Burkina Faso, 1993

Before I begin my statement, I should like to offer

my condolences to the Government and people of India on

the natural disaster that has just struck them. I should like

to assure them, on behalf of the people of Burkina Faso, that

we grieve most profoundly with them.

I wish, at the outset, to congratulate Mr. Insanally on

his election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its

forty-eighth session and to wish him every success in the

discharge of the important responsibilities thus made

incumbent upon him.

I should also like to pay a tribute to his predecessor,

Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria, for the dedication with which

he presided over the work of the Assembly at its fortyseventh session.

I wish also to take advantage of this opportunity to

welcome the new States that have joined our Organization.

We look forward to their active participation in the work of

the Assembly so that we might, together, strive to preserve

the peace, bring development to our peoples and ensure

justice among nations.

May I also convey to the Secretary-General,

Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the most sincere congratulations

and encouragement of the Government of Burkina Faso in

respect of his tireless efforts day after day to safeguard

peace throughout the world and also to revitalize the United

Nations system.

While the ideals enshrined in the United Nations

Charter remain as valid as they were on the very first day,

the international community continues to suffer the

aftershocks of East-West confrontation. What I said at the

forty-seventh session remains true:

"The collapse of one of the two blocs did not solve the

world’s problems. Rather, it emphasized the NorthSouth split; old wounds that are still open; internal

contradictions within regions; and divisions among

nations." (A/47/PV.21, p. 86)

In Africa, prospects run from an anxious outlook in

some cases to measured hope in others. In this connection,

acting on his own convictions as well as on those of Burkina

Faso as a whole as to the needed and indeed indispensable

integration of our continent, President Blaise Compaore has

become active in subregional mediation and is thus making

our contribution to the realization of this grand design for

Africa.

In Angola, the process sponsored by the United Nations

and the international community as a whole is now being

torpedoed by UNITA and Mr. Jonas Savimbi, with their

refusal to accept the outcome of the elections. The suffering

of the Angolan people has been exacerbated, and this today

is the part of the world where, more than anywhere else,

people are dying as a result of civil war. Having learned

from the experience of Angola, the Security Council has

issued useful, indeed necessary, recommendations for

Mozambique. RENAMO is somewhat slow in implementing

these measures. We invite them to pursue the path of

negotiations, to overcome the reluctance shown, and to move

resolutely with the Government of Mozambique towards

reconciliation and reconstruction.

In Somalia, after an encouraging start, United Nations

action is running into obstacles that are having an adverse

effect on the very nature of the peace-keeping operation.

We are still convinced that while firmness is necessary,

dialogue and negotiation with all parties are equally

necessary.

In South Africa, acts of violence continue. Each week

the macabre death toll is mounting as a result of attacks on

public transportation. This is not a climate conducive to

significant, indeed decisive, elections. However, the will for

change which guides the majority of the protagonists in the

tragedy that is apartheid in its death throes must prevail over

all manner of extremism. In view of this, Burkina Faso

hails the statement made by the President of the African

National Congress, Mr. Nelson Mandela, before the Special

Committee against Apartheid on 24 September 1993.

As for Rwanda, Liberia and Western Sahara, Burkina

Faso hopes the agreements achieved can indeed be

implemented so that the people of these regions may at long

last know peace.

The eruption of crises of ethnic, religious or other

origin is continuing, while the conflict in Bosnia and

Herzegovina goes on and on, in contempt of international

law and of the Security Council. We must therefore

welcome the fact that in Cambodia and in El Salvador the

process set in train has led to a beginning of normalization,

Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 35

and we must encourage Kuwait and Iraq to abide by

Security Council resolution 833 (1993).

While in political terms the picture is mixed, in

economic terms it is bleaker. The world economy is in

recession. Weighed down by its debt, by the fall in raw

material prices, by the deterioration in its terms of trade and

by natural disasters, fluctuations in climate, desertification

and drought, Africa is staggering from one calamity to the

next. Structural adjustment programmes have been

squeezing even harder a continent that has been relegated to

the sidelines notwithstanding its resources and the sacrifices

it has been making. The problems are known, and to

rehearse them here now would sound like a litany and sterile

repetition. The solutions, too, are known. In this respect,

the New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s

has yet to be implemented.

A year after the Rio Conference on Environment and

Development, the commitments and the promises made have

still to take tangible form. However, the same minority

continues to lay waste the planet’s natural resources, while

poverty is increasing and putting down roots in regions

where it used to occur only from time to time or was only

a localized phenomenon.

The global village is no longer just a slogan; it has

become a living reality that at the same time affects the

concept of security. New laws are surfacing everywhere in

an effort to stem a new deluge, immigration. These

measures are an illusion and will remain so long as people

do not realize, or refuse to realize, that the root of the

problem lies in the socio-economic inequalities that afflict

the world.

In addition, population growth will cause unbearable

pressure if real development policies are not put in place

now. The tragedy lies more in the concentration of

resources for a minority than in their scarcity. A community

that is aware of its shortcomings and blind spots can still

heal itself if it has the will to find and to take the necessary

medicine.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

negotiations - the Uruguay Round - must be concluded as

quickly as possible and must take into account the needs of

the developing countries.

Once again, it is the concept of security that has led to

the monstrous stockpiles of weapons of destruction. Nuclear

weapons are the crowning achievement of this march

towards the abyss. To limit the risks, a Non-Proliferation

Treaty was opened for signature, and almost all States have

been invited to sign and ratify it. This is a praiseworthy

initiative, but it is not enough. For the Non-Proliferation

Treaty to have any meaning, in due course the nuclearweapon States must give them up, and we must see our

planet totally and genuinely freed from the nuclear threat.

The preservation of the species and of the planet is

threatened in two ways: the nuclear menace and the harm

we are doing to the environment.

Burkina Faso is participating actively in the work of the

Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the elaboration

of an international convention to combat desertification and

of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

It is interesting to note that the harm being done to the

environment in the southern hemisphere comes more from

the effort to survive than from the unbridled desire to

consume at all costs. The relationship established between

development and environment also establishes the

relationship between respect for human rights and

development. One of the great truths brought out and

accepted at the World Conference on Human Rights, held in

Vienna, is that there is a right to development. We cannot

talk about human rights if elementary human rights - the

most elementary human rights - are compromised by

economic, financial and trade policies and strategies to

which some people fall victim. To commit oneself to human

rights nowadays is to commit oneself to changing the world

everywhere and to accepting in every individual the person

that we want to be and to defend. It is humankind as a

whole that we must defend, or nothing; any other approach

means giving in to harmful and questionable divisions

between people.

In the same context, the twin scourges of AIDS and

drug abuse must be fought on all fronts, using all available

resources. From 8 to 13 February this year Burkina Faso

held a series of national seminars on drugs, in which we

reaffirmed the need to provide help and support for the most

disadvantaged countries in order to curb this threat.

We have deadlines in 1994 and 1995, and must prepare

with hard work and dedication to confront then the problems

of population at the Cairo World Conference; to promote

women’s rights at the conference in Beijing; and, in

Copenhagen, to focus on and respond to the need for social

development.

The problems I have enumerated require constant

cooperation from everybody. As we leave the cold war

behind, we have no better instrument for cooperation than

36 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

the United Nations. However, the United Nations is in a

worrying state because its finances are in a bad way, and

that is because some of the largest contributors have not

fulfilled their obligations. It is therefore difficult to talk

about reforming, restructuring and revitalizing the

Organization when the primary task has not been

accomplished. This is the first problem, because it is the

most urgent.

The second problem has to do with the chaotic situation

in the world. This situation is giving rise to peace-keeping

operations, and their frequency and diversity have had an

effect - and in future will have an even greater effect - on

the functioning of the Organization. We approve of the

Secretary-General’s pointing to preventive diplomacy as one

of the solutions. In this respect, at the last summit meeting

of the Organization of African Unity, in Cairo in June 1993,

Africa set up a conflict prevention, management and

settlement mechanism.

The third problem arises from the Organization’s

structural inadequacy to respond to the nature of the

problems it will encounter from now on. Here again, though

we need imagination to open up new approaches and apply

fresh solutions to old and new problems, we must not lose

sight of the fact that everyone must participate in the

proposed solutions.

The fourth problem stems from the notion of

democracy. It has been repeatedly proclaimed to be a cureall, but it cannot remain just a battle standard that we wave

in front of the new troops who have just been won over to

the cause. Democracy must be transformed into a means of

action for achieving better things, for achieving more.

Whether within States or between States, democracy is a

plant that does not stop growing once it has started.

Thus we come to the question of how a body with

limits can function for and on behalf of all. For the

moment, other considerations apply to the Security Council,

because it is the direct inheritor of the balance of power that

arose out of the Second World War. Forty-eight years later,

the debate can certainly be opened. However, as Burkina

Faso said during the forty-seventh session,

"Clearly, the role and composition of the Security

Council must be reviewed. But we fear that the

discussion might be limited to merely expanding a club

whose members would continue to view their status as

a privilege, not a weighty responsibility. The spirit and

perhaps even the nature of the Council must be

changed. Clearly, we must begin the debate on the

Security Council even if we are still bound by the

terms of Article 108 of the Charter. The

democratization of international relations is necessary."

(A/47/PV.21, p. 87)

It was in this political, economic, social and

international environment that we heard the news on

13 September 1993 that two brothers, who had sprung from

the same land but had until now refused to recognize each

other, had met. Burkina Faso hails their mutual recognition.

It is up to the Palestinian and Israeli leaders and peoples

whether this is the useful and welcome prelude to their

taking a long and complex path, accompanied by the

international community, offering its best wishes and its

good offices.

This hope is like a guttering flame that must be kept

burning; it is the image of our human condition, which we

must constantly watch over. Only together can we succeed

in doing so.