Andorra, 1997

I should like first

to thank for his work the outgoing President, Ismail Razali.

My Ambassador, the Andorran Vice-President for the fifty-

first session of the General Assembly, was a firsthand

witness to both the diplomatic skill and dedication of his

Malaysian counterpart. On behalf of the Government of

Andorra and the Andorran people, I should like to pay

tribute to his work and to thank him publicly for the trust

he placed in my representative to the United Nations during

this year — a year of great change and enormous

challenges for the Organization.

Allow me to congratulate you, Sir, on your election

to the fifty-second session of the General Assembly.

Andorra recognizes your reputation as a diplomat and

your extensive experience. I have no doubt, therefore, that

your presidency will be a great success and will bring

about the consolidation of the reform of the United

Nations, which we are beginning this year. Likewise, I

extend my congratulations to the members of the General

Committee, who are beginning their term as Vice-

Presidents.

On 16 July, in this same Hall, I spoke after

Secretary-General Annan for some minutes in order to

show Andorra’s support for his call for reform. The

Principality of Andorra supports unconditionally the

proposed reform of the United Nations, since we believe

the Organization to be indispensable. As a small State,

weak in a world of stronger Powers, it is in line with our

national interest for us to desire that law and dialogue

prevail over force and military strength. We also have

more liberty than many other States to dedicate ourselves

to the goals of peace and progress that were set, in a

utopian spirit, by our forefathers in San Francisco.

For we are small and humble, and have no vast

territories across the seas, no uranium mines on the other

side of the world, no reserves of oil beneath our soil. Our

interests go no farther than our own boundaries. After all,

we possess the record for peace in the world — some 700

years. For all these reasons, Andorra and other small

countries have the liberty to reflect on the future of

mankind and the well-being of peoples as we approach

the third millennium — without, I hope, any suggestion of

the occult.

Indeed, many people have been surprised to discover

that we have for centuries democratically elected our

Government, and that we last used the death penalty over

50 years ago. In short, Andorrans are capable of resolving

their problems without the use of force. And thanks to this

legacy, without any misplaced pride or privilege, we wish

to promote those reforms that will enable the United

Nations to be the best hope for our peoples.

Immanuel Kant, in an essay dated 1784, stated:

“If it is now asked whether we at present live in an

enlightened age, the answer is: No, but we live in an

age of enlightenment'.”

At the end of the twentieth century, are we now living

in an enlightened age? The crises of development and the

military conflicts that still afflict our planet make us believe

the opposite. To reach our goal of an age of enlightenment,

we must count on the United Nations and its ideals, and we

must also count on the small countries, which will never

fail to defend it.

The proposals for the reform of the United Nations

presented by the Secretary-General are conscientious, fair,

innovative and practical. I will not comment at length on

the new administrative structure proposed by Mr. Kofi

Annan. To benefit from the assistance of a Deputy-

Secretary-General appears to us a natural aspiration. All of

those who serve a country at the highest level know how

much time must be allotted to issues of protocol and to

small meetings. It is necessary for the United Nations that

the agenda of the Secretary-General be lightened so that he

can concentrate on larger problems. This innovation will

probably have the following consequences: the Secretary-

General will be considered as the statesman and the

Deputy-Secretary-General as the manager. This seems to

me to be a good division of labour. What must be avoided,

however, is that the Deputy-Secretary-General become a

counter-force to the Secretary-General. The Deputy-

Secretary-General must always be a faithful representative

of the ideas of the Secretary-General in order to avoid

administrative tension at the United Nations.

The reorganization of the management structure of the

United Nations is a prerogative that we must recognize as

belonging to the Secretary-General. I therefore lend my

support, on behalf of Andorra, to reinforcing the role of the

Executive Committees established in January of this year,

as well as to the creation of a forerunner to an executive

cabinet, the Senior Management Group. I share the

Secretary-General’s desire to see an evolution towards

greater efficiency and productivity in the management of

the United Nations.

As many others have done, I take this opportunity to

congratulate Under-Secretary-General Joseph Connor for

having brought a spirit of good management to our

Organization. It seems that during this decade in which

budgets have imposed the need for cutbacks, many

Governments have learned that it was necessary to

reorganize resources, establish the proper relationship

between work and goals and find the means to reorganize

their bureaucracies and render them more efficient with

regard to the work of their administrations. This was

often inspired by the strategies used in private enterprise.

I thank the Secretary-General for having had the

courage to begin this difficult task in the Organization.

We in Andorra will try to find inspiration in the

principles which will lead the Secretary-General in his

reforms in order to make our own administration in

Andorra more efficient.

Another point which I would like to emphasize

concerns the decision of Secretary-General Annan to shift

the work of the United Nations towards concrete

objectives within specific time-frames. This strategy of

working towards objectives will probably save money for

the United Nations and serve as a model for the efforts

needed to achieve development. That is the strategy which

we follow in Andorra in the area of administration, and

which every day becomes more accepted by many

countries throughout the world.

It is well understood that these structural and

functional reforms will lead to significant savings in the

budget of the United Nations. However, it is of primary

importance that Member States pay their debts to the

Organization as they agreed to do in acceding to the

Charter of the United Nations. Let us be clear: the delay

in making payments to the United Nations acts as such a

heavy weight on any attempt at reform that it will be

nearly impossible to make progress if the conditions of

payment are not met.

I would like to emphasize that my country, Andorra,

pays its assessments to the budget of the Organization

dependably and on a per capita basis, as do many other

countries. If each citizen of my country contributes almost

$2 annually to the regular budget of the Organization,

2

why can the people of other developed countries not do the

same, even when the per capita amount that is asked of

them is significantly less than that of Andorra? Happily,

there are admirable and exemplary citizens who are able to

make up for the insufficiencies of their own countries.

We are, after all, touching on an important topic: the

confidence that we have or do not have in the United

Nations. Andorra has full confidence in the United Nations.

Even though we believe that the creation of a revolving

fund of $1 billion is only a temporary remedy for a

financial situation that should never have existed, we are

prepared to add an additional 10 per cent of our annual

contribution to this emergency fund if the other Member

States are equally supportive and on the condition that the

debtors — whether they be large or small — pay their

debts in the future.

The Secretary-General asks us to consider the

promotion of sustainable development as a central priority

of the reform of the United Nations. On a planet that is

capable before the third millennium of producing machines

that travel to the moon and to Mars, sophisticated

computers to help us, travel networks that link Ulan Bator

with Johannesburg or Andorra La Vella with Lima in the

space of a few hours — on this planet of limitless

advances — the dawn of the year 2000 reveals the

existence of hundreds of millions of poor people and a

worrisome decline in our environment. How can we go

from speeches to acts, from bemoaning the problems of the

world to commitment, and undertake those actions which

will bring an end to the present degradation?

Only the United Nations, as a global Organization,

possesses the structure to realize those projects needed to

bring about global development in the long term. We

therefore applaud the Secretary-General’s initiative to

reform those practices leading towards development.

Andorra supports him in his goal of reducing duplication

and increasing the coordination of resources. In the next

decade we must bring to the United Nations the most

brilliant minds on the planet and put them to work in a

shared spirit of rationalization in order to understand both

the causes of underdevelopment and the path to follow in

order eradicate it in the twenty-first century. Just as the

World Health Organization eradicates diseases that afflict

the citizens of the world, so too must the United Nations

serve as a catalyst for the eradication of those evils that

afflict the world’s peoples.

We share the Secretary-General’s particular concern

for the natural environment, which is the common

denominator of the world. If the Earth dies during the

coming centuries, it will take all of us with it, rich and

poor, peoples of the North and the South.

In his inaugural speech last week the President

pointed to the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl as a disaster

that continues to haunt not only his own country, but all

of us as well. We therefore approve of the Secretary-

General’s plan to transform the Trusteeship Council into

a body for protecting the integrity of the global

environment and of shared areas such as the atmosphere

and outer space.

We also believe in the mission of peace that the

Secretary-General has foreseen for the United Nations.

For every conflict there is a “before”, a “middle”, and an

“after”. Andorra has learned during its seven centuries of

peace that it is better to take action during the “before”

stage. The world calls such action preventive diplomacy.

It is all too easy to dismiss the existence of small

countries as improbable and irrelevant accidents brought

about by historical providence. We do not appreciate

sufficiently the troubles through which many of those

States — Andorra among them — have struggled at

certain historic moments and that might have resulted in

their disappearance from the face of the Earth. Not having

an army and not using force, we have learned by

necessity the importance of diplomacy. In the United

Nations we must use such diplomacy by choice and by

desire.

Why should we not consider, among other

possibilities, the establishment of a reliable and discreet

system of information to measure the political temperature

of points of tension throughout the world? Why do we

not empower the Security Council to examine in its

debates these difficult questions before a conflict arises

and temperatures become inflamed beyond the burning

point? Indeed, as we consider the reform of the Security

Council, why do we not concentrate more on its deeper

action, with a view to giving it the means to accomplish

preventative diplomacy, as we consider its size and

structure?

It is truly a matter of regret that the United Nations

is not the best instrument for armed intervention during a

conflict, unless it is for humanitarian reasons. Perhaps this

situation will change if we succeed in establishing a

greater force with a greater capacity for military reaction.

The United Nations can help the healing after a conflict.

If we give it the means, the United Nations may become

3

a humanitarian and preventive force of the highest order.

Andorra, which does not have and does not wish to have an

army, is in the process of considering the establishment of

a humanitarian force that will align itself with these

objectives and with the words of international solidarity

inscribed in our Constitution.

There is no better way to prevent conflicts than to

teach and advance human rights and democracy. Political

scientists tell us that democracies do not make war with

each other. Common sense tells us that people who respect

and revere the articles of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights will always find a peaceful way to negotiate

their differences. For this reason, I have asked my

Ambassador to the United Nations to devote, as he has

before, a large part of his efforts at Headquarters to the

Third Committee of the General Assembly. I have also

asked him to study carefully the ways in which the Third

Committee might strengthen its procedures in order that the

spirit of reform which permeates the United Nations during

this time might extend to all its forums of deliberation.

Andorra believes in the United Nations and, at the

global level, supports the desire of the Secretary-General

for reform. I have just explained our reasons for this, but,

because people and States believe in the United Nations, we

must better understand its functioning and its

weaknesses — which are similar to those of any

humanitarian organization — and especially its goals and its

strengths.

Today, I would like to stress the need for a general

and ongoing effort to present the United Nations to the

world. We live in a world of images, as the events of

recent weeks clearly demonstrate. During this time, two

great humanitarian figures have died: one who selflessly

dedicated her life to the poor, the other who dared to

embrace the sick whom nobody dared to touch. These two

women, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Diana, Princess of

Wales, both lived under the light of public interest and used

it to spread their humanitarian messages. In Great Britain,

the Princess of Wales Fund is becoming one of the largest

in the world. And yet, it is difficult for us to gain public

sympathy and donations for the United Nations, although it

is the first and most important instrument for works

beneficial to all humanity.

Why is this so? Perhaps because it has an image

problem. In these closing years of the century, let us link

the United Nations to the peoples to which its Charter

refers. Let us show these peoples that the diplomats of 1997

are not a club of ladies and gentlemen with little work who

wander through the halls of this building. It might be a

good idea — in emulation of the United Nations

Children’s Fund, which has established a lively and

effective presence in Andorra through its National

Committee — for us to ask celebrities and leaders of

opinion to serve as spokespeople for the United Nations

in their countries and across the world. We have the

message, the mandate, and indeed the successes, but have

been less successful in communicating them and allow the

public to forget our actions. Let us consider together the

appropriate public relations and communication strategies

for the United Nations at this fifty-second session, a

session of reform.

Two months ago, during my participation in the

General Assembly when the Secretary-General announced

his reform, I wanted to underline two points of special

importance for the Andorran delegation. Today I should

like to reaffirm these two aspects. First, I emphasized the

importance of the small countries during this process of

reform. If the reform leads to a shift away from the

founding principles of the United Nations, our

Organization will cease to be universal. I concede that,

without the bigger countries, reform is not possible, but

without the support of small countries reform will only be

partial. Secondly, I called for the greater participation of

youth in the process of reform and the workings of the

United Nations. This is a priority for our delegation: Let

us make the future with those who will inherit it.

I conclude my speech today with a call of hope and

a vote of faith: faith in the United Nations and its

capacity for transformation and improvement in its pursuit

of peace and development; confidence in its Secretary-

General, who has begun his mandate with firmness and

decision, as he should; and, finally, an unshakeable belief

in the irrepressibility of human progress. Through the

United Nations, let us make the new millennium an age

of enlightenment.