Tanzania, 1994

I wish to join my fellow Heads

of State who have spoken before me in congratulating you

most sincerely on your well-deserved election as President

of the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly. As a

distinguished son of Africa, you bring to this high office

valuable experience, diplomatic skill and wisdom, all of

which equip you superbly well to lead this Assembly - an

assembly in which the faith and hopes of our people are

reposed. Let me assure you, Mr. President, of Tanzania’s

whole-hearted cooperation and support as you execute your

noble and immense responsibilities to humanity.

I should also express the great appreciation which

my delegation feels for the dedication to duty and great

leadership displayed by your predecessor, His Excellency

Mr. Samuel Insanally of the Republic of Guyana, who

very ably led the forty-eighth session of the General

Assembly to its successful conclusion.

I wish also to acknowledge the untiring efforts of

another son of Africa, our Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros

Boutros-Ghali, who, together with his Secretariat, has

continued to serve our Organization very well indeed.

The Secretariat needs, and deserves, the support of all

Member States in facing the challenges of their

day-to-day work, often under very trying circumstances.

This is my second appearance before a session of the

General Assembly since being elected President of the

United Republic of Tanzania in 1985. I had the honour

to address the forty-second session of the Assembly on 8

October 1987. I used that occasion, as the new President

of my country, to reaffirm our faith in the United Nations

and our commitment to the principles of the United

Nations Charter.

Today, I am addressing this Assembly for the last

time as President of my country. As members may well

know, Tanzania has embarked on extensive political and

economic reforms, which are proceeding very well, in

peace and in harmony.

As part of the political reforms, the constitutional

term of a president is limited to a maximum of two five-

year terms. My second and last term, therefore, will come

to an end towards the end of next year, a time when we

will hold our first general elections under a multiparty

democratic system. It is my great wish that I should

bequeath to the Tanzanian people a functioning democratic

system that will allow them to choose their own leaders in

a free and fair atmosphere.

As I prepare to pass on the baton of the leadership of

my country to someone else, I can only reaffirm the faith

and confidence my country has always had in the United

Nations system. All its imperfections notwithstanding, the

United Nations remains the only hope for poor and weak

countries like mine, for it is only through the United

Nations that we can raise our concerns for human

development, world peace, justice and equality without fear.

The imperfections of the United Nations system have

nothing to do with the principles set forth in the United

Nations Charter; rather, they are a product of the action or

inaction of the Member States.

In this connection we are pleased to extend to all the

new Members a warm welcome and sincere congratulations.

Their admission has brought us much closer to our

cherished goal of universal membership of the United

Nations. We pledge to continue working closely with all

nations to make our world a much better place for all

humanity.

During my time as President of Tanzania, fundamental

changes have occurred in the world. Some of these

changes have given us reasons for hope; others have not.

Our hopes that the post-cold-war era would bring a new

impetus in our Organization for peace and development in

all corners of the world have not yet been realized. The so-

called peace dividend is not reaching those who need it

most, that is, the poorest sectors of humanity. It is a pity

that global tensions have been replaced by regional and

national conflicts, with devastating consequences for

innocent men, women and children. Whether on

development questions or security issues, the developing

countries, which constitute the vast majority, have seen

little respite following the end of the cold war.

The collective security system envisaged under the

United Nations Charter has not always worked to the

satisfaction of many Members. This is because some

Member States have, in the past, been reluctant to

implement both the letter and the spirit of the Charter.

Instead, loopholes and pretexts have often been used to

justify action contrary to the spirit of the Charter. Today,

as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the United

Nations, we all need to rededicate ourselves to the goals

and ideals embodied in its Charter. This includes the

need to make the United Nations and all its organs more

representative of all its Members and more democratic.

It is both hypocritical and a mockery of the ideal of

democracy that some Members should preach democracy

to the rest of the world and yet not accept the full

democratization of the United Nations system.

This matter is particularly urgent in this post-

cold-war world era. The emerging new power relations

in the world can be either an asset or a liability,

depending on whether all Members have the political will

to enhance the representative nature and the democratic

traditions of this world body. If such political will exists,

I am sure we can make rapid progress on the expressed

desire of many Member States to look again at the role,

powers and membership of the Security Council. I am

equally sure that if we all have the political will to reform

the United Nations system for the better, we can quickly

agree on enhancing the powers of the General Assembly

and the Economic and Social Council. It is these two

organs that are important agents in focusing our

Organization on the real and urgent issues confronting the

overwhelming majority of humanity.

In his comprehensive report to the General Assembly

at its forty-eighth session, the Secretary-General drew our

attention to the peace-keeping role of the United Nations

in the changing international context. While United

Nations peace-keeping and peacemaking responsibilities

have been on the increase, the means to implement those

responsibilities have hardly kept pace with these new

requirements. With more than 80,000 civilian and

military personnel serving in 17 peace-keeping operations

worldwide, the Organization requires new commitment

towards meeting the costs involved.

We should all strive to honour our financial

obligations as assessed to meet United Nations

peace-keeping expenses. We must not reach the point

where training and deployment of personnel will be

undertaken only by those Member States who can afford

such expenses on their own. Such an eventuality will not

only make peace-keeping the monopoly of a few rich

countries but will also deal a fatal blow to our cherished

principle of universality of participation. In this

connection, we entirely support the proposal made by

Canada last week in this Assembly for the establishment

of a permanent United Nations peace-keeping force. This

idea has been with us for a long time, and now is the

time to act.

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My delegation takes this opportunity to salute all

United Nations personnel in the field for their devotion to

duty and their perseverance under increasingly dangerous

situations. Many, including Tanzanians, have died in

action. We mourn them. Many more have been wounded.

They deserve our heartfelt sympathy. The safety and

security of United Nations personnel must continue to be a

priority, and we support every initiative taken to establish

an international treaty for their protection.

As a neighbour of both Rwanda and Burundi,

Tanzania has found itself deeply involved in the search for

peace and reconciliation in those two most troubled

countries. Last year in Cairo, we, the African Heads of

State, decided that the time had come for Africans to take

charge of preventing, managing and resolving conflicts in

their continent, for our countries may be poor, but our

poverty does not extend to the realm of humanity, dignity

and wisdom.

In both Rwanda and Burundi, there was a time when

our hopes rose high, when we thought that at last a

permanent solution had been found to their endemic

problems. In the case of Burundi, the high point was the

election of July 1993, which was declared by international

observers to have been free and fair. The transition of

power from President Buyoya to the late President Ndadaye

was equally impressive. That man, whom the people of

Burundi had chosen to lead them, personified not only hope

for peace, unity and reconciliation in Burundi, but also the

dawn of a new era of peace, stability and cooperation in

our subregion.

But some people in the military establishment decided

to put their private and parochial interests above the wishes

of the ordinary people of Burundi. What the Burundi

people got through the ballot was taken away by the bullet.

The attempted coup that followed in October 1993 resulted

not only in the death of President Ndadaye but also in the

death of many innocent people of Burundi. No one knows

exactly how many died; estimates range from 100,000 to

200,000. But statistics alone are unimportant, as not a

single life should have been lost in the first place; above

all, behind these cold statistics are real people - husbands

and wives, sons and daughters, all of whom perished

leaving behind widows and widowers, as well as orphans.

In addition to those who died, over 700,000 others fled

their country in order to save their lives; about 500,000 of

them fled to Tanzania alone. Another 200,000 or more

were displaced internally. With those events of October

1993, our hopes for peace and reconciliation in Burundi

were dashed to the ground; since then we have been

waiting anxiously for new developments that could

rekindle our hopes.

We are encouraged by the efforts of moderate

elements in Burundi to create a transitional government of

unity, based on the concept of power sharing. It is

incumbent upon those of us neighbouring Burundi and

upon the international community as a whole to support

and encourage the Government of President Sylvestre

Ntibantunganya during this transitional period.

In the case of Rwanda, the event that gave us hope

was the signing of the Arusha Peace Agreement on 4

August 1993. The Agreement provided a comprehensive

framework for the permanent solution of the political and

security problems in Rwanda. But the Agreement, which

had been so painstakingly negotiated, was held hostage by

those who were keen to protect their own interests rather

than the interests of the ordinary citizens of Rwanda. For

eight months, the timetable agreed upon for the

implementation of the Arusha Agreement was not

followed. The only transitional institution provided for in

the Agreement was the presidency. The death of

President Habyarimana, therefore, denied us the only legal

transitional authority in Rwanda at that time. Then began

the worst carnage in African history - which, even as I

speak, is still claiming the lives of innocent people, not to

mention having been the cause of over 1.5 million

refugees in neighbouring countries. Most of those who

participated in the Arusha negotiations on behalf of the

then Rwanda Government were massacred.

Following its military victory, the Rwandese

Patriotic Front (RPF) established in July 1994 a fairly

broad-based Government of National Unity. Tanzania

was among the first countries to recognize this new

Government. We recognize and appreciate the efforts and

good intentions of this new Government to restore peace

in Rwanda, to rebuild State institutions and to bring about

genuine national reconciliation. In particular, we

encourage and support all efforts of the Rwandese

Government to create conditions within Rwanda that will

give Rwandese refugees the confidence to return home as

soon as possible. Rwanda needs to revert to a state of

normalcy as soon as possible. A country from which its

own citizens run away to save their lives cannot be

normal. Even as I speak, some Rwandese refugees

continue to enter Tanzania. This means that the

Rwandese people, especially the Hutus, still feel

insecure - whether for valid reasons or as a result of the

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propaganda war waged by the ousted regime and its agents.

In this connection, the Government of Rwanda needs

the encouragement and practical assistance of the

international community to restore essential services and to

re-establish the rule of justice and law and order. The

traditional discipline within the ranks of the RPF needs to

be maintained, and individual acts of vengeance must be

contained. Innocent Hutu refugees must feel secure and

confident that no reprisals will be meted out to them for

previous atrocities associated with their tribe. On the other

hand, all those guilty of the genocide in Rwanda must face

justice. In this respect, we urge the United Nations, in

collaboration with the Rwandese Government, quickly to

make operational the international tribunal that will

investigate and put to trial all those suspected of

committing these atrocities. This, we hope, will reduce the

motivation for individual acts of revenge.

The urgency of stemming the tide of refugees, and of

effecting their subsequent repatriation, is of paramount

importance. The refugee camps must not be allowed to

acquire the character of permanency, as this would create

an environment conducive to the political and even military

mobilization of the refugees. In the meanwhile, we who

are hosts to these refugees have a duty to disarm them and

take whatever action is necessary to make it impossible for

them to be mobilized, whether for political or military

purposes.

Neighbouring countries and the international

community should also warn the deposed regime and its

army not to entertain thoughts of a military return to power.

We cannot allow another chapter of this tragedy to be

written in the history of Rwanda. For, as an English

political philosopher, Edmund Burke, said two centuries

ago:

"The use of force alone is but temporary. It may

subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the

necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not

governed, which is perpetually to be conquered."

In this connection, I wish to emphasize the need for

the Rwandese Government to proceed on the basis of the

framework of the Arusha Peace Accord, which in my view

remains the best hope for a permanent solution to the

problems facing that country. As Facilitator to the peace

process in Rwanda, I wish to commend the Secretary-

General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU),

Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, and the OAU Secretariat for the

outstanding commitment they have shown to the resolution

of this problem, despite the many disappointments along

the way. I also wish to use this opportunity to thank the

United Nations, as well as Belgium, Burundi, France,

Germany, Senegal, Uganda, the United States of America

and Zaire, which acted as observers to the Arusha peace

negotiations.

I wish also to thank the United Nations agencies and

all Governments and non-governmental organizations that

joined hands with my Government in providing relief to

the Rwandese refugees in my country. But the relief

work is far from being over; new refugees are still

coming in. The local communities which have hosted the

refugees need to be compensated for the food and other

services and supplies they have shared with them. The

environmental damage caused by the huge and sudden

influx of refugees also needs to be addressed as soon as

possible.

The people of Ngara district in Tanzania have

themselves been forced to live like refugees in their own

country. The local population has been outnumbered by

the refugees by a ratio of one to two. They face

overcrowding in social service centres and endure

tremendous price hikes, sometimes reaching 300 per cent

over a short period, for all their requirements. And to

this must be added increased security risks and

criminality.

As for environmental damage, the influx of refugees

into Ngara and Karagwe in Tanzania, between April and

June 1994 alone, caused a loss of 18,000 tons of trees,

with an estimated value of $12 million. The 400,000

refugees living in Ngara have since April consumed

200 tons of firewood daily, with far-reaching

consequences for the environment. The international

community needs to continue to be seized of this matter

and increase its support to those of us hosting this huge

influx of refugees.

It is only honourable for us as Members of the

United Nations to accept that the role of our Organization

in Rwanda has been far from honourable, and has been

quite contrary to the principles of our Charter. While aid

agencies and non-governmental organizations can do

wonders on the ground, Governments wring their hands

and wait for one another to lead the action. The crisis in

Rwanda was made worse by political indecision within

the international community. My delegation can only

agree with the OAU Secretary-General that, by our failure

to act promptly, we too stand to be blamed for the loss of

innocent lives and the suffering of an entire people.

4

African troops pledged at the OAU Summit in Cairo

last June should quickly be given the necessary logistic

support to enable the redeployment of the United Nations

Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) at its full

strength to start without undue delay. The enlarged

UNAMIR should then create safe zones along the Zairian

and Tanzanian borders, which should be fully stocked with

relief supplies so as to encourage refugees to enter these

safe zones as a first step towards returning to their own

homes.

Since my country became a member of this

Organization, there has perhaps been no issue before this

Assembly which has preoccupied us like the question of

decolonization and the struggle against the apartheid system

in South Africa. It is therefore a matter of tremendous

satisfaction to us that decolonization is now almost

complete and that apartheid has finally landed where it

belongs - in the dustbin of history. South Africa’s return

to the membership of the United Nations is a victory for all

the people of that country, whatever their colour, a victory

for the United Nations and certainly a victory for the

international community as a whole.

The political and economic reintegration of South

Africa into the rest of Africa is one of the biggest triumphs

for Africa for many years. We in the southern African sub-

region are happy that at last our people can sleep peacefully

without fearing a surprise attack or a destabilization

campaign from South Africa. We are happy that the

emerging peace and security in our region can now release

scarce resources for the development of our people. On the

economic front, we have quickly begun to reverse the years

of disengagement from South Africa and to work together

to integrate our economies through the Southern African

Development Community (SADC), in which the new South

Africa will play a very important role.

This, unfortunately, does not mean that all our

problems in southern Africa have been resolved. Events in

Angola continue to cause us a good deal of anxiety.

Through its endless intransigency, UNITA continues to

create problems for the Angolan peace talks in Lusaka

under United Nations mediation. I think the time has come

for the international community to exert final pressure on

UNITA to stop it from continuing to obstruct these peace

efforts. We must not forget that the MPLA party won the

elections sponsored by the United Nations in September

1992. Yet, regardless of its victory, the MPLA has been

generous in inviting UNITA to join a government of

national unity. We cannot see why certain foreign

Governments should continue to pamper UNITA as it

comes up with new excuses to delay the process of

national reconciliation in that country. Our Organization

should tell Mr. Savimbi that he cannot have his own way

forever. We therefore call upon all those with influence

on Mr. Savimbi to ask him either to cooperate or face the

consequences of the full sanctions promised in resolution

932 (1994).

In Mozambique, thanks to the determined efforts of

the Secretary-General and the United Nations Operation

in Mozambique (ONUMOZ), most of the difficulties have

since been overcome. We look forward with anticipation

to the national elections later this month in the hope that

they will not only be free and fair, but also that all parties

will respect and abide by the election results. We hope

that the lessons from the Angolan experience have now

been learned well and that the people of Mozambique will

be spared the menace that Mr. Savimbi continues to

present in Angola. We commend, in particular, the

outstanding goodwill and generosity of the Government

of President Chissano, which was demonstrated

throughout the negotiating process.

Despite overall economic growth in the world, and

the creation of numerous developmental and social

institutions, poverty has been on the increase in most

parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa.

A supportive international environment is crucial if

we are to attain sustained economic growth in developing

countries, especially in the least developed ones. The

United Nations must be able to play a much greater role

in this matter because, unlike the Bretton Woods

institutions, the United Nations is universal; its

programmes operate everywhere; and it does not ignore

countries. But I must add that the United Nations has to

be strengthened, as mandated by its Charter, to enable it

to play a complementary role vis-à-vis the other

international organizations involved in development.

Most of the least developed countries, including

Tanzania, remain among the most debt-distressed

countries. It is true that the magnitude of our debt is

marginal by international standards. Indeed, the

indebtedness of the least developed countries does not

have a substantial effect on the international financial

system. But in relation to the size of their economies, the

debt burden is far too heavy and constitutes a major

obstacle to sustained growth. In the light of an already

grim financial flow situation, caused by declines in

official development assistance, the crippling burden of

5

international debt has seriously hampered development

prospects for most of our countries.

As an illustration, if we in Tanzania were to apportion

our total national debt of $6.3 billion to each of our

citizens, every poor man, woman and child would be

indebted to our rich creditors by the equivalent of their total

earnings for over two years. Put differently, even if the

Tanzanian Government were to devote all its foreign

exchange earnings to paying off this debt, it would still take

us over 12 years to do so. With a debt burden of this

magnitude dragging us down all the time, it will be difficult

for our economy to take off.

There is an urgent need for the international

community to adopt a unified and coordinated approach

towards a durable solution of the external debt position of

countries like mine if we are serious about reducing poverty

in the world. To achieve this, there should be a full

cancellation of all bilateral and official debt, as well as a

substantial reduction of the debt stock and the debt service

burden owed to multilateral financial institutions and

commercial creditors.

Nowhere in the world today are the social conditions

more desperate and calling for more urgent attention than

in the least developed countries. Declining income

aggravates poverty and threatens the social fabric of entire

societies.

It is our hope that the forthcoming World Summit for

Social Development in Copenhagen will be an important

forum for the world community to focus on the social and

developmental concerns of developing countries in an

attempt to free them from the vicious circle of poverty.

The protracted Uruguay Round of the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) finally came to a

conclusion in December 1993. We then met at Marrakesh,

Morocco, on 15 April 1994, to sign the new agreement that

establishes the World Trade Organization. We from the

developing world, and especially those of us from

Sub-Saharan Africa, signed that agreement not because we

were happy with it or because we thought it took care of

our interests. We signed it because the alternative was

equally tragic. In truth, this new agreement will only mean

the entrenchment of poverty in our countries unless

compensatory measures are urgently taken in our favour.

It is already being estimated that Africa is the only

continent that will actually lose rather than gain from this

new agreement. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to lose

about $2.6 billion a year by the beginning of the next

century. The cause of this loss is largely the

entrenchment of unfavourable terms of trade, and the

opening up of African markets to transnational

corporations based in the rich countries, which will now

have wider and unhindered access to markets in Africa

and elsewhere. We will therefore continue to demand

better terms of trade for our products in international

trade, as well as preferential treatment where this is felt

to be necessary.

It is now two years since we assembled at Rio de

Janeiro to bring to its conclusion the United Nations

Conference on Environment and Development. The

implementation of the agreements reached at that world

summit has been extremely slow and in most areas

non-existent. The world is still far from the concept of

sustainable development. The Agenda 21 document

remains an academic masterpiece while the issues

involved remain unresolved. Among other things, the

United Nations, through the Commission on Sustainable

Development, should assume a major role in helping

developing countries to build their indigenous capacities

in science and technology and in promoting access to

existing technology on favourable terms.

We are none the less gratified that the desertification

Convention has been concluded. This is a great relief for

the 900 million people world wide affected by this

phenomenon. We look forward to the signing of the

Convention later this month.

We commend our development partners that

supported the negotiations on this important Convention

for Africa. The African annex to the Convention contains

our commitments to implement the programmes of action

in an effort to contain the processes of desertification and

drought, which are exacerbated by poverty and

underdevelopment. Unless there is a serious commitment

by developed countries and multilateral financial

institutions to extend the financial resources required to

implement the Convention, the social and economic

consequences of desertification and drought will be

irreparable.

We welcome the timely initiative taken by the

Secretary-General in preparing the Agenda for

Development. The Agenda provides an appropriate

framework for dealing comprehensively with the

interrelated issues of economic and social development,

the environment, peace, justice and democracy.

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Development is a shared concern of all nations and the

acceptance of this fact by the entire international

community will result in great success in dealing with this

Agenda.

While we recognize that States must assume

responsibility for their own socio-economic development,

we must also recognize that this will be increasingly

difficult without the assistance of the international

community. The solutions to the problems created by

poverty, rural-urban migration, the degradation of the

environment and the complexity of the refugee situation

will require an integrated approach. It is our hope that the

Agenda for Development will project a coherent strategy

for achieving a new and inclusive vision of world

development. Such a strategy must bind all countries, both

small and large, rich and poor, in a planned and

implementable programme for human progress.

Tanzania attaches great importance to the full and

effective participation of developing countries in decision-

making for the resolution of economic problems facing our

common planet. In addition, the Agenda should incorporate

the various agreements and strategies for international

development already adopted over the years in different

forums and conferences. We must also identify the reasons

why so many of these commitments and agreements,

especially those related to developing countries, are still on

paper only.

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate our faith in and

commitment to the United Nations. In this post-cold-war

era, the temptation to bypass, or dictate to, this world body

might be quite high. We must not allow that to take place.

We must instead work to strengthen the United Nations and

its agencies and to entrench their democratic tradition. We

must, at the same time, recognize that poverty, like the

environment, knows no borders. It is in our collective

interest that, as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the

United Nations system, we dedicate ourselves in practical

terms to the eradication of poverty the world over. We

must agree that poverty is as much a threat to peace and

security and as much an affront to humanity as injustice,

oppression and discrimination.