Burundi, 2006

It is a

great honour and pleasure to speak here on behalf of

my delegation and to take part in this important

gathering, where all the Member States of our

Organization will consider today’s most pressing

issues.

I wish to express to the President, on behalf of

my delegation and in my own name, our warmest

congratulations on her election. We also congratulate

Mr. Jan Eliasson on the effective way in which he led

the work of the previous session.

We also take this opportunity to express once

again my country’s support for, and appreciation of, the

excellent work of the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi

Annan, who has led our Organization with courage,

lucidity and determination during his term of office.

Burundi is taking part in the sixty-first session of

the General Assembly a year after the setting up of

democratic institutions. It was a historic event in

Burundi for us to have democratically elected

institutions, which have just reached the end of their

first year in office, the first time this has happened

since we gained independence.

This is a good time for us to report to the

Assembly on the political, social and economic

situation in our country and the efforts that have been

made to meet the many challenges that the people of

Burundi face. It is also an opportunity for us to address

some of the issues of current concern at the regional

and global levels.

In the post-conflict situation that my country is

going through, the first concern was to re-establish

peace and security throughout the country. Carrying

out this task was made possible thanks to the

deployment in Burundi of a United Nations force and

the training of a new national defence force, in

accordance with the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation

Agreement for Burundi and the Comprehensive

Ceasefire Agreement of Pretoria. So far, this

integration has proceeded uneventfully, and we thank

God for this.

The signing of a comprehensive ceasefire on

7 September 2006 by the Government and the last rebel

movement, the Palipehutu-FNL movement, encourages

us to accelerate the programme for disarming civilians

in order to establish peace and security throughout the

country. Over the last three months the people have

begun to voluntarily hand in to the authorities weapons

they acquired during Burundi’s crisis. So far about

5,000 weapons have been handed over. The agreement

represents a very important stage in the life of our

country, which is now going through its reconstruction

phase.

The enjoyment of political liberties has become a

reality in Burundi, whether in terms of political parties,

civil society or the media. With regard to the media, a

law has just been passed to create more diverse and

more professional press institutions.

We have also just passed an anti-corruption law.

Measures to implement it include an anti-corruption

court and a force to deal with corruption. We are

convinced that they will allow us to work with more

transparency in the management of public resources

and in our fight against corruption. State income is

increasing by nearly 20 per cent each month; we are

already enjoying the benefits of this policy.

06-52988 16

With regard to promoting the rule of law and the

rights of the individual, we are making progress

through the reforms taking place in the justice sector

and with regard to human rights, national solidarity and

gender equality. The Burundi Government’s

programme has placed promoting the rights of women

and gender equality amongst its priorities. We urge the

United Nations to give particular attention to this issue

during its reform process. The Government also

appeals for, and supports, a specific structure to ensure

that women emerge from poverty and thus have

genuine equality.

Still with regard to the rule of law, in addition to

the 5,000 or more political prisoners already freed, on

the occasion of the celebration of the forty-fourth

anniversary of national independence on 1 July this

year, we decided to release undocumented detainees

being held under irregular circumstances. Similarly, the

Government has started to improve conditions for

prisoners who have been properly sentenced. However,

we are aware that much more needs to be done in this

area, with the support of the international community.

Establishing the rule of law and peacebuilding

also depend on the peaceful settlement of the issue of

land ownership. This was behind the Government’s

creation of the national commission dealing with land

and other assets, whose task it is to settle disputes over

the ownership or recovery of land and other assets that

have changed hands during the various social and

political conflicts in our history. Its work is an essential

complement to that of the truth and reconciliation

commission, with regard to which the Government of

Burundi hopes agreement will soon be reached with the

United Nations, because we are convinced that it will

contribute to combating the fallout from genocide, as

well as impunity in our country, and enhance the

national reconciliation process.

With regard to national reconciliation, we firmly

believe that sport is a very important factor in

peacebuilding and reconstruction and in achieving the

Millennium Development Goals. In Burundi we have

taken measures in this area, and we hope that other

countries going through a post-conflict period will

follow our example.

The Government of Burundi continues to have to

deal with a significant number of vulnerable people.

We have today nearly 400,000 refugees, 120,000

internally displaced persons and thousands of others

who need to be cared for, including persons with

disabilities, orphans, widows, widowers and old people

unsettled by the war. Our Government needs help to

deal with this situation. Since the recent ceasefire

agreement, refugees have started to return to Burundi

en masse.

The Government of Burundi has also sought to

improve the country’s socio-economic situation. Aware

of the general impoverishment of our people due to a

decade of war, we prepared an emergency programme

for the current year, and submitted it to donors for

funding on 28 February. The programme covers in

particular free primary education for all children of

school age, counteracting hunger, access to health care,

job creation, rehabilitation of the communication

infrastructure, improving prison conditions and

improving the management of public finances.

In order to ensure the proper management of

funds provided by donors within the framework of

cooperation with Burundi, the Government has

established a national committee to coordinate aid.

With the same desire for efficiency, we have created a

national committee to monitor and manage Heavily

Indebted Poor Countries funds, budgetary support and

debt.

The Government’s efforts to alleviate poverty

include measures such as reducing the price of most

essential commodities, the abolition of some taxes, free

health care for children under the age of five and for

mothers who give birth in state clinics, and the fight

against AIDS. A new status for civil servants and a 15

per cent increase in their salary from 1 July this year

are intended to give them more motivation and halt the

decline in their standard of living.

However, our country’s reconstruction, efforts to

counteract poverty and the relaunching of Burundi’s

economy require more than an emergency programme.

The preparation of a strategic framework for growth

and counteracting poverty, covering a period of three

years, meets this concern. We plan to organize next

November a donors’ round table on the basis of this

strategic framework. We rely on the active

participation of Burundi’s partners, both long-standing

partners and new ones, in order to help Burundi

respond positively to the many priority expectations of

our people, who are impatient to enjoy the dividends of

peace at last.

17 06-52988

At the same time, we are pursuing or launching

other measures aimed at creating a favourable

economic environment that is conducive to prosperity.

They include liberalizing the coffee sector, simplifying

customs procedures, liberalizing the circulation of

currency through private financial institutions,

constructing new communication routes and improving

the road network. Furthermore, the investment code

has been revised in order to encourage investment in

Burundi.

The Government’s adoption of the five-year plan

for 2006-2010 and the launching of a study for the

period to 2025 are part of this medium- and long-term

strategy for our socio-economic and political

development. We have thus sought to establish for our

society a plan based on a minimum number of common

objectives and a shared vision of the future of Burundi

and its people.

We welcome the decision by the American

Administration to put Burundi on the list of countries

that benefit from the facilities offered in the framework

of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. We have

invited businessmen to organize themselves in order to

take advantage of this new opportunity for our

economy.

Burundi attaches great importance to regional

integration initiatives. We take this opportunity to

welcome the electoral process taking place in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is now in its

final stages. We hope that it will be successful and that

it will result in the democratic establishment of

legitimate institutions. Similarly, we welcome the

signing of a ceasefire between the Government of

Uganda and the LRA, which we sincerely hope will

quickly lead to lasting peace.

We continue to be concerned over the continuing

armed conflict in the Horn of Africa, Darfur and the

Middle East, as well as by the deadlock in the peace

process in Côte d’Ivoire. As Members of the United

Nations, we must work tirelessly to end these sad

situations.

Terrorism is a further harsh reality that the world

still confronts. Far from being discouraged, we must

step up our vigilance and consider new initiatives to

counteract this scourge and evil, and to deal with its

underlying causes.

Globalization is one of the major challenges of

the twenty-first century, but we also see it as an

opportunity for developing countries to benefit from

the considerable progress and advantages that it offers,

provided it is combined with openness and autonomy.

For our part, we will spare no effort to make our

contribution to building peace and prosperity. The

election of Burundi to the Peacebuilding Commission

is a source of pride and additional motivation to work

to strengthen peace in our country and throughout the

world. Unfortunately, changes in anti-democratic

thinking and behaviour do not take place automatically

in countries emerging from crisis, such as Burundi.

However, we welcome the successes already achieved

and our increased capacity to control the situation.

Our Organization is going through a critical

period. Although the United Nations was set up “to

save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”,

certain conflict situations have been haunting it for

many years. It must therefore be made into an

instrument at the service of all, able to inspire hope,

dispel concerns and restore respect for order and

international law. This mission must be fulfilled in full

cooperation with regional organizations, whose

effectiveness in conflict prevention and rapid

intervention has already been proved, despite

insufficient resources.

The General Assembly’s agenda must reflect the

main concerns of the day. These include, in particular,

nuclear disarmament, which continues to poison

international relations. Other concerns are combating

the illegal trade in small arms, poverty and epidemics

that kill on a large scale, such as AIDS and malaria. We

commend the international drug purchasing facility

(UNITAID) initiative, which gives hope to those

suffering from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It

proves that a partnership between the North and the

South can change the lives of millions of people

throughout the world.

The new millennium was warmly welcomed.

World leaders place great hopes in this new time, as

shown by the Millennium Development Goals adopted

in 2000, which were reaffirmed in the declaration of

the summit of heads of State and Government in

September 2005. Those Goals represent a platform that

is particularly important for developing countries,

landlocked countries and small island developing

States in their efforts to combat hunger and poverty

06-52988 18

and to promote health and education, to mention just a

few subjects.

Other commitments were made in Paris and at the

G-8 summit in Gleneagles, particularly for improved

aid coordination and further aid and debt relief.

Before closing, I would like to express our deep

gratitude to Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General,

and to all the members of the Security Council, the

European Union and the African Union, as well as to

all the members of the Regional Initiative that have

supported our peacemaking and peacebuilding efforts,

which have resulted in the achievements already seen.

We think in particular of certain countries of the

region, such as Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa,

which were tireless godfathers in facilitating our peace

process. To all those partners, we again say a big

“Thank you” for the remarkable success that my

country has just witnessed with the signing of the

ceasefire with the Palipehutu-FNL.