Burundi, 2001

It

is for me a signal honour to take the floor today before

the Assembly at its fifty-sixth session. On behalf of my

delegation, I wish at the outset to express my sincere

congratulations to Mr. Han Seung-soo of the Republic

of Korea on his well-deserved election to the

presidency of this body of the United Nations. We

believe that his vast experience, his dynamism and his

competence guarantee the success of our work at this

session. He can count on my delegation to be fully

available to him. We will spare no effort to facilitate

his work so that his noble mission can be carried out to

the fullest.

Allow me next to pay sincere tribute to Mr. Harri

Holkeri for the way he acquitted himself in his term of

office leading the work at our last session. We all

appreciated his many talents as a statesman and

seasoned diplomat, which in large measure contributed

to bringing the work of that session to a successful

conclusion.

I should like, finally, to avail myself of this

felicitous opportunity to convey the greetings of the

Burundian people to Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-

General of the United Nations, and to express to him

once again my heartfelt congratulations on his

unanimous re-election to the helm of the Organization

for a second term of office. At the same time, I address

to him my warmest congratulations on the Nobel Peace

Prize just awarded to him and to the United Nations

itself. This token of renewed confidence is a striking

expression of recognition of the United Nations

family’s tireless efforts in every corner of the world for

the cause of peace and development. My Government

is particularly obliged to the Secretary-General for his

personal commitment to helping the people of Burundi

emerge from crisis so that through the ongoing peace

process they can resume the path of peace,

reconciliation and development.

All of us were shocked and horrified by the

murderous attacks perpetrated here in New York,

Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on 11 September

2001. My Government firmly condemned those odious

terrorist acts, characterized by indescribable barbarity.

The President of the Republic of Burundi, Mr. Pierre

Buyoya, dispatched a message of condolence to

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President George W. Bush immediately after the tragic

events had been reported.

The events of 11 September 2001 mark a new

global challenge for the United Nations in its resolute

fight against terrorism and for maintaining

international peace and security. The Government of

the Republic of Burundi fully subscribes to the relevant

resolutions of the United Nations on the fight against

terrorism. Committed to the ideals of peace and

security the world over, it intends to make its own

contribution to building a world from which

international terrorism will be banished. Towards that

end, Burundi endorses the various international

conventions against international terrorism. It has

already ratified three of them, and this morning we

signed the International Convention for the

Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, adopted in

1999. The necessary steps will be taken to sign and

ratify the remaining conventions. Burundi hails the

adoption by the Security Council of its resolution 1373

(2001) and stands committed to examining in depth its

scope of application on our own national territory.

In light of the plethora of sophisticated juridical

provisions — extant for nearly 30 years now — to fight

against this scourge, a profound awareness and far

more sustained collective action today is imperative.

The Government of Burundi agrees with the content of

Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), which

emphasizes:

“... the need to enhance coordination of efforts on

national, subregional, regional and international

levels in order to strengthen a global response to

this serious challenge and threat to international

security” (S/RES/1373 (2001), op. para. 4).

That global response obviously, and as a matter of

priority, is an imperative for us, the Members of this

institution, the United Nations, on which the Charter

explicitly confers the role of maintaining international

peace and security.

As to the situation in my own country, Burundi,

the present session is being held at a time when the

peace process has just completed a particularly

decisive phase. Indeed the Arusha Peace Accord,

which Burundi signed on 28 August 2000, has begun to

be resolutely implemented. May I be allowed to bring

to the attention of the distinguished representatives

gathered here certain major developments worthy of

being emphasized. After a number of consultations

held among the signatories to the Peace Agreement,

and after the Facilitation and Regional Initiative, the

matter of the transitional leadership for the next three

years has been settled. On 1 November 2001, the

solemn inauguration of the President and Vice-

President of the Republic and the transitional

Government was held.

I wish to make a point of expressing the very

sincere thanks of the Government and people of

Burundi to the heads of State and other eminent

personalities that elevated those ceremonies by their

presence.

At this important stage in the peace process, I

should like to take care of a pleasant duty, namely that

of paying tribute first to the late Mwalimu Julius

Nyerere, who was the first to play a mediator’s role in

the inter-Burundian peace process in an extremely

delicate setting. Secondly, I wish to make it a point

solemnly to hail the courage, vision, perseverance and

tact that His Excellency the former President Nelson

Mandela displayed throughout the inter-Burundian

negotiations so as to help the Burundian people regain

the path to peace, reconciliation and democracy. From

this lofty tribune I wish to express to him our feelings

of profound gratitude. We feel the same sentiments of

sincere appreciation to the United Nations and all

countries and personalities that have worked from near

or afar to see to the signing of the Peace Accord,

people who continue to invest of themselves in order to

see the Agreement fully implemented. It is thanks to all

these pooled efforts that some glimmer of hope is

perceptible in the Burundian political skies.

The new Government has set itself as a priority

task halting the war, rehabilitating victims and

restoring the country in socio-economic terms.

Notwithstanding, however, our firm determination to

move forward, the programme continues to encounter

enormous challenges, challenges such as the

persistence of war and the exacerbation of poverty.

With regard to the war, we must deplore the fact that

armed groups continue to sow grief and desolation in

various parts of the country, pursuing a nameless war, a

war that is killing innocents in their homes, in the

camps for displaced persons and along the roads, a war

that favours pillaging and rape and that has destroyed

social and economic infrastructures built at great cost.

We denounce and condemn in the strongest terms this

new type of violence, namely the seizing of school

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children by rebel elements to press-gang them into

guerrilla forces or to have them do their dirty deeds.

In this context the priority of all priorities for my

country thus remains the quest for a ceasefire, which

would make it possible to begin the major reforms

envisaged during the transitional period.

Notwithstanding numerous initiatives directed by our

Government towards the armed groups — the Conseil

national pour la défense de démocratie-Forces pour la

défense de démocratie (CNDD-FDD), and the Forces

nationales de la libération (FNL) — inviting them to

subscribe to the peace process and join in negotiations,

as yet there is no sign of a firm, formal commitment on

their part that would allow us to move forward in that

direction. Nonetheless we feel that these armed groups

no longer have political claims that they can truly

brandish, given the fact that the Arusha Accords

envisage their participation in transitional institutions,

their recruitment into defence and security corps and

their social and professional reintegration if they so

desire.

While thanking our partners for the variety of

initiatives already launched to bring the Burundian

rebels into the peace process, I should like once again

to call upon all the countries members of the Regional

Initiative, the Facilitation in the inter-Burundian

negotiations, the Organization of African Unity, the

United Nations, and the rest of the international

community to continue to bring pressure to bear upon

these armed groups so that they will lay down their

arms and rejoin other Burundians around the

negotiating table without further delay, in conformity

with Security Council resolution 1375 (2001), adopted

on 29 October 2001, and other resolutions of the

Council. We particularly ask for the invaluable help of

the countries in our subregion, all of them co-

signatories to the Arusha Accords, so that all the

necessary steps will be taken to stop these armed

groups from attacking Burundi. Notwithstanding these

various initiatives, if the rebels continue obstinately to

refuse dialogue, my Government will call upon the

international community and all parties signatories to

the Arusha Accords to do all they possibly can to

neutralize and disarm the FDD and FNL and, at the

same time, the other negative forces allied to them.

The continuing deterioration in the socio-

economic situation in my country constitutes yet

another source of major concern for the new

government team. Indeed, eight years of the worst kind

of fratricidal war, together with three years of

unjustified economic embargo, from July 1996 to

January 1999, have plunged the country into a state of

extreme poverty which will be difficult to overcome.

What is more, international cooperation since 1996 has,

as it were, been frozen, thus confronting us with a lack

of foreign exchange and a major erosion of our

monetary situation. Furthermore, in the year 2000,

economic activity continued to suffer from the heavy

blows of drought, bringing about negative growth for

two consecutive years in an essentially agricultural

country.

Over the same crisis period, the situation with

regard to health has significantly deteriorated.

Notwithstanding efforts exerted by my Government,

HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases such as those

linked to malnutrition, continue to rage among our

people, already weakened by the horrors of war. The

major performance indicators for education reflect a

net decline. Access to drinking water and general

hygiene conditions have seriously deteriorated at a

time when many of our dwellings and the basic social

infrastructure, such as schools and health centres, have

been destroyed by war.

Faced with a particularly trying situation,

Burundi looks for a great deal from the United Nations

and its agencies, its various bilateral partners,

international organizations and non-governmental

organizations to help our economy to recover, in the

name of international solidarity and for the benefit of

our people plunged today into a state of unprecedented

poverty. I thus urgently appeal to my country’s various

partners to make tangible the reality of the promises

made at the Pledging Conference for Burundi, held in

Paris from 11 to 12 December 2000, for the purpose of

rebuilding and helping the recovery of our economy. A

round table following through on these commitments

made at that Conference is to be organized in Geneva

in December 2001. The Government of Burundi counts

on the active participation of our partners, particularly

in making available the aid promised.

On the international scene the delegation of

Burundi hopes to see the implementation of the

provisions of the Millennium Declaration adopted last

year by the heads of State and Government of Member

States of the Organization. It particularly supports the

reforming of the Security Council and welcomes the

fact that this matter already enjoys the broad-ranging

backing of the Members of the United Nations. It

24

regrets nonetheless that discussions on the modalities

that the reform is to take are at an impasse, and this,

eight years after the establishment of the Working

Group under General Assembly resolution 48/26,

adopted on 3 December 1993. My delegation,

notwithstanding all that, remains confident that the

work of the Working Group concerned will be quickly

concluded, the results being of the keenest interest in

terms, once again, of galvanizing this major body.

Burundi wishes to draw the attention of the

Assembly to the problems that have grown more and

more serious and alarming because of the accumulation

and excessive and destabilizing proliferation of small

arms and light weapons and the arms race. In this

connection it is ever more necessary and urgent to

develop and effectively implement specific

disarmament programmes. We welcome the adoption of

the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and

Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light

Weapons in All Its Aspects at the United Nations

Conference, held from 9 to 20 July 2001, here in New

York. Our surest hope is for that Programme to be

effectively implemented to relieve the suffering of

people in the regions where this kind of weaponry

continues to take the lives of thousands of innocent

people. What is more, the Government of Burundi

remains devoted to the goal of the total elimination of

weapons of mass destruction, whether they be nuclear,

chemical or biological.

To have peace and security prevail required

adopting a working strategy for conflict prevention,

with a view to understanding fully the motives and

dynamics of confrontation and to curing this evil at its

root. It also means resolutely attacking the structural

causes that drive people to revolt, namely ignorance,

want, disease, extreme poverty, underdevelopment and

its corollaries, and inequities in the distribution of

wealth. There is a chain directly linking desperate acts

and the fanaticism bred of frustration and humiliation.

Thus, the imbalance between the North and the South

is unlikely to promote harmonious equilibrium. Indeed,

on the basis of available statistics, more than one third

of mankind lives in absolute poverty. This is liable to

grow worse if the rich countries continue not to

shoulder their responsibilities in terms of aid for

development.

Improving the living conditions of people

contributes, through its induced effects, to reducing

other anachronistic factors growing out of poverty,

such as the child labour ban by International Labour

Organization (ILO) conventions and the spread of the

HIV/AIDS pandemic. My delegation continues to hope

that the International Conference on Financing for

Development, scheduled for March 2002 in Mexico,

will adopt strategies to reduce these inequalities

between and within countries. It expects from that

Conference a definition of the strategic objectives in

terms of consistent policies for integrating developing

countries into the global economy, whatever their level

of development.

As to globalization, many indeed are those that

denounce its perverse effects, as witness the clashes in

Seattle and Genoa. In this context, we are duty-bound

to see to it that globalization becomes a positive force

for all mankind in the best interests of all. Yet another

issue of concern to my delegation continues to be that

of human dignity, which cannot be conceived as

divorced from respect for human rights, including that

of self-determination. Towards that end, the delegation

of Burundi continues to hope that the Second

International Decade for the Elimination of

Colonialism, from 2001 to 2010, proclaimed by the

Assembly by its resolution 55/146 of 8 December

2000, will help to eradicate its last bastions.

It is impossible to talk about international

concord without calling to mind the right to justice,

genuine justice and real fairness in the settlement of

disputes. On that score my delegation would like yet

again to reiterate the importance the Government of

Burundi ascribes to the International Criminal Court,

regarding which preliminary steps towards ratification

are being taken. Indeed, my delegation shares the same

conviction as the Secretary-General of our

Organization, Mr. Kofi Annan, when he affirms that we

must build a world where order and justice reign in

terms of respect for the primacy of law in international

relations.

The challenges confronting the international

community are multiple and take many forms. The

efficacy of the Organization will be judged by its

ability to keep cohesion intact and to promote people’s

holistic development, so as to fashion a world where all

can realize their potential and where we all espouse

peace, fraternity and equality. We are all called upon to

strive towards the realization of that noble cause.