Uganda, 2006

Let me first of all

congratulate Ms. Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa on her

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its sixty-first session. I am confident that, with her

wealth of experience, she will guide our deliberations

effectively. I wish also to thank her predecessor,

Mr. Jan Eliasson of Sweden, for the manner in which

he presided over the high-level segment of the General

Assembly at its sixtieth session.

Let me also pay tribute to Secretary-General Kofi

Annan for his leadership of our Organization. His 10-

year tenure has been marked by fundamental changes.

The United Nations has witnessed major reforms

geared at creating a more efficient and effective

institution. We are confident that he will leave behind a

more vibrant Organization capable of meeting the

challenges of our time.

As a firm supporter of multilateralism, Uganda

believes that the Assembly is the most appropriate

forum for addressing issues of global concern. A great

number of important decisions have been taken by the

Assembly. Landmark agreements have been reached

and important commitments undertaken by members of

the Assembly.

In spite of all these efforts, threats to global peace

and security and to human dignity are more serious

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than ever before. This situation obtains today because

we have yet to start addressing the real root causes of

the problems facing us. My delegation believes that

ensuring global peace will continue to be an uphill task

for us as long as the majority in developing countries

and elsewhere in the world continue to suffer the

indignity of poverty and deprivation while we continue

to think that it is business as usual.

We must ask ourselves why a large number of

international problems that are high on the agenda of

the United Nations are occurring in the developing part

of the world. These are real issues that affect the daily

lives of peoples, and they require urgent solutions

which have been to date been far too slow in coming.

The onus is on the Assembly to ensure that what

we agree upon or commit ourselves to doing is done in

a timely manner. The Millennium Declaration that we

adopted here 6 years ago (resolution 55/2) remains an

important milestone because it introduced a new

paradigm shift from emphasis on statement of

commitments to action. However, there have been

some obstacles to the achievement of the goals we set

for ourselves.

In areas where progress has been made, due

credit must be given. In that regard, Uganda welcomes

the establishment of the Human Rights Council to

work alongside the Security Council and the Economic

and Social Council. We are also pleased that action was

promptly taken to create the Peacebuilding

Commission as an important intergovernmental

mechanism to assist countries in transition from war to

durable peace. We welcome those as important

contributions to the reform agenda of the United

Nations.

While commendable progress has been achieved

in other areas of reform, great frustration remains over

the reform and expansion of the Security Council. In

my delegation’s view, the expansion of the Security

Council is the most important facet of United Nations

reform with regard to the maintenance of global peace

and security.

It is now a truism that the Security Council does

not reflect today’s geopolitical realities, but only the

balance of power that prevailed in the 1940s. Africa is

the only continent with no permanent member on the

Security Council, despite its size and population. That

is why Africa is demanding at least two permanent

seats on the Council. We acknowledge that the

existence of the veto is an anachronism, but as long as

it exists we should demand it, because do not want to

join as second-class members, with no veto.

Lack of agreement on how to move the

development agenda forward is one of our major

concerns. It is unacceptable for big sections of the

global community to continue living on less than one

dollar per day while we have the capacity and the

means to pull them out of that abject poverty. We must

address that problem as a matter of urgency. One way

of doing so is to live by our own commitments, as

reflected, for example, in the Monterrey Consensus,

the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the

Brussels Plan of Action, et cetera, et cetera. We must

put in place measurable benchmarks to realize those

goals.

It is disappointing to see that very little progress

has been made to date on official development

assistance, on foreign direct investments, on debts, or

even on market access. The stalled conclusion of the

World Trade Organization development agenda is a

case in point. The Doha Development Round was

launched as a process that would eventually give

developing countries a fair chance to compete in the

world marketplace. It was expected to restore the

momentum of the open market while giving genuine

priority to the concerns and interests of developing

countries. Five years down the road, we have not

agreed on opening up markets or eliminating

discriminative subsidies.

My delegation strongly feels that part of that

failure is attributable to the multilateral system’s lack

of good global governance, poor coordination and lack

of coherence. As the United Nations has a

responsibility to identify the causes hindering the

achievement of the internationally agreed development

goals, including the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs), the Organization is the right body to track

implementation of commitments undertaken by

development partners. An effective mechanism should

be devised for doing that.

Uganda calls on the international community, and

the United Nations in particular, to explore new and

more effective ways of promoting consensus on issues

of vital importance to the peace, security and

prosperity of our global community. In that regard, we

would like to welcome and encourage the holding of

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the high-level events that have been organized

alongside this session.

The High-level Dialogue on International

Migration and Development held last week has

produced important outcomes that are going to be

valuable in the formulation of policies on international

migration and development. In the same light, the

convening of the High-level Meeting on the midterm

comprehensive global review of the implementation of

the Programme of Action for the Least Developed

Countries is a welcome decision as it will feed into the

midterm review.

With regard to Africa’s development, the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development — NEPAD — is

the key framework for action. We continue to urge

development partners to support Africa’s efforts by

contributing positively and effectively to the

implementation of that regional development strategy.

Of the United Nations system in particular we request

that the funding that comes from United Nations

development systems should focus on Africa’s

priorities as determined by the partner States, while

care should be taken to avoid diversion of development

resources to other donor-driven activities.

I would like now to briefly turn my attention to

the situation in our region. Uganda’s security and

development is directly interlinked with developments

in the Great Lakes region. We are therefore fully

committed to the realization of peace and security, and

have continued to play a key role in the search for

durable peace and security in our region.

We welcome the positive developments in the

southern Sudan following the signing of the

Comprehensive Peace Agreement. We fully support the

democratic process being pursued in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo. We call upon all parties

involved to have full confidence in the process so that

it can be successfully completed. The regional

initiative on Burundi under Uganda’s chairmanship has

made steady progress, and we have full confidence in

its success.

Uganda also wishes to appeal to the international

community, especially our development partners, to

support the peace initiatives in the region by

contributing generously to the success of the

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region,

initiated by the United Nations in collaboration with

the African Union.

With regard to Somalia, we call for international

support for the Transitional Federal Government. We

call on the Security Council to support the

Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

peace process and the partial lifting of the arms

embargo to enable deployment of the IGAD Peace

Support Mission to Somalia and the African Union

forces.

At the national level, in Uganda there is an

organization called the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA),

a terrorist group with no political agenda, which has

for a number of years unleashed terror on the

population of northern Uganda, killing and maiming

people and abducting children for training as killers

and use as sex slaves. The LRA has now been defeated

and its remnants have fled to Garamba Park in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Government

of Uganda has now entered into peace talks with the

LRA under the mediation of the Government of

southern Sudan with a view to restoring peace and

stability.

After a careful analysis of the situation, the

Government of Uganda decided to take the painful

decision to offer amnesty to the LRA top leadership, in

order to facilitate the peace talks. That decision was

painful in the sense that we do not condone or tolerate

impunity whatsoever. However, we are convinced that

the alternative traditional justice system that we intend

to apply is an equitable solution and should be given a

chance. We call on the international community to

support the process that we have embarked on. We are

determined to resolve the conflict peacefully. Peace is

what our people want, and it is peace that we are

determined to give them.