Namibia, 2006

I should like at the outset to

congratulate Ms. Al-Khalifa on her well-deserved

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its sixty first session. I am confident that, given her

wisdom and experience, she will steer the proceedings

of the Assembly successfully. I also express our

profound appreciation to her predecessor, His

Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson of Sweden, for his

excellent work during the sixtieth session.

In the same vein, we salute the Secretary-

General, His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, for his

dedication and commitment to the work of the United

Nations. My delegation would like to pay him special

tribute for his distinguished leadership and remarkable

contribution to the United Nations, taking into

consideration his imminent departure at the end of a

long, dedicated and brilliant career in the service of our

Organization. Under his leadership, the United Nations

has recorded significant achievements. He ably laid the

foundation for Member States to make further

progress, especially with regard to the reform of the

United Nations. We will carry on with this task,

bearing in mind his vision of sustained global

cooperation among States. Allow me to wish him the

very best in his future engagements.

We are gathered here to reaffirm our faith in the

United Nations and to recommit ourselves to the

purposes and principles of the Charter. Today, the

world needs a stronger United Nations and effective

multilateralism that reflects current realities. Only thus

will humanity be able to respond in a timely manner

and without hesitation to the global challenges that we

face.

We fully support the comprehensive reform of the

United Nations as proposed by the Secretary-General.

The reforms should aim at strengthening the

Organization and making it more efficient, effective

and responsive to the needs of all its Members. We

further attach great importance to strengthening the

role and authority of the General Assembly as the main

deliberative and policy-making body, whose

relationship with other principal organs should be

placed in a fitting context so as to ensure cooperation

and respect for their roles as provided for in the

Charter.

My Government believes that the reform of the

Security Council, including its expansion, is essential.

The African continent deserves to be fairly and

equitably represented in the Council. That is not too

much to ask.

During the World Summit in September last year,

we reaffirmed our commitment to the Millennium

Declaration (resolution 55/2), adopted more than six

years ago. The Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1)

reiterated our commitments to the implementation of

the decisions made during previous conferences and

summits. My Government appreciates the work done

under the guidance and able leadership of former

President Eliasson in the realization of the Summit

decisions.

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The fruits of those efforts are visible to us all, as

they culminated in the inauguration of the

Peacebuilding Commission, the creation of the Human

Rights Council, the creation of the Central Emergency

Response Fund and the establishment of the Ethics

Office. We also welcome the accomplishments in the

area of management reform. People around the world

have high hopes that these newly created instruments

will achieve the specific mandates set for them. We

therefore encourage all Member States to continue, in

an open and transparent manner, to finalize the review

of the process.

Namibia attaches importance to the global

development agenda. Thus we are concerned about the

slow pace at which this essential matter is being

handled and about the lack of adherence to the

commitments in line with the Millennium Declaration.

In this regard, I urge all fellow leaders to stand

together in finding effective solutions to push back the

ever-encroaching frontiers of poverty, hunger, disease

and ignorance.

The African people know that they must take a

lead in resolving problems and challenges on the

continent. In those endeavours, they need to form

effective partnerships with the international

community. I therefore welcome the commitments

made by the Group and Eight last year in Scotland to

consider increasing development aid to Africa, to

cancel the debt owed by the poorest countries and to

promote universal access to antiretroviral drugs for

HIV/AIDS by the year 2010.

We reiterate our call for cooperation among the

United Nations, its specialized agencies and the

African Union and its subregional organizations

dealing with economic and social development on the

continent. We continue to emphasize the importance of

the Economic and Social Council as a central

intergovernmental body for promoting a more

integrated approach to global peace and development.

Namibia welcomes the presidential and

parliamentary elections recently held in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, which, most international

observers agree, were conducted in a peaceful and

transparent atmosphere. We urge the United Nations

and the international community at large to continue to

support the people of the Democratic Republic during

this crucial democratic transition.

The situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan is

cause for serious concern. The African Union, through

the African Union Mission in Sudan and with the

assistance of the international community, has made

efforts to bring peace to that region under

exceptionally hard conditions. We commend the

African Union Special Envoy, Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim,

for his tireless efforts in bringing the parties to an

agreement. We urge all the parties to respect their

commitments.

We welcome the visit to the Sudan by the United

Nations Security Council team in June this year and the

recommendations they made. Namibia looks forward to

an urgent and smooth transition from the African

Union Mission to a United Nations peacekeeping

mission in Darfur in accordance with Security Council

resolution 1706 (2006). We urge the Government of the

Sudan and other parties concerned to accept this

transition, which we believe will be in the best interest

of the people of the Sudan in general and those of the

Darfur region in particular.

I would like to join other countries around the

world in expressing our concern about the illicit trade

in small arms and light weapons, which remains a

menace to humanity. The proliferation of such weapons

compromises peace and security. They also pose

serious challenges to law enforcement agencies around

the world.

We are concerned that the question of Western

Sahara remains unresolved. The inalienable rights of

the people of Western Sahara to self-determination and

independence must be upheld and respected, as

stipulated in the relevant United Nations resolutions.

We therefore call for the urgent implementation of all

relevant Security Council and General Assembly

resolutions, with the aim of holding a free and fair

referendum in Western Sahara.

Namibia is also deeply concerned about the

ongoing suffering of the people of Palestine. We wish

to reaffirm our full and unequivocal support for the

inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-

determination and national independence. In this

context, we appeal to the United Nations to assume its

full responsibility by implementing all its resolutions

and decisions on Palestine, with immediate effect and

without precondition.

Sadly, the people of Lebanon have once again

been subjected to war and indiscriminate bombing,

19 06-52885

which have caused enormous suffering and the deaths

of innocent people, including children and the elderly,

as well as severe damage to and destruction of property

and infrastructure. Against that background, we call for

the immediate and unconditional implementation of

Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) and appeal to

the international community to provide humanitarian

assistance to the people of Lebanon in dealing with the

resulting humanitarian crisis.

For many years now, the majority of Member

States in this Assembly have expressed concern over

the continuous economic, commercial and financial

embargo against Cuba, which continues to cause severe

hardships for the Cuban people. The Government of

the Republic of Namibia upholds the principles of

peaceful coexistence of nations and fair and open trade

among nations. Thus, we call on all Member States, in

conformity with their obligations under the Charter of

the United Nations, for an immediate and

unconditional lifting of the embargo against the

Republic of Cuba, as called for in General Assembly

resolution 60/12 and many previous resolutions.

In June 2006, the General Assembly convened a

High-level Meeting on the implementation of the

Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. That

Meeting served as an important opportunity for

Member States to assess progress and further

strengthen and expand responses to the HIV/AIDS

pandemic. Before the High-level Meeting, the African

Union had adopted an African Common Position at a

special session in Abuja in May 2006. Namibia is fully

committed to the implementation of the Declaration of

Commitment on HIV/AIDS. We are, equally, grateful

for the support for the call to mobilize resources and to

forge a stronger partnership in confronting the

pandemic. We stress the need for universal and

affordable access to comprehensive service packages

for all those infected.

In our ongoing efforts to reform and strengthen

the United Nations, making it more effective and

responsive to today’s challenges — poverty and

hunger, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, civil wars and the

war on terror — we should place human lives and

human dignity at the centre of all our efforts. The

reform we have embarked upon should be seen as a

process and should be undertaken in a spirit of mutual

understanding and with a sense of collective

ownership. Let us strive to re-energize the United

Nations and make it an Organization that we can all be

proud of, so that we can make planet Earth a common

home for all humanity to live in peace, stability and

prosperity.