Namibia, 1996

Your election, Mr.

President, represents a fitting tribute to you personally for

your well-known qualities as a consummate diplomat and

to Malaysia for its constructive role in world affairs and

remarkable success in economic development and social

integration at home.

I cannot forget the skilful and decisive role you

played as President of the Security Council, in defence of

our interests, against attempts aimed at weakening the

effectiveness of the United Nations Transition Assistance

Group in Namibia. Our two countries have since joined

hands in cooperative relations, which are growing from

strength to strength. I congratulate you and wish you

every success in your challenging task.

Your Prime Minister, Mr. Mahathir Mohamad, is a

great friend of the Namibian people. His eloquent voice

illuminates the burning international issues advocated by

the South. It also serves to define most clearly the basis

of South-North dialogue, as well as the vital work being

done for the developing countries by the Group of 77 and

China.

Your predecessor, Mr. Diogo Feitas do Amaral,

earned himself a place of honour in the annals of history

by presiding over the fiftieth commemorative session of

the General Assembly. I commend him for his valuable

efforts and constructive contribution.

Our illustrious Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros

Boutros-Ghali, has been a devoted champion of the

Charter of the United Nations, a firm reformer and an

indefatigable promoter of peace, social development and

peacekeeping throughout the world. Africa holds the

Secretary-General in high esteem and supports his tireless

efforts in behalf of peace and a better future for

humanity, an outlook that is common to the Organization

of African Unity (OAU), the United Nations and the

Non-Aligned Movement.

At the most recent OAU summit, held at Yaoundé,

African leaders demonstrated unity and solidarity by

endorsing Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali for reelection as

Secretary-General of the United Nations. Namibia stands

behind that decision.

The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations was a

celebration of the success and durability of our

Organization. At the same time, it was a celebration of

the triumph of the will and determination of world leaders

and citizens alike to conquer tyranny, hegemony, poverty,

5

illiteracy, social inequities and underdevelopment amidst the

wealth and knowledge that abound in the world.

President Nujoma had this to say last year, from this

rostrum:

“During the past 50 years, this Organization has

served humanity as a universal market-place of great

ideas and collective action.”(Official Records of the

General Assembly, Fiftieth Session, Plenary Meetings,

35th meeting, p. 10)

President Nujoma has also said that the promotion of

world peace and security was meant to save succeeding

generations from the scourge of war and, moreover, to

promote social progress and better standards of life in

larger freedom. These are living commitments for all

nations and peoples and must be realized fully. They bind

us together as members of one human race and as each

other’s keepers.

You, Mr. President, issued a charge to the fifty-first

session of the General Assembly in your acceptance speech

on 17 September 1996. I thought its essence was

encapsulated in these words, which seemed to echo what

my leader had said:

“The United Nations must begin to embed itself

in reality and push the critical issues, especially

poverty and social injustice, to the centre of national

and public debate. What will it take to do this? Of

immediate need is political will by Member States to

commit to the principles of democracy and

accountability. The nature of democratic practice

needed for such an enterprise is one based on careful

deliberation and consultation so that compromise to

the lowest value is minimized in favour of optimizing

the best options that will protect universal values.”

(Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-First

Session, Plenary Meetings, first meeting, p. 4)

I could hardly agree more with those sentiments.

I shall never be convinced, and I shall never succumb

to the notion, that nuclear weapons assure world peace and

security, development, prosperity or equality among nations.

On the contrary, I am convinced that peace, disarmament,

democracy, multilateral cooperation and resource allocation

can unleash human ingenuity and industry for development

and social progress.

It is for these reasons that Namibia insists on

complete nuclear disarmament in all respects. The other

day I signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

on behalf of the Republic of Namibia, not out of

complete satisfaction but to encourage the ongoing work

towards disarmament, bearing in mind the constructive

and timely advisory opinion of the International Court of

Justice on nuclear weapons, as well as the Treaties of

Pelindaba, Rarotonga and Tlatelolco, which created

nuclear-free zones in Africa, the South Pacific and Latin

America respectively.

Africa is bleeding, just as the souls of our people,

the African people, are burning in misery and mayhem.

Their precious humanity and lives have been denuded of

dignity and worth. How long must this carnage and

dehumanization be allowed to continue in Somalia,

Burundi and other tormented places in Africa?

The glimmer of hope in Liberia engendered by the

recently concluded peace accord, brokered by States

members of the Economic Community of West African

States (ECOWAS), and the inauguration of Mrs. Ruth

Perry as the first-ever woman Head of State in Africa,

must not be snatched away again by unscrupulous power-

grabbers and political opportunists. Rather, the newly

inaugurated Head of State must be given all the support

she needs to pursue a national course of democratization,

reconciliation and reconstruction for all Liberians.

The long-standing partnership and cooperation

between the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and

the United Nations should be brought to bear in the

emerging favourable situation in Liberia with a view to

stabilizing the transition and to preventing any military

reversals. Just as peacekeeping cannot be successful

without international involvement, so also do regional

post-conflict peace-building and reconstruction depend on

international support to be successful. It is here where

preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and peacemaking

come together to do good for all.

Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim, the very able and

hardworking Secretary-General of the OAU, is anxious to

apply in all those conflict situations, the Mechanism for

Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. But he

is short of resources, including personnel, as well as of

appropriate capacity to do the job. Namibia will continue

to make its contribution in spite of its limited means. We

urge the international community to render generous

assistance to the OAU for this purpose.

6

Drug trafficking is a horrendous killer disease which

permeates the social fabric of society. Drug lords are

notorious gangsters not unlike those responsible for

organized crime, with corrupting inroads into Governments,

businesses and civil society, targeting youth, students and

even small children. The member States of the Southern

African Development Community (SADC) recently signed

a protocol on drug trafficking in our region and agreed to

coordinate their law enforcement efforts to combat this

menace jointly.

Today, the risk of dying due to anti-personnel

landmines in many parts of the world has increased

astronomically. This risk exists in southern Africa as well,

mainly in Angola, but also in Mozambique and Namibia.

This is another area in which SADC is combining the

efforts of its members with a view to regional initiatives.

Cooperation between SADC and the European Union

has made it possible for us to benefit from resources and

expertise to deal more effectively with this very serious

problem. That is why Namibia welcomes the initiative

taken on this matter by my colleague, Mr. Klaus Kinkel,

Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of

Germany, and supports his Seven-Point-Action Programme

on Anti-Personnel Mines.

In this connection, we encourage other ongoing

initiatives aimed at banning anti-personnel landmines, as

well as the commendable work which some countries are

doing in the field of demining, including in Namibia.

Namibia therefore supports the inclusion of a ban on

anti-personnel landmines in the agenda of the forthcoming

session of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

In the interest of democratization and national

reconciliation, and in order to mitigate the existing harsh

and racially biased social disparities which we inherited

from the apartheid order, Namibia has been pleading with

the United Nations and the rest of the international

community for least-developed country status. So far, this

plea has remained unheeded in the main, but, to be fair, not

entirely. While renewing our plea, it is worth

acknowledging with appreciation the implementation of

General Assembly resolution 46/204, concerning “as if”

least-developed country status, which has aided Namibia in

some constructive ways. This was made possible by United

Nations Member States, as well as by specialized agencies.

We thank them all for their support and also for having

extended the “as if” least-developed status for an additional

three years.

We believe, as most do, that economic growth, job

creation, human resource development and gender

equality must be visible and qualitative in content as

critical weapons against social dislocations and strife.

Without exception, during last year’s fiftieth

anniversary commemoration of the founding of the United

Nations, world leaders dealt, one way or another, with the

democratization, restructuring and revitalization of the

United Nations. This was as it ought to be. Systemic

reform of the United Nations was already overdue

decades ago.

While the reform process itself is still very much on

course, its forward momentum seems to have been

deflected for one reason or another.

The common position shared by the Organization of

African Unity (OAU), the Non-Aligned Movement and

other fair-minded bodies and persons is based on the

principle of equitable representation and transparency in

terms of decision-making at all levels of our

Organization.

In this context, Africa, Asia and Latin America and

the Caribbean each deserve to be allocated at least two

permanent seats on the Security Council, as well as a

concomitant increase of non-permanent seats in the spirit

of democracy and fairness. Namibia has already expressed

on a number of occasions a position on the addition of

Japan and Germany as permanent members of the

Security Council, but not in isolation of the representation

envisaged for the aforementioned three continents.

At the same time, Namibia believes that the General

Assembly was not meant by the authors of the United

Nations Charter to play second fiddle to any of the other

principal organs. It is a universal parliament of equal

members with the same preoccupation for world peace

and security, as well as for human survival and

prosperity.

It stands to reason, therefore, that United Nations

reform must not end up by making the Assembly a rubber

stamp of other principal organs, be it the Security Council

or the Economic and Social Council. We should like, in

the end, to see well-balanced and mutually

complementary organs and institutions of the United

Nations system.

Multilateralism is the essence of the United Nations

system. Decisions taken by the majority of Member States

7

should not be changed in the interest of a few through

administrative fiat. It is for the General Assembly itself, if

need be, to reconsider or to change any programme

activities or personnel requirements approved previously.

In addition to reaffirming their continued commitment

to and strengthening, of South-South cooperation, the

member States of the Group of 77 and China, in their latest

report, renewed their call for a just and predictable

multilateral trading system that would ensure the complete

integration of the economies of the South into the world

economy and the emerging international trading system.

To this end, the South attaches great importance to the

first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade

Organization, to be held in Singapore in December 1996.

Namibia strongly supports this meeting.

The 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace accord and the

establishment of the Palestinian Authority raised hopes for

lasting peace in the Middle East. Regrettably, bloodshed

and enmity are once again threatening to derail the Middle

East peace process.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Arafat cannot

afford to waste one more minute. An urgent one-on-one

meeting and joint action, which ought to be routine, to end

the vicious circle of violence should take place without

delay. The first step in this direction is putting an

immediate end to the creation of new settlements and to the

reconstruction work in the Old City of Jerusalem. The

initiators as well as the supporters of the Madrid peace

process should also bring their weight to bear towards

restoring the partnership for a comprehensive, just and

lasting settlement, in the best interest of all parties in the

Middle East, especially in the exercise of self-determination

by the Palestinians and the establishment of an independent

state of their own.

And, of course, we are not forgetting Bosnia. Namibia

hopes that the progress achieved so far will continue and

will eventually lead to lasting peace and reconciliation in

the area.

Namibia cannot have a split personality on the

question of self-determination and decolonization. Western

Sahara is crying out for self-determination and

decolonization. Only when these goals are fully realized can

Africa and the United Nations boast of the complete

political emancipation of our beloved continent.

Namibia welcomes the high-level contacts that the

Kingdom of Morocco and the Saharan Arab Democratic

Republic (SADR) have commenced. I should like to

entreat them to maintain and invigorate these encouraging

political talks. The objective we would all like to see

implemented, I believe, is the early holding of a United

Nations-sponsored referendum in which only the authentic

Saharawis will be able to express their unfettered will and

assume their destiny.

There is an extensive update on Angola in the

Secretary-General’s annual report. In his important

statement of 23 September 1996 to this Assembly, my

colleague, Venancio de Moura, Foreign Minister of

Angola, provided representatives with useful additional

information on the worrisome situation in his country,

inclusive of constitutional and political issues.

I can hardly add to this information. For Namibia,

nonetheless, the suffering of our Angolan brothers and

sisters, not to mention the children, is of paramount

concern. The other concern we have in Namibia is about

the fast-approaching deadline of the presence of the

United Nations Angola Verification Mission

(UNAVEM III) in Angola, which includes financial

implications arising out of the obstacles and delays which

keep cropping up in the implementation of the Lusaka

Protocol. Be that as it may, Namibia is bound by blood

and common destiny to stand with Angola. That is why

our military contingent attached to UNAVEM III will

remain in Angola until the Mission is satisfactorily

concluded.

This week, the leaders of the Southern African

Development Community Organ on Politics, Defence and

Security, under the co-chairmanship of President Robert

Mugabe, will meet in Luanda to exchange views on the

critical situation in Angola and its implications for the

region, the United Nations and the world at large.

President Nujoma will attend this crucial and timely

meeting.

Before concluding, let me say that an enduring

challenge for the United Nations, now and into the next

century, is to reactivate multilateralism as the centrepiece

of international relations and constructive cooperation in

the emerging world order.

This new world order cannot be built with a cold

war mind-set characterized by confrontation, military

intervention, economic blockade and political

8

assassinations. There is no place for it in today’s world of

cooperation and open trade.

The General Assembly, where all United Nations

Member States are represented, is the ideal forum for

resolving the conflicts of interest of the haves and the

have-nots, guided by the principles of equality, justice and

equity for all.

Finally, let me end with President Nujoma’s

concluding words, spoken here last year:

“The future belongs to the youth and children.

Our collective duty must be to reinforce their

vision for a peaceful, harmonious and prosperous

future in the spirit of brotherhood and

cooperation”.

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