Mali, 1999

I wish first to

congratulate you warmly, Sir, on your election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth

session. This does honour to your country, Namibia, and

is a source of joy and satisfaction to all of Africa, and

particularly to my country, Mali. You may count on the

full support of my delegation, on behalf of which it is my

honour to address the General Assembly today. I am

convinced that with your talent and your experience as an

estimable diplomat you will guide the work of the

Assembly to a successful conclusion.

I wish also to take this opportunity to convey to

your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Didier Opertti, our

satisfaction at the commitment and skill with which he

guided the work of the Assembly at its fifty-third session.

Let me also reaffirm the gratitude of the Government

of Mali to the Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr. Kofi

Annan, for the determination and wisdom he has shown

in the quest for solutions to the central concerns of the

international community.

The fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly is

taking place at the dawn of the third millennium, at a

time when the gap between the developed and the

developing worlds is growing ever larger. Imbalances in

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the world economy, the unequal distribution of wealth,

poverty, grave and massive violations of human rights,

massacres and conflicts of every kind pose a serious threat

to international stability.

Despite significant progress in many areas, the United

Nations continues to face daunting challenges. It must

formulate a collective approach with shared responsibility

and greater, more effective solidarity to bring about the

economic cooperation that is indispensable for lasting peace

and security for all. In that context, many and varied

challenges face Mali, Africa, the world at large, and the

United Nations at the end of the twentieth century, such as

debt, development financing, security including

disarmament and international terrorism, democracy, human

rights, international migration and United Nations reform.

Last year we spoke out from this rostrum against a

globalization dominated by market forces and a financial

approach, and in favour of a globalization based on

sustainable human development. That is the real challenge,

and our growing conviction is that we can resolve all

present imbalances if, through renewed, responsible and

candid political dialogue, we tackle them with a global and

unified vision, with commitment to genuine partnership, and

with a sense of shared, equal responsibility in the building

of a better world, a world for mankind. That is the

approach we must take to addressing the problems of

developing countries: indebtedness, their integration as real

actors in the world economy, and development financing.

The problem of developing-country indebtedness must

continue to be a focus of the attention of the international

community with a view to finding a lasting solution that

will be acceptable to all. To be sure, the Heavily Indebted

Poor Countries Debt (HIPC) Initiative and the initiative

adopted at the Cologne summit of the Group of Seven in

June 1999 were important steps. But, because it absorbs

more than a third of the export income of developing

countries and because debt-servicing costs imperil the

future of generations to come, debt is an insurmountable

obstacle to any development effort. The debt burden must

not merely be lightened; debts must be cancelled. Without

playing down any responsibility here, debt cancellation has

become necessary in order to enable the efforts and

sacrifices made by developing countries to yield their full

benefits for their peoples. Debt cancellation, along with a

new, more rational debt policy based on the productive

capacities of these countries, would lay the foundations for

true, sustainable development financing.

Long seen as an act of generosity by the rich

towards the poor, development assistance is now viewed

as a tangible expression of a solidarity that is

indispensable. It has significantly declined in recent years,

and we must do everything possible to reverse that trend

in order to better meet the financing needs of developing

countries. My country, Mali — which has already enacted

significant political, economic and structural reforms —

hopes that special attention will be given to the situation

of African countries in any consideration of this matter.

I appeal to developed countries completely to fulfil their

commitment to increase official development assistance,

to build up our economic capacities in the areas of

processing and marketing our commodities, and to pay

proper prices for our products and facilitate market

access.

The current state of affairs demands a new

partnership based on an acknowledgement that

development financing is a shared responsibility, which

should be reflected in more equitable burden-sharing

among donors. Here, the high-level meeting on

development financing is of crucial importance. My

delegation believes that that meeting should be seen in the

two-fold context of follow-up to the major summits and

international conferences of the 1990s and of the General

Assembly’s Agenda for Development.

More than half a century after the creation of the

United Nations, there is no further need to prove its

relevance and contribution to the disarmament agenda and

to building international peace and security. Here I stress

the particular importance that Mali attaches to

disarmament in general and to micro-disarmament in

particular. The establishment of nuclear-weapon-free

zones on the basis of arrangements freely entered into

among the States of the region concerned, and the

extension of such zones to all regions of the world, will

make a significant contribution to international peace and

security. In that connection, I would recall that Mali has

ratified the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty —

the Pelindaba Treaty — to manifest its support for the

initiative to make Africa a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

However, let us make no mistake about it, what

today seriously threatens peace, the security of women,

men and children in Africa are small arms and anti-

personnel mines.

As we take stock of the progress made in combating

the proliferation of small arms since the fifty-third

session, while we appreciate the efforts of the United

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Nations Panel of Governmental Experts, we totally support

the appeal for action adopted by the International

Conference on Sustainable Disarmament for Sustainable

Development, held in Brussels on 12 and 13 October 1998.

We should welcome the historic decision of the member

countries of the Economic Community of West African

States (ECOWAS), on the initiative of Mali, to declare a

moratorium on the export, import and production of small

arms starting on 1 November 1998 and lasting for three

years, a moratorium that is supported by a code of conduct.

The meeting of the ECOWAS Ministers for Foreign Affairs

that was held in Bamako in March 1999, defined the

modalities for the implementation of the programme of

coordination and assistance for security and development,

and adopted a plan of action in nine priority areas to make

the moratorium operational. These efforts deserve support

from the international community so that there will be more

overall cooperation to stem the proliferation of small arms

and mitigate their devastating effects.

Also, it is essential to support and extend this

moratorium, to apply more strictly the laws and rules in

force on arms transfers, to improve them and strengthen

them at all levels and to back them up with codes of

conduct. We also need to strengthen the capacity of States

and increase coordination to deal with this phenomenon.

But we also need to work on a progressive and effective

international normative mechanism to control the circulation

of small arms. We support very strongly the decision of the

Assembly to convene an international conference on this

question.

Similarly, we must continue our work to free the

world of the scourge of anti-personnel mines, and in

particular we need to rid Africa of them, for they continue

to sow death and mayhem even after conflicts end. We will

achieve this by working in the context of the Maputo

Declaration and seeing to it that everyone, without

exception, ratifies and implements the Convention on the

banning of anti-personnel mines. We ratified the

Convention very early on, and our country has destroyed its

meagre stock of these weapons, which we never in fact

used. Mali is now adopting the national legislation required

by the Convention on the banning of anti-personnel mines.

In the last 50 years, peacekeeping operations have

become an important tool for resolving conflicts by

peaceful means and for promoting international peace and

security. However, I would like to say that in and of

themselves, they are not a solution to conflicts, but only

special measures to prevent conflicts from getting worse

pending a peaceful solution.

Our constant quest for peace is reflected in our

effective participation in peacekeeping operations and our

total support for the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention,

Management and Resolution in Africa, to which the

international community should give special attention. We

ask the international community to mobilize quickly, in

good time and to a greater extent to support the

immediate implementation of hard-to-reach and always

precarious peace agreements, as well as peace-building

programmes.

Mali also supports any measures to help create a

climate allowing us to confront the causes of conflicts,

which now relate primarily to underdevelopment, poor

governance, deficiencies in democracy and bad

cooperation policies. We pin great hopes on the decision

of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to make the

year 2000 a year of peace and security in Africa, and we

very much hope that the international community will

give strong support to our continent in its prevention and

peacekeeping efforts.

I cannot fail to mention here the close link between

security and development and the consequent need to

finance security as an integral part of development action.

Nor can I conclude without mentioning the ghastly,

appalling question of child soldiers.

President Konaré has said in this regard,

“we have an absolute responsibility for the sad lot of

child soldiers, which is not acceptable and cannot be

borne; we must put an end to it by unambiguously

condemning all those who use these children and

who instil in them a culture of violence, thus sowing

the seeds of the perpetuation of violence and

conflicts ... We must work for a real culture of

peace. The place of our children is in school; it is

our responsibility to put an end to this heinous

phenomenon by denouncing it and taking vigorous

steps against it, including international criminal

sanctions. Post-conflict programmes must include

among their priorities the reintegration through

education of child soldiers; and in a general way it

must make education the heart of the strategy for

building peace and sustainable development.”

The decision to hold a special session of the General

Assembly to follow-up to the World Summit for Children

in 2001 coincides with the commemoration of the tenth

anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We must take that opportunity to hasten our attainment of

the objectives that we have set for ourselves with regard to

children.

We have a unique responsibility towards them. The

least we can do on the eve of the new millennium is to

provide all boys and girls better health, schools and

protection from wars and famines.

Mali is staunchly committed to democracy and human

rights. Observance of human, political, civil, economic,

social and cultural rights is an integral part of economic

prosperity, social equity and the promotion of peace and

security. In this context, a certain number of minimum

standards are necessary in any democracy based on law and

respect for human rights. I am referring to values that we

all deem to be fundamental and the observance of which

we are committed to: rule of law, respect for human rights,

a system of democratic government and the conditions for

necessary changes of government in a republican and

democratic system. In a democracy, this is the minimum

that we must all, each and every one of us, consolidate,

build and develop.

The situation in the Middle East remains a source of

concern, despite the revival of the peace process. I wish to

reaffirm here the unreserved support of Mali for the just

struggle of the Palestinian people as well as for a

comprehensive just and lasting solution based on the

relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the

principle of land for peace.

Turning now to the Lockerbie crisis, Mali, basing

itself on the progress made in dealing with this question,

appeals for the complete, immediate lifting of the sanctions

that have been unjustly imposed on the fraternal people of

the Libyan Arab Jamahirya, and I am pleased to renew to

them the support and solidarity of the people of Mali.

Likewise, we are still concerned at the humanitarian cost to

civilians in other countries that have been unjustly targeted

by sanctions.

Security and stability are facing new threats, including

the problem of drugs — which has become worse with

globalization — organized crime, international terrorism,

money-laundering and corruption. In the face of these

threats and their adverse effects of them, the international

community must step up its efforts to put in place the

mechanisms necessary to eradicate them and cooperate

better in order to combat them. In regard to international

terrorism, Mali signed the African convention in Algiers,

and we support the appeal of the OAU for the speedy

conclusion of an international convention in order better

to prevent terrorism and to combat it more effectively.

Today, when mankind is preparing for a new

millennium, it is essential to adapt the United Nations to

the needs of our time. The challenges that we will be

facing demand that we adopt appropriate measures now

so that the next century will enjoy more peace and more

justice in a new partnership based on solidarity among all

nations.

If the United Nations is to remain the gathering

place in which all countries can make their voices heard

to find solutions to problems that confront them, it must

not be marginalized. Therefore, it is necessary today more

than ever to review the functioning of the system of the

Organization in order to adapt it to present and future

circumstances.

My delegation is convinced of the need to

democratize further our Organization through a

comprehensive restructuring of its main organs,

particularly the Security Council, the composition of

which reflects the state of the world as it was 50 years

ago and which does not in any way reflect the political,

economic and social realities of today’s or tomorrow’s

world.

In addition, my delegation reaffirms Africa’s demand

for an equitable division among the two categories of

seats. We call upon Member States to reinforce the

prestige, the authority, the effectiveness and the

legitimacy of the Council.

This session gives the international community a

unique opportunity to demonstrate once again that the

United Nations is an active, dynamic institution, capable

of confronting the major concerns of the world. In order

to do this it must prove that, despite the sometimes

discouraging complexity of the issues involved and the

often divergent national interests of Member States, the

Organization is capable of working with determination,

creativity and effectiveness for the common good of all.

This is what we aspire to.