Vanuatu, 2000

Allow me first of all to

convey the apologies of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

of Vanuatu, The Honourable Serge Vohor, who is

unable to be here on this historic occasion due to most

pressing commitments at home. I am therefore very

deeply honoured to address the Assembly on behalf of

the delegation of the Republic of Vanuatu.

At the outset I wish to congratulate Mr. Harri

Holkeri on his election to this historic session of the

General Assembly. My delegation is confident that

with his vast experience and diplomatic skills, he will

guide this Assembly to a successful conclusion. I

would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute

to his predecessor, who so ably guided the fifty-fourth

session of the General Assembly.

Allow me also to congratulate Tuvalu as the

newest Member of our family of nations. As a small

island State, and, more significantly, a member of the

South Pacific region, Vanuatu is very pleased to

welcome Tuvalu. Vanuatu certainly hopes a further

increase in the Pacific island membership would be a

positive step in the region's economic and political

development as we embark on the twenty-first century.

Small island States, including Vanuatu, are

continuously confronted by difficult and challenging

issues, which must be addressed at this summit. For the

Pacific region, its key features are its immense

geographic spread, its small land and population base

and limited natural resources, and its vulnerability to

economic and natural shocks, which inevitably have an

impact on its physical infrastructure and economic

development. Dependence has been on a few fragile

commodity markets and fickle tourist income.

One of our greatest challenges is education for

all. The Human Poverty Index of the Pacific Island

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Countries shows Vanuatu as the third last of the least

developed countries. Vanuatu shares the view that the

key to development and success is education. As a

signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of

Discrimination against Women, Vanuatu is committed

to this cause. However, limited financial and human

resources continue to hinder development in this area.

Vanuatu welcomes the initiative taken by the

Secretary-General, in his address to the Dakar World

Education Forum, held in April 2000, to build a global

partnership for girls' education. Vanuatu will be

pleased to be part of this global initiative. At the same

time, Vanuatu fully supports the view that involving

women as central players in development provides

benefits in the areas of nutrition, health, and savings

and reinvestment at the family, community, and,

ultimately, national level. Nevertheless, the challenge

of ensuring education for all at all levels is an

ambitious objective that will require external

assistance. The education and training of the

population, including women, must therefore be an

important goal of the Assembly.

One of the great obstacles to our economic

development, including our foreign investment

portfolio, has always been the relatively high cost of

public utilities, in particular the energy sector, which is

largely dependent on traditional oil-based systems. The

cost of importing oil products and petroleum-derived

gas is currently about 90 per cent of our combined

domestic exports. Our economy cannot afford this

trend in the long run.

We believe that with access to the new and

relevant technology available in the developed

countries today, the Republic of Vanuatu and other

small island nations can develop integrated renewable

energy systems and hydrogen fuels if our potential

wind- and sun-related and geothermal and

hydroelectricity resources can be fully utilized.

Access to financial and technical resources from

the developed countries can assist countries like the

Republic of Vanuatu in moving in the right direction

and thereby positively contribute to our common

objective of creating a healthier and more environment-

friendly economic development.

The emergence of new information technology

today underlines the strong linkage between the

concepts of knowledge and power. While

communications and business transactions through the

Internet and other modern electronic means have now

become routine within the circles of the rich and the

powerful, the large majority of the world's population,

which lives in the poor developing countries, has very

little or no knowledge about — let alone any access

to — this new and revolutionary way of doing day-to-

day business.

In this new millennium, the new information

technology must be made accessible and affordable to

the people living in the most remote areas of the

developing nations in order to facilitate their access to

better education, better health services and give them

greater access to world markets and business

opportunities. This is a great challenge, but one that we

must face together, and proudly. That is why we have

the United Nations.

Last month the national Parliament of Vanuatu

passed two laws in this area — the Electronic

Transactions Act and the E-Business Act. We hope

that, through the support of relevant United Nations

agencies and bilateral development partners, we will be

able to fully implement these new laws for the benefit

of our small island nation and its people, in particular

in the rural and remote areas.

In his statement to the Millennium Summit, my

Prime Minister highlighted the need for the

industrialized countries immediately to ratify

international treaties on the protection and sustainable

management of our natural environment and resources,

which are vital to the very survival of millions of

citizens of small island States. Environmental

degradation poses a serious threat to the small island

States, which are threatened by the rising sea level. We

continue to urge countries to adopt and ratify the Kyoto

Protocol as soon as possible. As a signatory to the

Framework Convention on Climate Change, Vanuatu is

in the process of adding its signature to the Protocol.

We cannot let this opportunity pass without

expressing our serious concern about the great

difficulties a least developed country such as the

Republic of Vanuatu is facing with regard to its

application to join the World Trade Organization

(WTO), because some powerful countries, in particular

the United States of America, refuse to recognize our

constant call for special consideration. Vanuatu has

been in the complex process of accession for five and a

half years. The negotiations we were engaged in until

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last October with a number of major bilateral and

multilateral players, such as the European Union,

Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and

Switzerland, have been completed in a spirit of

understanding and appreciation of Vanuatu's

circumstances.

The United States continues to place heavy and

unreasonable demands on us, which we cannot accept.

We consider those demands absurd, because the United

States is among our least significant trading partners.

We believe that Vanuatu has become the innocent

victim of global trade disputes between the big players.

While we have always supported the principle of

free international trade, we expect the new regime to be

more realistic and more flexible, to allow ample time

for the small and least developed countries to adjust to

the new rules. After all, the WTO cannot be considered

as a truly global trade regime without the adhesion of

all independent countries, including small island

States.

It is no secret, as the Vanuatu Prime Minister

clearly stated at the recent G-77 Summit in Havana,

that the conditions being imposed on us for joining the

WTO are simply beyond our capacity to consider in the

short to medium term. Unless the powerful countries

review their positions and conditions with regard to our

application, then the Republic of Vanuatu will have no

other choice but to reconsider its original application to

join the WTO.

On a related issue, we would also like to take this

opportunity to register our most sincere recognition to

all the Governments in the Pacific and other regions for

their consistent support for Vanuatu's status as a least

developed country. We continue to maintain our strong

belief that the United Nations criteria for assessing

least developed country status must be fully reviewed

and must take into account new indices, such as the

Environmental Vulnerability Index, and the long-term

impacts of such natural disasters as cyclones, tsunamis

and others on countries' social and economic

advancement.

Enhancing the role of the peacekeeping forces of

the United Nations must also be a priority for this

Assembly. It is in this spirit that Vanuatu commends

the Brahimi report on peacekeeping, believing that,

once implemented, it will allow the United Nations to

carry out its peacekeeping operations effectively. At

this juncture, I am proud to say that, in spite of our

meagre resources, Vanuatu is participating, for the first

time in its 20-year history as an independent nation, in

United Nations peacekeeping missions in East Timor

and Bosnia. Prior to this attainment, Vanuatu also

served in some regional peace-monitoring missions.

In his statement to the Millennium Summit, the

Prime Minister of Vanuatu touched on an important

issue: the principle of self-determination and the

related question of West Papua. The case of West

Papua has always been high on Vanuatu's agenda. In

1984, the late Prime Minister and father of our

independence, Walter Hadye Lini, said:

“We may not have the resources to support

their struggle, but we can remember them in our

everyday prayers. For when we talk about their

struggle, we must always use the name that was

very dear to them: West Papua.”

The United Nations must be consistent in its

decisions concerning the recognition and respect of the

fundamental right to self-determination of the people

of West Papua. The truth surrounding the so-called act

of free choice must be exposed to the Melanesian

sisters and brothers of West Papua and to the rest of the

international community. Saddest of all was General

Assembly resolution 2504 (XXIV) of 1969 on West

Papua. How can the United Nations continue to ignore

the cries of over 3 million people demanding justice?

This year marks the end of the International

Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. It is only

appropriate that the United Nations should reconsider

and revisit the decisions taken at that time. Following

the tragedy in East Timor, Vanuatu believes that it is

not too late for the international community to act to

halt a similar tragedy in West Papua. In this context,

Vanuatu would like to strongly request that the issue of

West Papua be placed for discussion on the agenda of

the Committee of 24. Any move to oppose this will

most certainly undermine the credibility of the United

Nations and its decisions on this special case. Over the

past few decades, the United Nations has positively

contributed to the process of decolonization. We must

not allow this opportunity to pass.

On the question of reform, we agree that any

reforms should include the Security Council in order to

make it more democratic and transparent. The

membership of the Security Council should be enlarged

not only to enhance geographic representation, but also

in response to the aspirations felt at all levels of the

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world community and to the voice of the least

developed countries and small island States.

Vanuatu would like to congratulate all those

countries that recognize the need for a proper

evaluation and assessment of the crisis situations in Fiji

and the Solomon Islands prior to taking punitive

measures, if any. We in the Republic of Vanuatu

believe that traditional economic and other forms of

sanctions against individual countries in times of crisis

should be fully reviewed in this new millennium. In

this respect, the delegation of Vanuatu would like to

express its sincere appreciation to Sir John Kaputin,

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Papua New Guinea,

who so ably led the Pacific ministerial mission of the

African-Caribbean-Pacific Group of States to Fiji and

the Solomon Islands in order to carefully assess the

situation in the two countries. The mission was also

comprised of the Foreign Minister of the Cook Islands,

Mr. Robert Woonton; the Minister for Foreign Affairs

of Vanuatu; and the Minister of Education of Samoa,

Ms. Fiame Naomi Mata'afa.

I would also like to take this opportunity to

commend Mr. Laisenia Qarase, Prime Minister and

Minister for National Reconciliation and Unity in the

Interim Administration of the Republic of the Fiji

Islands, for his eloquent statement on the situation in

Fiji. We would also like to extend our appreciation to

Mr. Danny Philip, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the

Solomon Islands, for his comprehensive statement.

We have made visionary statements. Now is the

time for us to translate these into action. We have

called for a more efficient, responsive and effective

United Nations. We must muster the good will to

resolutely implement the Millennium Declaration and

to rededicate ourselves to upholding the fundamental

principles of the United Nations. Let us not lose sight

of these goals.