Burundi, 1995

The United Nations is celebrating its fiftieth

anniversary. Today, it is up to us to take stock of its

progress and its successes, as well as its and shortcomings

since its inception, but also, and in particular, to consider

and assess the experience it has gained, in order to provide

a firmer basis for its future, which, after all, is closely

linked with the future of mankind.

The people of Burundi, whom I have the honour to

represent in this Assembly, set particular store by this

session, which should galvanize all the Member States of

our Organization to work for the progress and the survival

of the world as a whole.

In Burundi, a number of activities to promote

awareness of the purposes and principles of the United

Nations have been undertaken. We can assure the Assembly

that our country duly acknowledges the eminent role that

the United Nations has played and continues to play in

helping Burundi return to the road of peace and security.

We are pleased that the presidency of this session of

the General Assembly, which should be the springboard for

its revitalization, has been entrusted to Mr. Diogo Freitas

do Amaral, who has been blessed with great intellectual and

moral qualities and wide political and diplomatic

experience. His country and mine enjoy friendly relations

in all areas. What has already been said about him here

show that the congratulations my delegation extends to him

are well deserved and justify the assistance it will be

pleased to give him as a contribution to the success of his

noble mission.

We would also like to pay a sincere tribute to his

predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Amara Essy, Minister for

Foreign Affairs of Côte d’Ivoire. Throughout his term of

office, he applied himself to the tasks resulting from the

present developments in the United Nations. In this

connection, Foreign Minister Amara Essy has worked

wholeheartedly to promote our Organization across the

world and has brilliantly championed the strengthening of

the United Nations and the enhancement of its prestige.

This is an excellent opportunity to express our sincere

gratitude to Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General

of the United Nations, whom I had the pleasure to receive

in Bujumbura last July. We are extremely grateful to him

for his profound commitment to peace, security and

development throughout the world. The resounding appeal

for peace and national reconciliation he made to the people

of Burundi in particular and to Africa in general still rings

in our ears.

Two years have passed since, from this very

rostrum, His Excellency President Melchior Ndadaye,

who was swept to power in Burundi following democratic

elections, addressed a message of peace, friendship,

brotherhood and solidarity to the General Assembly. Since

the contemptible assassination of President Ndadaye on

21 October 1993, my country has laboured under a

political, institutional, social and economic crisis that

persists to this day. Nevertheless, despite the devastation

and the political and ethnic massacres, the people of

Burundi did not yield to despair. In a surge of optimism,

the registered political parties and the representatives of

civilian society held negotiations and in-depth discussions

on how to bring the country out of the abyss into which

the enemies of the fatherland had plunged it. After long

and arduous debates, the Convention of Government was

signed on 10 September 1994; this was followed by the

restoration of the presidency and the establishment of a

National Coalition Government.

We greatly appreciated the decisive contribution

made by the United Nations to the people of Burundi’s

return to peace and security. When the crisis broke out,

the Secretary-General sent a Special Envoy to the scene.

Following that, he appointed His Excellency Ambassador

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah as Special Representative to

Burundi, and we extend our profound thanks to him for

his patient and tireless efforts to bring the various

political partners together, despite their often deep

differences of opinion at the height of the crisis. The

United Nations sent to Burundi two successive

delegations made up of distinguished ambassadors to the

Security Council and headed by a distinguished African

statesman, His Excellency Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari

of Nigeria, to offer us advice and to bring us a message

of peace and comfort. Other delegations of the United

Nations and various international bodies in the United

Nations system came to Burundi to demonstrate their

support and solidarity. In the context of the promotion of

human rights and education for peace and tolerance, a

United Nations Centre for Human Rights and a United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) Peace House were established in Burundi.

The Organization of African Unity (OAU) also

deserves our profound thanks because it has, from the

very beginning of the crisis, sought appropriate solutions

to enable Burundi to regain peace and stability. The work

done by the pan-African organization is primarily to the

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credit of its Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr. Salim

Ahmed Salim, who displayed considerable diplomatic and

human skills on behalf of Burundi. His work was later

carried on by his Special Representative, His Excellency

Ambassador Léandre Bassolé of Burkina Faso.

We should like to extend our thanks to all of the

friendly countries which have assisted us in various ways

and continue to do so, particularly in the brother countries

which gave shelter to Burundi refugees. We are working to

enable our compatriots to return home safely and we are

coming to grips with the problem of displaced persons.

The Convention of Government, which was mentioned

earlier and the first anniversary of which we have just

celebrated, gave us an opportunity to set up State

institutions and organs as well as various kinds of political

and legal machinery that could restore confidence and

cooperation among the political partners.

The first mission assigned us under this Convention is

to restore peace and security in the country. Then it will be

a question of restoring the rights of refugees and displaced

persons, that is, to facilitate their return home with the

assurance that in an initial phase they will be assured of the

basic necessities until they can provide for their own needs.

The Government also intends to initiate the economic

recovery and national reconstruction programme. However,

if our subregion continues to produce refugees and to serve

as a suitable place for illicit trafficking in deadly weapons

of war, this situation would constitute an ongoing source of

insecurity and destabilization for the countries concerned.

Last February in Bujumbura, when we hosted the Regional

Conference on Refugees, Repatriates and Displaced Persons

for the Great Lakes region, organized under the auspices of

the OAU in cooperation with the Office of the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a number of

conclusions were drawn and resolutions adopted. Today we

recognize that the road to be travelled remains a long one

because the resolutions that were adopted remain a dead

letter.

Indeed, it is important for the international community

to become better mobilized to help us eradicate the basic

causes of the continued instability and fragility of our lakes

region. In our opinion it would be necessary, first of all, for

everyone to have the same understanding of our history

and, above all, to accept it as it is. They should also give

serious consideration to lasting, definitive solutions that

must be found for this conflict situation.

For our part, we consider that the major problem in

Burundi lies in the conceptions of, access to and

management of power among the various political actors

in the national community.

We can affirm that the conflict that Burundi has

experienced is far from being ethnic, as many political

and media circles have alleged. The basis of the problem

is essentially political, which is why solutions to this

problem are condemned to be political also. We must

reject and denounce the advocates of the policy of

exclusion, segregation and extermination, which give rise

to crises, instability and repeated conflicts. We condemn

the ideology of hatred, of violence and of genocide

exploited by so many politicians who wish to attain

power or wish to remain in power at any cost.

The crisis which we are experiencing dates from the

beginning of our independence and has deep roots in the

organization and direction of the country during the

colonial period. The various regimes which have

succeeded one another in Burundi were powerless to

resolve this situation. The problem must be addressed by

the people of Burundi, assisted by the international

community and not replaced by it.

We rely on the regional Conference on Security,

Stability and Development in the Great Lakes region,

which will be organized under the auspices of the United

Nations, and which will seek to find appropriate, lasting

and definitive solutions. We should like to thank the

Secretary-General of the United Nations for having

designated an African diplomat to take charge of the

preparations for this Conference, to which my country

attaches real importance.

Moreover, my delegation appeals to neighbouring

countries to help us neutralize the efforts of those who,

working from their own territory, have endeavoured to

destabilize ours. It would indeed be illusory to want to

extinguish a fire from within when, outside, militias,

armed bands or malevolent groups are organizing and

training themselves in order to attack Burundi.

Today, the country must face attacks waged jointly

by the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People

(PALIPEHUTU), the National Liberation Front

(FROLINA), the National Council — improperly labelled

the Democratic Defence Council (CNDD) — and its

armed branch, the curiously named Forces for the

Defence of Democracy (FDD). These groups, in collusion

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with military-political forces, are responsible for the

genocide in neighbouring Rwanda.

In addition to these attacks there is another

destabilizing force, the pirate radio station cynically

baptized “Voice of the People”, or, “Democracy Radio”,

which inculcates ethnic hatred within the Burundi

population and which is working towards the dissemination

of a neo-nazi-type ideology in this region of Central Africa

at the end of this twentieth century. We are relying on the

valuable assistance of our neighbouring and brotherly

country, with which we share geography and history and

with which we maintain the closest relations, to dismantle

this medium of hatred, which is reminiscent in many ways

of the infamous Free Radio-Television of the Thousand

Hills (la Radio-Télévision Libre des milles collines)

(RTLM), which galvanized the massacres last year in

Rwanda.

We should like to reaffirm the unswerving attachment

of the Government of Burundi to the principles of good-

neighbourliness and non-interference in the internal affairs

of another State. We respect the bilateral, regional and

international agreements and conventions to which Burundi

has freely subscribed. In following these commitments the

Government of Burundi hopes that our immediate

neighbours and our partners will properly understand our

problems and the problems that affect our region. They

should understand the complexity and delicacy of the latter

so that in trying to help us find solutions they will avoid

pouring oil on the fire.

We know that, alone, we cannot arrive at harmonious,

satisfactory and lasting solutions, and that is why we

welcome with open arms the various forms of mediation

aimed at helping us get out of the present crisis and at

producing stability within our subregion. However, we

would not want such mediation to lead to other, unexpected

problems linked to undue interference in our internal

affairs.

We have begun a campaign for the restoration of

peace, with the support of the Government, the National

Assembly and the political parties that are signatories to the

Convention of Government. We are resolved to dismantle

the armed gangs, be they within or outside our country. But

our efforts to restore peace will be futile if we do not work

towards eradicating the phenomenon of impunity, which has

been aggravated by our country’s current crisis. In this

context, a request was sent to the United Nations to

establish an international judicial commission of inquiry

into the crimes committed in Burundi. We express our

gratitude to the Security Council for the establishment of

this commission.

Along these lines, we are planning to organize, in

the near future, a national debate on the fundamental

problems affecting the country, with a view to the

adoption of a national covenant for peaceful coexistence

between the various constituent parts of the nation and

also of a new Constitution reflecting the realities now

facing the country.

Lately, the President of the Republic, His Excellency

Mr. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, has been consulting

various socio-political groups — professionals, the

military, representatives of religious communities, women

and disaffected youth — to solicit their suggestions for

ensuring the speedy restoration of peace in Burundi. The

conclusion is inescapable: everyone aspires to peace,

justice and development. That is why our partners should

not be discouraged, nor should they despair, when it

comes to Burundi. The programme of national

reconciliation and reconstruction will require a

mobilization of appreciable funds, which Burundi alone

cannot marshal. The reinstallation and reintegration of our

displaced persons, expatriates and those who have been

dispersed, the reconstruction of the socio-economic

infrastructures that were destroyed, the training of our

young people and the relaunching of the overall

productive apparatus — these are my Government’s major

concerns.

We call upon the international community to support

us unwaveringly in order that we may implement this vast

programme. We hope that our partners will respond in a

positive way at the General Round Table of donor

countries, scheduled to be held in Geneva shortly, so that

the necessary financial resources for the reconstruction of

Burundi can be mobilized.

With respect to the Great Lakes subregion, Burundi

encourages the Government of Rwanda to continue its

policy of national reconciliation and to create the

conditions of peace and security conducive to the return

of Rwandan refugees to their homeland. For its part, the

international community must ensure that those

responsible for the genocide in Rwanda are punished in

accordance with the relevant resolutions of the Security

Council. We strongly urge the countries of the subregion

to cooperate fully with the International Tribunal created

for this purpose.

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As regards the crisis in Somalia, my country hopes

that the protagonists will agree to form a government based

on a broad consensus. We invite our Somali brothers to lay

down their arms and to work towards national

reconciliation — the only road to lasting peace — and to

devote themselves to rebuilding their country.

As for Angola, we welcome the constructive dialogue

that has been established between President José Eduardo

dos Santos and the leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi. This

is a positive development, which we hope will lead to a

complete cessation of the hostilities that have taken so

many lives among the brotherly people of Angola. We also

nourish the hope that the Lusaka Peace Agreement will be

implemented strictly by the parties so that peace can be

restored to Angola. We urge the United Nations to speed up

the planned deployment of forces in the context of the

United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM

III).

We also welcome the developments in Liberia, in the

Middle East and in the former Yugoslavia. We hope that

the recent events in the former Yugoslavia will not inflame

the situation further or stand in the way of a solution,

which has been awaited for so long by the international

community.

A look at the political configuration of the United

Nations reveals a strange paradox: at a time when hotbeds

of tension are concentrated in Africa, at a time when

poverty there has broken every record and at a time when

natural and man-made disasters are proliferating, many

international forums are seeking to reduce our continent to

the status of a poor relative. At a time when the golden

jubilee of our Organization is being commemorated, Africa

is the only one of the five continents to be excluded from

permanent representation on the Security Council. But the

dangers that loom over Africa, both from within and from

outside, require that it be at the centre of deliberations and

decisions on peace and security. Aside from this reality, the

democratization of the United Nations is tantamount to a

categorical imperative. Thus we strongly urge the

establishment of a genuine parallel between the emergence

of democracy on the scale of the Member States and the

reform of the United Nations, so that Africa could be given

access to permanent seats on the Security Council. Under

the principle of democracy, the projected reforms of the

United Nations system should reserve for our continent the

lion’s share, for two reasons: first, Africa, as a vast

collective entity, has the right to permanent seats on the

Security Council; and, secondly, Africa has the right to

participate in the Council in a manner commensurate with

its numerical significance. Once this twofold requirement

has been recognized, Africa will be prepared to select

those countries that are best suited politically,

diplomatically, economically and demographically to sit

permanently on the Security Council, on behalf of the

entire continent.

On the eve of the twenty-first century, Burundi is

keenly aware that the United Nations remains the source

of salvation for the human race. My country reiterates and

reaffirms its unswerving dedication to the ideals and

objectives of the United Nations. As a concrete

manifestation of that dedication, the Government of

Burundi — even though it has borne the brunt of the

effects of the international economic situation and of its

own, two-year-long, severe national crisis — has just

disbursed more than $76,000 by way of contribution to

the regular budget of the United Nations. Nevertheless,

Burundi must stress the imperative need for the world

Organization to become an ever-present shield for peace,

security and progress. To achieve this, it must evolve with

the times and become a genuine universal forum in which

all countries, regardless of their political, economic,

geographical and economic disparities, can join together

and unite in order to take decisions on the future of

humankind.

This metamorphosis, to which the countries of the

United Nations so strongly aspire, requires of Member

States and other accredited agencies working to that end

not only the political will but also and above all the

creative genius to revitalize and breathe new life into the

Organization, allowing it to meet the challenges as this

century enters its twilight years and to adapt to the vital

issues of a planet moving inexorably into the third

millennium.