Sierra Leone, 2003

My delegation

wishes to congratulate you very warmly, Mr. President,

on your assumption of the presidency of the world

body, and to assure you of its unflinching and

continued support for a successful tenure. We would

also like to extend our appreciation to your predecessor

for successfully directing the affairs of the General

Assembly during one of the most trying periods in the

recent history of the United Nations.

On 19 August 2003, the United Nations was

shocked to its foundations by a fatal bomb attack on its

headquarters in Baghdad. On behalf of my President

and the Government and people of Sierra Leone, I extend

our deepest condolences to the United Nations Secretary-

General, the United Nations family and the families of all

those who perished in that attack. They died for the cause

of peace and humanity and for the values and

aspirations that the United Nations symbolizes.

We call on all members of the United Nations and

on other nations to spare no measures to respect the

sanctity of the United Nations, because it is only when

that sanctity is respected that the United Nations can

fulfil its responsibilities to mankind.

The majority of the world's poor and deprived

people live in Africa, bedevilled by hunger, disease,

mass illiteracy, ignorance, civil conflict, extreme

poverty, bad governance, abuses of human rights,

inadequate educational opportunities, gender

inequality, environmental hazards, poor transport and

communications facilities and debt. The New

Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

embodies the vision of Africans themselves to rid their

continent of those perils and to enjoy a standard of

living befitting the twenty-first century. Those goals

are also in consonance with the Millennium

Development Goals of the Millennium Declaration. My

delegation believes that the world will be a better,

happier, more tolerant and peaceful place if the goals

of those two impressive declarations are attained.

We also believe that to achieve those goals, we

have to come down from the lofty platform of rhetoric

to the practical reality of sincere, honest and sacrificial

partnership and collaboration between the haves and

the have-nots. Tangible result is the acid-test of the

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sincerity and honesty of that partnership and

collaboration. My delegation wishes to reaffirm Sierra

Leone's commitment to the pursuance of the goals of

those two development blueprints as the most credible

and realistic channels of, and guidelines for,

accelerated development.

But we, the poor countries, execute those

laudable blueprints with great trepidation, because of

the devastating effect of the dreadful HIV/AIDS

epidemic, which, without universal effort, is bound to

cancel out, and even reverse, all development gains. In

the light of that, my delegation proposes that

antiretroviral drugs be made available as a matter of

human right to everyone everywhere who may need it.

Sierra Leone has in recent years repeatedly

reiterated its faith in the United Nations as the only

Organization that can hold the crisis-ridden world

together. My delegation wishes to reaffirm that faith,

which is built on the conviction that collective action is

the strength of the Organization. As we are all aware,

deviating from the principle of collective action can

subject the United Nations to tremendous strain; it can

even hamstring the Organization, leaving us a weak

and divided family. My delegation calls upon all

nations big and small, rich and poor to uphold

that principle as the Organization's driving force.

The unity of purpose and collective action of the

United Nations are even more imperative in the context

of the ever-increasing demands placed upon it by the

numerous conflicts and humanitarian crises to which it

has to respond. The expansion and complexity of those

challenges reinforce the need for collaboration and

partnership with continental and regional organizations

such as the African Union and the Economic Community

of West African States (ECOWAS) to resolve crises. It is

the considered view of my delegation that such

collaboration and partnership, designed and financially

and materially facilitated, can respond to conflicts and

other crises much more speedily and productively than

can a distant and overstretched United Nations alone.

We are of the firm conviction that the hundreds of

thousands of lives that have been lost in the West

African subregion, especially in Sierra Leone and Liberia,

would have been saved if such a functional relationship,

predicated on proactive conflict prevention, had existed

between the United Nations and ECOWAS.

Two of the most worrying challenges to peace are

terrorism and the proliferation of arms, including

weapons of mass destruction. We unreservedly deplore

terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, and we

reaffirm our commitment to resolving differences and

conflicts through non-violent means. The proliferation

of small arms in the West African subregion is of

special concern to Sierra Leone. While a multi-pronged

strategy to rid the country of small weapons, including

an arms-for-development project spearheaded by the

United Nations Development Programme, has yielded

encouraging and hopeful results, we believe that only a

concerted regional approach that includes genuine and

selfless political will can eliminate that scourge from

the region.

The Government and people of Sierra Leone have

accepted the challenge to recover from the scourge of

the war and to rejoin the path of development.

Accordingly, a comprehensive national recovery

programme has been designed to respond to post-

conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction needs and to

lay the foundations to address the issues that generated

the conflict.

A priority component of the recovery process is

the consolidation of democratic governance.

Preparations for nation-wide local government

elections are in the ultimate stages. We attach

considerable significance to those elections, because

they will constitute a major step in the process of

decentralization, around which the scheme of our

participatory governance is going to revolve.

In order to tackle some of the root causes that

created the wedge between the people and successive

Governments, which partly caused the conflict, we

have embarked on a fundamental governance reform

programme that involves the judiciary, public service,

human rights, accountability and transparency, local

government and tackling corruption and abuse of power.

We have made remarkable progress in the area of

security, which is the prerequisite for our national

revival and development. An international military

advisory and training team led by the United Kingdom

has provided training that has considerably enhanced

the professional competence of our armed forces. With

that training has come renewed confidence in the

armed forces, as indicated by the nationwide

deployment of personnel. With support from the

Government of the United Kingdom, our police force

has also been trained, restructured and equipped to

carry out its responsibilities. But with war anywhere in

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the subregion, Sierra Leone never feels safe and secure.

That is why we welcome, with profound appreciation

to ECOWAS and the United Nations, the initiative to

put the region on a path to peace.

While welcoming the relief provided by positive

developments in the Liberian peace process, my

delegation feels that we are duty bound to urge the

international community to never again fall into

complacency about conflicts, as it did in the case of

Liberia.

My delegation is very conscious of the heavy

investment of the United Nations and the international

community, which has yielded the peace Sierra Leone

now enjoys. The momentum to consolidate the hard-

won peace and embark on a meaningful course of

development is our highest priority. That is why we

whole-heartedly welcome the Security Council's

programme for the phased withdrawal of the United

Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, which is based on the

capacity of our security forces to discharge their

functions and on the overall security environment in

Sierra Leone and the subregion.

I am happy to report that the re-establishment of

civil authority throughout the country has been one of

our major post-conflict accomplishments. Legal and

judicial law-enforcement administrations have been

reactivated in parts of the country that were previously

under rebel occupation, and schools and health

facilities, along with better social facilities, are being

rehabilitated and reopened.

On the economic front, the certificate of origin

regime for the export of diamonds is producing

positive results, as proceeds from the sale of diamonds

continue to rise steadily. New areas of alluvial diamond

deposits have been discovered, and prospecting for

kimberlite deposits continues. Various regulatory

procedures, including legislation and expert advice, are

in the pipeline to curtail illegal exploitation and to

ensure that Sierra Leoneans derive the benefit they

deserve from that resource.

Two transitional bodies the Special Court to

try those who bear the greatest responsibility for the

human rights excesses in the war, and the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission that was set up for victims

and perpetrators of abuses to tell their stories, thereby

laying the foundation for healing, reconciliation and

forgiveness are on course to achieve their

objectives.

The future of 57,000 ex-combatants is a major

factor in the management of the costly peace that is so

relished today in Sierra Leone. The process of re-

absorbing those people into society as law-abiding,

peaceful, productive and patriotic citizens has been

slow, tedious and expensive. But we have had to

attempt that character transformation exercise as a

conflict-relapse prevention mechanism. With that

reorientation, our governance reform programme and

our sound youth policy, which makes ex-combatants

and other young people stakeholders in society, the

possibility of resorting to violence and destruction as

the only way to vent grievances and resolve conflict

has been reduced.

Our other area of grave concern is the welfare of

the hundreds of thousands of children who missed

opportunities for education because of the war. The

magnitude of the problem is such that we have had to

form a special commission for war-affected children.

Let me conclude by reassuring the United Nations

that the heavy investment in peace in Sierra Leone has

not gone, and will never go, in vain. We are determined

to do whatever we can to protect and consolidate the

peace for which we have all sacrificed so much. We

fully recognize our responsibility as the model of

success for United Nations peacekeeping. We wish to

give the same reassurances to our many friends for

their wonderful contributions in various forms over the

years. Those include the British, Chinese, American,

Nigerian and Guinean Governments and the European

Union.