Malawi, 2003

First of all,

Sir, allow me to congratulate you on your election as

President of the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth

session and also to commend Mr. Jan Kavan for his

outstanding and astute leadership in presiding over the

fifty-seventh session. I should like also to commend

Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his dynamism and

for the great leadership qualities he continues to

display in steering the affairs of the United Nations. I

wish to assure you of Malawi’s continued support and

cooperation as we deal with the challenges before us.

I would like to express Malawi’s sincere

condolences to the families of the victims of the

senseless and barbaric attack against the headquarters

of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq,

which resulted in the loss of a number of lives,

including that of the Special Representative of the

Secretary-General, Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello. The

attack should serve as a warning of our need to remain

focused on the fight against terrorism to ensure that the

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war against that scourge proceeds as a multilateral

undertaking. We fully support the call for all those

responsible for such attacks to be charged with war

crimes.

Time has demonstrated the cardinal place of

multilateral approaches to international issues and

problems. The Iraq situation has revealed to us all in

the international community the importance of

multilateralism under the auspices of the United

Nations, whose central role in addressing international

conflicts should not be undermined.

Let me seize this opportunity to express, on

behalf of the Government and the people of Malawi,

my gratitude to the United Nations and its agencies, as

well as to other multilateral and bilateral donors, for

the emergency relief assistance given to Malawi and to

other countries of southern Africa during the past two

years, when our people faced a critical food shortage

that threatened millions of lives. Their timely

intervention enabled us to prevent a massive loss of

life. We trust that the international community will also

assist us in improving our agricultural production so as

to prevent the recurrence of famine.

Africa continues to experience the effects of the

tragedy created by the HIV/AIDS scourge. Our

national budgets are seriously overstretched by the

demands of care, treatment, support and funerals for

HIV/AIDS victims, which occur on an hourly basis in

an environment of devastating economic decline and

famine. We are losing able-bodied people and

professional expertise in all the sectors of our society

two and a half times faster than we can replace them.

We are grappling with the problem of caring for tens of

thousands of orphans, whose numbers are increasing at

an alarming rate.

The bleak and desperate situation created by HIV/

AIDS urgently calls for concerted and practical

international action to implement the Millennium

Declaration and Development Goals in the fight against

this pandemic. I would like to thank all those partners

that continue to assist us in addressing this serious

problem.

Malawi has paid close attention to the new

international debate presently taking shape which

advocates a qualitative paradigm shift from policy

frameworks and mere commitments in conferences to

the concrete implementation of an agreed action

programme, or what has become known as the New

Multilateralism which aims at addressing the serious

shortcomings of existing multilateral policy

prescriptions. The debate also seeks to effect a move in

the right direction. My Government supports this

important innovation and, especially, the newly-

launched United Nations system wide integrated

framework for least developed countries, jointly

worked out by the six core agencies and designed to

facilitate the effective integration of the least

developed economies into the multilateral trading

system.

We also support the United Nations Development

Assistance Framework (UNDAF) mechanism for

effecting increased coordination and collaboration at

the national level in the preparation of development

plans and programmes. We are keen to see a better-

coordinated and integrated follow-up to, and

implementation of, not only conference outcomes but

also outstanding donor commitments to our

development efforts.

In the same vein, the Government of Malawi fully

endorses the current exercise designed to reform the

United Nations. A more representative and democratic

United Nations will enhance the efficiency and

credibility of this world organization.

I cannot overemphasize the centrality of market

access and trade to the whole question of poverty

eradication, sustainable agriculture and rural

development. We need to translate the debate on

Western protectionism into a deliberate, broad-ranging

global policy against trade barriers. Malawi is

concerned at the collapse of the recent World Trade

Organization meeting in Cancún, Mexico. We can only

hope that the stalemate in the talks is only temporary.

In the current unbalanced system of trade, low

commodity prices on the international market have

allowed a virtual free flow of our primary products to

the West with a near-zero return on our agricultural

sector, making it all the more difficult to develop the

sector into a key catalyst for rural and sustainable

development as a strategy for effective poverty

reduction.

The world today is faced with multiple

challenges, which have tested the resilience of the

strong, as well as that of the weak. In Africa, the noble

objectives of the New Partnership for Africa’s

Development (NEPAD), geared towards enabling.

Africans themselves to assume full responsibility for

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development challenges, can be meaningfully realised

only with the support of the developed countries. So

far, not much has been achieved owing to resource

constraints. The resource pledges made by the Group

of Eight at meetings in Canada and France must be

honoured in order for the implementation of the

NEPAD programmes to pull Africa out of economic

stagnation.

We were heartened by the launch, early this year,

of the road map for a Middle East peace with the

expectation that it had established conditions for an

irreversible transition to the establishment of an

independent Palestinian State co-existing with the State

of Israel. It is, therefore, regrettable that the road map

is being frustrated by elements that do not wish to see

peace take root in the Middle East. We call upon the

Middle East Quartet and the Israeli and the Palestinian

sides, in particular, to remain committed to the road

map and to do everything in their power to make it

succeed.

I would like to commend the Secretary-General,

jointly with the Assembly and the Security Council, for

having taken a number of decisive steps towards the

resolution of conflicts in Africa, including through the

framework of the open-ended ad hoc Committee. of the

Security Council on conflict prevention and recovery in

Africa. Malawi reaffirms its alignment with the

position of Africa and the Southern African

Development Community on preventive diplomacy,

and commends, in this regard, the General Assembly

work on a draft resolution on the prevention of armed

conflict in Africa. We also support the Economic and

Social Council resolution establishing an Ad Hoc

Advisory Group for mobilizing assistance for African

countries emerging from conflict.

The humanitarian tragedies in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau,

Sierra Leone and Liberia remain a serious distraction

from important national and regional development

initiatives.

In this regard, we welcome the peaceful handover

of the reigns of power in Burundi on 30 April, 2003, in

accordance with the terms of the peace accord of

August 2000. We also commend the successful

establishment and launching of a broad-based

Government of national unity in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo on 15 July 2003 and the

peaceful and successful elections recently held in

Rwanda. However, it is important that war crimes

committed in conflict areas be thoroughly investigated

so that justice may take its course. This would help to

check impunity, a phenomenon of most conflict

situations. In this connection, my Government

welcomes the announcement, on 16 July 2003, by the

Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court of

plans to investigate war crimes committed in the region

of Ituri in the north-eastern part of the Democratic

Republic of the Congo.

Malawi believes that the United Nations can

meaningfully advance the principles upon which it was

founded and effectively deal with the multiple

challenges that the global community is facing by

taking an all-inclusive approach to its membership. It is

in this spirit that my country has, time and again, called

for the participation of the Republic of China in the

affairs of this Organization in line with the principle of

universality. Taiwan has a lot to offer in the promotion

of the global common good, which the United Nations

is here to advance. I therefore hope that the 23 million

people of Taiwan will be given sympathetic

consideration so that they may, once again, enjoy the

right to associate with the world community through

this Organization.

Next year will be an important one for the people

of Malawi, as we will be holding the third general

election of the democratic dispensation ushered in

1994. The elections will be tripartite, as they will

include presidential, parliamentary and local

government elections. The elections could not have

been scheduled to take place at a worse time, given that

the country has recently experienced a serious food

shortage that has further strained the few resources

available to it. However, in response to the demands of

the country’s constitution, the Government and the

people of Malawi remain committed to fulfilling this

constitutional requirement for good governance based

on free and fair elections. Malawi seeks the

cooperation, support and assistance of the international

community to facilitate the entire electoral process.

May I conclude by conveying to you,

Mr. President, to the Secretary-General and, indeed, to

the United Nations family, the profound gratitude and

appreciation of His Excellency President Bakili Muluzi

and the people of Malawi for the support and

cooperation extended to the President and his

Government since they assumed power in 1994. As

President Muluzi prepares to retire next year, after

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serving the people of Malawi as President for two

consecutive five-year terms, he is confident that the

United Nations and, indeed, the international

community at large, will remain committed to assisting

the new leadership and the people of Malawi in their

quest for meaningful and effective socio-economic and

political development.