Colombia, 1997

As President of Colombia and Chairman of the

Non-Aligned Movement, I would like to extend to you,

Sir, my sincere congratulations on your appointment to

preside over this most important session, and I also wish

to thank Ambassador Razali for his diligence in

performing his duties during the fifty-first session of the

Assembly.

Over the decades the United Nations has shown that

its founders were not mistaken when they entrusted to it

the mission of developing a new model of co-existence

for our planet, thanks to which we defeated colonialism,

fought against apartheid, prevented territorial

confrontations, extended our hand to help children,

defended the rights of women and protected the

environment.

However, we find ourselves today at a crossroads

similar to that which led us to sign the San Francisco

Charter. The globalization of the world has brought about

the internationalization of problems such as drug

trafficking, terrorism and corruption, all of which

seriously threaten our systems.

Certain industrialized nations are behaving selfishly

in defining new rules of the game for free economies.

Unilateralism and conditions imposed by the powerful

upon others are rampant throughout the world. The spare

capacity of the military industrial complex since the cold

war is encouraging the beginning of a dangerous arms

race. The open wound of foreign debt is still an obstacle

to the development of many of the poorest countries. The

violation of human, political, social and economic rights

is also the order of the day.

The new United Nations, which the Secretary-

General has proposed we should reflect upon as the

century comes to an end, will surely not deal only with

armed conflicts. We must be prepared to face other

kinds of war: social war against poverty; judicial war

against organized crime; political war against

interventionism in our sovereign economies; and moral

war against the violation of human rights.

We cannot yet assert that the process of

globalization really represents progress for all of

humankind. While globalization has generated great

economic and technological advances, such progress

continues to be the privilege of the industrialized

nations and very small segments of the population of

the rest of the world. True progress for humanity

cannot be brought by phenomena which generate new

and more profound imbalances in the quality of life for

individuals. We must work hard to ensure that States

and multilateral organizations such as the United

Nations, direct their efforts to guaranteeing that the

benefits of globalization do not remain in the hands of

a few.

Therefore, any reform of the United Nations must

begin with the return of the concept of solidarity which

inspired the San Francisco agreements, and which is the

very raison d’etre of our Movement. We want not more

summits, but more compliance with the summits not yet

complied with; a summit on compliance with other

summits would be welcome.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear

Weapons (NPT) is not being properly complied with.

Important members have yet to ratify the Chemical

Weapons Convention. There seems to be no interest in

making progress on fundamental agreements to restrict

the conventional arms markets run by the world’s

merchants of war. Government aid, as a proportion of

the resources transferred to developing countries by

developed nations, has dropped from 42 per cent to 24

per cent in recent years. Funds for military operations

within the United Nations system have increased 17

times compared with increases in funds for social

programmes.

We must find new paths for the United Nations to

follow. The reform of the United Nations system

proposed by the Secretary-General must encompass all

spheres of the United Nations system as a whole.

In the first place, there is the economic sphere.

The Bretton Woods organizations — the World Bank

and the International Monetary Fund — which were

born as part of the agreement of March 1946, have

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progressively been removing themselves from the original

direction exercised by this Assembly over their economic

and social policies. They have ended up by configuring a

development model which they impose on developing

economies, without those economies being able to discuss

their own priorities. Reform should include matters such

as having greater international liquidity, greater flexibility

in the management of multilateral debt, concessionary

credit flows for social investment and coordination with

economic bodies representing the interests of developing

countries, such as the United Nations Conference on

Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Economic and

Social Council and the United Nations Industrial

Development Organization (UNIDO).

The situation of the United Nations social sphere is

the most worrisome. The greatest burden of the

Organization’s budgetary crisis has fallen upon the bodies

involved, whose financing has dropped by many millions

of dollars during the present decade. Some developed

countries have inexplicably withdrawn from bodies

devoted to children, culture, population, employment and

the environment, such as the United Nations Children’s

Fund (UNICEF), the International Labour Organization

(ILO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Food

Programme (WFP) and the United Nations International

Drug Control Programme. The report of the Secretary-

General contains interesting proposals to restore the

activities of such bodies, which constitute the very heart

of the United Nations.

In a world where 1.3 billion people still survive on

less than a dollar a day, in a world where, for the price

of one combat plane, 57,000 children in Africa can be

fed for a year, it is impossible to conceive of a reform of

the United Nations whose priority is not to strengthen the

work of its institutions and programmes dedicated to

social issues.

Finally, there is the matter of the political

relationship between the Assembly and the Security

Council. The proposed strengthening of the Security

Council cannot be carried out at the expense of taking

power away from this Assembly, the highest democratic

body of the system. Any expansion of the Council must

take into account that developing countries by their

nature and as spokesmen for various regions of the

world, need to have greater representation. The

instrument of the veto should be abolished because it is

anti-democratic, since it places in the hands of one

country the power to ignore the will of the majority. If

the veto cannot be eliminated, it should be restricted to

those matters truly fundamental for world security, and

the right to appeal vetoes before judicial or political

bodies, such as this Assembly, should be established.

A few months ago the Secretary-General presented

to the United Nations a very interesting proposal for the

reform for the Organization. The Non-Aligned

Movement, which I represent, is reviewing this

initiative and considers that a number of its proposals

would contribute to the revitalization of the United

Nations.

We do not want a United Nations divided between

rich and poor, with Members having first- and second-

class status according to their economic contributions.

The United Nations is not a private company, but the

forum of solidarity in which all the countries of the

world come together.

I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to the

United Nations, and the international community at

large, to confront the grave problem of arms

proliferation with a clear and well-defined strategy that

will lead us to concrete results. To that end, I wish to

propose five points for effectively dealing with of this

matter.

First, I propose the declaration by the developing

countries of a two-year, worldwide moratorium on the

high-technology-weapons trade.

Secondly, I propose the expansion of the United

Nations Register of Conventional Arms to include light

weapons, as well as production and storage, with a

view to strengthening its role as a means of promoting

confidence.

Thirdly, I propose that the Governments of arms-

producing countries commit themselves to the

establishment of a moratorium on the sale of high-

technology weapons in regions in conflict, as well as to

converting their weapons-production industrial capacity

and workforce to other economic sectors.

Fourthly, I propose the follow-up and verification

of all multilateral commitments and existing treaties in

this area.

Fifthly, I propose that the regulation of trade in

light arms, as well as in high-technology weaponry,

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should be a subject of deliberations at the fourth special

session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament.

This initiative is designed to deal with the various

facets of the grave phenomenon of arms proliferation,

which — besides draining vast resources that could be

devoted to the social and economic development of our

peoples — constitutes the most dangerous threat to the

peace and security of the world.

Much water has flowed under the bridge that we

built in San Francisco half a century ago to make the

world a better place to live.

We have, without any doubt, progressed, but we

cannot claim to be satisfied despite what we have

achieved. So long as there is a sad, hungry child in the

world, there will be a United Nations. So long as there is

a weapon raised to kill a neighbour, there will be a

United Nations. So long as entire populations are

displaced from their homes by violence, hunger and

intolerance, there will be a United Nations. So long as

thousands of young people do not have access to

education because they must struggle every day to

survive, there will be a United Nations. So long as the

whims of the powerful continue to defy the aspirations of

the powerless, there will be a United Nations. So long as

drugs on the streets threaten the future of our children,

there will be a United Nations. So long as terrorists and

violators of human rights continue to run loose, there will

be a United Nations. So long as there is a need for

solidarity, love and joy in the world, there will be a

United Nations.