Brunei, 1994

My congratulations, Mr.

President, on your election to this high office. You are

well known in United Nations circles and your election is

a tribute to your country, Côte d’Ivoire, and to you.

May I also congratulate Ambassador Insanally and

thank him for his great contribution. We are proud that a

fellow member of the Commonwealth has served the

United Nations with such skill and distinction.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome South Africa

back to the General Assembly. We have long admired

the courageous leadership of President Mandela in his

country’s struggle for freedom. He now faces equally

great challenges in rebuilding South Africa. We wish

him success.

I must also congratulate the people of Palestine on

their courage and vision in signing the historic Peace

Agreements. The people of Palestine also face the

challenge of putting their painful past behind them and of

building a peaceful and prosperous future. To succeed

they will need the support of the international community

and the United Nations.

In our region the people of Cambodia are also

struggling to build a new future. The United Nations

played a crucial role in Cambodia, but some obstacles

remain. My country supports the efforts of King

Norodom Sihanouk and his Government to rebuild and

reunite Cambodia. We wish them success.

The end of the cold war has placed economics at the

top of the international agenda. The challenge is how to

increase economic cooperation through more trade and

investment. The world now needs a stable international

environment to allow this to happen. We must resist the

trend towards protectionism. Instead, we must encourage

and reward those who liberalize and open up their

economies.

The United Nations and its specialized agencies can

help in this. But the end of the cold war has stretched the

resources of the United Nations. Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia,

Haiti and other trouble areas are consuming much of the

limited financial and manpower resources of the United

Nations, and this has reduced its role in promoting

development. It is tragic that problems of development are

on the back-burner. This is not the fault of the United

Nations. The United Nations can do no more than its

Members are willing to do.

One way to reduce the drain on United Nations

resources is for regional organizations to work with the

United Nations in accordance with Chapter VIII of its

Charter. We may not have fully used the potential of

Chapter VIII. As the Secretary-General has pointed out,

regional arrangements can help to reduce the burden on the

United Nations. The United Nations takes the primary

responsibility for international peace and security, but

regional organizations such as the Association of South-East

Asian Nations (ASEAN) can reduce its load through

preventive diplomacy and regional economic cooperation.

They can complement the United Nations.

Of course, there are many regional organizations;

every region has its own. But not all of them work. If we

are to realize the potential of Chapter VIII, we need fresh

approaches to regional arrangements. Regional

organizations must be realistic in their goals. They have to

build a framework for cooperation which suits their

conditions.

ASEAN, of which Brunei is a member, has achieved

some success. ASEAN offers one possible vision of

regional cooperation and development. We do not have set

institutions and legal undertakings, as does the European

Union. Our aim is more modest. We seek to foster a

culture of cooperation. Through consultation, consensus

and cooperation, we have been able to contain, resolve or

reduce our differences. We have concentrated on working

together for our common interests. This is a process of

enlarging a set of shared values. Since ASEAN was

formed in 1967, its members have evolved an informal

style of sorting out their differences. Cooperation is not the

result of formal agreements but comes from a strong sense

of common purpose.

We are not without our problems. Most ASEAN

countries have unresolved territorial questions with one

another. Sensitive questions of ethnicity, culture and

religion are often involved in our relations with each other.

We do not deny the existence of these issues, but we

continue to work together wherever we can. Differences

among us do not stop cooperation for mutual benefit.

It is wiser for regional organizations to start with

less ambitious goals. It took ASEAN a quarter of a

century, from 1967 to 1992, to establish habits of close

cooperation and consultation. Only after this was

achieved did ASEAN feel confident enough to take the

significant, though modest, decision to set up an ASEAN

Free Trade Area (AFTA) within 15 years from 1992. We

are now discussing how we can speed up AFTA and

complete it within 10 years.

We have also formed a number of growth triangles

straddling the adjacent territories of three or more

member countries. We are all members of the Asia-

Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (APEC), an

organization for economic cooperation and trade

liberalization, which will give greater opportunities to all.

Because of such cooperation and the general stability of

the region, trade and investments have greatly increased.

All ASEAN countries are industrializing rapidly, with

high growth rates.

I offer these comments on ASEAN in the hope that

they can contribute to discussions that will strengthen the

United Nations system. ASEAN is well aware of its own

limits and limitations. ASEAN does not exist in a

vacuum. We could not have succeeded without a

favourable international environment.

ASEAN is not an alternative to the United Nations.

Where ASEAN succeeded, as in Cambodia, it was

because we worked with the major Powers within a

framework defined by the United Nations. Otherwise, we

would have failed. We will and must continue to work

closely with the United Nations. All regional institutions

need the over-arching framework of the United Nations.

The United Nations, and particularly the permanent

members of the Security Council, must retain primary

responsibility for international peace and security.

No regional organization can succeed if it shuts itself

off from the world. Our goal is an ASEAN of all South-

East Asian countries. We are gradually creating what can

be loosely described as a culture of peace and security in

South-East Asia. We hope to extend it by linking up with

other regional organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.

ASEAN wants to engage all the major Powers in a

pattern of constructive relations throughout the Asia-

Pacific region. The ASEAN Regional Forum, inaugurated

in Bangkok in July, brings together all major and middle-

2

sized Powers - the United States, Japan, the European

Union, China, Russia, Canada, Australia, South Korea and

New Zealand - in a common framework. We want the

United Nations and all major Powers to associate

themselves with ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and

Cooperation.

The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations is

approaching. It is an appropriate occasion for us to rethink

how we can strengthen the United Nations system to enable

it to face successfully the challenges of the twenty-first

century. I offer my comments in the spirit of contributing

to our common goal of strengthening an open world that

will benefit all countries.