Uganda, 2000

I should like to offer the

apologies of my Minister, who was to have made this

statement today. He has had to travel to Winnipeg,

where the future of some of our abducted children will

be discussed tomorrow.

I bring to you, Mr. President, and all Member

States of the United Nations fraternal greetings and

best wishes for the new millennium from the

Government and people of Uganda. I also bring to you,

Sir, and through you to the fifty-fifth session the

personal best wishes of the President of the Republic of

Uganda, His Excellency Mr. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

I should like, at the outset, Sir, to congratulate

you on your well-deserved and unanimous election to

preside over this session of the General Assembly,

which follows in the footsteps of the historic and

highly successful Millennium Summit. Your

predecessor, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of

Namibia, deserves our heartfelt thanks for successfully

presiding over so many special and regular sessions

during his tenure as President of the General Assembly.

May I also take this opportunity to pay a very

special tribute to our illustrious Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan, for the exemplary work he has

continued to perform on behalf of the Organization and

the peoples of the world. The Secretary-General

deserves special recognition by the United Nations

family for his tireless efforts to address the numerous

challenges that face the United Nations at the dawn of

the new era.

Uganda warmly welcomes the admission of

Tuvalu as the 189th Member of the United Nations.

For Uganda, events in Africa, and in particular

instability in the Great Lakes region, continue to be of

the utmost concern. For this reason, I crave the

Assembly's indulgence if I devote a portion of my

statement to those problems and challenges which

confront us in the Great Lakes region.

As the international community is fully aware,

the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

poses a major threat to the stability of the Great Lakes

region and ultimately the entire African continent. That

conflict has its origins in the massive violation of

human and democratic rights of the people of the

region during the long reign of dictators in a number of

countries in the region. Evidence shows that when

people are oppressed, sooner or later they will rise and

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take up arms against their oppressors. This is precisely

what we are witnessing in the Great Lakes region.

During the 1980s and 1990s a number of

dictatorships were overthrown, in spite of their

determined attempts to save their regimes by resorting

to the most inhuman methods of clinging to power —

namely, resort to genocide. This despicable weapon

was not only used in Rwanda in 1994, but has also

been used to a lesser extent in Uganda, Burundi and the

former Zaire. The instability we are witnessing today is

thus caused by the continuing struggle of the peoples

of the region to proclaim their human and democratic

rights.

In Uganda the people's struggle for fundamental

change ended in 1986, resulting in the establishment of

democracy, stability and economic progress which the

people of Uganda have enjoyed over the past 14 years.

Unfortunately, the instability and civil wars in

neighbouring countries have continued to impact

negatively on our attempt to consolidate the results of

our victory. This has especially been the case when

remnants of followers of our former dictators have

attempted to form alliances with dictatorial regimes in

some neighbouring countries to take advantage of the

power vacuum there and establish bases from which to

launch desperate, but ultimately futile, attacks on

Uganda.

As the Government of Uganda has stated before,

at various times it cooperated with a number of

progressive forces in the region to help the people of

the Democratic Republic of the Congo free themselves

from one of the longest and most oppressive

dictatorships in the African continent — I refer to the

Mobutu dictatorship. In helping the people of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, we were also

hoping to free ourselves from the menace of

destabilization, which had become the official policy of

the Mobutu regime. That is why in 1997 Uganda found

its troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

When a new regime came to power in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, we signed a

protocol of cooperation under which Uganda and

Congolese security forces would cooperate to contain

the menace caused by the armed groups organized by

the remnants of forces of Uganda's former dictators

that were operating from Congolese territory.

Unfortunately, within a very short period, the new

regime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo chose

to turn its back on its former allies and form an alliance

with the very people who posed a threat to our security.

Not only did this regime turn its back against its

external allies, it also turned its back on its internal

allies, thus provoking a fresh round of civil war in the

country within a year. The result was that a number of

African countries that had been allies in the struggle

against Mobutu now found themselves sucked into the

conflict.

Fortunately, these countries soon saw the folly of

armed confrontation and chose to end the conflict

through negotiations. The result was the Lusaka

Ceasefire Agreement. This Agreement was a major

breakthrough in the attempt to establish genuine peace

in the region because it addressed the problems of

establishing a democratic and accountable government

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and catering

for the legitimate security concerns of neighbouring

countries. The Agreement still offers the best hope of

establishing and maintaining peace in the region. For

this reason, Uganda has worked hard to have this

Agreement implemented. On 8 April this year, Uganda

hosted an important meeting of the Political Committee

established under the Agreement. At that meeting, a

disengagement plan was adopted under which all the

fighting forces in the Democratic Republic of the

Congo would disengage under the supervision of the

United Nations Organization Mission (MONUC).

Unfortunately, it has not been possible to effect

the disengagement of forces in accordance with the

stipulated calendar because one of the signatories,

namely, the Government of the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, has done everything possible to block the

implementation of this disengagement plan, as well as

several other aspects of the Lusaka Agreement. On 14

August this year, an important summit of nine

countries in the region plus the leaders of all the rebel

groups fighting against the Government of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo took place in

Lusaka to identify the obstacles to implementation of

the Ceasefire Agreement. Their conclusion was that the

Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

was largely to blame for the current impasse. The

principal ways in which the Congolese Government has

prevented the implementation of the ceasefire are

refusal to participate in the national dialogue, rejection

of a distinguished and eminent facilitator who was

agreed upon as a result of wide consultations and by

consensus, restriction of the freedom of movement of

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MONUC peace observers, refusal to cooperate with the

Joint Military Commission and continued violations of

the ceasefire.

The leaders of the region have expressed their

strong concern at the obstructions created by the

Democratic Republic of the Congo to the

implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement. If the

Democratic Republic of the Congo does not heed the

calls of regional leaders, there is a serious risk that the

region could become embroiled in another large-scale

war. We therefore appeal to the Democratic Republic of

the Congo Government to reconsider its position and

choose the path of dialogue, with both its internal and

external opponents, and to abandon the path of military

confrontation.

Uganda wishes to reaffirm its full commitment to

the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, which offers the best

opportunity for bringing this conflict to an end. Uganda

pledges its full support for all efforts aimed at ending

the conflict and appeals to the international community

to give moral and material backing to the Lusaka peace

process.

Uganda believes that the problems of Burundi are

essentially political and internal. As Chairman of the

regional peace initiative on Burundi, President

Museveni of Uganda has worked tirelessly in seeking a

solution to the problem. In this capacity, he has

convened and chaired many regional summits. We

believe that a formula that creates democracy with

security for all the people of Burundi is possible.

We wish to place on record our appreciation to

the facilitator of the Burundi peace process, former

President Nelson Mandela, and his predecessor, the late

Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, for their untiring efforts in

working towards a peaceful solution to the Burundi

problem.

Uganda welcomes the agreement signed on 28

August in Arusha by the parties to the Burundi peace

process. We regret, however, that a few of the parties

did not sign the agreement. Uganda would like to

appeal to them to sign the agreement as soon as

possible for the sake of the future of the people of

Burundi and the Great Lakes region. We call upon the

United Nations and the international community to

provide the necessary support and resources to enable

the agreement to be successfully implemented.

Uganda is committed to the goal of general and

complete disarmament endorsed by the United Nations

at the first special session on disarmament, way back in

1978. It is against this background that we note with

concern the failure of the Disarmament Commission to

reach an agreement on the convening of the fourth

special session devoted to disarmament. The holding of

that conference is critical for addressing important

issues related to disarmament. It is a matter of deep

regret that the Conference on Disarmament has failed

to agree on an agenda for two years in a row.

Uganda also attaches great importance to the

Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel land mines. We

supported the resolution on illicit trafficking in small

arms last year because the proliferation and use of

small arms and light weapons remains a major problem

in our region. Uganda actively participated in regional

initiatives on this matter, which resulted in the

adoption of the Nairobi Declaration. We look forward

to the international conference on the problem of small

arms in all its aspects, scheduled to take place in July

2001.

The world has entered the twenty-first century

with globalization as the most pervasive economic

force to reckon with. Regrettably, the expected benefits

accruing from the process are not guaranteed for all

countries. For some, it has opened opportunities for

rapid growth and development through increased trade

and advances in technology. For others, the process has

led to increasing income disparity and marginalization

in the global economy. The biggest challenge facing us

at the dawn of this century, therefore, is to muster the

necessary political will to act together and create an

enabling environment for the successful integration of

the poorer countries into the global economy. Uganda

is of the view that the issue of globalization can and

should be seriously addressed multilaterally by the

United Nations and by other international

organizations. We are confident that with the

commitment and goodwill of the major trading nations,

the establishment of a rule-based multilateral trading

system that has been institutionalized in the World

Trade Organization will facilitate the integration of

developing countries into the global trading system.

The challenge of ridding the world of the scourge

of abject poverty deserves more attention now than

ever before because, as more of the world's population

is now enjoying better living standards, the situation of

many others in the developing countries, especially the

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least developed countries, is deteriorating rapidly and

dangerously. A larger percentage of the world's

population lives on less than a dollar a day today than

did a decade ago. The Secretary-General's report

reveals that people living in sub-Saharan Africa are

almost as poor today as they were 20 years ago. This is

an extremely sad commentary on the state of

development cooperation. Urgent measures should be

undertaken to arrest this deterioration of the living

conditions of the people in the developing countries.

In Uganda we believe that significant reductions

in poverty can be achieved through sustained and

broad-based income growth. We further believe that

this can be effectively done through modernization of

the agricultural sector, which dominates the economy

and employs the majority of our population. That is

why in the past two years we have been working to

develop a comprehensive set of policies for the

modernization of agriculture, as part of the

Government's broader strategy for poverty eradication.

Uganda welcomes and fully endorses the Secretary-

General's recommendations on specific actions that

need to be taken both nationally and at the international

level to reduce the number of people living in extreme

poverty.

The past decade has witnessed an unabated

deterioration in the socio-economic conditions of the

least developed countries. A quick review of progress

in the implementation of the Programme of Action for

the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s will show

that there have been more setbacks than progress.

While the least developed countries have undertaken

far-reaching and sometimes painful measures of

adjustment and reform, the actions by the international

community have fallen short of their commitments to

provide adequate external support to complement their

efforts. As a result, the least developed countries

continue to suffer from the lack of supportive external

resources for development, owing to a steady decline in

the flow of official development assistance.

While it is true that foreign direct investment

flows have increased significantly in the past decade,

the least developed countries are not yet equipped to

attract such investment to a significant extent. High

levels of external debt have negatively affected their

economies, and despite decades of liberalization most

industrialized countries still maintain protectionist

measures in their markets, especially for agricultural

products and textiles — the two sectors in which

developing countries have a recognized comparative

advantage. All these factors have had the combined

effect of stunting further the economic and social

prospects of the least developed countries.

In this regard, Uganda strongly supports the

Secretary-General in urging the industrialized countries

to consider granting duty-free and quota-free access to

exports from the least developed countries, as a

demonstration of their commitment to the integration

of the least developed countries into the global trading

system. My delegation also urges the General

Assembly to adopt the recommendations of the tenth

session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development contained in the Bangkok Consensus and

Plan of Action for least developed countries. We call

upon the leading industrialized countries to live up to

their commitments in the context of the agreement they

reached in 1999 at the Cologne G-8 Summit. We also

call for stronger support for relevant United Nations

bodies such as the United Nations Conference on Trade

and Development (UNCTAD) to enable effective

implementation of their mandates to assist the least

developed countries.

With specific reference to the African continent,

where 33 of the 48 least developed countries are found,

the socio-economic situation is much more precarious

despite many efforts by many African countries

individually and collectively to lay solid foundations

for development. The difficulty in achieving positive

results in Africa's development has been further

complicated by the severity of Africa's AIDS crisis.

We call upon the international community to lend

support to Africa's own efforts to realize the objective

of the African renaissance, which aims to place the

continent at the forefront of human development and

progress. The international community should support

the efforts of African countries by fulfilling

commitments made in the context of the United

Nations New Agenda for Development of Africa in the

1990s. These commitments include the reduction of

African debt, adequate resource flows, provision of

greater market access and assistance in diversification

and capacity-building. In this connection, Uganda

supports the proposals made by the Secretary-General

in his report to this session.

I reiterate Uganda's commitment to uphold the

values and principles enshrined in the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights. I pledge our

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Government's continued adherence to international

human rights Conventions and norms.

In pursuit of an international human rights

regime, it is imperative that we establish effective

institutions and mechanisms for this purpose. Uganda

will continue to support and work towards the

establishment of a strong International Criminal Court.

Of particular concern to us is the deterrence and

punishment of the crime of genocide, which remains a

continuing threat in our region.

At the national level, in a bid to implement the

fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution,

Ugandans voted on 29 June 2000 in a referendum for a

political system of their choice. I take this opportunity

to thank the international community for its support for

the success of the referendum exercise. I am happy to

report that the referendum was declared free and fair

by both local and international observers. This

experience convinces us that the referendum proposed

for Western Sahara should be conducted as soon as

possible. It offers the best alternative to the possibility

of continued armed conflict.

In our struggle to end internal conflict,

Parliament enacted the Amnesty Act 2000. Under that

Act, an Amnesty Commission has now been

established and is operational. The mandate of the

Commission is to monitor programmes of

demobilization, reintegration and resettlement of

returnees, coordinate a programme of sensitization of

the general public on the amnesty law, consider and

promote appropriate reconciliation mechanisms in the

affected areas and promote dialogue and reconciliation

in the spirit of the Amnesty Act. There is a programme

of reintegration into society, which involves acquisition

of skills and a fund to promote self-employment. It is

our hope that this process will bring to an end internal

conflict and all human rights violations associated with

conflict situations.

In closing, Uganda believes that as we enter the

new century the United Nations should be reformed,

equipped and provided with the necessary resources to

implement effectively and efficiently the mandates the

General Assembly and other principal organs of the

Organization have entrusted to it. In this connection,

Uganda hopes that the long-drawn-out negotiations on

the reform of the Security Council will be finalized at

the current session of the General Assembly. We are

committed to the position of the Non-Aligned

Movement and the Organization of African Unity

(OAU) on this matter, and would support Japan and

Germany as permanent members of an expanded

Security Council, as well as one permanent member

each from Africa, Asia and Latin America.