Togo, 1995

Fifty years ago, learning the lessons of two world wars,

which in the space of one human generation had brought

unspeakable suffering to mankind, people of good will,

dedicated to peace and justice and determined to preserve

future generations from such horrors, founded the United

Nations. To ensure peace, justice and equality; to promote

collective security and peaceful coexistence; to encourage

economic and social progress for nations and peoples

through international cooperation; to develop and promote

respect for the rights of man and of peoples, in greater

freedom and without discrimination: these, inter alia, were

the main objectives of the founders of the United Nations.

What lofty goals! And now the time has come when

we have an opportunity to review what our common

Organization has achieved. This is a difficult but uplifting

task, and the big question is whether the objectives have

been attained.

Before going any further, however, Sir, on behalf of

the President of the Togolese Republic, His Excellency

General Gnassingbé Eyadema, and the Government and

people of Togo, and on my own behalf, I extend our

warmest congratulations on your magnificent election to

the important post of President of the General Assembly

at its fiftieth session. The community of the United

Nations, in unanimously choosing you to lead our work

at this historic session, pays tribute to you and to your

qualities as an experienced diplomat and also pays a well-

deserved tribute to your beautiful country, Portugal, with

which Togo is proud of having excellent and fruitful

relations of friendship and cooperation.

We also congratulate the other members of the

General Committee. In our view, their experience and

your mastery of international affairs augur well for the

success of our work. We assure you of the full

cooperation of the Togolese delegation to that end.

I should also like to extend the Togolese

Government’s greatest appreciation to your distinguished

predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Amara Essy, Minister for

Foreign Affairs of Côte d’Ivoire, who presided so adroitly

and competently over the work of the forty-ninth session

of the General Assembly. This honour done to his country

and also to Africa is particularly encouraging. I should

like to say once again how sincerely we admire him.

I am also pleased to extend our warmest

congratulations to His Excellency Mr. Boutros Boutros-

Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations, for his

tireless and unending efforts to ensure that the United

Nations continues to flourish and to preserve peace and

security in the world.

This session is an event in itself, coinciding as it

does with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the

founding of the United Nations. A half century has

passed, and the various events that have marked the life

of the Organization have altered neither the purposes nor

the principles of its Charter, which must preserve all its

vitality and continue to be the legal and moral basis for

present-day international relations.

My delegation would like to pay a tribute to all

those whose imagination, creative spirit and intelligence

led to the drafting of the provisions of the 111 Articles of

the Charter. Their knowledge and ability helped to

preserve the world from a third world war, which, in this

age of increasingly devastating nuclear weapons, would

have been fatal to the entire world, including the owners

of the weapons.

14

In its daily search to ensure the wellbeing of peoples,

the Organization has adopted and implemented strategies to

respond to world concerns. In this connection, the Agenda

for Peace and the forthcoming Agenda for Development

bear witness to the United Nations resolve to realize its

noble ideals.

My delegation believes that the fiftieth session should

give serious consideration to the ways to work out the new

approaches that are needed if the Organization is to go

forward on solid and increasingly coherent bases in its

search for viable and lasting solutions to problems of peace,

security and development that pose a daily challenge to the

international community. What is important at this session

is the lessons we can learn from United Nations activities

over the past 50 years that will help us to deal with the

enormous challenges the third millennium will bring us.

The aspirations of peoples to participate even more

actively in the management of world affairs is evident in

every country. My country, like so many others on the

African continent, has been buffeted by the winds of

freedom and democracy. After more than three turbulent

years fraught with misunderstandings among our national

political figures concerning the stakes involved in

democratization, Togo has now completed its transitional

period towards democracy and the multiparty system. This

session affords me an opportunity to say that Togo has

regained its stability and its customary peace and quiet and

that our Government is now actively working to strengthen

the bases for a State of law.

Eager to promote national unity, the Togolese

authorities are continuing to take all possible steps to

establish a climate of peace, fraternity and concord. At their

initiative, on 14 December 1994 the National Assembly

adopted a law of general amnesty for those responsible for

the acts of aggression of 25 March 1993 and 5 and 6

January 1994.

Today, peace and order have been restored, for the

people of Togo have been able to surmount their opposing

views and achieve reconciliation. They have understood that

democratization is a long-term undertaking, one that must

be based on the historical, social and cultural realities of a

country if it is to be effective and promote political

stability, economic development and social justice.

Today, the collective effort to restore our national

economy is continuing without interruption and all the

people of Togo are determined to give of their best in the

rebuilding of what they hold most dear, their homeland

Togo, in order to restore its reputation and ensure its

active participation in the concert of nations.

Given the still fragile nature of our economy, and in

order to ensure the strengthening of democracy, political

stability and social unity, Togo calls upon the

international community to give its strong support to the

efforts our Government is undertaking to achieve the

country’s total recovery.

As I said earlier, the founding of the United Nations

was a response to the yearning of the peoples of the

world to live in peace, which is a prerequisite for

progress. Today, however, there is still a long road to

travel in the attainment of that peace, the principal goal

of the United Nations, for the world is still experiencing

horrible upheavals and intolerance that daily threaten the

hope of our peoples to live in a peaceful and secure

world.

Indeed, uncertainty, anxiety and despair still haunt

thousands of people, principally because of continuing

fratricidal conflicts and poverty. Rivalry among

neighbours, fanaticism and ethnic tensions continue

inexorably to stoke the fires of discord and create armed

conflicts, with all their accompanying horrors.

In Africa, the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and

Somalia and the situations in Rwanda, Burundi and

Angola continue to present challenges to the international

community and to call into question its ability effectively

to ensure international peace and security.

With regard to the conflict in Liberia, which is now

being resolved, my country welcomes the signing of a

new Agreement on 19 August 1995 in Abuja under the

aegis of the Economic Community of West African States

(ECOWAS), and the installation of the State Council and

Transitional Government pursuant to that Agreement.

Togo calls upon its brothers in Liberia to shoulder

their responsibilities to ensure the sincere and full

implementation of that Agreement. We urge them to do

all they can to guarantee the cease-fire, support the new

transition institutions and contribute in good faith to

disarmament with a view to establishing an environment

favourable to the organization of the general open

elections called for in the Agreement.

While the international community is witnessing a

nascent improvement of the situation in Liberia, the war

waged in neighbouring Sierra Leone by the Revolutionary

15

United Front (RUF) is continuing, with all its

accompanying misery.

My delegation would remind our brothers in Sierra

Leone that experience continues to prove the weapons do

not provide lasting solutions to any problem, no matter

what.

Turning to Somalia, my delegation deeply regrets that

no appreciable progress has been made since the last

session. Unfortunately, we are forced to state that despite

the relative calm there, Somalia has become a country

where national reconciliation and the establishment of a

Government based on broad consensus are still hypothetical

owing to fluctuating allegiances among the clans. That

situation continues to contribute to the eruption of violence

and hinders the advent of peace to that country.

My Government therefore urgently appeals once again

to our brothers in Somalia to enter into a true and solid

process of national reconciliation, the sole way to ensure

viable peace and establish a Somali State that the

international community would regard as representative.

In Rwanda, the situation following last year’s

massacres is still disturbing owing to the insecurity and

intolerance that make peace and stability fragile, jeopardize

the return of refugees and threaten to embroil the entire

subregion. Given the climate there it is imperative for the

Rwandese Government to persevere on the courageous path

of national reconciliation so that the country may regain its

unity and the political stability essential to its

reconstruction.

The international community must also commit itself

to lending real assistance to Rwanda’s efforts to establish

better conditions that will encourage the repatriation of

refugees to their country of origin.

In the neighbouring country of Burundi the no-war,

no-peace situation is still a matter of concern to my

country. Those involved in Burundi’s political life must

renounce all acts of violence of any kind and demonstrate

wisdom and mutual acceptance in seeking solutions to the

problems facing them.

In the same spirit, my delegation urgently appeals to

all the children of Burundi to adhere fully to the Agreement

of Government signed on 10 September 1994 and to do

everything they can to implement that Agreement in the

interests of peace and the people of Burundi. We believe

that they must also try to accept the initiatives of the

Central Conflict Prevention, Handling Management and

Settlement Mechanism of the Organization of African

Unity (OAU), which is attempting to organize a round-

table meeting of the parties involved in the Burundi crisis.

Here too, the international community must continue

to support Burundi so as to enable it to find peace as

soon as possible and to continue its development.

Turning to the situation in Angola, the Togolese

Government welcomes the resumption of the dialogue

between President José Eduardo Dos Santos and the

leader of UNITA, Mr. Jonas Savimbi. We noted with

great satisfaction the positive evolution of the peace

process under way as a result of the Lusaka peace

agreement. We welcome the two meetings that took place

this year, and we see in them the firm resolve of our

Angolan brothers to overcome their differences and set

about the irreversible creation of an atmosphere of

understanding which alone can foster peace and national

harmony.

My delegation greatly appreciates the active role that

the United Nations continues to play in the resolution of

that conflict, and we would call on the Secretary-General

to speed up the deployment of the forces to be made

available to the United Nations Angola Verification

Mission (UNAVEM III).

In Europe, despite diplomatic efforts to find a

definitive settlement of the conflict in the former

Yugoslavia, the situation there remains a source of

profound concern to all peace-loving countries.

My Government notes with regret that, in spite of

many measures taken by the United Nations, the state of

war in that part of Europe persists, continuing to claim

countless victims and give rise to flows of refugees and

displaced persons. Togo believes that the international

community must become more deeply involved in order

to stem, if not halt, the tide of massive destruction

advancing before our eyes.

In the view of my delegation, it is time for the Serb,

Croat and Bosniac leaders to give up the idea of acquiring

territory by force and to seek a definitive solution to the

conflict through negotiations, with a view to ensuring an

irreversible, comprehensive and just solution that would

guarantee sovereignty and territorial integrity to all the

States of the former Yugoslavia within internationally

recognized borders.

16

The recent positive developments in the Middle East,

marked essentially by the adoption of a timetable for the

second phase of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from

Palestinian cities and the transfer of new powers to the

Palestinian Authority, give my delegation grounds for

satisfaction. We regard these recently concluded agreements

as a great achievement, a decisive step towards the

establishment of a Palestinian State.

Togo congratulates the Israeli Government and the

Palestinian Authority for the courage, commitment and

initiative they have shown in implementing the Declaration

of Principles and the subsequent agreements despite the

many dangers that beset the path to peace. We urge them

to continue the quest for a settlement of the question of

Palestine through negotiations, the path they have chosen,

since true and lasting peace unquestionably involves

dialogue.

We would appeal to the good will of the international

community to live up to its commitments by providing the

Palestinian Authority with the necessary economic and

social assistance for the development of Gaza and Jericho.

With regard to the Golan, my delegation would urge

Israel and Syria to demonstrate far-sightedness, good will

and mutual understanding so as to arrive as quickly as

possible at an agreement that could bring a just and lasting

peace to the Middle East region.

Turning to Asia, Togo welcomes the establishment at

various levels of dialogue aimed at peaceful coexistence,

and trusts that this political will be maintained.

These various hotbeds of tension, which jeopardize the

existence of mankind and which my delegation has just

briefly described, are a challenge to our collective

conscience and, first and foremost, to the United Nations,

the only world structure that can ensure universal peace and

security.

On the eve of the second half of its first century, it

behoves our Organization to mobilize to combat the evils

afflicting the world and that make it vulnerable. That task

must be one of our highest priorities if we want to leave to

future generations a healthy world based on respect for

human dignity, love and justice.

To attain this prime objective, which is to prevent

conflicts from erupting or from continuing indefinitely,

prevention must increasingly feature in the forefront of the

measures taken by our Organization in favour of peace, for

it is always better to prevent war than to try to end it.

This justifies the great importance we attach to preventive

diplomacy.

My delegation believes that the various peace-

keeping operations being conducted in countries riven by

conflict must be accompanied and supported by the

parallel and systematic establishment of mechanisms for

a peaceful settlement. The measures provided for in

Chapter VI of the Charter must be increasingly employed

to this end. “An Agenda for Peace” can achieve its full

import only if the United Nations, in its quest for peace,

resorts to diplomatic procedures as a means of settling

disputes.

The objectives of peace and security that we seek

must necessarily also involve curbing the proliferation of

weapons of all kinds.

General and complete disarmament is and has for

many years been one of the main objectives of the United

Nations, whose attainment would bring peace, stability

and well-being for all. The energy with which we pursue

this goal must be maintained and, indeed, increased, if the

hopes of mankind to avoid a new holocaust are to be

fulfilled.

To that end, my delegation believes that we must

continue to encourage a tangible reduction in the nuclear

threat, the elimination of special fissile materials and the

conversion of nuclear installations for solely peaceful

purposes.

All these overarching tasks require the unconditional

support of all States, and particularly nuclear-weapon

States, so that we can use the resources made available

through disarmament for development.

Convinced of the need to free our continent from

nuclear weapons, the African countries have concluded

their consideration of the text of the Pelindaba treaty that

would establish Africa as a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

This instrument, prepared pursuant to the relevant

Declaration of the Heads of State and Government of the

Organization of African Unity (OAU), will soon be

signed in Egypt. My country welcomes this development

as opening the way for the denuclearization of Africa, and

contributing to the international trend towards non-

proliferation. My delegation sees in the recent indefinite

extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of

Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and in the negotiations now

under way in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva,

17

the resolve of the international community to achieve

nuclear non-proliferation and to eliminate other types of

weapons of mass destruction.

With regard to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of

Nuclear Weapons in particular, Togo believes that its

indefinite extension is not an end in itself. We have to do

everything possible to ensure that it responds to the

aspirations of all the parties.

In general terms, Togo proclaims its deep commitment

to the various measures advocated by the United Nations

for the control of conventional weapons at the regional and

subregional levels. We continue to support all initiatives

that can facilitate disarmament and arms limitation, for all

these measures can help to maintain international peace and

security.

Within the context of the items relating to

disarmament, my delegation would recall the urgent need

to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations Regional

Centres for Peace and Disarmament. Designed to promote

peace and disarmament in various regions, these Centres

need financing to function and to carry out their

programmes of activities in order to attain the goals for

which they were established.

This is particularly true of the Centre for Africa,

which has its headquarters in my country. I would therefore

appeal to the good will of all Member States to support this

Centre by providing it with the help and assistance it needs

to carry out its activities and to contribute to the

maintenance and strengthening of the peace and security

which Africa so sorely needs to ensure its economic and

social development.

The Charter which we adopted in 1945 states in its

Preamble that the peoples of the United Nations are

determined to promote social progress and better standards

of life in larger freedom. Fifty years later, we must assess

the impact of action taken along the way to resolve the

enormous problems of development.

It is clear that serious efforts are made every day to

eliminate poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease and

illiteracy. And yet, despite the considerable input of the

United Nations and its specialized agencies, we must note

that many peoples, particularly in the developing countries,

still live in a state of great deprivation and are exposed to

all manner of scourges. In other words, the situation in

those countries is tragic: more than half a billion human

beings live in abject poverty; more than 180 million

children suffer serious malnutrition; and more than 1.5

billion individuals have no access to primary health care.

All this, as can be imagined, leads to the death of almost

3 million children every year.

This bitter truth is the result of the injustice and

inequality that characterize international cooperation

relations. In the absence of real understanding and

solidarity on the part of Member States, the poorest

continue to suffer and the well-off grow ever more

opulent. Distortions in economic relations between North

and South do not reflect the spirit of our Charter. For

decades now, the developing countries have called for the

establishment of a new, more just and equitable

international economic order, but their concerns are not

taken duly into account.

In this regard, it would not be overstating matters

to recall that the continued drop in our commodity prices;

the sharp deterioration in the terms of trade; the problems

relating to access for products from developing countries

in general, and African countries in particular, to world

markets; and the foreign debt burden are all obstacles that

must be removed if we are to accelerate and strengthen

the process of sustainable development.

It is important therefore that our partners in the

industrialized countries should try harder to understand

our problems in order that they may be better able to

support our efforts. This multifaceted support must seek

to ensure remunerative prices for our commodities and the

necessary technological support for processing these

commodities so as to ensure access for our products to

international markets. To that end, the international

community must provide special assistance to Africa in

order to build viable, lasting and competitive industrial

structures.

In this connection, my country would invite all those

involved in development, and particularly industrialized

countries anxious about the future of Africa, to give new

impetus to the United Nations Industrial Development

Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade

and Development, two major agencies within the United

Nations system established to promote industrialization

and the development of trade of the developing countries

as a whole and particularly in Africa.

At a time when the globalization and liberalization

of the world economy are accelerating as a result of

recent agreements made at the Uruguay Round, we should

create new opportunities for cooperation to help African

18

countries become part of the world trading system and

benefit from the advantages it offers for growth. The basic

way to do so is to help Africa, through the appropriate

transfer of technology, to progress like other regions and to

respond to new conditions governing access to markets in

order to become a real actor in the World Trade

Organization.

The prospects for Africa’s development are not

promising because the socio-economic situation is so

precarious and efforts made to date to step up progress

have proven vain. Indeed, Africa is being crippled under

the enormous weight of its debt. In 1994, the debt burden

reached $313 billion and today represents 231.3 per cent of

its export earnings, or an average of 71.6 per cent of its

gross domestic product. Moreover, the continuing drop in

official development assistance to African States has put

Africa in a very critical economic situation.

Far from accepting this situation as our fated lot and

aware that we must rely on our own efforts, this year the

African countries adopted, in Egypt, the Cairo Programme

of Action, which aims at ensuring the immediate

relaunching of Africa’s economic and social development

through political and economic reforms and a global and

coherent strategy. My country is ready to assume its share

of the responsibility in the implementation of that

Programme.

On the crucial issue of debt, Togo would once again

appeal to the international community and to the creditors

in particular to consider cancelling the concessional debt

rescheduled in the Paris Club. We would urge the adoption

of innovative measures to reduce the multilateral debt,

including the repurchase of that category of debt with the

proceeds of the sale of part of the International Monetary

Fund’s gold reserves. In short, this question must be

addressed on an equitable basis with a view to a lasting

solution.

Furthermore, giving new impetus to development in

Africa must include the mobilization of financial resources

both through official development assistance and through

private investment. In this regard, my delegation would

invite our partners in the developed countries to renew and

strengthen their political commitment to support the

recovery of the African economy, for economic and

financial stability in Africa will most certainly be in the

interests of the world economy.

Togo duly appreciates the efforts of the United

Nations and the international community over the past 50

years to promote economic and socio-cultural

development. In particular, we hail the initiatives that led

to the adoption of the United Nations Programme of

Action for African Economic Recovery and Development

and the New Agenda for the Development of Africa in

the 1990s, as well as the Paris Declaration and

Programme of Action for the Least-Developed Countries

for the 1990s.

It is none the less regrettable that the implementation

of these instruments, which were able to take into account

the concerns of Africa in various areas of development,

has yet to receive the support it deserves for the benefit

of our continent and the least-developed countries in

particular. Thus the economic and social performance

which they should have sparked has not lived up to the

expectations of the peoples of Africa.

In view of the present state of development in

Africa, the international community must make a

substantial contribution towards attaining the objectives

set forth, not only of the New Agenda for the

Development of Africa in the 1990s, but also of other

programmes of action. Africa needs to be given specific

attention commensurate with its problems, first among

which is poverty. Indeed, according to data collected by

the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the

number of the most needy rose from 105 million in 1985

to 216 million in 1990 and may reach 304 million by the

year 2000.

The collective security to which all peoples aspire

also depends on finding determined and credible solutions

to the question of poverty, to which a great portion of the

world is subject. Along the same lines, the Bretton Woods

institutions must do more to ensure that structural

adjustment programmes are politically, socially and

humanly feasible for those countries which must

implement them. My delegation concurs with the

proposals for reform of the international financial and

monetary system with a view to adapting them to the

needs of our day, to make it more equitable and to allow

it to respond to the true aspirations of peoples.

In its search for appropriate solutions to economical

and social problems, the United Nations was prompted

this year to organize the World Summit for Social

Development in Copenhagen. My country welcomed the

holding of that Summit, the first in the annals of our

Organization to offer such a marvellous opportunity for

deep reflection at the highest level on the issues of human

and social development that are of major importance for

19

mankind. My delegation welcomes the 10-point

commitments adopted at the Summit and hopes that in

implementing those commitments for the benefit of the

entire world all our countries will show the fervour that led

them to prepare and participate in the Summit.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, held just a

few days ago in Beijing, is another illustration of our

Organization’s determination not to neglect any of the

objectives it has set for itself. The Togolese Government,

which values women’s active role in the development

process and accords them rightful pride of place in human

society, will spare no effort to implement the

recommendations emanating from that Conference. We urge

the international community to shoulder its share of

responsibility in the implementation of those

recommendations so that women can fully play their role in

building a peaceful and prosperous world.

With regard to the question of the environment, my

delegation welcomes the signing in Paris, in October 1994,

of the international Convention on combating drought and

desertification, and we welcome most especially the entry

into force of the Convention on Biological Diversity and

the Convention on Climate Change. However, we do not

believe that the signing and entry into force of those

Conventions are an end in themselves. In the light of the

universal concern of a few years ago over the extensive

degradation of the environment and the enthusiasm aroused

by the Rio Conference, our countries must take the

necessary measures to attain the objectives set forth in

those various international legal instruments.

This coming 24 October the United Nations will be

commemorating its fiftieth anniversary. It has at times been

difficult to put into effect the purposes and principles of the

San Francisco Charter, and the results achieved have not

always lived fully up to our expectations. But with the

beginning of this new phase, one could hope that — on the

basis of lessons learned by evaluating the activities of the

past half-century and on the basis of Member States’

capacity to adapt to the ever-shifting realities of the

international context — our Organization will truly live up

to its new ambitions.

As it is about to enter the second half of its first 100

years, the United Nations must preserve its universality and

consolidate its vitality, through prudent reform and

appropriate strengthening of its entire system and its

principal organs, including the Security Council, so that

justice and equality may triumph.

The enormous tasks awaiting our Organization on

the eve of the third millennium require that Member

States have greater political will so that the objective of

the restructuring and democratization process now under

way can be attained to the satisfaction of all, and so that

Member States can participate together, on the basis of

sovereign equality, in managing the affairs of the world.

The same political will is needed in order for

development assistance to regain priority status, so that

the men, women and children of the countries of the

South will enjoy the support that is essential for them to

prosper.

In doing all this, an inestimable contribution will be

made to the promotion of human rights and the right to

development, which is another way of averting threats to

domestic, regional and global peace and security.

As for my country, it renews its commitment to the

noble ideals of the United Nations, and, as always, it will

do its utmost to help build a world of peace and justice

for all.