is

our being among the first Member States to highlight

the risks of climate change to the global community

within the forum of the United Nations. An almost alien

concept at the time, today climate change is one of the

main items on the global agenda. I pay tribute to Arvid

Pardo and former President .ensu Tabone, who piloted

those events. Evidently, our size did not determine our

ambitions then. Neither will it determine them now.

We live in an increasingly uncertain world — a

world where the power balances that we have known in

recent decades have started to shift. What made sense

in the past may not make sense in the future — not

too distant a future, but the future that we can already

see forming before our own eyes. If the Assembly will

allow me, I wish to share some thoughts by presenting

five challenges — five of the many that I feel we, the

United Nations, need to face up to now.

Undoubtedly, the first challenge is the conflict

in the Middle East. We need a return to meaningful

negotiations, and I stress the word meaningful.

The ongoing tit-for-tat, the culture of hatred and

intolerance, the self-righteous proclamations and

the recriminations are leaving nothing but death and

destruction. If we build walls around people, it is no

wonder that they will dig tunnels to escape. The current

frame of mind will lead nowhere. Too many innocent

civilians have died, too many children have been

buried. We need statesmanship from the politicians

on both sides to resolve the conflict. Risk-takers and

courageous negotiators must be willing to make the

right choices — not the most convenient choices, and

not the most popular, perhaps, but the most enduring

ones — that will bring about change leading to peace.

Our second challenge must be putting an end to

the ghastly war in Syria, which is fast becoming a

forgotten conflict of major proportions. Like many

other countries here, last year my country called for a

stop to the atrocities (see A/68/PV.12). Are we simply

going to repeat that call this year as well? Let us stop

this humanitarian disaster, which, as we know, is now

morphing into the new threats we have heard so much

about. The adoption of Security Council resolution

2165 (2014) demonstrated that we can act together, so

let us act. We call on the Security Council to assume its

responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations

and to act urgently and decisively to bring about an end

to the bloodshed.

That brings me to the third challenge. As if we

have not yet learned the lessons from Syria, or realized

what sectarian divisions can lead to, we are allowing

the problems in Libya to continue almost unabated.

We are fast witnessing a descent into another forgotten

conflict. We need to help the Libyan people take their

country forward. There is a bright future for Liby, but

Libyans themselves need to find the hope necessary to

realize it. They can begin to do so only with the help

of the international community. The United Nations

can and must provide capacity-building and security to

bring about stability and prosperity.

Of course, we are heartened to see the constructive

role already being played by the United Nations Support

Mission in Libya. Yet immense challenges remain, in

particular in restoring the country’s security and law

and order. The divisions are rooted in many causes, but

they can be overcome. This situation cannot be allowed

to continue further. Its repercussions are severe not

just for the Libyans themselves or for the country’s

immediate neighbours, such as ourselves, but further

afield. The international community cannot risk a

takeover by extremists of that crucial country.

Together with our international partners, especially

our colleagues in the European Union, Malta continues

to actively support the efforts of the Libyan people

to move forward. We are providing all the assistance

within our means to aid the wounded. We will stand

for dialogue and reconciliation in Libya. We will stand

for peace and resolution. We will continue to draw

attention to this festering wound. Our Libyan friends

deserve that. Disarmament and national reconciliation

are the prerequisites for Libya to move forward. The

United Nations must be ready to answer the calls for

action from the Libyan people themselves.

If the Assembly will allow, I will directly address

our friends in Libya in their own language, which is so

similar to my own.

(spoke in Arabic)

The families and the children of Libya deserve a

true future. Freedom and justice for all Libyans can

be achieved only if differences are resolved through

dialogue and compromise.

(spoke in English)

Please allow me now to move to the fourth challenge

facing the world today, namely, the spread of extremism

and intolerance.

We are living through a period of transnational

allegiances in which we are seeing the globalization of

hatred — one during which extremists are increasingly

interconnected through networks and inventions whose

main purpose should be progress and education. This is

a time when disenchanted youths are radicalized into

movements that know no limits. We need to look beyond

the borders of our nation States and work together, if we

are to face up to the threats posed by extremists.

Nobody is immune from what is undoubtedly the

biggest threat to world stability and peace. Just as the

horrendous carnage of two world wars led to a shift in

our thinking, the reality we are living in now needs

to force another shift. We have to spread a culture of

mutual understanding and humanity — not because it

serves us, but because it serves our peoples and will

serve our future as a global community.

Clearly, the area of the world from the Mediterranean

to the Middle East, and beyond, demands our utmost

attention. People are being pushed to the brink. They

are resorting to increasingly desperate measures.

Men, women and children are risking their lives to

cross conflict-ridden zones and hostile deserts. They

are taking to the seas without realizing the dangers

that await them. As I also did last year, I reiterate that

more attention must be focused on the plight of illegal

immigrants in the Mediterranean, which I believe is the

fifth challenge we face.

With all our limitations, Malta is doing its utmost

to daily save lives — as our neighbour and friend

Italy is also doing. Again I call on the Assembly and

the international community to help to stop the great

human tragedies that come with risky crossings across

the Mediterranean. The States receiving the waves of

migrants cannot stand up to the challenge alone: no

country in the world can solve the problem of illegal

immigration alone. Just last week we witnessed in

our own seas yet another tragedy, which the Office of

the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

described as mass murder.

Closer cooperation among the countries of origin,

transit and destination is needed. The United Nations

and its agencies are already helping, but they must

continue to help in addressing the causes. Better

governance, better resources and better development

policies are needed. We need better enforcement

mechanisms and stronger penalties to stop and punish

the criminals — the human traffickers. We need better

implementation of internationally agreed commitments.

We need all of that and more, and we need to remember

to keep in mind the well-being of the human beings,

the families and children who are the victims of all that

tragedy.

As a Mediterranean country, Malta cannot but call

for the world’s attention to those challenges, which

are threatening not only the security of the region

but also its development and growth. Such threats are

preventing the Mediterranean Sea Basin from reaching

its full potential, which is just waiting to be unleashed

if only weapons were traded for books and hatred for

education. I reiterate my strong conviction that the

Mediterranean Basin needs to be given our immediate

attention in order to once again become the home of

great civilizations that it is and a cross-cultural haven

where women and men of different beliefs and traditions

work, trade and mingle in tolerance and tranquillity.

It has always been our belief that there cannot be

peace in Europe without peace in the Mediterranean.

Today’s unprecedented levels of interconnectivity

lead us to believe that peace in the Mediterranean is

a prerequisite for global stability. Malta will continue

to serve as a voice of reason, while striving to unite

the Mediterranean. Our only weapon is our historical

and natural vocation for peace. Our resolve grows only

stronger in such testing times.

The challenges that we face cannot stop us in our

tracks. We can address them if we truly believe in

acting as the United Nations. A year from now, we will

analyse the Millennium Development Goals and will,

hopefully, agree on sustainable development goals for

the twenty-first century. With an effective development

agenda, we can address the causes of conflict in a

sustainable manner and can overcome the poverty that

contributes to illegal migration. But we need to be

ambitious.

Over the past 50 years, my country has shown that

it has been and can be ambitious in favour of peace,

progress and prosperity. It has promoted and will

continue to promote the broadest possible dialogue

among the countries of our region. I take pride in

noting that only a few months ago, Malta, together

with Algeria, France, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, the

Netherlands, Nigeria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United

Kingdom and the United States, jointly launched the

International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law,

hosted by my country. The Institute will collaborate

with the United Nations and other international and

non-governmental organizations to provide training

to lawmakers, police, prosecutors, judges and prison

officials to deal with terrorism and transnational crime,

with a general emphasis on the rule of law. We hope

that such work will eventually serve as a best practice

for the benefit of the wider global community.

We are also fully engaged within the

Commonwealth, which brings together a third of the

world population, in order to help achieve convergence

on some of the challenges that lie ahead, including the

sustainable development goals and climate change. The

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that

will take place in Malta next year will serve as an ideal

platform for the discussion of such issues, especially

ahead of the Paris summit on climate change. Those are

some of the ways in which a small country in Europe

at the centre of the Mediterranean, such as Malta, will

continue to contribute to the fostering of peace and

security in our region and in the world.

Fifty years may seem like a long time, but I can

affirm that 50 years from now my country will remain

steadfast in its ambitions and in our determination in

favour of peace and prosperity. Malta will remain a

proud Member of the United Nations and a beacon of

stability in the Mediterranean.