Zimbabwe, 1996

I congratulate

Mr. Razali on his election to the presidency of the

General Assembly at its fifty-first session. We are more

than convinced that his vast experience and diplomatic

skills will prove to be vital assets at this session of the

Assembly. I assure him that my delegation will cooperate

fully with him in the fulfilment of his onerous

responsibilities.

Furthermore, I would like to pay tribute to his

predecessor, Professor Diogo Freitas do Amaral, who

steered the work of the Assembly through its historic

fiftieth anniversary in a commendable and honourable

way.

Our tribute also goes to the Secretary-General

Boutros Boutros-Ghali for his distinguished leadership of

our Organization during the past year. We are especially

grateful to him for his tireless efforts to enhance the

Organization’s role in maintaining international peace and

security as well as in promoting international economic

development and cooperation.

At the last session of the General Assembly, when

we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the United

Nations, we witnessed the largest-ever gathering of Heads

of State and Government. On that occasion, the world

leaders made a historic reaffirmation of our commitment

to the purposes and principles of this Organization as

enshrined in the Charter. Besides taking stock of the

progress made and the lessons learnt during the past 50

years, the world leaders endeavoured not only to

recapture the vision of the founding fathers of the United

Nations, but also to chart the institutional framework and

operational parameters that could enhance the

Organization’s relevance and effectiveness in a changed

international landscape. My delegation sincerely hopes

that we will all be able to take full advantage of this

renewed commitment to the Organization to ensure that

the United Nations system as a whole is reformed,

revitalized and rendered more efficacious, transparent,

accountable and democratic.

The United Nations, as the universally accepted

matrix of multilateralism, must, in the post-cold-war era,

play a vastly expanded role in the domain of peace-

keeping and make a positive contribution to the new

phenomenon of globalization and its increased levels of

economic and social interdependence, as well as the

technologically fuelled transnational linkages among the

countries of the world. The Organization therefore faces

an inescapable imperative for reform and revitalization.

16

In this regard, my delegation is deeply perturbed by

the slow progress made by the Open-ended Working Group

on the Question of Equitable Representation on and

Increase in the Membership of the Security Council. We in

Africa maintain that the present arrangement, in which

Africa and Latin America have no permanent

representatives on the Security Council, while Asia has only

one, is unjust and antidemocratic and must not be allowed

to continue. Those three regions should each have at least

two permanent seats, with incumbents enjoying the same

rights and privileges as the present permanent members.

Additional non-permanent seats should also be allocated to

each of those regions so as to ensure equitable geographical

representation proportionate to the numerical strength of

each region in this Organization.

In other areas of reform, our primary objective should

be to reaffirm the role of the General Assembly as the

highest decision-making body in the entire United Nations

system. Any process of restructuring, revitalization or

strengthening should necessarily redress the erosion of the

principle of the accountability of all principal and

subsidiary organs and specialized agencies of the United

Nations to the General Assembly. My delegation will

therefore seek resolutely to uphold the authority of the

General Assembly as enshrined in the Charter and,

consequently, will oppose any proposals or

recommendations that might lead to the usurpation of the

authority of the General Assembly under any guise or form.

Accordingly, we will not agree to authorizing the

Secretariat to amend, postpone or cancel any official

programme activities without the express approval of the

General Assembly, whose prerogative it is to give, change

or withdraw the mandates of such programme activities.

My delegation is of the strong view that reform should

not necessarily be equated with the downsizing of the

United Nations system. We also feel that an optimally

streamlined and strengthened United Nations system will

not necessarily be responsive to the needs of its

membership as long as it is subjected to chronic cash-flow

problems. The appalling record of some Member States that

dishonour their financial obligations to the United Nations

and our endless lamentations over the resultant financial

crises have clearly brought into question the credibility of

the Organization and the commitment of its membership. In

our view, the time is long past for us to re-examine all the

efforts that we have been exerting in an endeavour to

identify and agree on the formulation and mechanisms to

deal with the current financial crisis that has beset the

Organization. Unless Member States take serious steps to

clear their arrears and improve their payment pattern by

remitting their assessed contributions promptly, in full and

without conditions, the United Nations will continue to

dither on the brink of bankruptcy and its efficacy will be

totally compromised. It is imperative that we, the Member

States, create a capacity for the Organization to fulfil the

mandate we have given to it.

The United Nations’ role in maintaining international

peace and security must of necessity have a global thrust

in both the geographical sense and the conceptual

framework. Peace-threatening conflicts in any part of our

global village should never be seen to attract differential

attention depending upon their geographical location,

strategic interest, ethnic complexion or such other narrow

considerations of the big Powers.

The much-belated intervention and subsequent

failure of the United Nations in Somalia and its half-

hearted interventions in Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia

have exposed the Organization to harmful criticism, which

has led to a further decline in its credibility. United

Nations peacekeeping efforts in Africa have generally met

with mixed fortunes. We have yet to see the Namibian

and Mozambican success stories repeat themselves in

several other trouble spots on the continent.

Although the peace process in Angola continues to

run behind schedule, we are persuaded that the seeds of

lasting peace have been sown in that country. We need to

redouble our efforts in urging the Angolans to persevere

along the present bumpy road of peace on the basis of

national reconciliation and unity.

Although the humanitarian situation in Somalia has

improved somewhat since the intervention of the United

Nations, that country remains in political turmoil from

which it cannot rescue itself fully without the sustained

involvement of the international community. We therefore

call upon the international community, through the United

Nations, to review its current minimalist approach to

Somalia, explore new possibilities for constructive

engagement and give peace another chance.

In Burundi, the fundamental challenge of having

democracy with security has now been compounded by

the need to stop generalized violence and to return the

country to constitutionality. The United Nations should

support the sterling efforts of Burundi’s neighbours to

assist that country to achieve peace and stability. The

tragedy of genocide in Rwanda must not be allowed to

repeat itself in Burundi. No!

17

In Liberia, brute force and violence must not be

allowed to triumph. The parties should be made to honour

the peace agreement already reached through the good

offices of the Economic Community of West African

States. The people of Liberia have suffered enough. The

United Nations must send a clear message to the warlords

in that country that our common humanity may soon impel

us to try them for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

With regard to the stalled peace process in Western

Sahara, it is imperative that the international community,

through the United Nations, honour the spirit and letter of

the commitment it made to the disenfranchised people of

that territory and ensure that a free and fair United Nations-

supervised referendum takes place there on the basis of the

United Nations Settlement Plan for Western Sahara.

In the Middle East, we appeal to the new Government

of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to

continue on the path of peace and reason, as espoused by

the late Prime Minister of Israel, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, who

paid with his life that the two peoples might live together

in peace and harmony. Renewing the construction of

settlements on Palestinian land is no contribution to peace.

It undermines the peace process. There is no alternative to

peace. We therefore urge the parties to remain committed

to the peace process until Palestinian self-determination and

a Palestinian State become realities. It is only in this

context that the security of Israel can be guaranteed.

Commitment to peace has remained the centrepiece of

the Non-Aligned Movement. Thirty-five years ago, the

founding fathers of this Movement had a vision of a world,

inter alia, living in peace and harmony, free of nuclear

threat and super-Power rivalry. Two days ago, we had

occasion to commemorate that vision. We found it to be as

relevant and powerful today as when it was first articulated

35 years ago. We recommitted ourselves, among other

things, to pursuing the goal of a world at peace, free from

the threat of weapons of mass destruction. We reaffirmed

that complete nuclear disarmament is a sine qua non for the

survival of humanity on our planet. We therefore appeal to

all nuclear Powers to agree to ban the production, testing

and use or threat of use of nuclear weapons and other

weapons of Armageddon.

To enhance this Organization’s accountability and

credibility, the decision-making process with regard to

United Nations peace-keeping mandates must cater to an

increased role for the general membership of the

Organization, starting with troop-contributing countries.

Furthermore, efforts such as those which entail preventive

diplomacy and post-conflict peace-building, as spelled out

in the Secretary-General’s report, “Supplement to an

Agenda for Peace”, clearly fall within the domain of the

General Assembly. Moreover, it is our view that the

United Nations is the only Organization which is uniquely

charged with a global mandate to maintain international

peace and security. This means therefore that regional

peace-keeping efforts can only complement and not

substitute the leading role of the United Nations.

The United Nations should also enhance its role in

promoting international cooperation in other spheres of its

competence, particularly that of trade. Only a few months

ago, the international community celebrated the successful

launching of the World Trade Organization, following

protracted multilateral trade negotiations. For this new

multilateral trade regime to work, it is imperative that

member States resist the temptation to initiate practices or

policies that seek to compromise the sovereignty of other

member States or to reintroduce colonialism in another

guise. Developed countries should live up to their

commitments and abandon protectionist policies if all

countries are to benefit from the new trading

arrangements. Improved market access and increased

foreign direct investment must be accompanied by new

and innovative ways to tackle the debt burden of

developing countries, with a view to finding a

comprehensive and once-and-for-all solution to the debt

problem.

Given the negative economic trends in some of our

countries, the developed countries and international

financial institutions should seriously consider debt-

forgiveness for low-income developing countries. Such a

course of action would stop the flight of much-needed

resources from these countries and create new possibilities

for real savings for investment and growth. I wish to

affirm that we, the developing countries, fully accept and

recognize that we bear the primary responsibility for our

own development; we have accordingly undertaken

various economic structural adjustment reforms, often at

enormous social and political cost. These ambitious and

painful reforms could flounder if developed countries fail

to complement these sterling efforts by taking decisive

measures to reduce the stock of our debt and by removing

the wall of protectionist barriers. We also call on the

developed countries to take decisive measures, as a matter

or urgency, to increase the flow of official development

assistance, private investment and the transfer of

technologies to developing nations.

18

In a few days, world leaders will assemble in Rome

for yet another world summit. This time, the international

community will focus its attention on the important

question of food security and the good health of the people

of the world. Unfortunately, even the increased food

supplies in the world are inaccessible to more than 1.5

billion hungry people who are acknowledged to be living in

abject poverty. We cannot accept that the legacy of hungry

and malnourished people is what our generation will

bequeath to the twenty-first century.

We expect development to bring food to our dining

tables, clean water into our homes, better housing,

improved health and security to all our children. The

present trend towards globalization and the deepening

interdependence among economies should foster a universal

feeling and sense of belonging to the global village whose

concept we have now come to take for granted, but whose

benefits accrue to only a few countries.

Only last week, this Assembly carried out a review of

the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of

Africa in the 1990s. In the statements made by

representatives of African countries, it was made

abundantly clear that the international commitments made

in 1991, like those made at the launching of United Nations

Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and

Development 1986-1990 earlier, had not been fulfilled. We

therefore call on the international community, and our

development partners in particular, to mobilize the requisite

financial resources to augment our efforts and give fresh

impetus to the realization of the goals set out in United

Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the

1990s.

When the founding fathers of the United Nations

outlined the purposes and principles of this Organization,

they envisioned a United Nations that would

“be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in

the attainment of these common ends.”

As we seek to enhance the relevance of this

Organization to the world today, it is imperative that we

understand that the vast majority of the people of this world

expect the United Nations to be a principal actor for

progress and change, and to be equipped to play an

effective and leading role in improving the economic and

social situation of the world’s citizens. As we

commemorate the International Year for the Eradication of

Poverty, we are alarmed at the growing extent of abject

poverty, which now engulfs 20 per cent of the world’s

population. That poverty is the root cause of most of the

world’s social ills, including strife and peace-threatening

conflicts, cannot be overemphasized. We appeal to

Governments the world over to respond in earnest to the

clarion call of the Copenhagen world social summit and

to spare no effort at both the national and international

levels, to roll back the advancing scourge of poverty.

It is needless to stress that the elimination of poverty

and the attainment of the broader goal of sustainable

development will remain impossible to achieve unless

nations show renewed political resolve to implement

policies aimed at enabling humankind to better manage

and live with its environment, as agreed to at the Rio

de Janeiro summit and at subsequent Conferences. The

ever-dwindling natural resource base, global warming,

persistent droughts and desertification are eloquent

reminders that humankind’s current destructive processes

of growth are pushing our planet towards the precipice.

Under these circumstances, the search for safer,

environmentally sound and sustainable approaches to

development, including the utilization of new and

renewable resources, has become more urgent now than

ever before.

Only last week, leaders from 103 countries, from all

regions of the world, heeding this historic challenge of

our time, gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe, for the first-ever

World Solar Summit to map out strategies aimed at

promoting the development and utilization of solar and

other forms of renewable energy. In recognition of the

important role that solar energy can play in the

advancement of socio-economic development and in

reducing environmental degradation, the Summit adopted

a comprehensive World Solar Programme 1996-2005 with

a view to creating effective mechanisms to speed up and

facilitate the use of solar energy. We call upon the United

Nations Secretary-General, the specialized agencies of the

United Nations, non-governmental organizations and the

international community at large to lend the necessary

financial and other forms of support to the Programme to

enable it to succeed.

In June 1997 another conference of equal

environmental significance, the International Convention

on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), will convene

in Harare. The challenges facing this conference will by

no means be small. Global conservation strategies and

policies have to be implemented in the national interest

and within the means available for the benefit of each

country. We in southern Africa have adopted effective

conservation policies over the years that have seen the

19

growth of our elephant herd beyond the levels our

ecosystem can support. It would be unfortunate, and indeed

an irony of our times, if we, who have conceived and

successfully implemented innovative wildlife conservation

policies, should find ourselves being penalized for our

success and the failure of others. The international

community has an obligation to adopt new, dynamic and

flexible policies that would enable countries such as South

Africa, Namibia, Botswana and my own country to reap the

benefits of their wildlife conservation successes. To act

otherwise would be counter-productive and an injustice to

the noble cause of wildlife conservation as a whole. My

country intends to make constructive suggestions on this

subject at the CITES meeting next year.

To remain relevant and effective, the United Nations

must stay at the centre stage of global activities. Its

worldwide responsibilities cannot be delegated; nor can its

Charter-enshrined priorities be subordinated to issues

extraneous to its purposes and principles. We are taken

aback by the efforts of those who seek to prescribe to the

United Nations a reform exercise that would force the

Organization to diminish and to reorient its Charter-

enshrined role in promoting development to the Bretton

Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization and the

blind forces of the market. The Charter envisaged an

identifiable role for the United Nations in promoting

development, which is a prerequisite for, and the ultimate

corollary of, peace.

My delegation maintains that the United Nations is

uniquely placed to play a policy-making and resource

identification role. Its decisions must necessarily set the

pace and direction for other institutions such as the Bretton

Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization.

In conclusion, the strength of the United Nations lies

in its universality and its impartiality in implementing its

mandate to promote peace and security, economic and

social development, human rights and international law as

outlined in its Charter.

Whereas the Organization has clearly played a

significant role in the containment and settlement of

disputes through peace-keeping activities, and in the

expansion and codification of international law, it has

largely failed to have any significant impact on the

development process in developing countries. The few

developing countries that have managed to score any

breakthroughs have done so in spite of the United Nations.

As the General Assembly outlines its medium-term plan for

the period 1998-2003, my delegation, together with others,

will seek to ensure that the development process,

particularly Africa’s economic recovery and development,

is underwritten by the Organization’s irrevocable

commitment.

Finally, let me turn to the agenda item dealing with

the election of the Secretary-General of this Organization.

Since it is an item on the agenda of this Assembly, it is

imperative that Member States freely express their views

on this matter. We of Africa have a clear and

unambiguous position. We believe that it is Africa’s turn

to provide a Secretary-General. We have had one term so

far and, following the normal practice, are entitled to a

second term. The African leaders, meeting in Yaoundé,

Cameroon, this year, endorsed the candidature of the

incumbent, His Excellency Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

We stand ready to engage all Members of this

Organization in the process of finalizing consultations on

this subject.