Djibouti, 2001

In view

of the catastrophic events that took place on 11

September, it is only fitting that first and foremost we

once again offer our deepest condolences to the

Government and people of the United States. This was

a hateful and diabolical act of terrorism that claimed

thousands of precious human lives and caused untold

physical destruction, without parallel in history. This

brutal attack has put us all on notice. It was truly the

day the world changed.

One way or another, this tragedy affects us all.

Not a single country is immune from terrorism,

inasmuch as it is beyond the capacity of any one

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country to counter it. The international community

must work together, ideally through the United

Nations, so that the counter-measures take the form of

legitimacy and acceptability. In this respect, Security

Council resolution 1373 (2001) provides us with the

necessary framework.

We in Djibouti have already established a suitable

mechanism to counter terrorism, in all its aspects, that

could come from our territory. We are also in the

process of examining the existing international

conventions and protocols on terrorism with a view to

signing and ratifying them all. However, while doing

all this, we must not lose sight of the plight of the

people of Afghanistan — the terror, the desperation

and the starvation facing impoverished people during

this grave crisis. Also, we must not squander the

extraordinary opportunity we now have to examine all

possible or probable causes and deep roots of

terrorism, including attitudes, frustrations and current

economic and political conditions.

May I join the delegations that preceded me to

offer the President our congratulations on his brilliant

election as President of the General Assembly at its

fifty-sixth session. His vast experience and

demonstrated capacity and skills will indeed be vital to

our deliberations. We also wish to express our

appreciation to his predecessor, Mr. Harri Holkeri of

Finland, whose leadership at the fifty-fifth session has

resulted in tangible achievements.

Permit me also to congratulate Secretary-General

Kofi Annan on his re-election and for the work he

accomplished during his first term, most notably for

the extent to which he was able to institute much-

needed reforms and restore the relevance and central

role of the United Nations, while enhancing its

capacity and effectiveness. He has recognized that far

too many people live on the margins of society,

reduced to silence by endemic poverty, debt, the AIDS

pandemic, tuberculosis and malaria. He has, in effect,

become the voice of the world’s silent majority. It is

not by chance, therefore, that, together with the

Organization he heads, he has received the Nobel

Peace Prize. We congratulate him wholeheartedly for

this distinct and rare honour bestowed upon him and

the United Nations system.

May I pay tribute to the Secretary-General for the

breadth and relevance of his report on the work of the

Organization. The United Nations has a vital role to

play in today’s rapidly evolving world, and the report

offers a comprehensive update on all its activities. With

reference to peace and security, as the Secretary-

General has stressed, we must all be struck by the

number of conflicts raging in the world today.

Preventing the recurrence of conflict is a central

priority, and this means that our focus needs to shift

from a culture of management and control to one of

prevention and long-term development.

Besides conflict, we are witness to enormous

human suffering caused by natural disasters and

complex situations that continue to grow in scale,

escalating the need for humanitarian assistance.

We are pleased to note that the Secretary-General

continues to place importance on the fight against

endemic poverty and that the international community

has launched a sustained campaign to make the right to

development a palpable reality for everyone. The

participation of the poor must become a priority in

order to eradicate rural poverty, to ensure the well-

being of children and to strengthen the earning

potential of women.

If we are to reduce by half the number of people

living in poverty by 2015, as called for in the

Millennium Declaration, we must substantially increase

Official Development Assistance, alleviate the debt

burden of the poorest countries and dismantle the

protectionist barriers of developed countries. The Least

Developed Countries, in particular, face enormous

obstacles, such as declining inflows of capital,

inadequate social services and the lack of

infrastructure, in addition to environmental constraints.

In essence, the Brussels Declaration and Programme of

Action for the Least Developed Countries for the

Decade 2001-2010 call for an increase in foreign

capital inflows, including Official Development

Assistance; direct foreign investment; an expansion of

debt relief; greater preferential market access and

increased technical assistance.

Silently but very quickly, the world is drifting

towards another dangerous crisis: water scarcity. By

2025, one in every three people worldwide will be

affected by the lack of water. Some 2.7 billion people

live in regions facing severe water shortages and, once

again, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are the

most densely populated areas and among the areas of

least income, will be the hardest hit. Currently, 450

million people living in 29 countries, including my

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own, Djibouti, are experiencing acute drinking water

shortages. Unlike oil and most other strategic

resources, drinking water has no substitute. Whether

water is needed for drinking, agriculture or

environment-related purposes, such as the survival of

lakes and rivers, we have on our hands a potential

crisis that risks causing an unprecedented disaster for

food security and the fight against hunger and poverty.

A combination of global warming, wasteful habits,

aridity and the lack of rainfall means that the water

sources millions traditionally rely on are now slowly

drying up. There is no longer enough water for all our

needs. Beyond the international treaties and

institutional mechanisms, the international community

must act to mitigate this crisis. Now is the time to act.

While the recent international terrorist attacks in

the United States have rightly dominated the world’s

attention, other pressing problems, such as the AIDS

pandemic, must still be urgently attended to. The

special session of the General Assembly devoted to this

scourge, held in June, took a decisive step towards

finding collective solutions, actions and commitments.

However, there is still concern that these non-binding

commitments may not be carried out. The global AIDS

fund launched by the Secretary-General has made some

progress, but contributions to date have fallen far short

of the expected target. We are now unfortunately

familiar with the statistics of deaths and the social and

economic devastation caused by this scourge,

particularly in Africa. In the search for a solution and

what measures to take, the debate has centred on

treatment versus prevention. Ideally, the best hope

would be for a preventative vaccine, but that solution

does not look promising. As one expert put it, “We are

at the end of the beginning of this epidemic, not at the

beginning of its end!”

The growth and exponential spread of

information technology, coupled with the demise of the

cold war, have, over the past decade, been determining

factors in shaping our views on development and the

global economy. With the advent of globalization, trade

expanded, capital flowed, investments increased,

economies liberalized and barriers to trade were

lowered. In addition, the private sector took on a

central role.

Unfortunately, as many have correctly observed,

the number of countries and individuals excluded from

the benefits of this phenomenon has risen inexorably.

The attempt to explain this dichotomy has led to many

troubling conclusions. For the poverty-stricken who

live on $1 per day, talk of technology, economic

growth, opportunity and prosperity is no more than

nice-sounding words. Their greatest daily concern is

the fear of not having enough to eat. Finding enough to

eat is a daily challenge for more than three billion

people on this planet. Despite the conflicts in Africa

currently making headlines, it is the precarious

existence of those left behind that has defined life on

the African continent for more than two generations.

Whatever the reasons for this endemic poverty,

the fact remains that unless we address the problem of

poverty in all its aspects, we will not get to the roots of

the problem. It is well known that millions of people in

Africa and throughout the world are simply too poor to

participate in the phenomenon of globalization and thus

miss out on the benefits of globalization. The President

of the World Bank has aptly put the issue of poverty in

perspective:

“... if you cannot deal with the question of

poverty, if you cannot deal with the issue of

equity, then you are not dealing with the question

of peace.”

He added:

“We will not solve the problems of poverty or

global peace or stability unless we change our

perception of poor people from the objects of

charity to an asset on which you can build a better

world.”

The persistence and spread of poverty hamper all

efforts for peace, security, development, democracy

and good governance. Peace and security require

increasing and strengthening the United Nations

capacity to prevent crises, to react to emerging threats

and to implement peace-building programmes. In this

regard, the Security Council has a preponderant role. It

is obvious that our inability to reform the Council so

that it can respond to the needs of the international

reality of today can only diminish the legitimacy of its

functioning and decisions.

During the fifty-fourth session of the General

Assembly in September 1999, my President, Ismail

Omar Guelleh, outlined a series of proposals on the re-

establishment of peace in Somalia. A year later, during

the fifty-fifth session, he related to this Assembly the

extraordinary sacrifices and burdens borne by the

Government and people of Djibouti, together with a

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number of Governments and organizations of good

will, to bring together the true representatives of the

Somali people so that they might seize control of their

own destiny and forge a new direction for their

devastated country.

Ultimately, after eight months of intense and

difficult negotiations at Arta, Djibouti, in August 2000,

the Somali State was reborn through the establishment

of the Transitional National Government, the National

Assembly and other institutions. The course has not

been easy, but the Transitional National Government

has persisted and pursued its commitments, gaining the

respect, sympathy and support of the international

community, despite myriad attempts to undermine its

efforts to achieve lasting peace.

The Transitional National Government is a

reality. It represents the will of the people of Somalia,

who have spoken and made their choice. As my

President has repeatedly stated, if we wish to save

Somalia from disintegration and chaos, we must

eschew the standard practice of revolving around a few

all-too-familiar individuals who held the Somali people

hostage for a decade. He suggested, inter alia, that it

was time to move beyond them, to restore power to the

people, and for the Somali people to assume leadership

and responsibility for their own destiny.

We are gratified that the Transitional National

Government is fully committed to bringing about

lasting peace in Somalia through a constructive spirit

of dialogue and tolerance. Building upon the outcome

of the Arta process, the Transitional National

Government has consistently and tirelessly

demonstrated its unwavering commitment to

reconciling with its adversaries without preconditions.

Its efforts to that end have been greatly appreciated by

the Organization of African Unity and by the Security

Council. Both entities have recently condemned those

individuals and faction leaders who remain outside the

Arta peace process and who stubbornly persist in

blocking the peace efforts in Somalia.

In this respect, the efforts of the President of

Kenya, Mr. Daniel Arap Moi, earlier this month to

bring some of these recalcitrants into the Arta process

are to be strongly commended. That is what is expected

of us; it is a moral and political duty we owe to the

people of Somalia. That was the message of the

Security Council’s presidential statement on Somalia

last month:

“[T]he situation in Somalia and the objective of

long-term regional stability can most effectively

be addressed if neighbouring States play a

positive role, including in the process of

rebuilding national institutions in Somalia.”

(S/PRST/2001/30, p. 2)

While the Republic of Djibouti is not in the habit

of challenging anyone on the veracity of information

within their purview, it has nonetheless a moral duty to

issue a caution about the source, motivation, accuracy,

objectivity and reliability of such information,

particularly as it relates to the crucial and sensitive

issue of the existence of terrorist cells in one country or

another. I am convinced that close consultation and

cooperation with all countries in the region on this

important issue will yield realistic and impartial

information in the assessment of any particular

situation. It must be pointed out, however, that haste

and rash, uncorroborated conclusions will only harm

the unity of the international coalition against

terrorism, which we all vigorously support.

At a time when the attention of the international

community is squarely focused on the issue of

terrorism, the brutality and destructive force used

against the Palestinians have increased dramatically.

Israel has created the conditions for chaos and anarchy

to justify its reoccupation and even annexation of

Palestinian territory. The recent incursions represent

the broadest military operations in years in Palestinian-

controlled territory. Each day we drift closer to an

unacceptable conflagration between two parties that are

unequal in power, means, resources and international

influence.

Insisting on a ceasefire without offering anything

in return, Israel is determined to pursue its defiance of

international opinion. Living conditions in the

occupied territories continue to be seriously affected by

the Israeli blockade. Rising unemployment, failing

businesses, falling incomes, restrictions on the

movement of goods and people and the banning of

construction while Jewish settlement activities

continue all combine to inflame an already incendiary

situation. One wonders, therefore, what more the

Israelis want to hear than the imploring words of

President Arafat: “Let us go back to implementing the

accords. Let us go back to saving the peace process

with no conditions and no military pressures.”

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We call on Israel to relinquish Orient House and

other Palestinian offices in and around Jerusalem. We

also urge it to return to the negotiating table and,

among other things, to implement the proposals

contained in the Mitchell Committee report. Israel must

release the millions of dollars in tax money owed to the

Palestinian Authority in order to alleviate the economic

and financial hardships inflicted upon the Palestinian

people.

In the final analysis, Israel’s security largely

depends on the implementation of the principle of a

viable Palestinian State. We hope that the international

community will also commit itself to restoring dignity

and respect to the Palestinian people. Like all peoples

everywhere, they have a right to live in peace and to

enjoy a decent existence.

In our subregion of the Horn of Africa, there has

been some reduction in hostilities despite lingering

differences and antagonisms. The people in that area of

the world have suffered too long and desire nothing

more than a relaxation of tensions, the free movement

of people and goods, lasting peace, stability,

development and cooperation. It is high time that we

devoted our meagre resources to development and to

improving the living conditions and meeting the needs

of our own people. Let us give our people a break and a

better future.

Djibouti truly believes in regional cooperation,

good-neighbourliness and the opportunities they can

afford for all our people. We are committed to working

hand in hand with our friends in the subregion to

resolve outstanding issues in complete harmony and

trust. As a nation, we are challenged by scant resources

and declining international assistance, which have been

exacerbated by the huge influx of drought-affected

people and economic migrants. Our capital city, in

particular, is overburdened by an influx of people

displaced by drought or political tensions in the region,

thus further straining our limited infrastructure and

social services. We appeal to the international

community to help us overcome these unsustainable

challenges and pressures that have been with us for too

long and are beyond our limited means.