India, 1994

I congratulate Mr.

Amara Essy on his election as President of the General

Assembly at the forty-ninth session. We are particularly

gratified that an eminent son of Africa is leading the

Assembly’s deliberations this year.

We offer our thanks to his predecessor, Ambassador

Insanally, who presided over a year of considerable

activity in the General Assembly with great aplomb and

finesse. The Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros

Boutros-Ghali, will be completing three years in office.

We wish him well as he continues to lead the United

Nations.

We have already welcomed the new South Africa to

the United Nations. South Africa today is a reminder of

the triumph of the principle of equality of man - a

triumph in which the United Nations played a major role.

The world community must commit itself to ensuring that

this principle is implemented for all time to come. All

efforts should be made for the development of South

Africa.

Forty-nine years ago a world tired of war declared

that at this foundry of the United Nations it would beat its

swords into ploughshares. Instead, we have only

produced words, while the swords have not disappeared.

The words may be important, but unfortunately they have

remained mere words. We seem to be stepping into a

new world order in a gaping moral void, with no credible

promise of peace nor of a nonviolent world. And we are

approaching 1995: the fiftieth anniversary of the United

Nations; the fortieth anniversary of Panchsheel - the Five

Principles of Peaceful Coexistence; the Year of Tolerance,

which is being celebrated by the United Nations; and the

one hundred and twenty-fifth birthday of the apostle of

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peace and moral force, Mahatma Gandhi, whose message

only gains in relevance year after year.

Global security today demands a holistic approach

involving the promotion of economic and social

development; the protection of human rights; the promotion

of harmony and social cohesion in multi-racial and

multi-ethnic societies; the combating of terrorism,

drug-trafficking and clandestine traffic in armaments; and

the enhancing of the capacity of the United Nations, within

the framework of its Charter, to prevent conflicts, preserve

peace and alleviate suffering. The new agenda of the

United Nations must be shaped on the basis of this

approach, giving peace and development equal priority and

treatment. The General Assembly, with its universal

participation and comprehensive mandate, should project

such a holistic vision and revitalize that vision into action.

The Secretary-General’s Agendas have reminded us

of what we should focus on, namely, disarmament,

development and peace. I put them in that order because

true peace can only follow disarmament and development.

The cold war was not war, yet certainly not peace. In its

wake, we have seen how, most frighteningly, poverty,

disease and a host of miseries affect the cause of peace.

They had been there all the time, but were not seen by the

jaundiced eye of the cold war. In the new post-cold-war

context, therefore, the nexus of disarmament and

development with peace becomes crystal clear - indeed

inescapably clear.

We have to start with disarmament. The slaughter in

Rwanda has taken place during the forty-ninth anniversary

of the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For almost

50 years, we have lived in fear of general and complete

extinction instead of global and complete disarmament.

Those who had biological and chemical weapons have

given them up under universally binding commitments. We

must now go one logical step further and exorcise the

greatest evil of all, namely, the weapons of mass

destruction.

We have had global discussions on nuclear

disarmament before, but now that the cold war, which

spawned these weapons, is over, and the previous

adversaries have been drawn into a partnership for peace,

this is surely the time to agree - in regimes which are

global, comprehensive, verifiable and non-discriminatory -

on steps to make the world a safer place. Another

opportunity will arise when the Treaty on the

Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) comes up for

review next April. We hope that States Parties will use that

occasion to refashion the Treaty into a real instrument for

global disarmament. Quite apart from the NPT, it is

essential that we examine a detailed implementation

process of total and global disarmament, which has been

accepted in principle, though in words only thus far.

Last June in Cairo, the Foreign Ministers of the non-

aligned countries, at India’s suggestion, proposed that a

fourth special session on disarmament be convened. We

think the time and the circumstances are right for the

General Assembly to plan for this special session for next

year, or as soon as possible.

But disarmament alone will be inadequate. We are

rushing towards another precipice, where the disparities

in wealth between nations would trigger violent revolution

within States. A global convulsion will come if we

continue to disregard the development imperative. The

problems of development are global problems and must

be addressed by all of us. We must set a substantive

agenda for development, commit ourselves to it and

implement it.

The World Trade Organization, which should soon

come into being, must promote what we expected but did

not quite achieve so far in the General Agreement on

Tariffs and Trade (GATT) - non-discrimination,

consensus and transparency in the international trade

regime. We hope that the multilateral trade negotiations

will stimulate economic growth in our countries and in

the world economy. It will not if the carefully negotiated

consensus, to which we committed ourselves at

Marrakesh, is destroyed by the introduction of new

conditionalities. Faith in the multilateral system will be

shaken if countries use their trading strength and bilateral

pressures to weaken and distort agreements to which they

have just become parties.

The themes of the World Summit for Social

Development focus on the critical issues of poverty

eradication together with social integration and the need

to increase avenues for productive employment, without

which we will not have the broad-based, self-sustaining

social and economic development that is the only

guarantor of peace and security. If the Summit is to

succeed, we must agree upon the commitments for

additional resources dedicated to national programmes

around the world. We should not be sidetracked from

this goal by new concepts which do not command

consensus, and do not address the fundamental needs of

development.

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The United Nations must also re-order its priorities so

as to counter several disturbing centrifugal trends which we

see emerging. What the world needs is support for the

nation-State system on which the United Nations was built.

In June this year, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and

President Yeltsin, representing two of the largest pluralistic

nations in the world, issued the Moscow Declaration on the

Protection of the Interests of Pluralistic States. In this

Declaration, which has been circulated as a document of the

General Assembly, Russia and India have put forward

principles which, if acted upon, will, we think, promote

greater harmony in the world.

Against this background, there are a few questions for

the Assembly to consider. For the 45 years of the cold

war, the Security Council was forced into immobility, but

when the cold war ended, it found itself shouldering a

stupendous task. As if to make up for years of inactivity,

it has rushed into many areas. We must ponder the

consequences of the decisions taken over the last few years,

which have on occasion sent United Nations peace-keepers

in pursuit of objectives whose nexus with peace is rather

tenuous.

New doctrines justify armed United Nations

intervention under circumstances that are not quite defined -

not yet at any rate. These initiatives are well meaning but

they do not seem to address the problems from the right

end. The ultimate human right is the right to live - the

right to food and shelter without which life is impossible.

The poverty of many nations makes this a problem to

which there are no easy answers. If there are

circumstances which justify armed multilateral intervention,

by the same logic should not the United Nations have the

right to enforce the equitable sharing of resources among

nations?

The Non-aligned Movement, at the meeting of its

Foreign Ministers in Cairo this year, suggested some

guiding principles for peace-keeping operations of enduring

significance. All means for the peaceful settlement of

disputes chosen by the conflicting parties should be

exhausted before coercive measures are considered.

Peace-keeping operations should strictly adhere to the

principles of the Charter, in particular the principles of full

respect for the sovereignty of States, their territorial

integrity and non-intervention in their internal affairs.

Peace-keeping operations should be considered only at the

request of the Member States involved. The resources for

peace-keeping activities should not be at the expense of

resources for development activities of the United Nations.

There should be no hesitation in ending those operations

which have been overtaken by events or become

inconsistent with their mandates. It is also important to

ensure that the distinction between peace-keeping

operations and other activities of the United Nations,

including humanitarian assistance, is maintained at all

times. While coordination between these activities at the

field level is important, their integration could irreversibly

alter the basic purposes of these distinct activities and

detract from their effectiveness.

Prudence must be exercised in the use of regional

organizations in peace-keeping operations. It is the

capacity of the United Nations for peace-keeping that

must be strengthened.

We have responded positively to the Secretary-

General’s appeal for the strengthening of the United

Nations capacity for peace-keeping by designating a

brigade for the stand-by arrangements that are being put

in place.

It is true that the work of the Security Council and

its role in the United Nations are of the greatest

importance. There is therefore all the more reason that

the Council should be representative of the international

community and have maximum legitimacy. The United

Nations needs a Council that is effective, but it cannot be

effective if the impression grows that it represents

entrenched privileges and that its agenda could vary from

those of the general membership. The democracy and

good governance which are urged upon all States cannot

stop at the gates of the United Nations.

The present-day composition of the Security Council

reflects the power balance of the immediate post-war

period. Since then, the membership of the world body

has increased many times over. There is also a greater

diffusion of power. To give the Council’s actions greater

legitimacy, moral authority and political effectiveness, it

is imperative to expand the membership of the Council.

Developing countries must be included in the category of

permanent members to reflect the universal character of

the world body. The number of non-permanent seats

must also be increased to give Member States greater

opportunity for participation in the work of the Council.

A selective, piecemeal expansion of the number of

permanent members would not be prudent. The Security

Council is not a corporate board, where equity shares

determine the voting power, nor can it be likened to the

Bretton Woods institutions, which reflect the wealth of

nations. The United Nations is based on the principle of

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the sovereign equality of nations. Its primary objective

remains the maintenance of international peace and security.

These elements must find expression in the composition of

the Council, which must be able to address the challenges

of the twenty-first century.

Durability and resilience, rather than expediency,

should determine the time frame of any expansion. On the

basis of any criteria - population, size of economy,

contribution to the maintenance of international peace and

security and to peace-keeping or future potential - India

deserves to be a permanent member of the Security

Council.

The working methods of the Security Council must be

reformed to enhance transparency and to express the

democratic aspirations of the vast majority of Member

States. We hope that the Open-ended Working Group on

the question of increase in the membership of the Security

Council will duly reflect on these issues in its deliberations

next year.

Human rights are the new vogue. The profoundly

humanistic traditions of the Indian civilization, with its

emphasis on tolerance, harmony, non-violence and the

inviolability of the individual, are in-built in our ethos.

Several centuries back, an Indian thinker wrote:

"Man is above everything else. Man is the highest

truth. There is nothing above man."

All human rights are sacrosanct in India, guaranteed

by a secular Constitution, an independent judiciary, a free

press, and public opinion vigorously expressed. India’s

commitment to the promotion and protection of human

rights has now received another institutional impetus with

the establishment of our National Human Rights

Commission, which has begun to function effectively, with

its findings published in its annual report. In keeping with

our policy of transparency we maintain a sustained dialogue

with important non-governmental organizations, which

includes affording greater access to them. We have also

invited the United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights to visit India.

It is true that much remains to be done on a

worldwide basis to further international cooperation to

promote and protect human rights. But the problem must

be seen in perspective. In India, for instance, we grapple

with the problems of development for 900 million people;

in the north-west and in the north-east we face brutal

terrorist movements, often supported from abroad, which

have killed thousands of innocents, made refugees of

hundreds of thousands within India, and threatened our

sovereignty and territorial integrity. We will face these

problems and defeat them. We welcome the support and

advice of friends abroad, but we cannot accept the

position that all human rights are a privilege of the

terrorists. The rights of innocent and unarmed citizens

must be protected. We urge that the question of human

rights should not be made into a politically motivated

slogan insensitive to the rights of those citizens.

Since the toxin of terrorism is deliberately being

spread by some countries - and none of us is immune -

the international community must come together to defend

itself. Terrorism is fast becoming a means, if not a

weapon, of mass destruction. Many countries have

suffered and many more could be affected. Terrorists

have killed far more people in the last decades than the

chemical and biological weapons which we have agreed

to ban and destroy. Just as the international community

decided that a convention was needed to outlaw those

weapons, so it must urgently negotiate a convention to

counter and eradicate terrorism. We urge the General

Assembly to initiate serious thinking on this subject. The

international community must also provide the necessary

succour to the victims of terrorism, whose numbers are

swelling by the day.

The closing years of the twentieth century will see

human society poised at a critical juncture as regards the

future. Will the end of the cold war mark the beginnings

of a new, more stable global order, of freedom and

well-being growing on the soil of cooperation, consensus

and mutual respect, or will the world instead revert bit by

bit to the mind-set which breeds anarchy and a return to

centrifugalism and destruction, to end up once again in

the tyranny of imposition and domination? Should we

regress to the system of spheres of influence which has

led to so many wars over the last two hundred years?

These questions have still not been adequately answered.

Many years ago the father of our nation, Mahatma

Gandhi, had asked what test should guide human

endeavour. His conclusion, after long years of struggling

on behalf of India’s many dispossessed millions, was as

follows:

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in

doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you,

apply the following test: Recall the face of the

poorest and the weakest man whom you may have

seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is

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going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything

by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own

life and destiny?"

If the protection afforded to its weak, its most

dispossessed, people is the measure of community’s worth,

as indeed it must be, then the millions of refugees, and the

conflict, poverty, hunger and deprivation that afflict so

many regions of the world today bear stark testimony to the

loss of some vital ethical underpinning. If the world today

is to redeem a future that seems increasingly mortgaged to

greed and hatred, we must recall once again that it is the

nobility of our means, and the ends we pursue, that

determine our rewards. Our welfare will be determined

only in accordance with the values and principles we abide

by.

As Mahatma Gandhi and sages before have taught and

practised, truthfulness, charity, compassion, non-violence

and treating others as we would wish ourselves to be

treated are the values that really stand the test of time.

These are the values to be inculcated in our great global

Organization, the United Nations, to which we are all

committed.