Germany, 1995

Please accept my warm

congratulations, Sir, on your election as President of the

General Assembly at its fiftieth session. At the same time,

I wish to thank your predecessor, Ambassador Essy, for

his successful work.

The United Nations 50 years on — that makes this

session of the General Assembly an event of extra-special

significance. The people of the world have high

expectations. We must take stock, but in so doing we

must, above all, look to the future.

The representatives of 50 nations who assembled in

San Francisco in the year 1945 were intended to be, as

President Truman put it, “the architects of a better world”.

What has become of their blue-print?

Today the family of nations has 185 members.

Millions of people all over the world owe their lives, their

freedom and their health, their jobs and their homes, to

the United Nations and its specialized agencies.

Decolonization has been completed, apartheid has been

overcome, and respect for human rights is no longer an

internal affair. In the field of disarmament a historic

breakthrough has been achieved: in May of this year the

proliferation of nuclear weapons was halted. That

constitutes a big step towards making the world safe for

mankind.

All these are considerable achievements which many

critics of the United Nations have overlooked in this

jubilee year, achievements on which you, in particular,

Mr. Secretary-General, and your staff are to be

congratulated. Indeed, the United Nations, in spite of

some unjustified criticism, can take pride in what it has

done for the cause of peace, freedom and human dignity.

Especially worthy of our gratitude and appreciation

are the more than 68,000 United Nations troops currently

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serving on missions in all regions of the world. When

servicemen from Asia, Africa or Latin America attend to

the basic needs of refugees in Europe, in the former

Yugoslavia, and keep the beleaguered people from starving,

then that is, I believe, a marvellous indication that the “one

world” is a reality. Lest we forget: nearly 5,000 of those

troops, the Blue Helmets, have been killed or wounded in

the line of duty. The Convention on the Safety of United

Nations and Associated Personnel must be put into effect as

soon as possible. This we owe to all those who serve the

United Nations.

As we recap the events of the past year, we also have

to consider the huge problems now confronting the world

Organization. The ability to safeguard peace: that is the

world’s main criterion when judging the United Nations.

And here we have reached a critical point.

Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia: these countries stand for

disappointment and setbacks as well. However, I should

like to make it very clear that in such cases the culprit is

quickly found, too quickly. Nothing is more convenient

than to point to the alleged inefficiency of the United

Nations. And nothing could be further from the truth.

When it has not been possible to help people, when

United Nations troops have been humiliated in the former

Yugoslavia, it has in nearly every instance not been the

fault of the United Nations. The problems have lain in its

unsatisfactory mandate, in the lack of political will on the

part of Member States, and, unfortunately, in the shortage

of funds. It is we, the Members, who cause the difficulties.

Following the holding of United Nations troops as

hostages, the atrocities in Zepa and Srebrenica, and the

terrible second bloodbath in Sarajevo’s market place, the

community of nations has demonstrated that there is a limit

to the amount of brutality and contempt for international

law it will tolerate. And there has to be a limit.

The resolve of the United Nations and the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has paid off — not

only for the people of Sarajevo, who for three years have

been starving and freezing and kept under constant fire, but

also for the peace process.

Yesterday, here in New York, the parties to the

conflict had another meeting with the Contact Group, of

which Germany is a member. Another step forward was

achieved on the constitutional issue following the result

achieved in Geneva, and I believe this step to be a decisive

one. For the first time since the conflict began there is a

realistic prospect of a negotiated peace settlement.

But I should like to warn against being over-

euphoric. A lot has still to be done. We shall have to put

one stone on top of another stone in order to finish this

building. This time none of the participants should leave

the conference table until an agreement has been

reached — a peaceful agreement at the negotiating table,

and not an agreement on the basis of military actions.

Anyone who continues to prefer bloodshed, to prefer

military actions, will be taking a great responsibility upon

himself.

From the beginning, Germany has played an active

part in these efforts. We have never taken sides, nor did

we ever want to take sides, against one party; rather, we

have always taken up the cause of the victims, those who

have been tormented and driven from their homes.

To date, the German Government’s humanitarian aid

in the region amounts to more than 1 billion Deutsche

marks. And I should like to stress strongly that we have

no double standards, nor should we have double

standards. In the short time since August, we have

provided more than 6 million marks to help Serbian

refugees from Krajina.

My country has contributed in various ways to all

peace-keeping operations. By sending medical personnel

to Split and deploying Tornado fighters for the first

time — fighters which we have made available in

Piacenze, Italy — in a United Nations peace-keeping

mission, we have also shown that we do not merely talk

about taking on more responsibility, but that we act to do

so.

We will also meet our responsibility when it comes

to implementing the terms of a peace settlement — and

I hope that this settlement will come soon. The

reconstruction of Bosnia’s economy requires a genuinely

international cooperative effort, an effort on the part of

the international community. The European Union — and

Germany, of course, as a member of the European

Union — will play its part.

What lessons can and must we learn from what has

happened in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia?

First, the United Nations must confine itself to doing

what is feasible. Its resources are obviously being strained

beyond the limit. It cannot take on every responsibility. It

5

cannot solve all the problems that the world is confronted

with.

Secondly, the extent and duration of the commitment

of the United Nations must be more precise, the political

and military objectives must be clearly defined, and there

must be a realistic and, above all, coherent mandate.

Thirdly, if the world Organization is going to

intervene, then it must act consistently and resolutely. There

must be no repetition of what happened in Rwanda or Zepa

or Srebrenica.

Fourthly, cooperation between the United Nations and

other organizations such as NATO must from the outset be

planned in such a way that maximum speed and, above all,

efficiency are assured.

Fifthly, we believe that the regional organizations must

play a larger role than they have done so far. Not every

problem must go straight to the United Nations. In Europe,

for instance, and in other places of the world too, the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

(OSCE) could assume much greater responsibility.

However, we have to enable it to do so.

Still, let there be no illusions. Peace-keeping is not just

a fair-weather exercise. Such missions will always be apt to

create problems for the world Organization.

And, in view of the hundreds of thousands of lives

that have been saved in Somalia and Bosnia, who can argue

with an easy conscience that the United Nations should not

have intervened? And many of these people have already

been forgotten. What is required here is an increased peace-

keeping capacity — constructive help, not destructive

criticism.

And to those who over and over again have called into

question the actions of the United Nations and its peace-

keeping operations, I would like to address the following

question: Is there an alternative? Who could take the place

of the United Nations? Indeed, Europe has not been able to

cope with this tragedy in its own house as well as we all

hoped it would.

But nor should we forget the European Union’s

achievements in the former Yugoslavia. It paved the way

for the Contact Group’s ongoing peace efforts.

To my mind, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia

emphasizes how important and right it was for Western

Europe to embark on a new course after the Second

World War, a course that was directed against nationalism

and against the use of force. For four decades, as a result

of the East-West conflict, not all European nations were

able to follow that route of the European Community,

today’s European Union.

The European Union is now striving to correct that

terrible aberration and bridge the gulfs that separate it

from Central and Eastern Europe. The goal is one Europe,

a Europe in which the old big-Power politics and

hegemonic aspirations can never again take root.

That Europe must have a legitimate place for Russia,

but for Ukraine as well. The European house does not

consist solely of the European Union: it has many rooms.

Neither of these two nations, Russia or Ukraine, should

be left outside. To our Russian and Ukrainian partners

and friends I say: Europe needs your contribution and it

does so also in bringing peace to the former Yugoslavia.

Here their new partnership with the European Union and

NATO must — and, I add, will — prove its value.

Many feared that when the East-West confrontation

disappeared Europe would focus exclusively on its own

affairs. That has not been the case. The European Union

is intensifying its political, economic and cultural

cooperation with the other regions of the world.

In Asia, Africa and Latin America it is already a

model for peace, prosperity and regional integration. In

the United Nations the European Union is the principal

partner for dialogue with the developing countries.

The European Union and Germany have been

particularly active in promoting peace and economic

recovery in the Middle East. The recent agreement on the

West Bank worked out by Yassir Arafat and Shimon

Peres is another important milestone on the road to lasting

peace in that region. I congratulate both sides on their

courage and on their far-sightedness. The United States is

playing a major part in this process in this region. We are

grateful to them for that. Egypt has rendered an important

contribution as an intermediary.

Increasing the peace-keeping capacity of the United

Nations also involves reforming the Security Council.

There is now a global consensus, I believe, that this is

necessary.

The first steps towards reform have already been

taken. More changes have been made to the Council’s

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methods of work and more transparency achieved in the

past two years than in the whole of the previous four

decades.

Like many other Member States, Germany considers

that the Council should have more permanent and non-

permanent members. The nations of Asia, Africa and Latin

America need wider representation and I think we owe it to

them. They have deserved it. The same applies to several

countries with an important global role.

Germany, with the support of many Member States,

has announced its interest in permanent membership of the

Security Council. Our willingness to assume greater

responsibility, also within this framework, is for us the

logical and consistent extension of our commitment to the

United Nations. This commitment is consistent with the

fundamental principle of our foreign policy, which is to

give priority to multilateral cooperation. We have abided by

that principle in pursuing European integration, and we

believe that that same principle would help us play a useful

role in the Security Council.

The world finds itself faced with many new conflicts

and challenges. It is crucial that in dealing with them we

should focus our efforts more than we have done so far on

conflict prevention. A political solution must remain the

first option. That requires wider use of human rights

observers, improvements in the United Nations early

warning system, the promotion of democratization and the

observation of election processes, as successfully done

recently in Mozambique.

We have provided a list of experienced intermediaries

for the tasks of preventive diplomacy. The example of

Macedonia shows what the preventive deployment of

United Nations Blue Helmets can achieve. I am very happy

about the agreement that has been achieved between Greece

and Macedonia on this extremely important issue.

Preventing fire can save countless lives and in any case it

is cheaper than putting fires out. On my recent visit to

Rwanda I was deeply shocked, in the truest sense of the

word, by the atrocities that have been perpetrated there by

human beings on other human beings. If the United Nations

had intervened at an early stage and resolutely, many lives

could have been saved.

Germany has set up a substantial emergency aid

programme for Rwanda. We are trying in particular to do

something about the awful prison conditions. I myself

visited prisons, in Kigali for example, and I must tell you

that I have never seen anything like that in all my life.

Urgent remedies are needed here to ensure that one

injustice is not followed by another. I travelled to Burundi

too, and I returned deeply saddened and concerned. We

must not make the same mistakes in Burundi.

Disarmament, arms control and confidence-

building — these are some of the main components of

conflict prevention. In recent years we have made the

kind of progress that no one would have believed possible

at the height of the arms race 15 years ago. The task of

buttressing this breakthrough and building on the

achievements has acquired great political significance.

A few weeks ago we commemorated the fiftieth

anniversary of the first atomic bomb explosions over

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons must never,

never, be used again. They must be eliminated

completely, as required by article VI of the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. That aim was

reaffirmed by the nuclear Powers at the New York

Conference extending the Treaty.

Never has the door to a ban on every kind of

nuclear-test explosion been wider open than today. We

must now direct all our efforts to the achievement of this

goal. The Geneva negotiations must produce such a

comprehensive ban by the autumn of 1996 at the latest.

Anti-personnel mines, too, are “weapons of mass

destruction”. Day in, day out, they are taking a terrible

toll on human life, and many of the victims are women

and, above all, innocent children. If any kind of weapon

must be outlawed, then this one should be.

Eliminating this scourge is a task of the highest

priority, particularly in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique,

Afghanistan, Georgia and Cambodia. Germany, together

with its European partners, will continue the initiative in

this direction during this session of the General

Assembly.

At the First Review Conference of the Convention

on certain conventional weapons, which opened in Vienna

the day before yesterday, tougher export restrictions will

have to be agreed on and a strict ban imposed on the use

of anti-personnel mines.

I appeal to all Members of the United Nations: In

the name of humanity, accede to the Convention on

certain conventional weapons as quickly as possible.

7

There are good reasons why the work of the United

Nations began with the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights. The United Nations is more than a mere gathering

of sovereign States. It is based on the common belief in the

dignity and worth of every human being, and it is my view

that this must remain the focal point of all political activity.

Universal Children’s Day, celebrated a week ago,

reminded us of the awful fate to which these, the weakest

members of society, are often exposed. The United Nations

Children’s Fund (UNICEF) therefore needs the support of

every one of us.

The task of helping those people all over the world

who have been persecuted and deprived of their rights must

remain at the top of the political agenda. Pressure from the

international community, the media, non-governmental

organizations and private citizens must be maintained.

Those who torture people and who treat human rights with

contempt should not be able to sleep peacefully. To this

end, the High Commissioner’s position will have to be

strengthened and the Centre for Human Rights better

equipped. People who commit war crimes must know that

they will be prosecuted under international criminal law.

Hence, Germany strongly urges the establishment of a

permanent international court of justice.

But above all, stronger measures to protect minorities

are called for. “Ethnic cleansing” is no basis for peaceful

coexistence, either in Europe or anywhere else.

More than 27 million people are today on the move.

This is one of the most dramatic events of our time. The

cause is not only hunger and distress, but, in most cases,

unfortunately, ethnic and religious fanaticism. Diversity of

culture and tradition is one of the world’s greatest assets,

and no one should seek to impose a particular model of

society on others.

The fact that there exists a core of human rights which

everyone has to respect is quite a different matter. This was

reaffirmed at the Vienna Conference and should not be

challenged by anyone.

Today the dialogue of cultures is central to the quest

for peace. I have invited leading representatives of the

Islamic world to come to Germany in November to

participate in such a dialogue. My feeling is that we have

to learn to understand each other better. I have also urged

that the Bosnia Contact Group closely coordinate its efforts

with the Islamic Contact Group.

In Germany, two and a half million Muslims are

living harmoniously with the local community. In my

view, it is extremely important that we should develop

cooperation and mutual trust at the international level as

well, and I am speaking as the German Foreign Minister.

Islam cannot be equated with terrorism or

fundamentalism. No new enemy stereotypes must be

allowed to develop. I think that we should be happy that

we have been able to do away with the old ones.

Peace and development are inseparable. Any reform

of the United Nations worthy of that name should

therefore encompass economic and social matters as well.

This fiftieth anniversary is a unique opportunity to create

a modern framework for a new development in

partnership. Work on the Agenda for Development must

therefore be completed as soon as possible.

Apart from improving and simplifying the finance

regime for United Nations development activities, the

chief concern is to coordinate and efficiently implement

the results of the world conferences on the environment,

social problems, population growth and women —

especially the Conference on Women that has just ended

in Beijing.

These are the main interrelated issues of our time as

we pursue the goal of peace. The planet Earth must

remain habitable for future generations as well. Progress

is possible only through equal and fair partnership

between North and South. Germany will continue to exert

every effort to this end.

None of this can be done unless we can come to

grips with the biggest crisis confronting the United

Nations: that of its financial situation. There is no reason

to deny that it has assumed dramatic proportions; one has

to be quite frank about this. This crisis can be overcome

only if all contributors, and especially the main ones,

meet their obligations punctually. Germany is the third

largest contributor to the United Nations, and we pay our

bills. We cannot allow a situation to continue where those

who pay their contributions on time are also burdened

with the arrears of wealthier Members. Unless decisive

action is taken very soon, whole areas of activity could

grind to a halt.

I very much welcome the confirmation by the

American Secretary of State that the United States stands

by the obligations arising from its membership. The

United Nations needs an America that fulfils its

8

leadership role, just as the United States needs a world

Organization capable of, and willing to undertake, reform.

How can we overcome this financial crisis? First, we

must restore the balance between the budgets for peace-

keeping operations and the regular budget of the United

Nations. We cannot allow resources for such operations to

be used up to the point of depletion while at the same time

funds for urgent programmes of economic or social

development are either non-existent or have to be cut back.

Secondly, it is time we found a scale of assessments

that reflects Members’ actual ability to pay. You,

Mr. Secretary-General, have made great efforts to

rationalize the Organization’s work, to ensure budgetary

discipline and to reduce staff. I appeal to all Member States

to give Under-Secretary-General Paschke the support he

needs for his difficult job.

The United Nations is indispensable to the task of

maintaining global order and as a forum and instrument for

international cooperation, today no less than in the era after

the Second World War. No other organization has the same

ability to focus the interests and energies of the world’s

nations, which we believe is necessary.

The United Nations is not “the others”, but us, the

Members. And this Organization is only as strong and as

united as we, its Members, make it.

Hence my appeal today to the Assembly: let us stop

our constant vacillation between euphoria and

disappointment regarding the United Nations. Let us stop

apportioning blame, which leads nowhere. Let us rather

merge vision and pragmatism, solidarity and responsibility

for our own actions into a rational and realistic international

partnership under the aegis of the United Nations. Let us

give this world Organization more clout and make it more

efficient and economical. Yes, we will have to slim down

the United Nations. It has to save money. Let us do these

things in a constructive spirit, together with, and on behalf

of, the United Nations. Let us give the United Nations what

it needs — including paying our dues.

That is what the world community expects of us now,

and rightly so. That is the task facing the family of nations

on the threshold of the new millennium. If the reforms fail,

there will be only losers.

“Hope is the pillar of the world”, they say in South

Africa. Fifty years ago, such a pillar of hope for mankind

was erected in San Francisco. Let us do everything to

ensure that this pillar will continue to support the hopes

of mankind in the next 50 years as well. Germany will

continue to play its part.