Equatorial Guinea, 1995

I take great pleasure today in

addressing this distinguished world audience on behalf of

the delegation of Equatorial Guinea in the context of the

fiftieth session of the United Nations General Assembly. I

wish first to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Freitas

do Amaral of Portugal on his election to preside over our

work. I wish him every success in the presidency of the

General Assembly at its fiftieth session. He can always rely

on the cooperation and solidarity of my delegation.

This fiftieth session of the Assembly is taking place at

a time when we are seeing a radical change of course — a

needed one, in our opinion — in the life of the United

Nations in today’s world.

In its first half-century, as a speaker has already said

in this Hall, the United Nations has been a child of its time,

the time of the aftermath of the Second World War. It

came into being to work for peace, world security and

development. Now we must determine whether these

objectives have been achieved. Peace meant avoiding war

and military conflict. Global security meant preventing the

escalation of conflicts. Development meant mobilizing the

financial resources required for the reconstruction of the

world and to redress its underdevelopment.

As we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the United

Nations we are bound to acknowledge that although the

Organization has achieved certain successes in the area of

preventing disputes among nations and has taken measures

and initiatives to promote the resolution of certain conflicts,

peace, security and development are not yet permanent

features of daily life in our earthly home.

The fall of the East-West ideological barriers

artificially imposed by the cold war aroused expectations

of an age of peace in the world. The spread of democracy

and the new world-wide awareness of the importance of

respect for human rights further heightened these

expectations at the beginning of this decade.

In this context my country, the Republic of

Equatorial Guinea, has striven to achieve these objectives

of peace, security and development.

Following the ousting of the dictatorship and the

one-party system, our Government, as early as 1979,

adopted a consistent and comprehensive strategy which

was a reflection of a national consensus in favour of a

model of society for the future of our nation that would

be based on peace, democracy and development. In this

context we have undertaken a series of political reforms

fully supported by all forces and currents of opinion in

our society.

Since 1992 the Government, following the lead of

His Excellency, Mr. Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President

of the Republic and Head of State of Equatorial Guinea,

has been responsive to the people’s aspirations to

freedom, democracy and participation in the management

of public affairs. With a population of only 420,000 the

country has 14 legal political movements. This

programme was established and has been satisfactorily

implemented since 1993, with municipal elections having

been held on 17 September 1995. The Constitution and

the electoral timetable that has been established provide

for the holding of presidential elections in the coming

year, 1996.

However, despite these endeavours and despite my

Government’s resolve to secure fundamental freedoms for

our people on a firm foundation, foreign interests, for

their own unavowed purposes, want to see the democratic

process in my country shaped as the saying is “in the

image and likeness” of those alien interests.

Since the beginning of the political transition the

treatment meted out to Equatorial Guinea by certain

States Members of the Organization has been utterly

different from that granted to other countries in Central

Africa and in the rest of the continent, whose political

evolution has been similar to our own, involving in some

cases tragic consequences; that leads us to suspect that the

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disinformation and defamation campaign waged

internationally against the Government of Equatorial Guinea

is the manifestation of hegemonistic ambitions and struggles

for influence that threaten not only the peace and social

harmony that prevail in the country but also its territorial

integrity.

We do not understand how Equatorial Guinea’s

democratization process differs from what is going on in

other countries in our area. We have said yes to pluralism,

democracy and participation. We have said yes to human

rights, and we practise respect for human rights. We do not

understand why different types of measures are applied to

my country. We regret that instead of receiving moral

support and solidarity to help us consolidate our

achievements, we are subjected to economic blockades and

the unilateral suspension of cooperative programmes agreed

by convention. Instead of receiving understanding for what

could be the result of deficiencies of structure or of

democratic culture in the society of Equatorial Guinea as a

whole, we are subjected to reproach, intimidation, threats

and a humiliating and intolerable interference in our

country’s internal affairs.

We do not believe that a tragic breakdown of social

and economic structures, such as has taken place in the

brotherly countries of Liberia, Rwanda, Angola, Somalia

and other countries and regions of the African continent,

represents the best form of cooperation with and assistance

to African peoples.

I wish to declare before this forum of the international

community that outside influences are engineering and

instigating an internal conflict in my country that would

have unforeseeable consequences.

Indeed, some political circles and communications

media are waging a campaign from Spain, the old colonial

Power, to intensify the differences between the people of

Equatorial Guinea, supporting some and harassing others,

thus provoking divisions and antagonisms. Even graver is

the support offered to the Self-determination Movement of

the Island of Bioko, a secessionist group. In addition, a

station of Radio Exterior de España has been created and

aimed expressly at Equatorial Guinea to carry out a

poisonous disinformation campaign deliberately intended to

distort the socio-political reality of the country. The

broadcasts of Radio Exterior de España are the most

disruptive element in the country’s democratization process

and constitute a Petri dish that spawns acts of violence and

the destabilization of Equatorial Guinea’s social structures.

We wish to apprise the international community of

this matter, and we ask it to request the Spanish

Government to put an end to this aggression perpetrated

from its territory by the public entity Radio Exterior de

España and by certain political circles. Under the pretext

of supporting the democratic process under way in our

country, those political circles, consisting of

Parliamentarians, party and labour leaders, associations

and pressure groups, clandestinely support, coordinate and

finance secessionist movements and political parties

standing in radical opposition to the legitimate

Government of Equatorial Guinea. This overt interference

is intended to bring about violent political changes in my

country.

Clear evidence of this interference can be seen in the

current disinformation and discreditation campaign being

waged from Spain by those political circles and

communications media following the municipal elections

held in my country on 17 September last. Those circles

planned and illegally financed the electoral campaign of

the radical opposition, banded together in the Joint

Opposition Platform (POC). They have created confusion

by trying to manipulate the electoral results.

Those same Spanish political circles are today trying

to manipulate international public opinion by falsely

accusing the Government of electoral fraud and violations

of human rights. The recent report of the United Nations

Special Rapporteur, Mr. Alejandro Artucio, suffices to

give the lie to these accusations. My Government

complies with the programme and recommendations of

the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

One cannot credibly claim to be supporting political

reform in my country by stirring up antagonism and

disputes between the political sectors of my country. One

cannot credibly claim to be helping the people of

Equatorial Guinea by suspending cooperation in the

educational, health and agricultural sectors. One cannot

credibly claim to be helping the people of Equatorial

Guinea by inciting the donor community to block projects

of proven social effectiveness. We sincerely believe that

one cannot help any people by depriving it of the

resources and opportunities to improve its living

conditions.

My country lives in peace and order. We just need

a friendly, sincere and respectful helping hand. We are

told that there can be no development without democracy,

and we agree. But our experience, which we believe has

been shared by other developing countries, is that

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democracy amid poverty and underdevelopment is a pipe

dream. Poverty and underdevelopment breed violence and

social and political instability.

We therefore sincerely seek international relations

characterized by mutual support and solidarity, not partisan

pressure, in order to consolidate this climate that makes

democracy and the development of our peoples possible.

My second request, in accordance with what the

developing countries have been asking for for over a

decade, is that the current unfair international economic

system be replaced. Nevertheless, all these global

agreements — such as those of the recent World Summit

for Social Development, the United Nations Conference on

Environment and Development, the Fourth World

Conference on Women, held in Beijing, and the latest

agreements of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

(GATT) — have served only to bring us to today’s sad

impasse, which reveals the radical and irreconcilable

attitudes of both sides. The so-called developed countries of

the North and the developing countries of the South,

divided by selfishness, ambition and intolerance, deprive

future generations of a better world.

A few days before celebrating the fiftieth anniversary

of our Organization, there still persists in the United

Nations the spirit of a bipolar world dominated by

suspicions on both sides, mistrust, discrimination, attitudes

of superiority, a lack of political will to develop frank and

sincere cooperation and a desire for hegemony in

international relations.

The response of the United Nations to the questions

asked by those who spoke before me and to the challenges

of the new changes on the international stage must contain

two indispensable elements. The first is that the United

Nations should represent the interests of everyone, by

introducing certain structural reforms making it possible to

attain the objectives for which it was created. Secondly, we

must provide the United Nations with a deeper-going

capacity for genuine dialogue between the nations that

make it up and speak to the world in a language of

understanding.

The necessary dialogue must be global and must

encompass all aspects of international relations, be they

economic, political or cultural. It is impractical to limit

dialogue between nations, regardless of their size and

power, since all the countries of the world must take an

active part in the dialogue process in order to arrive

together at a common and secure destiny, abandoning no

one to the abyss of underdevelopment and abject poverty.

This is the challenge of the next 50 years for our

Organization. May God bless the United Nations.