South Africa, 2006

Once again, we have convened

at this seat of the Organization of the peoples of the

world, representing the whole of humanity and coming

from all corners of the world. Our pilgrimage this year

is tinged with sadness, because we are also paying

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homage to one of the most outstanding servants of the

United Nations, a native son of Africa, Kofi Annan,

whose term of office will soon come to an end.

The Group of 77 and China, as well as my own

country, South Africa, sincerely thanks the Secretary-

General for the selfless and dedicated work he carried

out during one of the most challenging periods in the

history of this Organization. In the midst of increasing

poverty and underdevelopment during an era of

unprecedented wealth accumulation and technological

advances, and as the river that divides the rich and the

poor zones of the metaphorical global village ever

widened, the Secretary-General never lost focus on the

imperatives of our time.

We thank him for never losing sight of the fact

that poverty and underdevelopment remain the biggest

threats to the progress that has been achieved, and that

equality among nations big and small is central to the

survival, relevance and credibility of this global

Organization.

We are only six years into the twenty-first

century. Those who populate the poorest of the regions

of the world — that is, Africa — have boldly declared

that it will be an African century. It is a century that

billions of citizens of the developing world and other

poor and marginalized people want to transform into a

century for all humanity.

If the wishes of the majority of the world could

turn into reality, this would be a century free of wars,

free of internecine conflicts, free of hunger, free of

preventable disease, free of want, free of

environmental degradation and free of greed and

corruption. Indeed, we began the century with great

hopes for a better, peaceful and more humane world.

Together, we crafted comprehensive plans and

bold declarations to defeat the scourge of poverty and

underdevelopment. Together, we committed ourselves,

with what seemed like renewed vigour, to transform

the United Nations to reflect the modern reality that is

defined by free, sovereign and equal nations.

However, six years into the twenty-first century,

dispassionate observers might well challenge us to

achieve our noble and lofty objectives, pointing to the

terrorists’ acts that welcomed us into the new century.

They might emphasize the unilateralism that threatens

to negate the democratic advances of the last decades

of the twentieth century and draw attention to renewed

conflicts and wars that seem to compete with the

destructive fury of the conflicts of the last century.

They would remind us that for a decade and

more, some of the developed nations have consistently

refused to implement the outcomes and agreements of

this world body that would help to alleviate the

wretchedness of the poor. Thus, Madam President,

when you correctly urge us to implement a global

partnership for development, we, the members of the

Group of 77 and China, who represent the poor people

of the world, understand you to be communicating a

message that we should give substance to the common

commitments we solemnly made at this supreme

Organization of the nations of the world.

Yet, this common commitment for a global

partnership for development cannot be transformed

into reality when the rich and powerful insist on an

unequal relationship with the poor. A global

partnership for development is impossible in the

absence of a pact of mutual responsibility between the

giver and the recipient. It is impossible when the rich

unilaterally demand the right to set the agenda and

conditions for the implementation of commonly agreed

programmes.

We who represent the poor know as a matter of

fact that these billions of poor people are increasingly

becoming impatient, because every year they hear us

adopt declaration after declaration and yet nothing

practical is done to assuage the hunger pains that keep

them awake at night. Only few and selected agreements

are implemented, with outcomes that are clearly

insufficient to alleviate the excruciating pain of their

children who cannot cry anymore because to do so is to

invite more pain.

Those of us who were at the 14th Summit of the

Non-Aligned Movement in Havana heard this message

very clearly emanating from all the countries and

organizations that spoke. Those who are capable of

listening should take note of what that great son of

India and South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi, said on this

matter:

“The test of friendship is assistance in adversity,

and that too, unconditional assistance.

Cooperation which needs consideration is a

commercial contract and not friendship.

Conditional cooperation is like adulterated cement

which does not bind.”

13 06-52731

Precisely because of the absence of a global

partnership for development, the Doha Development

Round has almost collapsed. Indeed, because the rich

implicitly invoked the slogan of an over-confident

European political party of the 1960s, and directed this

uncaring declaration to the poor of today — “I’m

alright, Jack!” — we have not implemented the

Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development,

thus making it difficult for the majority of the

developing countries, especially those in Africa, to

achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),

and we have reduced the Johannesburg Plan of

Implementation to an insignificant, and perhaps

forgotten, piece of paper.

Part of the problem with this unequal relationship

is the imposition of conditions on developing countries

and the constant shifting of the goalposts, whenever the

poor adhere to each and every one of those conditions.

Among other things, we have recently seen an

outbreak of great social instability across Europe and

other reactions of the poor to their miserable conditions

in different parts of the world, which calls into

question the image of a seemingly harmonious well-

woven tapestry of diverse groups, because we continue

to fail to implement our own decisions as taken at the

United Nations World Conference against Racism,

Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related

Intolerance. Those who coined the slogan: “I’m alright,

Jack!” were communicating, whether consciously or

not, a message and an attitude that said “I don’t care

about my neighbour as long as my family and I eat

well and sleep peacefully” and that “It is not my

responsibility to ensure that my poor neighbour also

eats well and sleeps peacefully.”

Today, the attitude among some of the rich also

communicates the same message to the rest of the

world, namely, “I’m alright, Jack!”, even when they are

acutely aware that many in their neighbourhood are

dying from hunger, preventable diseases and abject

poverty.

This happens also in the cruelly ironic situation

where resources flow from those who have little to

those who have plenty. Although the rich and powerful

know the miserable life circumstances of the poor and

have solemnly committed themselves to the collective

effort to reverse those conditions, their attitude and

response resembles that of the Biblical Cain, who, after

he killed his brother, Abel, and the Lord asked him

“Where is Abel, your brother?”, replied: “I do not

know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Perhaps, all of us, especially the rich, should heed

the words of one of the great sons of the United States

of America, who perished because of his belief in

equality and justice for all human beings and whose

civil rights movement is currently marking its golden

jubilee. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that

“As long as there is poverty in the world I can

never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As

long as diseases are rampant and millions of

people in this world cannot expect to live more

than 28 or 30 years, I can never be totally healthy

even if I just got a good check-up at the Mayo

Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you

are what you ought to be. This is the way our

world is made. No individual or nation can stand

out boasting of being independent. We are

interdependent.”

The majority of the human race is entitled to ask

the question whether the rich respond the way they do

because further impoverishment of the poor is to the

advantage of the rich, giving meaning to the old

observation that the rich get richer as the poor get

poorer. As the divide between the rich and the poor

widens and becomes a serious global crisis, we see an

increase in the concentration of economic, military,

technological, media and other power.

Something is seriously wrong when people risk

life and limb travelling in suffocating containers to

Western Europe in search of a better life. Something is

wrong when many Africans traverse, on foot, the harsh,

hot and hostile Sahara Desert to reach European

shores. Something is wrong when walls are built to

prevent poor neighbours from entering those countries

where they seek better opportunities. Something is

indeed wrong when all these people, whose fault is

merely the fact that their lives are defined by poverty,

try desperately to reach countries where they believe

the conditions of their existence could improve, only to

meet hostile, and at times, barbaric and inhuman

receptions.

In part, the United Nations is unable to fulfil

some of the objectives set by the founders in San

Francisco because, in truth, it does not reflect the

expansion of the global family of free nations. Because

this Organization of the peoples of the world has

grown to encompass the entire world, many had

06-52731 14

thought that it would be logical that this custodian of

global democracy would itself serve as a beacon in our

continuing quest for democracy in all our countries.

Clearly, for the United Nations to continue

occupying its moral high ground, it has to reform itself

urgently and lead by practical example, showing what

it means to be democratic. Even as we face the cold

reality of the indifference of many among the rich and

powerful, this Organization of the peoples of the world

has continued to offer hope and the possibility of the

fulfilment of the aspirations of the majority of the

peoples of the world.

All of us, including those who hesitate to

implement the commonly agreed positions, agree that

this Organization has entrenched the correct

understanding that development is a right and is central

to the advancement of humanity. All of us, individually

and collectively and as Members of the United

Nations, must do whatever is necessary to develop and

implement policies and strategies aimed at the

achievement of sustainable development. It is

important that international organizations such as the

Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade

Organization (WTO) and others should, without any

equivocation, seriously embark on the implementation

of all the commitments that we have made as the

international community.

This Organization of the peoples of the world

cannot merely note the unacceptable situation that

Africa will not achieve the Millennium Development

Goals by 2015. We need further programmes, focused

and concrete, to accelerate development in Africa and

avoid the possibility of that continent sinking further

into the morass of poverty and underdevelopment.

Because we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers,

we have the responsibility to end the rhetoric and

implement programmes that ensure that all human

beings live decent, humane and prosperous lives.

On behalf of the Group of 77 and China, as well

as my own country, South Africa, I take this

opportunity to thank His Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson,

for the great work he did in steering this Organization

during this past year as President of the General

Assembly.

We are honoured to welcome Her Excellency

Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa as President of the

General Assembly at its sixty-first session, and we

wish her well in her important work. Madam President,

we pledge to do whatever is necessary to make your

work easier, so that through your efforts, the poor can

regain full confidence in the ability of the United

Nations to improve their conditions of life.

Every day the masses cry out in pain, frustration

and anger. Every day they ask whether there is

anybody who stops to hear their voices, anybody who

listens and who is ready to respond to their heartfelt

plea for the restoration of their dignity.