Benin, 2003

Mr.

President, you have the honour and privilege of guiding

the work of the General Assembly at a time when the

United Nations is at a crossroads. The international

situation is marked today by doubt, anguish and

disillusionment. Faced with the many conflicts and acts

of terrorism that beset our world, and with the constant

disquieting increase in poverty, we must acknowledge

that the end of ideological confrontation did not bring

the world either peace or the development so hoped for

by the founding fathers of this Organization. Therefore,

in conveying my heartfelt and warm congratulations to

you on your election to the presidency of the fifty-

eighth regular session, I would like in particular to

convey my wishes for courage and success in

discharging this noble mission and assure you of the

support of my country, Benin.

My delegation would also like to convey a well-

deserved tribute, to your predecessor, Mr. Jan Kavan,

and to congratulate him on the results obtained during

his presidency in defining modalities for implementing

the outcomes of the major conferences held under the

aegis of the United Nations.

Allow me also to congratulate, in particular, the

Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, on the courage,

skill and resolve with which he is guiding our

Organization, an irreplaceable instrument for the

promotion and maintenance of world peace.

My delegation is grateful to him for his constancy

in dealing with events that shook our universal

Organization during this year. He understood how to

bring the necessary clear-sightedness, with his

unshakeable faith in the ability of the international

community, to provide a concerted response to urgent

problems of our time while rejecting any confusion of

roles. In so doing he saved our Organization from scorn

and collapse.

Whenever the United Nations has been called into

question, faced with a challenge to its very existence, it

has stood up and reaffirmed its usefulness in managing

situations as the guarantor of international law.

The terrorist attacks against the United Nations

headquarters in Baghdad, which caused many

casualties, profoundly shocked and enraged the people

and Government of Benin. The United Nations does

not deserve this kind of gratuitous barbarity perpetrated

against its staff, who are devoted to the cause of

rebuilding Iraq.

Benin reiterates its sincere condolences to the

family of Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello as well as to the

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families of all the other victims of the explosion. We

once again convey to them our solidarity and support.

My country reiterates to the Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan, and his associates our admiration for

the courage and conviction with which, every day, they

do their jobs. This act should not shake their firm

determination to defend the cause of humanity, and

should be a new source of commitment to attain the

goals of the United Nations.

Our support for the United Nations and the

Secretary-General is based on Benin’s commitment to

multilateralism, which is and must remain the linchpin

for the new order that the international community is

striving to build.

If there is one area in which our Organization has

made some progress in strengthening its effectiveness,

it is in the prevention, management and settlement of

armed conflicts. It has given real meaning to its action

in this area by clearly defining modalities for

implementing peacekeeping operations.

My country endorses the conclusions and

recommendations of the Secretary-General on conflict

prevention, particularly in the areas of poverty

eradication, transparency in the area of arms, the fight

against the proliferation of small arms and light

weapons and weapons of mass destruction and the

peaceful settlement of disputes.

The gravity of the situation prevailing in Africa

makes the continent a central concern of the

international community. Given the seriousness of

Africa’s problems, the United Nations and its Member

States owe it to themselves to step up their support for

African initiatives to reverse negative tendencies and to

avoid any prolonged destabilization of the continent.

At its recent summit held in Maputo,

Mozambique, the African Union gave a forceful

demonstration of its resolve to acquire the means to

tackle its problems. The conference elected all the

senior officials of the African Union Commission. The

new team should strive to develop and maintain

relations of partnership with the world, based on

Africa’s priorities. Benin hopes that this new team will

enjoy the trust and support of the international

community in order to restore peace on the continent

by eliminating various pockets of tension and through

the promotion and implementation of development

programmes.

We also commend the work done in the

framework of the New Partnership for Africa’s

Development (NEPAD), which embodies the hope for

the revitalization of the continent through combined

synergies produced by implementation of the main

points of this programme, which is based upon

consensus.

The importance accorded by the G-8 to the

promotion of peace and stability in Africa is an

important step forward. This new commitment will

give Africa the means to contain the many conflicts

and latent crises that are fraught with serious danger

and unimaginable consequences. Benin is prepared to

cooperate to establish this work plan so that by 2010

Africa will have an inter-African peacekeeping force,

an essential instrument for political stability, without

which Africa would be unable to tackle urgent tasks of

economic and social development. The Security

Council missions to Central Africa and West Africa in

June and July this year highlighted the crucial need to

have this mechanism as a permanent presence.

Developments in Africa since our fifty-seventh

session, and the facts gathered on the ground by the

Council missions reaffirm one unavoidable fact, that

the effective mobilization and rapid deployment of

troops to the field is decisive in managing armed

conflicts in Africa, as indeed it is everywhere else on

our planet.

The speedy reaction of the international

community was crucial in the case of Côte d’Ivoire,

where Operation Licorne and the deployment of the

contingent of the Economic Community of West

African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations

Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (MINUCI), made it possible

to help warring brothers to silence their arms and

embark on a dialogue in order to preserve the territorial

integrity of Côte d’Ivoire.

The restoration of calm should not lead us to

underestimate the seriousness of the situation in Côte

d’Ivoire, where the political crisis is far from over.

Major problems remain to be resolved, and it is

important that an international military presence be

maintained in Côte d’Ivoire in order to maintain

conditions conducive to dialogue regarding

implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis agreements

for a return to normality.

Furthermore, the rapid reaction by the Central

African States and Nigeria made it possible to put an

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end to the coup d’état in Sao Tome and Principe and to

return to power the democratically elected President.

Likewise, just a few weeks ago in Guinea-Bissau,

immediate action and initiatives taken by ECOWAS

prompted the perpetrators of the coup d’état to enter

into a negotiating process aimed at a short transition

leading up to the organization of presidential and

legislative elections.

The authorization to send a multinational force

and a United Nations stabilization force to Liberia,

under Chapter VII of the Charter, gave a clear signal of

the international community’s determination to end the

conflict there. The impact of these steps is very

encouraging, and we welcome the signing, in Accra on

18 August this year, of the Comprehensive Peace

Agreement.

Recent political developments in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo have continuously highlighted

the importance of the need to hold an international

conference on the situation in the Great Lakes region.

The complexity of phenomena in Africa requires

the Secretary-General to maintain an ongoing dialogue

with African leaders and to adopt common approaches

to relevant issues. That is why Benin welcomes the

establishment of the Office and the appointment of an

Under-Secretary-General as the Special Adviser on

Africa.

The implementation of the New Partnership for

Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a genuinely African

initiative, has made significant progress this year. It has

become increasingly detailed in programme design and

in its specific projects for agriculture, the environment,

energy and information and communications

technologies. The involvement of civil society has been

effective in expanding the social basis of NEPAD and

as a way of involving peoples in its implementation.

Benin urgently appeals to the international community

to enhance its support for NEPAD, as it did in Tokyo in

the context of the Third Tokyo International

Conference on African Development.

In this regard, it is important that the United

Nations operational activities be buttressed by

strategies based on effective partnership with all

stakeholders in the development process. They must

help implement concrete projects that have a real

impact on the living and working conditions of peoples

with a view to poverty eradication. Indeed, the annual

rise in the number of poor people in the world has

become increasingly distressing. It makes us question

ever more deeply the current world order and the

sincerity of the determination of the international

community — in particular, that of the development

institutions and the rich countries — to combat poverty

and to promote genuine sustainable development.

It is true that the absence of democracy,

corruption and poor governance are tragic scourges in

that they exacerbate poverty and impede development.

There is no doubt, however, that the least developed

countries have undertaken extremely courageous

economic and political reforms at the cost of enormous

sacrifices made by their populations. That is why we

remain concerned by the low rate of implementation of

the Brussels Programme of Action for the Least

Developed Countries and call on the international

community and our bilateral and multilateral partners

to demonstrate greater solidarity and responsibility. My

Government strongly favours a substantial increase in

resources made available to the various assistance

funds, in particular the United Nations Capital

Development Fund, which is working to eliminate

poverty.

The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the World

Trade Organization (WTO) ended less than a month

ago in Cancún. My country, Benin, which is the

Chairman of the Coordination Bureau for the Least

Developed Countries, attended with the firm

determination to establish a candid and constructive

dialogue with the developed countries. The goal was to

find a solution to the dysfunctional free trade system,

which prevents the developing countries, particularly

the least developed among them, from enjoying their

comparative advantages in the agricultural sector. The

sectoral initiative on cotton introduced by Benin,

Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad targeted that specific

issue.

History will record the Conference as a failure.

My delegation nevertheless believes that, despite the

difficulties, Cancún moved the negotiations forward. It

was an opportunity for the least developed countries to

state some of their concerns, in particular those related

to the practice of subsidizing non-competitive

agricultural producers. This practice is literally

strangling the cotton growers of the underdeveloped

countries, particularly in West Africa.

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Benin should like to reopen discussions so that

the trade negotiations begun in Doha can effectively

offer new prospects for the development of the least

developed countries. We must establish transparent

pricing on the world market and open up markets in

order to allow competitive countries to produce and

sell their products at remunerative prices. This is of

tremendous importance to African cotton-producing

countries, because the future of a sector that has been

developed at great cost, with the assistance of the

international community, is at stake. Our Organization

would gain in credibility if it could find a way to

guarantee our peoples their right to subsistence.

Indeed, who on this Earth has never worn a

cotton shirt, dress or loincloth? Who among us here has

never used cotton to clean or bind a wound? The

progressive disappearance of the cotton sector will

have unimaginable implications and consequences for

our comfort in clothing and other needs of all

humankind. The time has come, therefore, for the

developed countries to hear the voice of the poor

peasants labouring under the sun and rain in Africa.

While globalization may require considerable structural

adjustments, it is increasingly necessary that its

concomitant sacrifices be parcelled out fairly. This will

require the rich countries to assume their responsibility

to give the peoples of the least developed countries a

chance at survival.

In 2004, the international community will

commemorate the tenth anniversary of the International

Year of the Family. That will be an important event, to

which my delegation should like to draw the attention

of the international community in order to spotlight the

role of the family in our society and the part it can play

in meeting contemporary challenges. To that end,

Benin proposes the convening of a regional African

conference in 2004 and calls for the support of the

Secretariat for such an event.

At the national level, since our last session Benin

has met two significant challenges in the entrenchment

of our democratic process launched in February 1990.

The decentralization of our territorial administration

was achieved following our municipal and communal

elections of December 2002. Those elections marked

the conclusion of a fundamental reform of State

administration in Benin, which is now structured

around decentralized, financially autonomous

communes led by elected mayors who are accountable

to the people. This reform has created the optimal

conditions for grass-roots democracy and has allowed

the people to participate actively in public

administration and thus to become real stakeholders in

local community development. Elections for deputies

to the fourth legislature were also held in March 2003.

These two elections were free, transparent and

democratic. They took place calmly and peacefully.

They made a further contribution to strengthening the

democratic rebirth of Benin.

These concrete achievements attest to the vitality

and stability of our national institutions and to their

effective contribution to the ongoing strengthening of

the constitutional order in Benin. This historic

opportunity for Benin to enjoy peace and stability in a

subregion beset by recurring internal armed conflicts

implies a certain responsibility with regard to our

contribution to the international community’s efforts to

promote democracy throughout the world and to

restore peace in countries in conflict, particularly in

Africa.

It was in recognition of this firm commitment of

Benin’s that the General Assembly entrusted us with

the organization, from 4 to 6 December 2000, of the

Fourth International Conference of New or Restored

Democracies. For nearly three years, Benin chaired the

follow-up mechanism to that Conference; it recently

transferred that chairmanship to Mongolia, which

organized the Fifth Conference from 10 to 12

September 2003. My country welcomes the outcome of

the Ulan Bator Conference. We remain committed to

the principle of periodic assessment of democratic

practices. We will spare no effort in implementing the

Ulam Bator Declaration and Plan of Action.

The active and effective participation of Benin in

peacekeeping operations decided upon or authorized by

the Security Council also makes clear my country’s

resolute commitment to democracy, the maintenance of

peace and security in the world and international

solidarity. It is in that context that Benin’s candidacy

for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council for

2004 and 2005 should be seen. In that context, Benin

will resolutely strive to strengthen the crucial

partnership that the Security Council is endeavouring

to establish with regional and subregional

organizations in the area of peacekeeping. Benin is

counting on the support of the entire international

community so that we can have the privilege of

serving, at such a high level, the cause of peace and

international security.

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