Eritrea, 2025

I now give the floor to His Excellency Osman Saleh Mohamed, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Eritrea. Good morning, Your Excellency Ms. Annalena Borbak, President of the 8th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Your Excellency António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Honorable Heads of Delegations, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen. Madam President, allow me to join previous speakers to congratulate Your Excellency for your election to the Presidency of the 8th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. During the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly last year, I had briefly reflected as a backdrop and for purposes of historical reference to dwell on humanity's collective trajectory in the past hundred years. In this regard, the defining features of this century can be summed up by the failure of the League of Nations, established in the aftermath of the First World War, to guarantee the lofty objectives of peace, economic growth and prosperity for humanity as a whole. Opportunities lost even after the United Nations was subsequently formed in 1945 and until the end of the Cold War and reckless and dangerous trends set in motion in the prevalent unipolar world order in the last 30 years. As we all agree, the League of Nations and the United Nations were originally conceived as viable architectures of global governance to advance the pronounced lofty objectives that we all cherish. In this respect, and at a time when humanity is aspiring for a transition from the old defunct global order to a new one, the overarching quest must revolve around finding outside tangential ideological acrimonies in dealing solutions to fundamental and outstanding problems that our global community continues to grapple with. Economic injustice has remained the primary challenge for mankind and all the peoples as a whole since ancient times, from primitive social systems to the epochs of slavery and colonization, all the way until our contemporary times in a developed 21st century. The perennial challenges stem from modalities of wealth creation and accumulation, and notably in relation to wealth and income sharing. The fact is past and present global systems are broadly rooted on monopoly, plunder, and deceit. Domination and attendant policies crafted to that end, military power that is garnered, and military assaults unleashed are indeed mere tools of domination and plunder. Similarly, various economic and financial architectures are essentially enunciated to bolster the objectives of domination and plunder. Policies formulated and operations undertaken to expand the spheres of influence are likewise sheer means of domination and plunder. Subtle corruption constitutes another means of domination and plunder. Wars, conflicts, and crises are also stocked and aggravated for the sole purpose of domination and plunder. Tools of propaganda and deception are weaponized for similar objectives. Ladies and gentlemen, in the event, the cardinal challenge is how to bring about a new global order that promotes justice and fairness to sub-planned prevailing global governance architecture whose defining contours remain domination, plunder, deceit, and deception. Repression. Spiraling oppositions underway in various parts of our world, including in the developed and industrialized regions through expansive popular demonstrations against their economic trends and debilitating debt anchored by governments are only the tip of the iceberg. But what is extremely preoccupying is appalling economic situation in the underdeveloped countries, and more specifically in the marginalized African continent. Although the details can be assessed on a case-by-case basis, most of Africa's economy remain primitive. Africa remains a continent where raw materials are exported to the so-called developed economies for nominal prices, in which manufactured finished products are imported at highly inflated prices, where the economies are afflicted by huge losses in job opportunities, in which human capital and meager professional and skilled manpower are drained due to migration and brain drain, where presiding regimes lavishly waste borrowed money, but cynically flaunt semblance of progress while burdened by mounting debt, are embroiled in corruption and political servitude to external forces, are afflicted by instability due to domestic polarization and endemic crisis, and where they face rapid population growth as well as imminent challenges and disasters. The scenario is very bleak indeed. Why was mankind's mission in the new century unsuccessful? The cherished mission does not contain novel and sophisticated inventions or ideological and philosophical dimensions. The values of the missions invoked and that underpinned the struggle during the epochs of slavery have not changed whatsoever in this so-called new 20th century. The aspirations of mankind are, one, to fairly own their economic resources and the fruits of their work and march on a sustainable path of generational progress and prosperity by accumulating wealth. Two, to secure peace and stability in order to guarantee prosperity and economic growth. Three, to ensure prevalence of fairness and justice as vital prerequisites for peace and stability. To promote mutual respect, complementarity, and cohesion integration so as to bolster widest regional and global peace and stability as well as mutual growth. Five, to establish appropriate legal executive structure and associated mechanisms for the implementation of these fundamental human aspirations. Ladies and gentlemen, although mankind's aspirations have not been realized as yet, its cherished aspirations cannot be shelved or postponed. Failure to achieve the desired objectives can only spur stronger resilience and greater moral imperative. In the event, the timely and pressing task for all the peoples of the world is to strengthen their organizational coordination mechanisms in order to prevail against perennial injustices, domination, deceit, coercion, intimidation, plunder, and monopolization. In this regard, we call for the categorical lifting of all unilateral coercive measures and sanctions imposed on countries such as Eritrea and Cuba, including the unjust 60-year-long embargo against Cuba and its arbitrary designation on the spurious list of state sponsors of terrorism. This will require nurturing broad mechanisms of solidarity as well as continuous review and refinement of their strategies and methodologies. In this respect, the peoples of Africa should particularly work out, in view of the specific hurdles that they are facing, a robust mechanism in order to contribute their share with higher vigor to the collective mission for a new world order in tandem with ongoing endeavors for the consolidation of a broad international alliance. Ladies and gentlemen, on the occasion of the 80th Session of the UNGA, I would like to mention that, in the interest of time, I have chosen not to delve into vital issues pertaining to palpable shortcomings of the United Nations and its various agencies, along with possible remedial measures, as well as the various initiatives underway by several parties for the crystallization of a new global order. I thank you. I thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Eritrea.