Oman, 1995

At the outset allow me, on

behalf of my country’s delegation, to congratulate Mr.

Diogo Freitas do Amaral on his election to the presidency

of this important session of the General Assembly. His

unanimous election to this high office attests to the role that

his friendly country, Portugal, with which my country has

enjoyed centuries of ties, plays in the international arena.

His election is also testimony to his ability and wide

diplomatic experience which, we are sure, will enable the

General Assembly to achieve the results we hope for.

I should also like to take this opportunity to pay

special tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Amara Essy, the

Foreign Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, for the skill and

constructive manner in which he steered the work of the

forty-ninth session.

The convening of this session coincides with the

fiftieth anniversary of the international community’s

agreement to establish the United Nations in order to

safeguard international peace and security after the

experience of two world wars. We are aware of the

significant role that the United Nations has played ever

since the end of the Second World War in maintaining the

balance between the world Powers during what was known

as the cold war era. That outstanding role of the United

Nations was at the heart of the international cooperation

that was given concrete form in enabling the peoples of the

third world, with the help of the United Nations, to free

themselves from the shackles of colonialism in Africa, Asia

and South America. The United Nations bodies and

specialized agencies helped the newly independent States to

organize their socio-economic resources thanks to the

persistent efforts of the Secretaries-General who headed the

Secretariat and the respective Executive Secretaries of the

specialized agencies. Here it is only fitting to remember

Mr. Dag Hammarskjöld, the Organization’s second

Secretary-General, who gave his life while working on

behalf of the United Nations in the Congo in 1961. We

should also remember those who were at the helm of the

Secretariat beside Mr. Hammarskjöld — Mr. Trygve Lie,

the first Secretary-General, U Thant, Mr. Kurt Waldheim,

Mr. Jávier Perez de Cuéllar and the current Secretary-

General, Mr. Boutros Boutros- Ghali — who have all

played a significant role in strengthening mutual

understanding amongst nations and helped the world to

find peaceful solutions to its conflicts.

The history of the United Nations is full of many

other figures who played an important role in promoting

its march and in serving international peace and security.

By way of example I mention Count Bernadotte, the

International Peace Mediator in Palestine; General Burns,

the Commander of the International Emergency Force in

the Middle East; Mr. Gunnar Jarring, the International

Peace Mediator between the Arabs and Israelis after the

war of 1967; Mr. James Grant, the late Executive Director

of the United Nations Children’s Fund; Sadruddin Aga

Khan, the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees for many years; the late Olaf Palme, former

Prime Minister of Sweden; the late Willy Brandt, former

Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany;

Mr. Brian Urquhart, the former Under-Secretary-General

for Political Affairs; and many other brilliant figures who

worked tirelessly and faithfully in these corridors.

We should also like to mention in particular the

great achievements of the United Nations in the

framework of its specialized agencies. Nobody can deny

the achievements of these agencies in their respective

fields of competence such as food and agriculture, science

and education, civil aviation, architecture, reconstruction,

health, postal services and telecommunications,

meteorology, intellectual property, development, the

liberalization of trade, not to mention the brilliant

achievements of the humanitarian and development

organizations such as the United Nations Environment

Programme (UNEP), United Nations Children’s Fund

(UNICEF), the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United

Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees

in the Near East (UNRWA) as well as the remarkable

role played by the other relevant regional organizations

and committees within the framework of the United

Nations.

These achievements constitute part of the rich assets

accumulated by the United Nations over the 50 years that

have elapsed since it was established with the aim of

maintaining international peace and security. We believe

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that although the Organization has come a long way in

laying the foundations of international peace and security,

global peace in its broadest sense has yet to be achieved.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon us all to support the United

Nations in its forward movement in that direction so that

the edifice of peace and international security may be

completed and maintained.

The establishment of the World Trade Organization

(WTO) with the aim of organizing and coordinating world

trade, eliminating the obstacles that obstruct access to

foreign markets and encouraging the movement of capital

and investment is another milestone on the way towards

consolidating the edifice of international peace and security.

The WTO should receive every support from the

international community. The agreement on its

establishment under the auspices of the United Nations

should be an incentive and a challenge to the developing

countries to promote the level of their economic and social

development, increase their productive capacity and upgrade

the level of their services in order for them to qualify to

integrate their interests with those of the developed

countries.

By the same token, the establishment of the WTO

with the aim of achieving international economic balance

on a basis of justice, equality and sustainable development,

in no way remits the developed countries’ obligations

towards supporting and assisting the developing countries

in working for that integration of their economies with the

economies of the developed countries. As a matter of fact,

those obligations are stipulated in the WTO agreement.

In the context of the United Nations action to

consolidate the foundations of international peace and

security, the Organization has managed, after 14 years of

strenuous efforts, to conclude the United Nations

Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. The entry into

force of that Convention on 16 November 1994 is but

another example of international cooperation in order to

establish an equitable, just international order to govern the

ocean space. Also, the recent efforts in this context with

regard to Part XI of this important international Convention

will no doubt enhance its universality.

In the area of disarmament, the United Nations has

performed an outstanding role, even at the height of the

cold war, as evinced by the signing of the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The signing

by more than 159 States of the Convention on the

Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling

and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction is

yet another historic United Nations achievement. The

Convention was the first to deal with the elimination of

this category of overkill weapons on a global scale. It

paved the way for agreement on the elimination of all

other weapons of mass destruction.

As regards the protection of the environment, the

international community has witnessed the dedication of

world leaders at the 1992 Rio Conference to the task of

halting the degradation of the environment. The United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the

Convention on Biological Diversity and Agenda 21 that

resulted from this unique Conference have laid the

foundations of a world partnership that addresses the

problems of desertification, poverty and the degradation

of the ecosystem which arise from the unrestrained use of

natural resources.

All these conventions and programmes have gone on

the record book as uncontested achievements

accomplished by the United Nations. Such achievements

apart, however, the United Nations has proved to be

unable to cope with regional political issues that have

international dimensions and are closely related to risks

that could jeopardize international peace and security.

When the cold war ended, regional problems erupted on

the heels of each other and faced the United Nations and

regional organizations alike with a real challenge.

With regard to the Middle East question, which we

believe to be one of the most significant issues that

concern the world at large, an important breakthrough has

taken place on 28 September 1995, when the Israeli and

Palestinian sides signed an historic accord in Washington

D.C. that provides for the expansion of Palestinian self-

rule. While we commend the accord, we voice the hope

that it will enable the Palestinian people to achieve the

objective of extending its authority over its own land and

of building its national entity. My country also hopes that

the progress achieved on the Palestinian-Israeli track will

lead to the activation of the Syrian-Israeli and the

Lebanese-Israeli tracks. Lack of progress on those two

tracks is a negative signal that does not serve the interests

of a just and comprehensive peace. If such peace is to be

achieved, we believe that the negotiators on all sides have

to put behind them all the residual suspicions and political

negativism of the past, free their political will and look at

the present with a futuristic vision of a world that no

longer knows geographical boundaries thanks to the

technological progress we now witness in every aspect of

life.

19

In Iraq, the Iraqi Government has yet to respond to all

the requirements of the relevant Security Council

resolutions so as to allow the lifting of the embargo

imposed by the United Nations on Iraq. We, in common

with others, were greatly surprised at the serious, important

information disclosed recently by the Iraqi Government

regarding its programme of weapons of mass destruction.

Regardless of the reasons that led Iraq not to disclose these

programmes in the past, the confidence of the international

community in Iraq has been dealt a severe blow because

Iraq had concealed this information in spite of the requests

from the Special Commission. In the light of these new

developments which necessitate the continuation of the

work of the Special Commission for a long time to come,

my country appeals to the international community to

double its efforts towards mitigating the suffering of the

brotherly people of Iraq. By the same token, Iraq is

required, now more than ever before, to reconsider its

rejection of Security Council resolution 986 (1995) which,

in our view, provides Iraq with a good opportunity to

reduce some of the suffering of the brotherly people of

Iraq.

We call on Iraq once again seriously to provide all the

information and means still in its possession to the Special

Commission. We hope that Iraq’s compliance and

cooperation in this matter will give the United Nations

access to the crucial information regarding the Iraqi

programmes on weapons of mass destruction and pave the

way towards the eventual lifting of the embargo from

which the Iraqi people have endured record suffering over

the past five years.

In the context of Iraq’s commitment to Security

Council resolutions, in particular resolution 686 (1991), we

call on the Iraqi Government to cooperate further with the

tripartite Committee that deals with the question of Kuwaiti

detainees and the expatriates of other countries detained in

Iraq, and to provide the said committee with detailed

information on those detainees. Any progress made in this

direction will be viewed as a demonstration of the good

intentions of Iraq and its desire to cooperate with other

States.

In Somalia, despite the persistent efforts of the United

Nations and other regional organizations, the situation in

that country gives no cause for optimism due to the total

disregard some Somali leaderships show towards the

interests of the brotherly people of Somalia.

In Afghanistan, although the United Nations has

deployed and continues to deploy special efforts to restore

peace to this war-ravaged country, there is no abatement

of the hostilities and bloodshed caused by the strife of the

different factions in that country. On the other hand, we

view with optimism the progress achieved in the peace

processes undertaken by the United Nations in Angola,

Mozambique, and Liberia, and call upon the international

community to deploy all possible efforts towards the

mitigation of the suffering of the people of Rwanda who

continue to be in the grip of ethnic and political conflicts

between the warring factions in their country.

In the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite

the United Nations and the commendable efforts of its

peace-keeping forces to halt the bloodshed in this

fledgling republic in the heart of Europe, the insurrection

of the Bosnian Serbs and their continued defiance of the

international community have resulted in frustrating all

those concerted efforts. The recent events in Krajina and

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air raids

on Serbian positions have restored a certain degree of

balance between Bosnia and the Serbs who seem to

understand nothing but the logic of force. This has shown

the validity of the logical call to enable the Government

of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to exercise its

legitimate right to self-defence.

In this connection, obviously, the Agreement of

Principle signed under the supervision of the Contract

Group at Geneva on 3 September 1995 by the Foreign

Ministers of the Republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Croatia, and the former Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia

and Montenegro) constitutes a significant step towards

peace. However, it is the duty of the international

community to exert great efforts to overcome the

difficulties facing the United Nations and to ensure that

the principles agreed on are translated into lasting peace

in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There is no doubt that such regional issues face the

United Nations with a real challenge and pose serious

threats to international peace and security. In addition,

they have created human tragedies as a result of such

atrocities as “ethnic cleansing” and the horrors of famine

and mass killings, not to mention the heavy financial

burden they have put on the resources of the world

economy and on the people who have fallen victim to the

atrocities. In the light of all this, how can the United

Nations face up to all these responsibilities at a time

when its ability to deploy efforts is receding because of

the over-bureaucratization of its various organs and failure

by many Member States to honour their financial

obligations? The situation is complex, but it is one that

20

can be dealt with by restructuring United Nations organs in

a more cost-effective manner so that the goals set may be

achieved over the short-, medium- and long-term in

consonance with basic objectives so that the Organization

may enter the coming century equipped with firm

instructions to make international peace and security the

basic underpinnings of social and economic development.

With regard to the Security Council, my country feels

that while preserving the tasks entrusted to it, we must also

find an effective mechanism to enable the General

Assembly to make an effective contribution in dealing with

crucial international issues so that all Member States may

participate in implementing United Nations resolutions and

programmes in line with the provisions of the Charter, in

the interests of international peace and security as well as

economic and social development. Proceeding from this,

my delegation calls upon the international community to

support the efforts of the United Nations as the principal

body entrusted with addressing various crucial questions

throughout the world. Those are our policies at all levels.

At the regional level, my country seeks to build bridges of

dialogue and cooperation between all countries in the belief

that this serves the interests of international peace and

security. We also seek to encourage and support all regional

and international groupings in the same spirit and with the

same goals in view. At the national level, my country

deeply believes that the maintenance of regional and

international peace provides the most important means of

implementing our national economic and social plans. With

God’s will, we have managed to settle with our neighbours

the problems regarding our borders, which has afforded us

a golden opportunity to channel our national capabilities

towards the implementation of our ambitious national

economic and social programmes.

Benefiting from the past wealth of economic

experience and in pursuit of the economic objective Oman

charted 25 years ago, my Government, with the assistance

of such international bodies as the World Bank and other

economic experts, organized a conference on the future

perspectives of the Omani economy by the year 2020,

which was held at Muscat, the capital, on 3 and 4 June

1995. With the participation of a broad segment of the

public and private sectors of Omani society and a select

number of international organizations and world economic

figures, that conference laid out the basic lines of the

Omani strategy for future Omani development, among

which are the development of human resources, the

promotion of women’s participation therein, the

development of the private sector so that it may become the

driving force of the national economy, the encouragement

of economic diversity, the encouragement of a suitable

economic balance between the economy of Oman and the

rest of the world and the conservation of the environment

and its exploitation for peaceful purposes. My

Government’s peaceful endeavour to implement those

strategies represents the best means by which my country

will enter the next century on a solid basis, that would

enable the Omani people to expand their economic

resources and benefit from the technological progress we

feel will govern the world economy and all its means of

production and marketing.

This option, with regard to the means of national

development, will surely serve the cause of peace and

security. God willing, we look forward to a future filled

with promise for our future generations.