Gabon, 2005

Mr. President, your election to the presidency of this

session of the General Assembly is indisputably an

historic moment, which Gabon appreciates fully, since

your country has succeeded Gabon in this post. Thus, I

should like to congratulate you most warmly on behalf

of my delegation and assure you of Gabon’s support

throughout your term. I should also like to express my

gratitude to the Secretary-General for his immense,

bold and tireless actions in favour of the reinvigoration

and the restoration of the prestige of the United

Nations system. Allow me also to pay well-deserved

tribute to the President of the fifty-ninth session of the

General Assembly, His Excellency Mr. Jean Ping,

Minister of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs,

Cooperation and Francophonie of the Republic of

Gabon, for his outstanding contribution to the reform

of our Organization.

The important document adopted last Friday by

the High-level Meeting testifies to this reform effort. I

therefore welcome the fact that you have invited us to

focus our debate on the follow-up to the measures

adopted by the world leaders last week.

Today, 60 years after its creation, the United

Nations has stood the test of time. The dysfunctions

noted recently highlight the need to press ahead with

essential institutional reform. In that connection, a

comment by Montesquieu comes to mind and I quote,

“When a good thing has disadvantages, it is better to

do away with the disadvantages than with the thing

itself.” The author of The Spirit of Laws was

suggesting that we need to make a distinction between

ideals and human endeavour.

More than an end in itself, the reform process

must, whenever necessary, make it possible to adapt

the United Nations to the demands of the times and to

the many complex mandates entrusted to it. In this

context, we should pay particular attention to the

General Assembly. It is the most representative forum

of the international community, a site par excellence

for cooperation, for negotiation and for sharing

responsibilities.

The United Nations is the seat of legitimacy and

moral authority at the international level and it

participates in the ideal of shared destinies of nations

and the peoples of the world. This is why Gabon

reiterates yet again its support for initiatives aimed at a

consensus-based reform of the Security Council, as the

Council’s expansion should derive from the dual need

for representativity and effectiveness.

Once reformed, the United Nations can deal

better with the many challenges facing humankind

today, such as HIV/AIDS, environmental degradation,

terrorism, armed conflicts and poverty. The HIV/AIDS

pandemic, which affects rich and poor nations alike

without distinction, is a serious threat to sparsely-

populated countries such as Gabon. More than ever,

developing countries call upon the international

community to display effective and active solidarity in

order to limit the worst effects of this pandemic.

Since vaccine experiments have not yet been

conclusive, and the therapeutic trials are still

insufficient, efforts must be focused on prevention and

on access to antiretroviral drugs in accordance with the

agreement concluded within the context of the World

Trade Organization. Gabon itself has taken solid

initiatives, ranging from awareness campaigns to the

implementation of action plans such as the

multisectoral strategic plan to combat AIDS, in which

the First Lady of Gabon, Madame Edith Lucie Bongo

Ondimba, is personally involved. We welcome the fact

that the final document of the High-level Meeting

reaffirmed the commitment of the international

community to fight HIV-AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis

and other infectious diseases.

It is undeniable that the global challenges are

numerous and interdependent. Environmental

degradation has become one of the main threats to life

on earth. The consequences of climate change caused

by human activity are at the root of natural disasters

that are unprecedented in scale. The future of

generations to come is thus compromised. It is in this

context that the concept of sustainable development,

which means in fact intergenerational solidarity, must

be made systematic, so as to underlie both public and

private policies.

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Certainly, the Stockholm conference in 1972 that

led to the establishment of the United Nations

Environment Programme, the Rio Conference on

Environment and Development in 1992 and the

Johannesburg Conference in 2002 were important

stages in the growing awareness of the international

community. But, we can and must do better. The

French proposal aimed at creating a United Nations

organization for the environment, in addition to

existing mechanisms, seems to us in this respect very

timely. We should ensure follow-up to this idea, as

proposed by the final document of the High-level

Meeting. Likewise, following an integrated approach,

we support the actions taken by the International

Organization of la Francophonie to promote the

environment and sustainable development. The most

recent Summit of Heads of State of la Francophonie,

which was held in Ouagadougou from 26 to

27 November 2004, adopted a document along these

lines entitled “A strategic ten-year framework for

biodiversity and the protection of the environment

throughout the francophone area”.

The common heritage of the environment must be

the subject of more ambitious and more generous

international cooperation that seeks to reduce the gap

between two sets of partners that often have

contradictory expectations, that is, on the one hand, the

developed countries, and, on the other, the developing

countries.

What can we say about terrorism, that tentacled

creature, that inscrutable threat, whose ubiquity evades

vigilance and even punitive measures? Friendly

countries have recently endured tragic experiences, and

others, unfortunately, have them nearly every day. It

has to be said that on 11 September 2001 terrorism

sounded the death knell for any feeling of safety.

One of the notable points of the final documents

of the High-level Meeting of last week is the firm and

unambiguous condemnation of terrorism in all its

forms and manifestations. This is notable progress that

will, I am sure, facilitate the efforts of the international

community aimed at adopting a comprehensive

convention on international terrorism, a task on which

the sixtieth session of the General Assembly must

focus and to which it must devote itself.

Wishing to support the efforts of the international

community to stem this scourge, the Head of State of

Gabon has just signed the International Convention for

the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. “Peace

within, peace with others and peace amongst others” is

a tradition on which Gabon prides itself, a tradition

that reflects the purposes and principles of the Charter

of the United Nations.

At the beginning of the third millennium, many

African countries were still in the grip of instability

and armed conflicts. To find a way out of that impasse

and steer towards a more stable and prosperous Africa,

African heads of State and Government set up

mechanisms within the African Union such as the

Peace and Security Council, which seeks to manage

political crises and intra-State conflicts. The objective

of the African States is to equip themselves with the

means to ensure their own security. It is clear that

regional mechanisms cannot manage indefinitely

without bilateral agreements, multilateral cooperation

and other relevant alliances. In this respect, allow me

to commend the active role taken by the United

Nations in maintaining peace in Africa, particularly in

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire

and the Sudan.

We also note with satisfaction NATO’s

willingness to accept the unprecedented invitation of

the African Union, made by the Chairman of the

Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré.

Allow me also to stress here the role played by

Gabon in all of these peace processes, which have

resulted in a gradual improvement in the security

situation on the continent. The President of the

Republic of Gabon, El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba,

has been fully involved, along with his African peers,

in the resolution of African crises — consistently

offering his good offices and mediation services

whenever requested.

Given the current situation in the Sudan, with the

tragic death of the Vice-President, John Garang, the

international community as a whole must ensure that

the ceasefire agreement signed in January 2005

holds — a necessary condition for the consolidation of

peace and peacebuilding. I call on the parties

concerned to respect their commitments in order that

the peace process now under way may be concluded.

With respect to Central Africa, we welcome the

relative calm seen in countries that were recently in

crisis, particularly in the Central African Republic,

Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I

should like here to welcome the conclusion of the

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electoral process in Burundi and to express thanks for

the contribution made by the United Nations, the

African Union and South Africa.

Gabon, which made its own modest contribution

to the process, humbly encourages all of the new

leaders to display political clear-sightedness and

tolerance, with a view to the achievement of lasting

peace. Their decision to create a Peacebuilding

Commission will no doubt help to enhance the United

Nations peacekeeping machinery.

As regards the economy, I need hardly recall that

debt represents a major handicap for our countries.

Indeed, nearly a third of our financial resources are

devoted to debt servicing. Thus once again we would

draw the attention of the international community to

the specific situation involving the indebtedness of

middle-income countries like Gabon.

Indeed, Gabon remains the only country in sub-

Saharan Africa classified as a high-level middle-

income country, thus making it ineligible for the

Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Debt

Initiative, despite the political and economic reforms

under way for more than a decade. The current surge in

the price of oil — our State’s main budget resource —

further fuels the illusion of a monetary surplus and

does not really help us in the area of development

financing, since the oil bonus basically goes to service

external debt.

It is true that at the Gleneagles, United Kingdom,

summit last July, endorsing the London Declaration of

11 June 2005, the G-8 countries and other donors

undertook important commitments. Gabon, for its part,

would like to see those commitments translated into

action, so as to increase the likelihood of achieving the

Millennium Development Goals, to which my country

is particularly committed.

I also welcome the fact that the summit’s final

document recognized the urgent need to redouble

efforts to achieve development objectives agreed at the

international level, including the Millennium

Development Goals.

In conclusion, I should like to express the hope

that the work of the General Assembly at its sixtieth

session will be crowned with success, so that together

we can work to bring about a community of peoples

and nations living in peace, security and stability. May

God inspire our work.