Equatorial Guinea, 2014

I bring with me to this session of the

General Assembly greetings of peace, friendship and

solidarity from the people of Equatorial Guinea and

the full readiness of their Government to contribute to

our common task of maintaining peace and stability

throughout the world, and promoting the harmonious

development of humankind.

Allow me at the outset to congratulate you, Sir, on

your brilliant election to preside over the work of this

sixty-ninth ordinary session of the General Assembly.

Your well-deserved election is justified by the policy

of peace, respect for the principles of international

law and the promotion of development advocated by

your country, the Republic of Uganda. Indeed, your

decision to devote this session of the General Assembly

to the theme “Delivering on and implementing a

transformative post-2015 development agenda” is

testament to Uganda’s interest in overcoming the

current problems of underdevelopment throughout the

world.

Equatorial Guinea recognizes the relevance and

importance of the topics to be debated at the two high-

level meetings proposed for 2015 — one in February,

to consider ways of implementing the post-2015

development agenda, and the other in March, on gender

equality and the empowerment of women.

We also wish to convey our sincere appreciation and

congratulations to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his

outstanding work at the head of the global Organization

in very difficult international circumstances marked

by terrorism, piracy, mercenary activities and major

epidemics affecting the world today. Indeed, this session

of the General Assembly bears the heavy responsibility

of finding solutions to the problems of the poverty

and hunger prevalent throughout the world, violence

and armed conflicts, terrorism, piracy and mercenary

activity, and major epidemics, such as the recent Ebola

epidemic that is now laying waste to some countries

in Africa. Given Ebola’s deadly effects and the lack

of adequate resources to combat it, on the occasion of

the award of the second UNESCO Equatorial Guinea

International Prize for Research in Life Sciences, the

Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea

announced a donation of $2 million to the World Health

Organization to finance programmes to combat Ebola.

The United Nations will not be able to find solutions

to these thorny problems unless the role of the General

Assembly, which in recent years has grown routine, is

strengthened and revitalized. The United Nations will

never be able to find lasting solutions to these problems

if the Security Council is not governed by rules that

respect the spirit of democracy and international

justice. Ultimately, the United Nations will not be able

to find satisfactory solutions to these problems as long

as the current system of the rule of force in international

relations persists.

The Republic of Equatorial Guinea is therefore very

concerned by the proliferation of acts of intervention

that do not respect the principle of non-interference

in the internal affairs of States. These interventions

interrupt the process of genuine democracy in the

affected countries in that they ignore the essential

characteristics and idiosyncracies of those societies,

thereby further fuelling divisions and the sociopolitical

instability of nations. We must distinguish clearly

between support for a genuine internal democratic

process and interference perpetrated through pressures

that lead to misunderstandings, intolerance, exclusion,

resentment, hatred among citizens and fratricidal wars.

In Equatorial Guinea we say that democracy is

not an imported product and cannot be designed in

the offices of other countries. Democracy is shaped by

the application of the positive values characterizing a

society, and only the people are entitled to define the

model that best suits them and to beat their own path

towards their own development. With this as our vision,

in 1982 the Republic of Equatorial Guinea adopted the

theory of democratic experimentation, which gave our

own citizens, through community councils, a hand

in designing their own political development, the

implementation of which has given rise to the current

climate of peace, stability and economic prosperity

through successive political reforms.

The latest of these reforms is making Equatorial

Guinea a modern democratic State in which popular

participation and representational politics are ensured

at the highest possible level. The transfer of power is

guaranteed by equal rights for all political options.

Public affairs are administered with the utmost

transparency, accountability and responsibility, and

human rights are protected and monitored by reliable

institutions.

In this spirit of ensuring the participation of all

citizens of Equatorial Guineans in the management and

administration of public affairs, our Government has

extended an invitation to all political parties — those

within the country and those in the diaspora alike — to

attend a national dialogue that will be held in November

as an opportunity to strengthen democracy in our

country as a positive experience in our democratic

experiment, which has yielded fruit since its inception

in 1982.

Concurrently with this political process, and thanks

to the peace and political stability that we have achieved,

our Government has undertaken economic initiatives to

develop our natural resources and position Equatorial

Guinea as an economically emerging country by 2020.

On behalf of the people of Equatorial Guinea, I wish to

thank those countries that have been cooperating with

my Government in developing our economic and trade

relations, in particular the United States of America,

the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba,

France, Brazil, Russia and Morocco.

In conclusion, and with the fervent wish to see the

United Nations recover its leading role in delivering

peace, security and global development, I wish the

sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly every

success.