Fiji, 1993

On behalf of the people and

Government of the Republic of Fiji, I congratulate

Ambassador Insanally very warmly on his election as

President of the Assembly. I am confident that his extensive

knowledge of the United Nations system and his wide

experience in the field of international relations will help

guide this session to a successful conclusion.

I wish to pay a tribute to Mr. Stoyan Ganev for the

excellent manner in which, as President, he conducted the

business of this Assembly at its last session. I express my

admiration and deep appreciation to him for a job well done.

I also congratulate him for his initiative in rationalizing the

work of the Assembly, and especially in rationalizing its

Committee structure.

My delegation applauds the excellent work done by our

Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in the period

since he assumed his high office. I take this opportunity to

express my Government’s deep appreciation for his untiring

efforts in tackling the difficult and complex problems facing

the world Organization.

I should also like to extend a warm welcome to the

new States Members of the United Nations, the Principality

of Andorra, the Czech Republic, Eritrea, the Principality of

Monaco, the Slovak Republic and The Former Yugoslav

Republic of Macedonia. I am confident that the

Organization, as it continues to strive for universality, will

greatly benefit from their participation in its work.

New threats are endangering international peace and

security in all corners of the world. Incipient nationalism,

ethnic conflicts and excessive protectionism are threatening

peace, security, and growth in trade. Thus, a heavy

responsibility is placed on this Organization, which, as we

all know, is the main body responsible for promoting social

progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Behind these complexities, there are also many

devastating structural problems that undermine even the best

efforts to achieve security and economic progress.

Population growth, if left unchecked, will add 97 million

people a year throughout the 1990s. Poverty, disease,

famine and oppression account for the 18 million refugees

and 24 million displaced persons throughout the world. The

gap between the rich and the poor countries has not

narrowed, but continues to grow as economic difficulties in

the industrialized countries have led to increased

protectionist measures against trade. Environmental

degradation further compounds these problems.

In the light of these trends, we must underscore the

need for better international cooperation in order to arrive at

effective solutions. This, we believe, is a critical element in

moving us towards the creation of an international order in

which this Organization assumes greater importance as the

centre of global endeavours.

The process of reviewing the role of the Organization

that is currently under way is therefore very timely. We

hope that the review will assist greatly in determining how

the United Nations can be strengthened and, most important,

how each of us as Member countries might best contribute

to the new order.

The Secretary-General, in his report on the work of the

Organization, has quite rightly stressed the need for adequate

resources. We share his anxiety, and join in his call to

Members to ensure that their contributions to the regular

budget, as well as to the peace-keeping budget, are met on

time and in full. We must make every effort to explore all

possible avenues for ensuring that the Organization is put

back onto a viable financial path.

My Government would like to pay a tribute to the

entire United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia

(UNTAC) team for the way in which they carried out their

mission in particularly difficult and dangerous conditions.

Fiji is pleased to have joined other Members of the United

Nations in restoring peace in Cambodia through its

participation in UNTAC.

That mission has now successfully completed its major

task. For the people of Cambodia, who unambiguously

demonstrated their desire for peace and democracy, it is the

beginning of a new era. We urge all factions to cooperate

fully with the new Government by keeping alive the spirit of

the Agreements signed in Paris.

The age-old problem in the Middle East has taken a

new turn during the past month. This turn of events spells

hope for the future in the Middle East - indeed, in the entire

world and for all humanity. The desire of both Prime

10 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Chairman Yasser

Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to

achieve peace for their peoples has necessitated the

dismantling of differences that have existed for decades.

The Washington accords should pave the way for a lasting

peace.

Humanity has been touched by this historic event - the

coming together of two arch-rivals for the sake of peace.

We congratulate Prime Minister Rabin and Chairman Arafat

- indeed, all who have laboured to bring this peace pact to

reality. We must also acknowledge the contribution of the

United States of America and, indeed, the United Nations

and others over the years.

While positive developments are taking place in the

Middle East and Cambodia, Fiji is deeply saddened at the

fact that the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains

unresolved. Our profound sympathy goes to all who have

suffered untold misery. Such a tragedy should not be

allowed to continue. We recognize that the issue is a highly

complex one, but the international community must do all it

can to stop the slaughter, prevent the conflict from

spreading, and achieve a lasting and equitable settlement.

We are equally saddened at the events in Somalia. The

success of the United Nations Operation in Somalia

(UNOSOM) in meeting the humanitarian challenge has cast

a ray of hope, for which the United Nations deserves praise

and, indeed, support. However, recent violence against

UNOSOM II personnel must be condemned, and efforts to

find ways of reducing tension between the peace-keepers and

the local population must be given high priority.

Having for years witnessed the repugnant policy of

apartheid in South Africa, we are pleased at the rapidity with

which that policy has recently been broken down. We

congratulate the leadership in South Africa - the South

African Government, the African National Congress (ANC)

and others - for their courage, determination and foresight in

getting together and dismantling apartheid. The United

Nations has played a major role in the process, but we

should continue the effort until a democratic Government is

elected by all - I repeat: all - the peoples of South Africa.

Fiji, like the other members of the South Pacific Forum,

shares the sentiments that the Secretary-General expresses in

"An Agenda for Peace", in which he highlights the positive

role that regional organizations can play in the maintenance

of international peace and security in their own regions. Fiji

will support such regional initiatives.

On the economic front, we believe that a successful

conclusion to the Uruguay Round is vital to economic

growth and prosperity in all our countries. Only increased

access to markets for our exports, especially in areas of

comparative advantage, will enable us to increase our

external purchasing power - our ability to pay for imports

from the developed countries. In any event, we look

forward to a genuinely equitable outcome that will include

a substantial and liberalizing effect on trade in agricultural

products.

Slow progress in finalizing the Round has led to the

formation and strengthening of regional trading blocs. Many

new initiatives now being put in place are defensive

responses to existing regional trading arrangements. These

have the potential to weaken the multilateral character of the

trading system, as many of them do not comply with the

spirit and the provisions of the General Agreement on

Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Developing countries, it has been estimated, lose about

$100 billion a year in export revenues as a result of market

barriers in industrialized countries - about twice the official

development assistance that the industrialized countries

provide. Furthermore, it is most ironic that taxpayers in the

industrialized countries pay both for aid and for imports that

are more costly as a result of trade barriers, while the

poorest developing countries lose more in trade than they

gain in aid. For these reasons alone, further progress in

trade liberalization, through success in the Uruguay Round,

is very urgent, and we join other delegations in stressing that

no effort should be spared in bringing the Round to a

successful conclusion.

Of the 42 resolutions on disarmament issues adopted by

the Assembly at its last session, 15 deal with various ways

of controlling nuclear arms, the management of nuclear

waste, the banning of nuclear tests and the elimination of

nuclear weapons. In this regard, we welcome the decisions

by nuclear Powers to extend their testing moratorium, and

we regret very much that this moratorium has just been

breached. We call on all nuclear Powers to continue to

honour the moratorium. In August this year, the South

Pacific Forum welcomed the commitment by the

Governments of France, the United Kingdom and the United

States to the early negotiation of a comprehensive test-ban

treaty. We take this opportunity to urge all the nuclear-

weapon States to participate actively in the negotiations and

to adopt the Treaty as soon as possible.

The signing of the chemical-weapons Convention in

Paris early this year was a major step forward in the process

of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. As a

Forty-eighth session - 11 October l993 11

demonstration of its commitment to that end, Fiji has not

only signed the Convention but also ratified it - the first

country to do so.

In the South Pacific Forum, member Governments,

including the Government of Fiji, highlighted the importance

of an enhanced international regime to deal with possible

transboundary damage arising from peaceful nuclear activity,

and noted the absence of effective international rules for

nuclear liability. Members of the Forum have agreed to

participate in the ongoing deliberations of the Standing

Committee on Nuclear Liability convened by the

International Atomic Energy Agency and to support the

establishment of a comprehensive international legal regime

dealing with liability for nuclear damage and reflecting fully

the principle that the polluter should pay.

Fiji welcomes the continuing growth in the number of

parties to the non-proliferation Treaty and will support

indefinite extension of the Treaty.

In support of international peace and security, we have

consistently contributed to many peace-keeping operations

over the years. Since our first participation in peace-keeping

operations in 1978, Fiji has been involved in seven. We pay

tribute to the men and women currently engaged in United

Nations peace-keeping operations around the world.

Peace-keepers are being increasingly asked to serve in

high-risk environments. That these are high-risk operations

is tragically borne out by the fact that hundreds of

peace-keepers have made the supreme sacrifice in their

service to humanity.

The time is right for the issue of the safety and security

of peace-keeping personnel to be addressed in a more

systematic, comprehensive and practical manner, and we

support the notion wholeheartedly. The related question of

responsibility for attacks on United Nations and associated

personnel, and measures to ensure that those responsible for

such attacks are brought to justice, is also now an important

one to address. We shall fully support any effort in that

direction.

Apart from the large increase in the number of

peace-keeping operations, many important changes are taking

place in the nature of peace-keeping. The eight

peace-keeping operations undertaken since the end of the

cold war have involved not only traditional military activities

but also a wide range of humanitarian and civilian activities.

The constantly changing nature of the various crises means

that we must increasingly be more innovative in designing

peace-keeping operations, as they are normally very costly.

As indicated in the report of the Secretary-General, the

17 peace-keeping operations are now costing the

Organization some $2.8 billion annually. To some extent,

the answer to the increasing costs lies in more preventive

diplomacy aimed at defusing potential conflicts. Moreover,

the involvement of Member States, either on an individual

basis or through regional organizations, in peace-building

and peace-keeping activities appears to be another effective

way of preventing military clashes. In this regard, the

Secretary-General has placed before us several suggestions

which, we believe, deserve our serious consideration and

action.

I now wish to turn briefly to a subject that has been the

focus of a great deal of attention, especially during the last

three years; that is, the subject of sustainable development.

Several resolutions adopted by the Assembly on following

up the important decisions taken at Rio about 15 months ago

are now being implemented at various levels. It is most

encouraging that we now have 162 countries that have

signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and

26 countries that have ratified it.

Fiji ratified the Convention in February this year, and

hopes that the required number of ratifications, 50, will soon

be achieved, so that the Convention can enter into force. As

global warming and a rise in sea level are amongst the most

serious threats to the Pacific region and to the survival of

some small island States, Fiji reaffirms its support for the

Convention and takes this opportunity to urge all States to

sign and ratify it as soon as possible.

Fiji has been active in the area of environmental

management and protection. The Rio Conference has,

however, changed the way in which many of us now view

environment and development issues. More than ever

before, we are committed to the idea that the development

of our economy and society must not come at the expense

of our environment. To the contrary: development and

environmental protection are complementary.

My Government is committed to sound environmental

management and protection as an integral part of our

decision-making process. A national environment strategy

has now been adopted by the Government, and will form the

basis for further work on environmental issues in Fiji.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development has recognized in the Agenda 21 plan of action

for sustainable development, that small island developing

countries are a special case for sustainable development.

Small island countries supporting small communities are

ecologically fragile and vulnerable; because of our small

12 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

size, our resources are limited, and because of our

geographic dispersion and isolation from markets, we are

placed at a disadvantage economically and have limited

economies of scale.

Our dependence on the ocean and our coastal

environments is also very significant. They are not only of

strategic importance to us; they also constitute a valuable

development resource.

It was in this context that, last year, we welcomed the

adoption of General Assembly resolution 47/189 calling for

a Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of

Small Island Developing States, to be convened in

April 1994. We appreciate the very important work that has

been put into the organizational session and the preparatory

meetings, convened early this year. We hope that the

Conference will be successful and will help us not only to

identify the most critical issues involved but also to agree on

precise and practical solutions for overcoming our

vulnerabilities. We urge all member countries to participate

in this Conference and to assist in finding solutions to

problems that have buffeted small island countries for a very

long time.

The small island States contain a wealth of biological

diversity of global significance - our rich marine ecosystems

rivalling the better-known tropical rain forests in their

importance to life on this planet and in their potential for

new knowledge and new products, including medicines. An

international cooperative approach to conserving our coastal

and marine resources would benefit not just the island States

but the world as a whole.

The international community met in July this year and

examined ways and means of conserving and managing

straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. We believe that

good progress was made at this meeting in identifying the

problems that exist and areas in which fisheries cooperation

between States could be improved.

There are still, however, several important tasks

remaining that need to be completed before the next session

of the Assembly. Fiji, therefore, fully supports the

convening of two further sessions next year to enable the

Conference to reach agreement on all issues relating to the

conservation and management of straddling and highly

migratory fish stocks.

Fiji was the first country to ratify the 1982 United

Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We are

therefore gratified that the Convention is soon to achieve the

60 ratifications required for its entry into force. We

continue to support all efforts towards universal participation

in this very important Convention, which is to govern over

70 per cent of the Earth’s surface. In this regard, we are

pleased that all States - including now the United States -

are engaged in the ongoing dialogue to resolve the

outstanding problems and thereby pave the way towards

universality for the Convention.

Over the next few years, the Organization will be

focusing its attention and energies on the convening of

several very important international conferences. While

these conferences will be important in themselves, as they

will bring together the world community, they will not only

discuss issues that are assigned to them but will also provide

opportunities to arrive by consensus at solutions to many of

the critical problems facing the world today.

The World Summit on Social Development planned for

1995 will help to strengthen social development in all

countries by giving political impetus, at the highest level, to

the promotion of social policies. The three core issues that

have been established for the Summit - the alleviation of

poverty, the growth of employment, and the enhancement of

social integration, especially of disadvantaged groups - are

all essential. Above all, the Summit should, in our view,

foster greater understanding of the importance of social

development and, particularly, its relationship with economic

development and protection of the environment.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, to be

convened in Beijing in 1995, will, we hope, be action--

oriented and provide an opportunity to review past activities

and, most important, set new priorities. For its part, my

Government is fully committed to strengthening the role of

women in economic and social development and has taken

several steps to integrate women into the mainstream of

national development. Towards this end, plans have been

formulated and are being implemented by the Ministry of

Women and Culture, other sectoral ministries and non-

governmental organizations. Women constitute more than

50 per cent of Fiji’s population, which makes them valuable

partners in the growth and development of our country and

the uplifting of our people.

We are, at the same time, also turning our attention to

the situation and needs of children in Fiji as we continue to

participate actively in Universal Children’s Day. Fiji has

ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and has

signed the World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and

Development of Children in the 1990s. We have also

undertaken a detailed study of the situation of children in

Fiji and have identified areas which require our attention.

Forty-eighth session - 11 October l993 13

We are now in the process of following up the

recommendations of this study.

Fiji, as a multiracial and multicultural community,

attaches great significance to family values and family

traditions. We therefore welcome and appreciate the

decision by the United Nations to observe 1994 as the

International Year of the Family. My Government has

already formed a national committee, comprising

representatives from both government and non-governmental

sectors, to make preparations for observance of the

International Year of the Family in a meaningful and

practical way.

The International Year of the World’s Indigenous

People will soon be coming to a close. With the observance

of the International Year the attention of the United Nations

has for the first time been focused directly and solely on

indigenous peoples. Next year, the Commission on Human

Rights will assess the activities of the Year. It is important

that the voices of indigenous peoples should continue to be

heard, and their right to self-determination, their right to

rebuild their communities in dignity with freedom of choice,

must continue to receive the full support of the United

Nations.

The draft text of a declaration on indigenous peoples’

rights, first proposed in 1985, received the approval of the

Working Group last July. Fiji welcomes the Working

Group’s decision as an important step towards a

much-needed international instrument on indigenous peoples’

rights.

The International Year of the World’s Indigenous

People, should not, we believe, be treated as an isolated

event, but as the beginning of a long-term policy of

supporting, protecting and learning from the world’s

indigenous peoples. For our part, we have set aside a

special day in our nation’s calendar to commemorate this

event, coinciding with the birthday of Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna,

one of the great leaders of the indigenous people of Fiji.

The indigenous people now comprise the majority of

Fiji’s population but my Government recognizes the need

and will do its utmost to ensure unity, order, equity and

security for all the people of Fiji, so that we can all live in

peace and harmony. We will continue to ensure that

harmonious relationships are established and maintained both

among our own people at home and with other people

abroad.

With reference to my own region, the South Pacific, we

are following very closely the current progress in New

Caledonia towards the self-determination of that territory.

We hope that the developments, as envisaged under the

Matignon and Oudinot accords, will continue so that the

indigenous Kanak population will be fully prepared to take

part in the referendum in 1998 and to decide on the future

political status of their country.

Speaking at the session of the General Assembly last

year, on 8 October, Fiji’s Prime Minister, Major General

Sitiveni Rabuka, promised to initiate a review of the 1990

Constitution of Fiji, which has been the subject of

controversy both locally and abroad. I am pleased to say

that my Government has already set in train the process for

the review of the Constitution, as promised. The review is

to consider how the provisions of the Constitution can be

improved upon to reflect fully the concerns and interests of

Fiji’s multi-ethnic and multicultural society.

This Organization, now almost 50 years old, has stood

the test of time but, like other institutions, it must also adjust

to change. We must continue to examine ways of making

it a forum for both discussion and action on the important

social, economic and political issues facing the world

community as they evolve.

In conclusion, I should like to reaffirm my country’s

commitment to the United Nations and to the spirit of

international cooperation and solidarity that it embodies. My

country, and its people, joins with other nations to do its

utmost to seek world peace, stability and sustainable

development for all. We firmly believe that the United

Nations remains the only hope for mankind to achieve peace

and prosperity. It is through the combined efforts of all

Member States, large and small, that we can develop a

global environment which is just and equitable and which

reflects the legitimate needs and interests of all peoples.