Togo, 2012

At the outset,

I would like to address my warmest congratulations

to Mr. Vuk Jeremić on the confidence that the entire

United Nations family has invested in him by electing

him to the high office of President of the General

Assembly at its sixty-seventh session.

I would also like to take this opportunity to reiterate

Togo’s support to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for

all of the work that he continues to undertake in order to

promote peace in the world. We appreciate the immense

efforts that he is pursuing in Africa and many other

regions of the world in order to find a peaceful outcome

to the conflicts that they face by prioritizing dialogue,

mediation and cooperation.

The choice of the peaceful settlement of disputes as

the central theme of this session is a wise choice, and I

welcome it. Indeed, it allows us, in the complex world

we live in today, to reconnect with the original purpose

and founding values of the United Nations. Over the

decades, our Organization has taken it upon itself to

respond to the many challenges posed by a world that

is constantly changing. It remains present and active in

all the areas that present opportunities for progress by

humankind.

However, in spite of our efforts and the progress

that has been achieved, here and there, in the areas

of technology, economy and social issues, we note,

unfortunately, that force continues to be used all

too frequently in international relations. On many

occasions, recourse to the use of armed force has been

chosen before all avenues for the peaceful means of

dispute resolution have been exhausted.

The African continent, unfortunately, has paid and

continues to pay a heavy price when it seeks to save

time by prematurely cutting short the process for the

peaceful settlement of disputes. Yet, experience has

shown that even in the rare cases where recourse to the

use of weapons has allowed one of the parties to the

conflict to quickly prevail over the other, lasting peace

and stability have not been achieved.

That is why my country, Togo, welcomes the fact

that the sixty-seventh session of the General Assembly

gives all of us the opportunity to revisit the original

values of the United Nations Charter in order to better

guide our work in dealing with the challenges of our

contemporary world. Indeed, perhaps it is time to put

dialogue among nations at the centre of the international

agenda again. But today we need to go further, and also make dialogue within nations an important component

of our efforts to achieve peace. Dialogue within nations

is in fact an indispensable corollary of dialogue among

nations. It should be encouraged and cultivated in the

same vein, because it is the prelude to preserving peace

among nations.

Indeed, since the contemporary world is marked by

interdependence, when misunderstandings degenerate

into internal conflicts because there is no dialogue, it is

rare that they do not have repercussions in neighbouring

countries. The Syrian crisis and the climate of growing

insecurity in the Sahel-Sahara region are textbook

examples.

That is why I would like to urge our common

Organization and its Member States to persevere in

the efforts already under way to make dialogue within

nations a cornerstone of their conflict-prevention work

in the world. Before all else, encouraging dialogue

within nations comes down to adopting a constructive

approach that strives to promote universal values

while taking into account the realities specific to each

country, as well as local and regional specificities. It

is also a matter of making citizens, whatever country

they live in, responsible through various means for the

culture of peace, for listening to one another and for a

sense of compromise in order to make dialogue a cross-

cutting value in our modern societies.

With that in mind, the West African Economic

and Monetary Union — over which Togo is honoured

to preside and which now enjoys observer status in the

General Assembly — decided at its May 2012 meeting

in Lomé to give higher priority to matters of peace

and security than to purely economic issues. That

novel move by a regional economic organization is

fundamentally guided by the desire to make dialogue a

priority tool for conflict prevention.

In that regard, I remain profoundly convinced that

decentralization of conflict prevention and resolution

that makes use of the contribution of subregional

organizations is one of the most viable options for

peacekeeping in the world. The proximity of such

bodies to the geographic areas of conflict and to their

historical and cultural roots is a major asset that should

be maximized in conflict prevention and the settlement

of disputes.

Still, the increased responsibility of subregional

organizations should not be a pretext to justify a kind of

disguised renunciation of our collective responsibility in the area of promoting peace and security in the

world. As Members of the United Nations, we do not

have that choice, because the community of values

that unites us is a permanent call to promote solidarity

and even complementarity between the specific

goals of subregional organizations and the search for

universality that is the very foundation of the United

Nations.

On that point, it should be noted that the protocol

establishing a Peace and Security Council in the

African Union in 2002 created a great deal of hope

at the time. Modelled on the Security Council of the

United Nations, that new institutional tool was intended

to enable the African Union to intervene directly in

countries in crisis. Sadly, recent experiences, whether

in Libya or Côte d’Ivoire, have shown that, faced with

the antagonisms that characterize the international

community, that tool has not been able to fulfil our

expectations. Those modest beginnings confirm the

urgent need for close cooperation between regional

peacekeeping mechanisms and the system established

decades ago by the United Nations to ensure collective

international security.

From that point of view, I would like to join my

voice to those of previous speakers to invite the entire

international community to assist all the institutional

players who are proceeding with good will to help Mali

in its determination to recover its territorial integrity as

quickly as possible and to help that country re-establish

peace so that the transition period can be successful.

That obligation of solidarity is a call to all of us.

Recent events in the north of the African continent have

once again exposed the sad reality that the reduction of

tension and the prevention and settlement of internal

disputes all too often involve elements that extend well

beyond individual States.

Drawing on its experience of the past two decades,

which were marked by major political shocks, and

honoured to sit as a non-permanent member of the

Security Council, Togo resolutely joins the dynamic of

the continuing search for peace focusing on dialogue

and cooperation. In that regard, on behalf of my

compatriots, and from this high rostrum, I would

like to salute the United Nations, other international

organizations and all friendly nations and partners of

goodwill who recently helped the Togolese people set

out on the path of dialogue to overcome the weight of

the past. That wise choice enabled us to embark on the construction of a new country, one reconciled with

itself and facing out onto the world.

Our feeling of gratitude is all the more profound

because we have been able to see in just a few years

the economic and social progress that the Togolese

people can achieve on their own, now that they are

living in peace and harmony among themselves, with

their neighbours and with the rest of the world. We have

renewed our economic growth and are intensifying

our efforts to ensure better political and economic

governance through sweeping institutional and

constitutional reforms. We intend to implement them

out of respect for the republican agenda.

From one year to the next, public freedoms have

taken root in Togo. Political pluralism, which is deeply

ingrained in Togolese customs, has a natural ally in the

acknowledged right of all citizens to demonstrate in

complete freedom, so long as they respect prevailing

rules.

The challenge in Togo today is to consolidate

economic recovery, to promote a firm foundation for

democracy and the rule of law, and to promote the

indivisibility of human rights in order to propel the

country towards new gains, particularly in the social

arena, where expectations are both numerous and

urgent. Of course, the progress made in recent years

in the economic, political and social realms is still

fragile. That is why the Government remains alert

to the different views expressed on the best ways to

consolidate that progress. We have opted to make the

search for consensus a central axis for managing the

affairs of State.

In that same spirit, the Togolese Government is

working to build on the excitement that has gripped

the country’s political class on the eve of legislative

elections. Now that dialogue has been reopened, I

have good reason to hope that it will lead to broader

membership in that class so that its conclusions will

be accepted by all. Our immediate priority is to hold

successful, free, peaceful and transparent legislative

elections. Indeed, we aim to raise Togo to the ranks

of those countries that have managed to eradicate the

syndrome of violence before, during and after elections.

Nonetheless, we must recognize that such violence has

unfortunately turned elections into a cause of mortality

in various regions of the world.

That scourge has caused so much damage on the

African continent, in both the loss of human lives and in material destruction, that it is urgent to do everything

to prevent its reappearance in Togo or elsewhere. That

is both an individual and a collective responsibility. We

should leave no stone unturned in the struggle that has

been launched at all levels to prevent the elections from

being synonymous with violence and chaos.

Civil society has an important role to play in that

crucial area. States must help civil society to better

organize itself in order to play its full role and to become

a type of citizens’ watch that can truly contribute to the

evolution of human societies. However, in return, those

organizations must demonstrate their probity and lack

of bias. They must also refrain from aligning themselves

with belligerent factions or fighting for the cause of the

protagonists in political battles. Civil society must not

be a Trojan horse for political groups.

Mr. Charles (Trinidad and Tobago), Vice-President,

took the Chair.

Because of their proximity to citizens, the

organizations of civil society must free themselves

from political cliques so as to contribute to the rapid

development of human societies in key areas of

economic and social life. In that regard, I welcome

the decision taken several years ago to encourage

citizen action by accrediting to the Economic and

Social Council those organizations that have been

recognized for their usefulness. That is a judicious

way to encourage, within those citizen organizations,

a heightened awareness of their responsibilities when

facing today’s major challenges, economic crises,

environment crises and the aspirations to democracy

and freedoms that, although they assume new forms,

should not obstruct the momentum of our societies.

The peoples’ fight for more open and democratic

societies should not dissipate at the borders of nation

States. That fight must extend to the international level,

in which the rules of the game must also continue to

evolve in order to take into account the major changes

that have taken place since the creation of the United

Nations. And yet, since 1945, the basic rules that govern

the functioning of the Security Council have literally

been frozen in an immobility that is increasingly

appalling. It is obvious that maintenance of the status

quo in a context of profound change cannot fail to

generate serious dysfunctions. The Council’s incapacity

to agree on certain major cases of great importance

is a perfect illustration, and again sharply raises the

question of reform of that body, which is at the heart of the entire United Nations system. That process, which

has countless times been broached and put off for later,

today deserves full and immediate attention.

Thus, Togo would like to solemnly reaffirm its

steadfast support for the African Union initiative

that seeks to grant the African continent, following

the modalities that have not yet been defined, more

adequate representation within the United Nations

Security Council. I firmly believe that it is up to the

nations that have always had the privilege of having

a permanent seat on the Council to take a small step

that would allow all of humankind to make a giant leap

forward. That gesture seems essential to me because

it is a sine qua non for generating a new dynamic that

would allow us to collectively deliver more coordinated,

bolder and determined responses and to thus forge a

global governance that is more mature and more free,

with greater analytical capacity.