Equatorial Guinea, 2002

The delegation of

Equatorial Guinea congratulates you, Mr. President,

and the other members of the Bureau of this session of

the General Assembly on their election to their posts.

We wish them every success and offer them our full

cooperation. We also wish to convey to the outgoing

President and Bureau the appreciation of Equatorial

Guinea for their excellent work at a crucial time in the

history of the United Nations.

The delegation, the people and the Government of

Equatorial Guinea welcome the admission of the Swiss

Confederation to full membership in the United

Nations. Switzerland is a country with which

Equatorial Guinea has excellent relations of friendship

and cooperation. This was indeed a historic event that

strengthened and reaffirmed the principle of the

universality of the United Nations. We also welcome

the forthcoming admission of Timor-Leste to the

United Nations.

I wish strongly to join Equatorial Guinea's voice

to the expressions of support and solidarity that have

been heard from this rostrum towards the people and

the Government of the United States of America one

year after the horror and the barbarity caused by the

shameful terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

We reaffirm once again Equatorial Guinea's firm

commitment to the ceaseless fight against international

terrorism and organized crime in all its forms and

manifestations, because this is a fight that involves all

the nations of the world, united by the ideal of

maintaining peace, and because terrorism represents a

serious challenge to humanity as a whole.

Indeed, terrorism has become a sophisticated

network of political, economic and technical plotting

that transcends national borders. These are real

organizations that have the resources to carry out

criminal activity.

Even more disturbing are manifestations of covert

terrorism carried out under the pretext of defending and

protecting democracy and human rights. This leads us

to declare that one cannot combat terrorism in certain

areas and encourage it in others, depending on who the

potential victims may be. Equatorial Guinea and other

countries in our subregion continue to be victims of

this ambiguity and contradiction. The demands made

on our countries and the conditionalities imposed on us

in the name of promoting democracy and human rights

must not serve as a pretext for encouraging intolerance

or political extremism or for instigating confrontation

among the various social groupings in a country so as

to weaken its sense of unity and solidarity.

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Time and again we have stressed the imperative

need to preserve peace and security in the world. The

international community has to reactivate its machinery

for conflict prevention and settlement, because these

conflicts are a scourge on vast areas of the world in

general, and to the African continent in particular.

Because of its geography, Equatorial Guinea is

seriously concerned about constant serious threats to

the maintenance of peace and stability in Central

Africa resulting from disputes and greed for the

enormous natural resources located there. Because of

the geo-strategic importance of the subregion, we want

to preserve a balance of force in the Gulf of Guinea,

and we want to preserve our area as a haven of peace,

stability and prosperity for our peoples.

The United Nations must be vigilant, given the

threats to peace, security and stability in the Gulf of

Guinea. In the specific case of Equatorial Guinea, I

would like to say that for over 25 years it was under

United Nations supervision, vis-‡-vis human rights, but

that on 19 April 2002 at the fifty-eighth session of the

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

resolution 2002/11 was adopted. The resolution ended

the Special Rapporteur's mission for human rights in

Equatorial Guinea. The Commission on Human Rights

therein explicitly recognized the efforts made by our

Government and the progress made by our country in

the area of human rights and strengthening democracy.

However, we were deeply distressed a few days

later to see that our country was a victim of attempted

terrorist action against the life of individuals and social

peace. Those responsible were arrested and will now be

tried under our law. Yet, some pressure groups with

undeclared interests in Equatorial Guinea have spoken

out and have been trying to use the forthcoming trial as

a basis for launching a new campaign of defamation

against my country in the face of these acts of

destabilization. In addition, these groups are still

seeking to confuse the issue and to keep the

international community uninformed as to the true

political, economic and social developments in

Equatorial Guinea. These groups have been trying to

disrupt a good climate of dialogue and understanding

between our Government and the political forces in our

country. However, as concerns these manoeuvres, I

would reaffirm to the international community our

resolve to preserve the spirit of trying to reach

consensus with all the political groupings in our

country to ensure that the forthcoming presidential

elections proceed smoothly.

The situation we have just described is not

peculiar to Equatorial Guinea, because the same

situation can be seen in several countries in our

subregion. My country is resolved to ensure that

Central Africa becomes an area of peace, solidarity and

cooperation.

We hail the initiatives under way to restore peace

to Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and

Burundi, and we commend the work of the United

Nations to that end.

The picture of conflict and instability in the world

today stands in stark contrast to our desire to encourage

economic development and prosperity for all countries

of the world. Just a few days ago in Johannesburg, at

the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the

international community undertook to work in

solidarity to achieve the goals set at Rio de Janeiro, the

Millennium Summit and Monterrey. To that end, it is

essential that a new civilization and a new political

culture bud and take root in the consciousness of the

international community, recognizing once and for all

that all nations of the world, rich and poor, large and

small, enjoy the same rights to peace, stability and

prosperity. This is essential if we are to survive the

current crisis.

This General Assembly faces the challenge of

resolving burning issues, such as combating HIV/AIDS

and implementing the goals of the Millennium

Declaration and the Johannesburg Consensus.

My Government shares these concerns and urges

that top priority be given to strengthening the

democratic process and the rule of law, protecting

human rights, ensuring good governance and achieving

sustainable development. We also believe that the

peace process in the Middle East should be

encouraged, along with the dialogue under way

between North and South Korea, with a view to

peaceful reunification.

We also encourage democratization in the United

Nations itself, so that it can strengthen its efforts in the

world as the principal guarantor of international peace

and security. This General Assembly session, just like

the meetings at Johannesburg and other summits,

provides an excellent opportunity, not for reviving an

anachronistic confrontation between nations, but rather

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for moving deeper into the area of reaching agreement

and of holding a dialogue in the great debate for the

progress and prosperity of all peoples in the world.