Portugal, 1995

It will doubtless

be understood if, before beginning my statement, I express,

as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, the particular

satisfaction which I feel in seeing an illustrious fellow

countryman, Professor Diogo Freitas do Amaral, an eminent

public figure and a professor at my alma mater, the

University of Lisbon, presiding over the work of the fiftieth

session of the General Assembly. Allow me to convey my

warmest and fondest congratulations to you, Mr. President,

and, at the same time, my gratitude to all Member States

for the vote of confidence in Portugal that this represents.

I would also like to pay tribute to my colleague from

Côte d’Ivoire, Mr. Amara Essy, for the dedicated and

competent manner in which he steered the work of the

forty-ninth session of the General Assembly.

To you, Mr. Secretary-General, I reaffirm my

admiration for the way in which you have carried out your

functions during a period in which the United Nations is

increasingly called upon to intervene ever more actively in

many fields of international life.

In his statement, my Spanish colleague has already set

out, in the name of the 15 States of the European Union,

certain positions which are also shared by Portugal.

Nevertheless, I would like to refer to some matters which

are of particular importance to my country.

Peace continues to be the primary objective of, and

the biggest challenge faced by, the United Nations.

The proliferation of peace-keeping operations

launched by the Security Council in recent years and the

high levels of human and financial resources committed

to them are indicative of the commitment and collective

efforts of the United Nations system and its Member

States.

The results achieved in some countries — and I am

pleased to refer here to the case of the United Nations

Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) and the recent

developments in the peace process in Angola — are

reason enough to indicate that we should not reduce our

level of commitment nor the scope of our activities. We

should, however, also be flexible and creative, here as

elsewhere, in order to avoid the rigidity of models and

adapt peace-keeping operations to the specific conditions

of each case.

While it is true that the United Nations must not

abdicate its mission of helping to restore peace, we

believe that we should focus our efforts, above all, on the

prevention of conflicts.

The Agenda for Peace requires effective coordination

of the various Departments and agencies of the United

Nations system in order to provide an integrated view of

the many factors which contribute to the development of

crises. In the search for peace, the question of the

complementarity between the United Nations and

intergovernmental organizations of a regional nature is

also particularly relevant.

With this in mind, Portugal has actively supported,

since the beginning, the creation and implementation of

the mechanism for conflict prevention, management and

resolution established by the Organization of African

Unity (OAU) at the Cairo Summit in 1993. We have also

participated in the search for the means which will permit

the strengthening and efficacy of those instruments.

Along the same lines, while holding the presidency

of the Western European Union (WEU) during the first

half of this year, Portugal put the issue of conflict

prevention on the agenda of that organization and focused

the need for WEU to develop support mechanisms in this

regard.

23

Also, in the Organization for Security and Cooperation

in Europe (OSCE), where preventive diplomacy is the

foundation of its activities, Portugal has contributed so that

the Organization can continue to have a decisive role to

play in the maintenance of stability in a region which runs

from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Alongside the security

model for the twenty-first century, this will surely be one

of the subjects that will receive in-depth treatment at the

next OSCE Summit, which will take place in Lisbon at the

end of next year.

With regard to disarmament, as another of the

components of the efforts in favour of peace, Portugal

welcomes the historic decision taken by consensus on

11 May this year in this very Hall to indefinitely extend the

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Also encouraging is the progress obtained at the

Disarmament Conference, especially with regard to the

increased expectations of rapidly completing a

comprehensive test ban Treaty.

The results of the high-level meeting, held last July,

that resulted in donations towards a voluntary United

Nations fund for de-mining should also be stressed here. In

that context, Portugal announced that it would be making a

bilateral contribution.

Equally, I welcome the negotiations currently under

way in Vienna for the revision of the United Nations

Convention on Conventional Weapons.

The enlargement of the Disarmament Conference is

urgently required, keeping in mind the need for a

strengthening of the negotiation of international legal

instruments, as well as their observance by an increasing

number of States.

There can be no peace in the world while large

sections of the world’s population continue to live beneath

levels considered fundamental for human dignity. Integrated

and sustainable development, focused on people, is

therefore the other great challenge which cannot be

separated from the search for peace. The Agenda for

Development and the Agenda for Peace constitute a single

unit — one makes no sense, nor can it be achieved, without

the other.

In this context, it is necessary to recognize the need to

revise the entire system of international development aid,

and to reflect on the role that, in this area, should fall to the

United Nations. Ours should be a global and coherent

vision.

The integrated and sustainable development which

we desire must be pursued on all fronts: at the economic

level, to be sure, but also in the consolidation and

deepening of democratic institutions; in the promotion of

human rights across the board; in the increasing

participation of women in the most diverse sectors of

social and political life; in the defence of the rights of

children, ethnic minorities and all underprivileged

members of society; in humanitarian assistance; and in the

protection of the environment.

To achieve all these goals, we must implement the

decisions taken at major United Nations conferences, for

it is at these conferences — those of Rio de Janeiro,

Vienna, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing, as well as the

forthcoming conference in Istanbul next year — that the

“Agenda for Development” gradually takes shape.

Non-governmental organizations, as well as other

groups through which the vitality of civil society is

demonstrated, are privileged agents in aid and

development, and are our partners in the “Agenda for

Development”. This is due to their particular capacity of

penetration in the field, of making contact with the people

and of understanding their real needs.

Of all areas of development, there are two in

particular to which I would like now to turn: the

protection and promotion of human rights, and the

importance of the environment.

The protection and promotion of human rights is a

constant priority of Portuguese foreign policy. We

continue to believe in the importance of critical dialogue

in order to reach the fundamental objective of respect for

those rights, and we are following the activities of the

High Commissioner and the Centre for Human Rights.

The fact that protection of the environment is

inextricably linked to the notion of balanced development

has led it to gain an increasing relevancy in our foreign

policy concerns. In this context, I wish to refer in

particular to the oceans, especially with regard to the

development of a balanced management of fish stocks and

marine resources.

As Portugal’s territory includes two archipelagos —

the Azores and Madeira — I would like to stress our

24

particular sensitivity to the problems faced by small island

States in development and environmental issues.

Furthermore, I express my hope that the International

Year of the Oceans, a Portuguese initiative adopted by the

General Assembly at its forty-ninth session, will provide an

urgently needed opportunity for a full debate on these

questions. We will strive in that direction and hope that the

holding in the same year in Lisbon of Expo 98 — an

exposition on that subject — will result in a fruitful

coordination of these efforts.

The legislative activity of the United Nations in

maintaining the ecological balance and the management of

international waterways is of special importance. Portugal

intends to follow with particular interest the work on this

issue that is being undertaken by the International Law

Commission. We hope that in the near future a convention

on this matter will be adopted which would include

international norms of responsibility — applicable under

domestic or international jurisdiction.

In the context of an “agenda for development”, I

would like once again, to underline my personal conviction

and the position of Portugal that Africa must quite

obviously be one of the priorities of the international

community. We were therefore pleased to welcome the

announcement made by the Secretary-General in Lisbon

concerning the launching of the “United Nations New

Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s”.

The forthcoming conference for the Great Lakes

region, convened under the sponsorship of the United

Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to

address the tragic situation of a number of countries of that

region, will certainly constitute a test of the true

commitment of the international community to the African

continent: a test of the capacity to identify the objectives of

peace and development; a test of the much-needed

complementarity between the United Nations and regional

organizations.

Despite the persistence of disturbing cases of political

and social instability in a number of countries of the

continent, as well as, of course, the open conflicts and

serious violations of human rights which still continue, it is

only fair to recognize that in many African States

significant steps have been taken towards the peaceful

settlement of conflicts and the consolidation of the

processes of political and social democratization.

I am pleased to be able to say that the majority of

these processes were carried out under the aegis of the

United Nations, and Portugal is proud to have actively

participated in a number of them: in the international

structures of support to the process of democratic

transition in South Africa; in the negotiations which led

to the Peace Accord in Mozambique, having been

represented in all the commissions created by that Accord

and in the United Nations Operation in Mozambique

(ONUMOZ); and as part of the troika of observers of the

peace process in Angola.

With this process in mind, I hope that, following the

meetings held at Lusaka, Franceville, and now Brussels,

between the President of the Republic of Angola and the

leader of UNITA, steps will continue to be taken towards

a definitive reconciliation of the Angolan family while

strictly complying with the Lusaka Protocol, which

restores the spirit of the Bicesse Agreement signed in

Portugal in 1991.

It is equally important, keeping in mind Security

Council resolution 1008 (1995), Lusaka Protocol be

adequately encouraged by the international community. I

cannot fail, therefore, to express my concern over the

delay in the deployment to Angola of all the forces and

contingents of the United Nations Angola Verification

Mission (UNAVEM III), where Portugal is already

present with a communications and logistics unit, as well

as a number of staff officers in the command structure

and civilian, military and police observers.

The tragic human suffering and the terrible material

destruction brought about by more than 20 years of

conflict also require that the international community —

following the round table on Angola being held in

Brussels under the auspices of the United Nations

Development Programme — continues to respond

generously to the humanitarian aid needs and the

challenge of reconstructing the country, particularly in the

areas of demining and the social reintegration of the

displaced and the demobilized.

The New Agenda for Africa is pressing. It should

lead to the promotion of vast integrated programmes of

development aid which would coordinate, in the most

efficient manner possible, the resources of the

international community. It should seek to support and

encourage African countries to choose the path of peace,

political democracy, stability and social justice, respect

for human rights and economic development.

25

The strengthening of the ties which link Portugal to

the five Portuguese speaking countries is and shall remain

a constant goal of my country’s foreign policy.

While talking of the ties that unite the countries that

speak Portuguese, I wish to underline the importance of the

meeting which, last July in Lisbon, brought together the

Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde,

Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and Sao Tome and

Principe.

That meeting permitted the reaffirmation of purpose

which motivates those respective Governments with regard

to the institutionalization of the community of Portuguese

speaking countries. We hope that this next year will witness

the formalization of this community, which, to all intents

and purposes, already exists in the hearts and souls of its

peoples and has become more and more concrete in many

ways.

At a time such as this, when we are celebrating the

fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations and assessing its

successes and its failures, we cannot but, unfortunately,

include the question of East Timor among the latter.

The 20 years which have passed since the illegal

occupation of East Timor and the denial of the exercise of

the right to self-determination of its people, far from

allowing the question to be forgotten and the status quo to

be consolidated have, on the contrary, worsened the

tensions and focused ever more strongly the attention of

world public opinion.

The lesson of these last 20 years has been that force

solves nothing in East Timor nor will it ever resolve

anything. Without a solution which, in conformity with the

Charter and international law, takes into account the

legitimate rights of its people, including that of freely

expressing themselves on their political future, there will be

no peace or respect for human rights in East Timor.

I wish to reiterate here the commitment of Portugal

towards finding, through peaceful and negotiated means,

such a solution. With that aim in mind, we continue to

cooperate with the Secretary-General in the process of

dialogue which, under his auspices, we have maintained

with Indonesia.

Despite the fundamental difference which continues to

separate us on the core of the problem, we believe that the

process of dialogue, with all its difficulties, registered very

significant progress: representative Timorese personalities

from various political sectors have now become

associated with this process.

We have always held that the rights and primary

interests at stake in this question are those of the

Timorese people, and that their voice and their wishes

will have to be heard in order for a solution to be found.

I sincerely hope that this first step marks the beginning of

a new, more positive and constructive phase of the

process of dialogue concerning East Timor, one which

will lead us more quickly to the end of this tragic

situation.

I turn now to Europe. The situation in the former

Yugoslavia continues to be a principal motive of concern.

We are naturally encouraged by the results obtained at the

Ministerial meeting held in Geneva on 8 September,

congratulate the members of the Contact Group for

obtaining those results and hope that the meeting being

held here today in New York will drive the process

forward. At any rate, the consolidation of the results still

depends on keeping the international community united,

on the cohesion of the Contact Group, and on close

coordination of the initiatives and actions taken by

international organizations. Portugal will continue to

participate actively in these efforts and we shall maintain

our presence on the ground while it remains useful and

necessary.

In its relationship with Latin America, Portugal has,

as is well known, very strong human, historical and

cultural ties: with Brazil, for reasons known to all, but

also with the other countries of Latin America, with

which we are seeking an ever-closer relationship. Ties

with Latin America will always occupy an important

place in Portuguese foreign policy. This is made clear by

our active participation in the Ibero-American Summits of

Heads of State and Government.

We welcome the fact that Latin America is today

clearly giving new value to its role in the international

system. Portugal resolutely supports the projects for

regional Latin American integration and, as a member of

the European Union, favours the establishment of wide

agreements with institutions of regional integration —

namely, the Southern Cone Common Market

(MERCOSUL) and other processes of integration under

way on the American continent. I am referring also to the

consolidation of the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) and the future establishment of a

free-trade area in the Americas.

26

Portugal, both bilaterally and within the framework of

a number of organizations such as the European Union, the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the

Western European Union, has promoted the strengthening

and deepening of ties with the countries of the Maghreb, a

region of fundamental importance today for the security,

stability and development of the entire Mediterranean area.

Therefore, a number of European Councils, beginning

with that of Lisbon, have detailed new ideas and new

instruments of partnership that relate to a number of areas

and that will bring closer together the two shores of the

Mediterranean; they will be decided upon at the

forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona

in November.

Portugal continues to follow closely the progress

reached in the Middle East peace process, especially as

regards the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

We must pay tribute here to the courage with which both

sides have pursued the path of peace; they have frequently

encountered obstacles — sometimes tragic ones — but they

have not remained hostage to them. Proof of this is the

important accord to be solemnly signed in Washington in

just a few days. I hope that this atmosphere of dialogue will

also be consolidated among the other parties.

Portugal, both within the European Union and

bilaterally, has contributed to the assistance for the

Palestinian people and for the support of its structures.

Turning to Asia, I must first mention with satisfaction

that, as a result of the close cooperation between Portugal

and China and in full respect for the joint declaration

between those two countries, the process of Macau’s

transition continues to be carried out in a harmonious

manner. The common objective of both countries in this

process remains constant: to guarantee the stability and

prosperity of that territory and the maintenance of its

special characteristics, in the framework of the transfer of

administration in December 1999.

Portugal recognizes the increasing importance that the

Asian continent is assuming on the international stage. My

country feels that it has profound historical and cultural ties

to that region. In this context, my Government hopes that

the meeting planned for next March in Bangkok will

constitute a significant step towards an ever-more-open and

wider dialogue on all questions of mutual interest to the

European Union and Asia.

To achieve the fundamental and primary goals of

peace and development, and to face the situations I have

referred to, the Organization must undertake a realistic

exercise of self- examination.

It is, above all, essential for the Organization to have

a sound financial foundation. I do not believe I am

exaggerating by stating that we are in the midst of a crisis

that is without precedent and that, if not promptly and

bravely addressed, will surely lead the Organization to

rupture. At this point, two stages appear available to us in

the search for a solution: strict payment in full and on

time of our obligations; the need for corrections which

will permit a reduction of expenses or their fairer

distribution amongst us.

With regard to the first point, I cannot avoid

criticizing the attempts to renege on commitments which

have already been made, by consensus. How can an

expense be adopted by consensus but its payment

refused? What kind of credibility can then be expected in

what concerns international commitments?

As to the second aspect, reforms are necessary that

will reflect each State’s capacity to pay and the alterations

to that capacity. In this spirit, my Government,

responding to an appeal made by the Secretary-General,

took the initiative earlier this year to increase voluntarily

its contributions to the peace-keeping budget. Thus we

have moved from group C to group B on the scale of

assessments. The decision will mean a five-fold increase

in our initial contributions. We took this decision because

we consider that it is a step in the right direction in what

concerns the financial reform of the Organization. We

took this decision to express our commitment to the

importance and success of the work of this Organization.

We took this decision because we knew this increase

might benefit other countries that are experiencing

temporary difficulties. We hope that our move will be

followed by other States whose economic situation has,

like Portugal’s, improved in recent years.

It is not merely in the financial area that the United

Nations must contemplate reform. Equally important is

the reform of the Security Council, which must in the

near future reflect the political, economic and

demographic realities of the contemporary world. In this

context, an adequate and balanced representation of all

regions of the world would confer on the Council greater

efficacy in the formulation and implementation of its

decisions and would make it the beneficiary of wide

support from all Member States, which would, in this

27

manner, feel duly represented on it. It is undoubtedly a

complex process, an evolutionary one, in which differences

remain profound and which will necessarily be based on a

compromise solution.

I cannot conclude without reaffirming here the

candidature of Portugal for one of the two non-permanent

seats on the Security Council attributed to the Western

European Group for the period 1996 through 1997. Our

candidature is based on a number of reasons.

First, because we believe, as a country with a

universalist nature accustomed to contact with all regions of

the globe for more than five centuries and to understanding

and accepting different cultures and civilizations, that we

will be able to contribute to the search for solutions in strict

compliance with the purposes and principles set out in the

Charter of the United Nations.

Secondly, having been only once before a member of

the Security Council, we understand that countries like

Portugal have not only the right, but also the duty, to

participate in that body more regularly.

In this context, I would like to underline here the

situation of countries like Portugal — in fact, the majority

of those represented here — that, based on democratic

principles such as that of rotation, can, wish to, and should

be able to, contribute to international peace and security.

And this they can do in a particularly constructive manner,

as, by not pursuing geo-strategic interests of hegemonic

regional promotion or of any other type, they can, on the

contrary, contribute by being accessible, available and

moderate in the search for compromise solutions.

On the other hand, through our participation in peace-

keeping operations, our voluntary increase of our financial

contributions to the Organization, our participation in

important United Nations organs, we consider that we are

ready to carry out the role which we may be called upon

to play.

We are ready to listen and not to impose. We place

our trust in negotiation and not on pressure; we support

what is fair and balanced, and do not consider any

formula which does not seek to build bridges for the

creation of consensus solutions.

In candidatures such as this, to achieve the goals set

out, some are tempted to adopt attitudes which are of

great visibility, but which are of a merely superficial

nature. Others are tempted also to promise that which is

quickly forgotten, or even to make commitments which in

the end are unfulfilled.

On our part, we prefer to rely on the inherent merits

of our candidature and, in this context, to actively pursue

in a committed manner, the defence of our positions,

ideas and proposals.

We believe, therefore, in the support and warm

welcome that the candidature of Portugal for the Security

Council will receive in the elections to take place during

the next session of the General Assembly.

Next month we will celebrate at the highest level, in

a solemn session, the fiftieth anniversary of the United

Nations, which will provide an opportunity for reflection

on the future of this Organization. Portugal hopes that a

strengthened determination of all Member States will

emerge to reaffirm the principles and values of the

Charter and result in the better adaption of the

Organization to the complex realities of international life

today.

This is certainly a great challenge. New generations

hope that we will be able to face these responsibilities.