Tunisia, 1995

Allow me at the outset to extend to you,

Mr. President, our warmest and sincerest congratulations

on your election to the presidency of the fiftieth session

of the United Nations General Assembly. Through you, I

should also like to pay tribute to the relations between my

country and Portugal and to note our shared expectations

for the Mediterranean region.

I would be remiss were I to fail to extend my

warmest congratulations to your predecessor, Mr. Amara

Essy, President of the previous session of the Assembly,

for the new impetus he gave to the Organization through

the different working groups over which he presided. I

should also like to pay a special tribute to the Secretary-

General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for the wisdom and

determination with which he is carrying out his noble

mission.

This session of the Assembly crowns a half century

of the world Organization’s efforts to preserve world

peace. Today, the Organization is called upon to pave the

way to a new era, one that we hope will be marked by

solidarity in facing the tasks before us and the

responsibility we all bear.

Since the end of the cold war the world has rid itself

of the heavy burden of the fear of another world war, a

war that would have led to untold catastrophes and

tragedies. This development, albeit new, already seems to

be part of the past given the speed of subsequent

developments.

Even if East-West confrontation and the bipolarity of

past decades have disappeared, new challenges have

emerged over the past few years. Hotbeds of tension and

instability have proliferated, in many regions of the world,

and have taken root in the soil of ethnic and political

hostilities that often take the form of armed confrontations

within the borders of any one State. Such hostilities are

often fuelled by extremes of hardship and by deteriorating

economic and social conditions.

Some negative phenomena, such as terrorism,

extremism and the illicit traffic in arms and drugs have

also grown in a manner that is cause for concern as they

undermine the stability of States.

Inherent in these new challenges are factors of

disintegration and collapse that throw a long shadow over

international peace and security and impose new threats

that the international community should hasten to contain

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with decisive action which should not focus on their

outward manifestations alone, but deal with their true

underlying causes, namely economic underdevelopment and

social backwardness.

In fact, these new situations which now face the world

in the post-cold-war era make us realize that it is

impossible to ensure lasting international peace and security

by military means alone. Respect for law and international

legality are prerequisites as are creation of conditions that

would promote the economic and social development in an

interdependent world. These, we believe, are the

underpinnings upon which we should build a new world

order.

Due to the developments the international community

has been witnessing over the past few years, the United

Nations Organization has come to shoulder new

responsibilities towards international peace and security.

These responsibilities are manifest in the unprecedented

increase in the number of peace-keeping operations, as well

as in new activities such as the supervision of elections and

the rebuilding of State structures and the economic

infrastructures of States. In addition, many of these

activities have to do with the settlement of disputes within

certain States.

While the United Nations has to provide assistance to

countries that are ravaged by civil wars and internal

conflicts, we, as members of the international community,

are all called upon to mobilize our efforts and to strengthen

our solidarity within the context of the efforts aimed at the

maintenance of peace and to identify and resolve the

underlying causes of such disputes. Proceeding from our

belief in the fundamental principles set forth in the

Secretary-General’s “Agenda for Peace”, particularly those

relating to preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace

building, Tunisia, during its presidency of the Organization

of African Unity (OAU), called for stronger cooperation

between the United Nations and the Organization of African

Unity in the area of conflict prevention and the speedy

resolution of disputes at minimum cost.

Here we should remind of the role of the central organ

of the OAU’s mechanism for conflict prevention,

management and resolution, which has been given new

impetus by President Ben Ali and other African leaders in

order to make it an effective tool in the prevention and

settlement of disputes in Africa.

In this context, Tunisia has hosted several meetings of

this central body, which have resulted in the adoption of

many important resolutions that have made it possible to

address certain situations which, otherwise, would have

called for intervention by the international community to

keep peace or to prevent the outbreak of new conflicts.

We believe that such efforts by this central organ of the

OAU warrant additional support. The results of such

efforts could be improved if the appropriate financial and

logistical means were made available to the organ and if

coordination were ensured between the United Nations

and the OAU in this regard. We do hope that the recent

tendency to give this matter some thought will lead to the

identification of the ways and means whereby action by

the international community in this direction will develop

further. On this occasion, I should like, on behalf of

President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to pay tribute to the

international community for its valuable support to

Tunisia during its presidency of the OAU, and to express

particular appreciation to the Secretary-General of the

United Nations, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, as well as to

all those who have provided financial and logistical

assistance to peace-keeping operations in Africa and to

the States that have provided financial support to the fund

created within the OAU mechanism for the settlement,

management and prevention of disputes.

While some hotbeds of tension persist, some have

been eliminated, and we do see a reduction in the danger

of major conflagrations in the light of the significant

progress made towards disarmament and the strengthening

of the underpinnings of international security through the

efforts of the United Nations, as well as an improvement

in the climate of trust and understanding that we now feel

in international relations.

In the area of weapons of mass destruction, Tunisia

welcomed the signing of the Convention on chemical

weapons. We believe it is a step that will lead to the

elimination of an entire class of such weapons. This calls

for further substantive steps to rid the world gradually of

the threat of nuclear weapons, particularly in the wake of

the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-

Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

As for the Middle East, many important steps have

been taken towards genuine dialogue between the parties

concerned.

Tunisia, which has been an active participant in the

peace process since it began in Madrid, welcomes the

agreement achieved yesterday between the Palestine

Liberation Organization and Israel, and hopes that it will

be followed by other concrete steps towards ensuring the

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achievement of the legitimate national rights of the

Palestinian people.

We must adopt the same approach in order to give

new impetus to the negotiations between Syria and Israel on

the one hand, and between Lebanon and Israel on the other

in order to ensure the withdrawal from the occupied

territories in the Golan and in southern Lebanon and the

achievement of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in

the region.

It goes without saying that the principles upon which

the peace process was based, namely Security Council

resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), as well as General

Assembly resolutions concerning the withdrawal from all

Arab and Palestinian lands, including Holy Al-Quds, must

be fully implemented. Al-Quds remains, for the Palestinian

and the whole Islamic nation, a cornerstone for the

settlement of the dispute.

We believe that it is time for the Israeli Government

to demonstrate realism and political courage by rising above

the very narrow view of security and relations with the

neighbouring Arab States in order to allow the peoples of

the region to live in harmony in increasing security and

stability.

In the Arab Maghreb, Tunisia, which has always

believed in international legality, calls, in the light of

initiatives taken by Libya, for a rapid resolution of the

Lockerbie affair in order to lift the embargo imposed on

our Libyan brethren. The negative effects of that embargo

have begun seriously to affect stability and development in

all the countries of the region.

As for Iraq, Tunisia, which is satisfied with the

progress that is being made in implementing United Nations

resolutions, calls for lifting the embargo imposed on Iraq in

order to mitigate the suffering of the Iraqi people. At the

same time, Tunisia stresses the need to fully respect the

sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kuwait and all the

countries of the region. By the same token, we hope that

agreement on the basis of the norms of international law

and the behests of good-neighbourliness and respect for the

territorial integrity of other States, will be reached in the

dispute between the United Arab Emirates and the Islamic

Republic of Iran on Abu Moussa and the Greater and

Lesser Tumb Islands.

I should now like to address the crisis in Bosnia,

which, in our view, constitutes an aberration that embodies

a serious defiance to all humanity. This war puts us face to

face with ideologies which, we thought, had become

things of the past, but which have now resurfaced in the

guise of “ethnic cleansing”. The international community

has the right to make use of the means provided by the

United Nations Charter to force those who flout all

civilized values and trample the most basic of human

rights to accept the independence of Bosnia and

Herzegovina and to respect its territorial integrity.

Tunisia, which has always participated in the United

Nations efforts to maintain international peace and

security, is well-aware of the limitations of the narrow

view that reduces the concept of security to the military

dimension alone. Proceeding from this, Tunisia has

supported from the outset the international community’s

initiative embodied in “An Agenda for Development”. We

believe that “An Agenda for Development”, along with

“An Agenda for Peace”, help to enrich our thinking in the

field of multilateral cooperation at a time when countries

of the world are becoming increasingly open to market

economics which, together with the consolidation of

interdependence, have come to be the principal economic

characteristics of world economy at the end of the 20th

century.

In view of the irreversible globalization of economic

concepts, the United Nations is called upon to play a

fundamental role in formulating and implementing

development policies. Such an important role should work

in favour of the international community’s efforts to

restructure the United Nations and to increase its

effectiveness. Tunisia, which has taken part in these

efforts, believes that any restructuring process should help

promote the universal nature of the Organization and

strengthen its democratic posture, so that it may make a

better contribution in the area of development. We believe

that the process of restructuring must go hand-in-hand

with a wider cooperation between the United Nations and

the Bretton Woods institutions in order to improve their

input in development.

In this context, joint initiatives could be taken to

ensure a better division of labour between the United

Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions with a view

to increasing their effectiveness in the economic and

social fields and within the context of development in

general. More specifically, as far as cooperation between

the United Nations and other parties is concerned,

President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been calling, since

1989, from this very rostrum, for a development

partnership between industrialized and developing

countries. This initiative is a project for a new

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international cooperation based on a dynamic view of the

security of all States. Through this proposal, Tunisia aims

at creating a new system based on economic, political,

social and democratic stability, because we believe that they

are the very pillars of security. This Tunisian initiative is

based on awareness of the organic link between

development, democracy and stability. This overall view

takes into account the aspirations of individuals and peoples

who look forward to freedom and economic, social and

cultural well-being.

The Tunisian view of security and development is

anchored in the belief that extreme importance must be

attached to the cultural and humanitarian aspects of

international relations, particularly at the regional level.

Proceeding from this belief, Tunisia has sought to

consolidate its cultural and political ties with all the

countries of the Arab Maghreb and of the Mediterranean.

At the Maghreb level, in cooperation with the member

States of the Arab Maghreb Union, Tunisia has worked to

create an economic zone in the region. This has taken

concrete shape in the Tunisian declaration of 1994 relating

to the creation of a free zone as a first step in putting in

place a Maghreb development strategy.

Tunisia’s involvement in international economic affairs

and its attempts to develop its interests with the region on

the northern shores of the Mediterranean are among its

basic foreign-policy tenets, enshrined in the partnership

agreement with the European Union. This agreement is

based on joint development and aims at creating a free zone

that will allow Tunisia further activity within the economies

of its European partners. It goes hand in hand with a policy

of dialogue between the countries of the Mediterranean. On

the 28th and 29th of July 1995, Tunisia hosted a

preparatory meeting for the Mediterranean region to ensure

the success of the meeting scheduled for next November in

Barcelona. The Preliminary results of the Mediterranean

dialogue give cause for optimism as they reflect a common

desire to safeguard the Mediterranean region from

international political convulsions and economic fluctuations

while ensuring its harmonious development.

The United Nations is called upon today to develop a

new concept based on the need to achieve security,

development and democracy. These are the very principles

in which Tunisia believes and for which we strive,

domestically as well as internationally. In the field of

development, the Tunisian strategy is based on the human

element within a comprehensive vision that embraces all

segments of society, and aims at building a balanced and

unitary society.

In this context, I wish to stress in particular the

importance that Tunisia attaches to the empowerment of

women, the protection of the family and to highlight the

fact that many achievements have been made in this

context, particularly with regard to the adoption of

structural, legal and administrative measures to promote

the role of women and the family, economically and

socially and to enhance the role of women in our

development efforts. At the same time, Tunisia has

acceded to many international conventions on the equality

of women and men, the latest of which has been the

Copenhagen agreement which relate to the elimination of

all forms of discrimination against women. Based on its

rich experience in this context, Tunisia has played a very

active role in the March 1995 World Summit for Social

Development in Copenhagen and in the recent Fourth

World Conference on Women in Beijing, whose positive

results we commend.

In this new era, Tunisia will continue to support the

efforts of the United Nations both in the areas of

maintenance of peace and of development. We shall

continue to participate in defining the features of the new

world order and to call for upholding the law and the

norms of international legality. It behoves the States of

the world to share a joint vision of the world of

tomorrow, so that it may be characterized by more

solidarity and justice. We hope that the celebration of the

fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations will reaffirm the

commitment of the international community to an

Organization without which we can never hope to build

such a new world order.