Lebanon, 1997

Allow me to extend our thanks to the outgoing President,

Ambassador Razali Ismail, and to congratulate him on the

way in which he fulfilled his mandate. I would also like to

congratulate Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko on his election and

wish him complete success in his efforts to strengthen and

increase the effectiveness of the United Nations in these

historic times, which more than ever demand our

application, perseverance, determination and good faith.

More than half a century has elapsed since the United

Nations was founded. When the United Nations was born,

mankind wanted it to lead to the creation of a world of

justice, law and peace. The United Nations was supposed

to be able to defend human rights when they were violated

and promote justice. By means of the United Nations,

mankind aspired to put an end to an era of war and usher

in an era of peace and tolerance, of respect for national

sovereignty and people’s freedom and of independence of

States; an era in which people would be free to fulfil their

dreams and aspirations and to maintain their identity. Never

in the course of human history have we needed the United

Nations more than we need it today, in this era of

communications and contacts, when frontiers are

disappearing under the force of the technological revolution.

This is an era of demographic explosion and deadly,

destructive weapons; an era when the environment is no

longer capable of meeting mankind’s demands.

Today we are truly in need of a basic means of

containing conflicts and resolving disputes. This is why

we must increase the effectiveness of the United Nations

mechanism and renew confidence in its justice, credibility

and effectiveness, the freedom of its decision-making

processes from hegemony, and the absence of imbalances

in its measured ways and in the enforcement of its

resolutions so that no one remains above international

law. These steps are essential if we want to prevent the

collapse of the United Nations, and if we want it to retain

the moral authority necessary to resolve disputes and

remain an alternative to hot and deadly confrontations.

Therefore, Lebanon enthusiastically supports the

reform of United Nations institutions, particularly the

Security Council. We call for enhancing the numerical

and geographical balance of the Council so as to reflect

changed realities. The Council must also be reformed to

dissipate the misgivings some have about the way it

performs its role.

Lebanon subscribes to the principle of rotation of the

permanent seats in the Security Council. We reiterate our

support for the position of the Arab Group, as expressed

in the paper it presented on this subject.

We welcome the Secretary-General’s proposals for

the reform of the United Nations. We have given them

our full attention and are carefully studying them. We

believe it is necessary to enhance the role of the General

Assembly and to make the issue of development a high

priority for the Organization, while attaching great

importance to the work of regional economic and social

commissions.

Under the rubric of reducing costs and the budget,

many United Nations agencies, in particular the United

Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees

in the Near East (UNRWA), have lost much of their

ability to adequately provide social, health and education

services to refugees in their host countries. This increases

the burden on host countries, Lebanon among them. It is

difficult for us to shoulder these responsibilities under

these conditions. The responsibility of the international

community in redressing the injustice inflicted on the

Palestinian refugees must be made apparent. This bitter

reality, which cannot be free of hidden intentions, aims at

times at attempting to pressure these countries and force

them to assimilate the refugee population they are hosting.

15

This would be a step towards liquidating the refugees’ case

for return. It is also a means of pressuring the host

countries into accepting unacceptable political terms.

The international community, represented by the

United Nations and the donor countries, is duty-bound to

continue to render assistance to the Palestinian refugees

awaiting a political resolution of their status in accordance

with the right to return, as decided upon by the United

Nations and, in particular, the principle of reuniting

families. This is one of the pillars of the peace process, and

thus it is essential that the international community

persevere until a solution is attained.

We had hoped that this session would be an occasion

for us to express our gratitude for the restoration of peace

in Lebanon and the Middle East. This would have been an

attestation to the success of the Madrid peace process,

which was launched six years ago to which should be

added one year of preparation. This international peace

initiative began auspiciously. We believed in both its letter

and its spirit because the initiative was international, the

sponsorship was effective and the contents were based upon

an equitable, just and permanent peace. We were very

hopeful, because we thought that peace would be realized

on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967),

338 (1973) and 425 (1978), on the basis of the principle of

land for peace and on the basis of finding a consensual

solution to the question of Jerusalem. The initiative was

also supposed to put an end to Israel’s building and

expansion of settlements in the occupied territories and lead

to the recognition of the political rights of the Palestinian

people. It was supposed to be followed by a discussion of

regional arrangements to settle security, social and

economic questions, in particular the question of the

Palestinian refugees, thereby paving the way for the

economic development of the region.

We entered into the peace process convinced that the

basic elements had been accepted at Madrid and that they

had become commitments of the participating States. We

thought that all that remained for the delegations was to

begin negotiations on implementation. However, the advent

of the present Israeli Government and its head totally

dashed our hopes, given the practices of this new

Government. The principle of land for peace was thrown

out, to be replaced by a new formula. The Israeli

Government reneged on the need for implementation of

international decisions, and thus demanded their

reinterpretation. That Government did not want to find a

solution to the question of Jerusalem, so it went ahead and

annexed it. The Israeli Government reneged on its

commitments with regard to the occupied Syrian Golan,

so it stressed its annexation. The Israeli Government

demolished the principle of halting settlement activities

and vastly expanded their efforts at settlement.

The negotiated commitments of the previous

Government were abandoned, as if there were no

continuity from one Government to the next. Instead of

making progress towards peace — the only worthwhile

objective — the Government devoted itself to destroying

what had been done, even if the steps previously taken

were limited.

Instead of being able to work towards a genuine

peace, we have had to endure propaganda manoeuvres

aimed at numbing and misleading public opinion, along

with meetings that were designed just to give the

impression that a dialogue was continuing. Instead of

trying to find a solution to the basic conflict, the emphasis

shifted to the normalization of relations through economic

conferences — as a precondition, even before solving the

legal and political problem — instead of having

normalization occur naturally as a crowning of the basic

solution.

Faced with heightened internal crisis, the Israeli

Government resorted to stirring up tension along its

borders and in areas under occupation, to divert attention

away from the peace it had scuttled. Thus, the principle

of provocation and confrontation was re-established in

order to create unity internally.

Israel continued to carry out its acts of aggression

against southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa, once

with the goal of mobilizing Israeli public opinion against

peace, and another time for the purpose of emptying

international initiatives of their political content.

The attacks continued, through artillery shelling, air

raids, operations inside our territories — against villages

and cities — against children, women, the elderly and

homes. Destruction and demolition continued, as did the

detention of Lebanese citizens in Israeli military camps —

all of this without the United Nations international

institutions being allowed to visit them. They were not

permitted the enjoyment of elementary human rights: the

right to counsel and the right to a fair trial. Some of them

were returned to us as corpses, while others were tortured

or maimed — and this in the era of respect for the rights

of environment, of plants, and of animals.

16

Nonetheless, the more the occupation endured, the

more Israel became increasingly bogged down in the

quagmire of the south which became an inferno to it. The

occupier has become a prisoner, and the aggressor a

hostage in the face of a valiant people’s steadfastness and

the resistance of its sons and daughters. Thus Israel

sustained huge losses which is prompting it to rethink the

viability and usefulness of its continued occupation of

southern Lebanon.

Against this reality, we heard, through misleading

media reports, of an Israeli readiness to withdraw.

We have to bring the truth forth. Lebanon’s firm

stance has always been for a complete Israeli withdrawal to

internationally recognized borders so as to enable the

Lebanese State to exercise its sovereignty over its territories

through its own forces. But Israel does not wish to

withdraw; it is still camouflaging its unwillingness to

withdraw completely by relocating or redeploying its forces.

It continues to cast a smoke screen by asking to maintain

inspection and control posts, by imposing conditions that

limit the State’s authority and by giving the upper hand to

the militias that it created. Furthermore, Israel is attempting

to impose control over the Lebanese Army, which could be

deployed, as well as other conditions that challenge any

presumed Lebanese sovereignty when withdrawal takes

place.

I should like to pay tribute to our fallen heroes,

members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

(UNIFIL) — most recently four Italian soldiers and an Irish

sergeant. Their blood was spilled in defence of southern

Lebanon, mixing with that of Lebanese citizens. I should

also like to pay tribute to the Force itself, whose

commanders and troops are discharging a difficult task

under the most difficult and most trying circumstances.

No sooner had the people of the region begun to adapt

to the anticipated climate of peace than they were thrust

back into an era of confrontation, violence and inevitable

defiance and resistance. Though development plans for the

Middle East region were being formulated, and the world

manifested interest in its peaceful future, caution and

pessimism began once again to prevail, and hopes were

dashed. No sooner had the Government of Israel drawn

strength from the veto power used against Security Council

resolutions on its settlement policies, it has continued to

challenge Council resolutions, thereby undermining

whatever is left of the peace process.

The international community, which stands to be

affected by the situation in the region, either directly or

indirectly, must hold the defiant accountable. The

international community has not only the right but also

the duty to take action through the Organization of the

United Nations. On many occasions, the United Nations

has delegated this question to others, hoping that a

solution could be found. It has consistently refrained from

enforcing its resolutions, in contrast to its recent

behaviour vis-à-vis many other States.

The time has come for the United Nations to reclaim

its role. The time has come to return to the basics of

peace as agreed in Madrid, to the principle of land for

peace, to the need to implement Security Council

resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978), and

to resume negotiations on all tracks from the point where

they stopped. The time has come for Israel immediately

to cease all settlement activities; to resolve the status of

the city of Jerusalem; to withdraw from the Palestinian

territory and recognize the political rights of the

Palestinian people; to withdraw from the Syrian Golan to

the line of 4 June 1967; to fully withdraw from southern

Lebanon and its western Bekaa to the internationally

recognized boundaries in order to enable the Lebanese

State to exercise its authority, in accordance with Security

Council resolution 425 (1978).

Opting for a peace that ignores these fundamentals

is a choice that is doomed to failure, a choice that could

ignite the entire region. An isolationist policy that

separates the various tracks would run counter to the

principle of a comprehensive peace and will never

achieve it. This is because the conflict is fundamentally

a comprehensive one. It has never been a conflict

between one single Arab State and Israel, but has always

been between the Arabs and Israel. As long as a single

track is excluded from the solution, peace will remain

impossible. The tracks are all intertwined, which shows

how indivisible and interconnected the cause is. Nobody

should think that one track can survive, even for one

hour, while other tracks remain excluded.

Because Lebanon is at the heart of the conflict, it

has suffered a great deal. Today, however, it is

confounding all forecasts and expectations that presaged

its demise by proving to the world once again, as it has

done throughout its long and time-honoured history, that

it is too strong to wither away, and that a right that is

claimed by its people will never disappear.

17

When southern Lebanon and western Bekaa are

liberated, when Lebanese sovereignty extends to all its

territory, when the United Nations credibility is confirmed

by the authority of its resolutions, when Israeli jails are

emptied of their innocent detainees and resistance fighters,

when an end is put to bloodshed which soaks our land, then

and only then will the wound be healed. The tears will then

stop and confidence will be restored to all in a genuine,

just, permanent and comprehensive peace, a peace that can

restore to the land of civilizations, religions and cultures the

place it deserves now and in future, as it has always been

throughout its long history.

The choice of peace will not always be available to us.

The peace that the Assembly supported is in the throes of

death today. If restoring peace seems difficult, its demise

would close the door to any attempt to rekindle the process

in the foreseeable future, thus putting world peace in

jeopardy and sparking an uncontrollable conflagration,

which will be difficult to contain.

May God guide the steps of those who are working for

a peace that is just and not unfair, equitable and not biased,

consensual and not imposed, a peace that honours the

memory of those martyred, that does justice to those who

struggle, and that would put an end to darkness in the land

of the prophets and the messengers of God.