Central African Republic, 1998

I take

pleasure in congratulating Mr. Opertti on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-third

session, and I pledge my delegation’s full cooperation. I

commend his predecessor, Mr. Udovenko, for bringing the

fifty-second session of the General Assembly to a

successful conclusion. I take great pleasure in expressing

my pride in our Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan. His

leadership and many achievements during the short period

of his tenure are highly commendable.

Just as this session of the General Assembly

coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, it also coincides,

providentially, with the fiftieth anniversary of the

commencement of peacekeeping operations by the United

Nations. These coincidences are striking because, while

one was envisaged in the Charter of our Organization and

was the subject of painstaking negotiations, the other was

a chance development, not having been envisaged in the

Charter. Yet both have had a profound effect on the

influence of the United Nations in global affairs and on

the perception of the Organization by those whom it was

established to serve and who were identified in the

opening words of the Charter as “We the peoples of the

United Nations”.

The double celebration this year should also enable

us to appreciate better the interrelationship between

human rights and peacekeeping. There can be no question

of human rights being enjoyed in a situation of conflict.

Put another way, conflicts create conditions for the most

outrageous violations of human rights, since, contrary to

all international law and rationality, the most vulnerable

in society — children, women and the aged — are often

targeted and deprived of the most basic of human rights,

the right to life. As we define and refine our

Organization’s responsibilities in peacekeeping, which, by

common consent, is now taken in its broadest sense to

mean the prevention, management and resolution of

conflicts, let us always be conscious that the universal

enjoyment of human rights, one of the major aspirations

of humanity, cannot and will not be achieved unless we

devote as much effort to the elimination of the conditions

that provoke the violation of those rights.

I believe that it is with this fact in mind that

international organizations, whether global, regional or

subregional, have been devoting considerable time to

devising effective means of preventing, managing and

resolving conflicts in their various area of competence. Of

course, the United Nations, with its unique role as the

only global Organization invested with authority for the

maintenance of international peace and security, is,

appropriately, taking the lead in these efforts. Following

“An Agenda for Peace” (A/47/277) and its supplement

(A/50/60), and at the request of the Security Council, the

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Secretary-General presented to us at this session his report

entitled “The causes of conflict and the promotion of

durable peace and sustainable development in Africa”,

document A/52/871. The report represents a very

comprehensive and incisive study of the causes of conflict

in Africa. The recommendations therein, if implemented by

African countries as well as by the United Nations, could

reverse the pestilence of conflicts which are ravaging the

continent.

In this connection, my delegation would like to

underscore the role of the Security Council in dealing with

African conflicts. While the Organization of African Unity

(OAU) has demonstrated a commitment to taking the lead

in the resolution of conflicts on the continent, the fact is

that its Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management

and Resolution will take time and will require resources not

immediately available to Africa if it is to evolve to its

maximum capacity. In the meantime, the efforts of the

subregional organizations, which are increasingly taking the

initiative in their various regions, need to be adequately

supported by the international community.

My country, the Central African Republic, has been

the beneficiary of such an initiative, which was taken by a

group of African countries, to deal with the internal

conflicts that erupted with three successive army mutinies

in 1996. The Inter-African Mission to Monitor the

Implementation of the Bangui Agreements (MISAB), which

was composed of troops from Gabon, Chad, Burkina Faso,

Mali, Senegal and Togo, was given strong logistic support

by France. It operated in Bangui from January 1997 to

April 1998 as both a force of interposition and a guarantor

to ensure the observance of the peace accord which was

brokered by four African heads of State. My delegation

would like to pay very high tribute to the Presidents of

Gabon, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Senegal and Togo for

the great sacrifice they made in the interests of our

continent.

I should also like to pay great tribute to France for its

invaluable support of the African initiative. At the request

of my head of State, and with the agreement of the inter-

African group, the Security Council graciously consented to

send a United Nations peacekeeping operation to replace

the inter African force.

The United Nations Mission in the Central African

Republic (MINURCA), which commenced operations in

Bangui on 15 April 1998, is the first proactive mission

established by the United Nations in Africa. It has been

making a major contribution to the restoration of lasting

peace and security in our country and has assisted the

peace-building efforts of the Government and the people

of the Central African Republic. It is a practical

demonstration of the incisive observation of our

Secretary-General, in his report entitled “The causes of

conflicts and the promotion of durable peace and

sustainable development in Africa”, to the effect that

“the deployment of a multidisciplinary peacekeeping

operation may well represent the best chance to

establish peace and build a foundation for lasting

development, based on respect for human rights and

the rehabilitation of civic institutions.” (A/52/871,

para. 37)

A major step in the restoration of the institutions of

State in our country is the organization of a free, fair and

transparent legislative election. In his letter to the

Secretary-General requesting the assistance of the

international community in re-establishing peace and

security, my President, Mr. Ange-Félix Patassé, invited

the United Nations, inter alia, to supervise the legislative

and presidential elections in the country. That request was

a measure of both the confidence which we have in the

United Nations and our commitment to a transparent

democracy built on the freely expressed will of our

people. I wish therefore to express my Government’s

satisfaction for the assistance of MINURCA in the

preparations for the legislative elections. We are looking

forward to the decision of the Security Council which will

enable MINURCA to provide further assistance for the

electoral process, thus giving all Central Africans the

assurance of the freedom, fairness and transparency of

this most important aspect of the democratic process.

Needless to say, United Nations assistance in the

process is a worthwhile investment in good governance,

which itself is the sure foundation for peace, security and

development. No effort should therefore be spared by our

Organization in rallying to the support of those Member

States that are making genuine efforts to instal a system

that in itself constitutes a conflict-prevention mechanism.

The cost of such support, which also constitutes an

investment in peace-building, is in the end much less, and

the results more satisfying, than those of a fire-fighting

response after the outbreak of a conflict.

Bearing these factors in mind, I wish to appeal, on

behalf of my Government, to the Security Council to take

a comprehensive approach that avoids a premature exit of

MINURCA, thus compromising the objective for which

the Mission was installed in Bangui. My Government has

5

exerted itself to fulfil the commitments made by President

Patassé to transparency and accountability in his letter to

the Secretary-General requesting the presence of the United

Nations in our country.

One major result of those efforts was the positive

judgment of the Bretton Woods institutions which permitted

the conclusion last July of a long-sought accord on

enhanced structural adjustment facility. Needless to say, this

would not have been possible without the assurance of

security given by the presence and the activities of

MINURCA.

However, much remains to be done, and the presence

and cooperation of MINURCA will be indispensable for

success. Most important is the restructuring and retraining

of our security services, both civil and military. The

commencement by MINURCA of the retraining of the

various categories of our police and gendarmerie services

have already yielded some positive results, and the

continuation of the programme, as is being done in other

United Nations operations in other parts of the world, will

prove an invaluable legacy of United Nations peace-

building efforts in our country.

Africa should not be denied this benefit which

emanates from the reappraisal of the components of

comprehensive United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Civilian police training programmes have become an

essential element of these operations, but they have not

been known to commence and end in a period of nine

months. An African situation cannot be presumed to be

different, particularly when it is in the region now

considered to be most prone to the phenomenon of

conflicts.

Besides, the restructuring of our armed forces is being

commenced with the involvement of MINURCA, which

was given a role to play by Security Council resolution

1182 (1998) of 14 July 1998. The joint committee

consisting of representatives of the Government and of

MINURCA is to elaborate the legal instrument which

should form the basis for our defence policy and armed

forces, as well as a comprehensive programme for a widely

representative, national, and well-trained force that will also

be a useful instrument for development. The hope of my

Government is that the Security Council will allow

MINURCA sufficient time to assist us in these

indispensable peace-building endeavours. A withdrawal, as

is being contemplated at this time, will not be in the

interest of my country or of the Central African subregion,

which is already in great turmoil. I cannot but recall once

again the very pertinent observation of the Secretary-

General in the report which he painstakingly compiled at

the request of the Security Council:

“the deployment of a multidisciplinary peacekeeping

operation may well represent the best chance to

establish peace and build a foundation for lasting

development, based on respect for human rights and

the rehabilitation of civic institutions.” (ibid.)