Gabon, 1999

I am pleased to convey

to the President on behalf of the delegation of Gabon, our

warmest congratulations on his well-deserved election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth

session. In addition to the tribute his election pays to

Namibia, it is eloquent testimony to both his personal and

professional qualities. We hardly need to point out that he

was one of the principal architects of Namibia's

independence. Today, the President has the honour of

presiding over the last Assembly session of the century and

of leading the United Nations towards the new millennium.

Allow me through you to assure him of my delegation's

complete and wholehearted cooperation.

To his predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti, Minister for

Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, I extend my deepest gratitude

for the work accomplished during his term of office.

I congratulate the Secretary-General for his initiatives

and actions towards peace and security worldwide.

To the three new Member States, the Republic of

Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga,

which have just joined the great United Nations family, I

convey my warmest congratulations.

I am convinced that this session will enable us to

share our thoughts on the increasingly complex challenges

that our Organization must face if it is to create the

necessary conditions for the maintenance of international

peace and security and for economic and social

development.

We are entering a major period of transition marked

by the end of one century and the beginning of another,

so it is beyond necessary for the international community

to see to it that the new millennium is spared the scourges

that sap humankind's strength.

During this century that is now coming to its end,

the world has undergone a rapid acceleration in the pace

of history and a thorough transformation as a result of

combined effects of the explosion in the numbers of new

technologies, the expansion of trade and the breathtaking

increase in the role played by markets. The scale of this

transformation, which affects all aspects of people's lives,

is today so great that no nation can escape its influence.

Unfortunately, nations are not all in the same boat:

some steadily accumulate progress and prosperity while

others seem destined to a bottomless pit of destitution. I

am thinking here specifically about the African countries

which, unlike the rest of the world, have not yet taken

advantage of the profound changes in the world, and

whose access to the so often trumpeted shared prosperity

is denied. I am thinking also about one and a half billion

men and women around the world who live on less than

a dollar a day, and the billion adults who can neither read

nor write. I am thinking too about the 300 million

Africans who eke out their lives in a state of abject

poverty on the outer margins of the global village.

Add to this bleak picture the heavy burden of debt,

which is strangling our economies, compromising any

attempt at development and reducing us to the level of

modern-day slaves at the tender mercy of our creditors.

The budgetary resources allocated to service external

debt overwhelm all efforts to meet the most basic needs

of our people. It is therefore crucial that the recurring

problem of debt should be considered not only in terms

of socio-economic indicators but also taking into account

a State's efforts to combat poverty.

While welcoming the recent initiative undertaken at

Cologne by the Group of Seven and Russia with a view

to cancelling the debt of the most heavily indebted

countries, the Government of Gabon is nevertheless

disappointed by the fact that the eligibility criteria for

those countries are so restrictive; for it must be recalled

that debt, like poverty, is a constant threat to the stability

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of States. Therefore, the burning question of global

proportions that we must all face is how to take advantage,

both individually and collectively, of the current prodigious

global prosperity and the enormous accumulation of wealth

created by globalization in order to substantially reduce the

poverty of nations and of their people.

As the Minister Fischer of Germany said recently,

“Africa must not be a loser in globalization. The

rich countries of the North have not only a duty, but

also an interest, in assisting their poorest neighbours

in the southern hemisphere to seize the opportunities

that globalization offers them and to allow them to

participate more equitably in the global economy”.

My country feels that the time has come for the

international community to seriously tackle the unavoidable

problem of the eradication of poverty, at least in its most

extreme form. We share the firm conviction that our

Organization must promote, in the words of the Charter,

“higher standards of living, full employment, and

conditions of economic and social progress and

development”.

This would be the first step towards eliminating the

imbalances that are among the underlying causes of many

conflicts around the world, for a world in which some make

progress while others fall behind carries within it the seeds

of its own instability. Can we therefore move towards a

new concept of the idea of security that no longer focuses

on the security of nations alone, but that focuses above all

on the well-being of peoples? The sine qua non condition

for sparing future generations from the scourge of war is to

move from a culture of war towards a culture of peace.

There are genuine reasons to be concerned about peace

and stability in the world. Maintaining international peace

and security, a task assigned to our Organization, has been

severely put to the test by the outbreak and persistence of

a number of crises. In this regard, Africa has become the

main theatre of these devastating crises, which result in

countless victims, refugees and displaced persons.

In spite of this regrettable situation, we have seen

some encouraging signs concerning the restoration of peace

in certain African subregions. The recent signing of the

peace Agreement by all the parties to the conflict in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, including all the rebel

movements, now opens up the way for a lasting settlement

of the conflict. We urge all the parties to translate into

action the will they expressed in signing the Lusaka

Agreement on 10 July 1999. It is now urgent for the

international community, and for the Security Council in

particular, to take the necessary steps for the full

implementation of the Agreement without delay.

In the neighbouring Republic of the Congo, the

authorities have again recently expressed their willingness

to engage in dialogue with the opposition. In return, the

opposition has also made clear its intention to take part in

an inter-Congolese dialogue in order to achieve lasting

peace.

The recent Lomé Agreement on Sierra Leone is also

a positive sign of a return of lasting peace to that country.

My country is pleased with the resumption of the

peace process in the Middle East and urges the complete

application of the Wye Plantation agreements, as well as

full compliance with the agreements signed in the past.

Despite all of this progress, we cannot overlook the

fact that important efforts still have to made in Angola as

a result of UNITA's refusal to implement the Lusaka

agreements.

Likewise, despite the prospects that are beginning to

appear, the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea

still remains a burning issue.

According to the most recent report of the Secretary-

General, Somalia is, unfortunately, still without State

institutions. The time has come to reintegrate that country

into the concert of nations.

Guaranteeing lasting peace and security is today a

collective matter. Although the primary responsibility for

the maintenance of peace falls to the Security Council, it

is appropriate for the United Nations to encourage the

development of regional peacekeeping and security

mechanisms, in accordance with Chapter VIII of the

Charter. Significant progress has been made in Central

Africa in preventing and managing conflicts within the

framework of the United Nations Standing Advisory

Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa. The

implementation of the early-warning mechanism and the

creation of the high council for peace and security in

Central Africa are perfect examples of this.

It is also worth mentioning the joint military

exercises to be held by the member States of the

Committee in Gabon during the first half of the year 2000

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to simulate peacekeeping operations. Furthermore, in

preparation for the military exercises that will be held in

Gabon within the framework of strengthening African

peacekeeping capabilities, a military-diplomatic seminar

took place in Libreville in June 1999, with the participation

of 51 countries and international organizations.

In the last few weeks, the Security Council has held

public debates on such vital topics as children and civilians

in armed conflicts. And five days ago, I had the honour of

participating in another public debate of the Security

Council on small weapons. This matter is part of the United

Nations efforts to work towards complete disarmament.

Indeed, the illegal circulation of massive quantities of light

and small-calibre weapons in the world hampers

development and represents a real threat to international

peace and security. The nature of these weapons

unfortunately helps fuel the sad and widely condemned

phenomenon of the use of children as combatants in the

many conflicts that break out around the world. The same

applies to large-scale banditry.

In any case, we cannot envision a world at peace if

the international community does not actively mobilize to

help developing countries emerge from the vicious circle of

underdevelopment-violence-underdevelopment. If luck has

heretofore spared us from the horrors of war, Gabon is not

immune to the backlash of the armed conflicts that plague

some of our neighbours. As Security Council resolution

1208 (1998) clearly indicates, asylum countries pay a heavy

price for their solidarity with people driven out of their

homes as a result of combat. The consequences of refugee

flows on the security, environment and economies of host

countries are sometimes incalculable, especially when the

presence of combatants among the refugees is used as an

excuse for troops to carry out raids in the host country.

Even though we live in peace and have never

experienced a domestic or inter-State war, Gabon

nevertheless shoulders its share of the burdens of war. We

are facing massive migratory flows that are leading to

serious internal upheavals, and we recently welcomed some

50,000 refugees.

Given the extent of the situation, for which my

country was not prepared, the President of the Republic of

Gabon organized on 11 August last a mini-summit in

Libreville with the participation of a number of his peers

from the subregion. That summit considered the possibility

of Africans' taking greater control of the question of

refugees and displaced persons, with the support of the

international community.

On that occasion, President Bongo proposed the

creation of an African agency for emergency humanitarian

intervention. I would urgently appeal to the international

community to provide greater assistance to African

refugees. We strongly hope that an emergency programme

can be set up that would relieve their suffering and

facilitate their return to their country of origin. The

international community has the means to do so, as it has

proved in other situations.

I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to

pay warm tribute to Mrs. Sadako Ogata, United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees, who, during the

international action taken in favour of Kosovo, heightened

the international community's awareness of the particular

situation of African refugees.

Let me now tackle the question of development from

the perspective of my country's experience. As in other

African countries, the socio-economic situation of Gabon

is precarious. I shall not then resort to clichés such as

saying that my country is an “African emirate” because of

our potential in raw materials, to the extent that today we

are the only sub-Saharan nation to be classified by

international financial and monetary institutions as an

upper-middle-income country. As a result, we are denied

access to flexible conditions for our loans and for our

debt service.

However, the Human Development Index, which

places us in 124th place, clearly shows that Gabon is in

a very similar situation to that of other African countries.

That is why we have undertaken all of the necessary

structural reforms to join the global economy and to

participate in subregional and regional integration. We

have liberalized our economy by lifting tariff and non-

tariff barriers and restrictions as well as by instituting

customs and tax reform. We have privatized our principal

semi-public corporations in order to make them more

effective and competitive. We have created a new

juridical and institutional environment that is stable and

will encourage investment and promote the expansion of

the private sector. Finally, we have set up effective

provisions for cooperation and regional integration in the

framework of the Economic and Monetary Community of

Central Africa and of the Economic Community of

Central African States.

The stage has been set, but the actors — meaning

the investors — have not yet made their entrance. Foreign

direct investment has thus far systematically avoided our

continent.

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We feel, however, that the world economy stands to

gain by taking advantage of the immense potential of the

African market, which will soon have a billion consumers

in a continent that is overflowing with oil, gold, diamonds

and other raw materials required by industries of the North.

My country's leadership is dedicated to the promotion

of democracy and the institutions that guarantee it— hence

all of the political changes we have experienced and are

experiencing, which have made Gabon an example of a

smooth transition from a single-party regime to political

pluralism.

It is against this backdrop that recently, in the

presence of international observers and for the second time

since the advent of political pluralism, free and fair

presidential elections were held in my country. The

President of the Republic, El Hadj Omar Bongo, was re-

elected in a peaceful social and political context, a

guarantee of democratic legitimacy.

Democracy which is accompanied by good

governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights is

the most important factor in the transition towards a culture

of peace. For lasting peace is a prerequisite for the exercise

of all the rights and obligations of peoples, and it is the

only soil in which democracy and development can take

root.

It is therefore up to the United Nations system and its

Member States to ensure that these goals and principles, so

dear to us, become a reality for all in the new millennium.