Mauritius, 1998

Our presence here

today is, for my delegation and my country, cause for

some celebration. This is the thirtieth anniversary of our

first participation in the General Assembly. Upon the

attainment of our independence in 1968, the father of the

nation, the then Prime Minister Sir Seewoosagur

Ramgoolam, addressed the United Nations.

I join the speakers before me in congratulating

Mr. Opertti on his assumption of the office of President

of the General Assembly at its fifty-third session.

I would also like to thank his predecessor,

Mr. Udovenko, for the manner in which he conducted the

work of the previous session.

I wish to commend our Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi

Annan, for his wise leadership and vision, which have

been a source of renewed confidence in the future of this

Organization. We welcome his efforts to lead a reformed

and more effective United Nations into the twenty-first

century to better carry out our mission of peace,

development and human rights. We wish to assure him of

our total support in the continuation of the reform

process.

We are alive to the intense debate on the reform of

the Security Council. We reiterate our position that the

Security Council should be enlarged and made more

democratic and representative. In this respect, we reaffirm

our commitment to the stand taken by the Non-Aligned

Movement at the recent Summit in Durban.

In recent years the world has been profoundly

transformed by the powerful forces of globalization and

liberalization.

All countries are now inextricably linked as

distances between them become increasingly immaterial

through great leaps in information technology and

communications.

The tremors triggered by the crises of the South-East

Asian economies and, more recently, the turmoil in the

world financial markets have shown in a dramatic way

the dangers of the contagion effect. Even those countries

which are trying to be efficient and competitive face the

possibility of external shocks because of the volatility of

capital markets.

7

I believe that the world community should devise

creative and effective mechanisms to prevent emerging

economies which have put in hard work from losing the

fruits of liberalization.

We must not go back to the inward-looking strategies

of the 1960s. We must continue to open our economies, but

with greater caution.

This is a great challenge for a large majority of

nations, particularly the least developed ones. We know

only too well that a number of developing countries are

among the most vulnerable and are not yet ready to

integrate into the global economy.

When I last addressed this Assembly, I dwelled at

some length on the generally grim situation in Africa,

which remains one of the most intractable challenges to the

world community. It is a continent rich in natural resources

and yet afflicted by widespread poverty.

Peace and development in Africa have been, for more

than a decade, the subject of endless debates and

resolutions at the United Nations. But we know that

sustainable development in Africa is conditional upon the

achievement of a strife-free continent. It is sad indeed that

year after year the number of potential flashpoints seems to

grow more numerous. The situation in many regions of

Africa remains a cause for great concern.

The peoples of the continent can ill afford the

pointless strife and violence visited upon them at a time

when the priorities should be economic and social

development.

We in Africa naturally have to bear the primary

responsibility for assuring lasting peace for our peoples.

This is precisely what the leaders of the Southern African

Development Community (SADC) are striving to achieve.

In his statement to this Assembly, on Monday,

President Nelson Mandela, current Chairman of SADC,

mentioned the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic

of the Congo. This difficult problem figured prominently on

the agenda of the summit which Mauritius hosted a few

days ago, after it was addressed earlier by the Victoria Falls

meeting and the Pretoria special SADC summit.

I wish to renew here our appeal to all parties involved

in this conflict to solve their differences peacefully through

political dialogue and diplomacy. In the Indian Ocean

region to our immediate southwest, Mauritius is

participating fully in the efforts of the Organization of

African Unity (OAU) and of the countries of that region

to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis facing the

Comoros on account of separatist activities by a group on

the island of Anjouan. Mauritius fully supports the unity

and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of the

Comoros.

Fortunately, however, all is not gloom when we

survey Africa. We note with satisfaction the continuous

positive economic growth that most sub-Saharan countries

have enjoyed lately.

I had the privilege to participate in a round table

together with the Deputy President of South Africa earlier

this year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, on the

new competitive Africa. The consensus was that Africa

stands at the threshold of a new era — an era of

opportunity and dynamism. We are at the dawn of an

African renaissance.

Governments in Africa are becoming increasingly

democratic and responsive, putting more emphasis on

economic development, greater openness, market-oriented

policies and greater economic reform.

Regional cooperation is another positive feature of

the new Africa, working through groupings such as

SADC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern

Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community of

West African States (ECOWAS) to facilitate cross-border

trade leading to the ultimate establishment of an African

Economic Community.

But for Africa to realize its full potential, several

serious constraints will have to be overcome.

The international economic environment should be

made less hostile to Africa. Africa’s shares of world trade

and foreign direct investment still remain at a paltry level.

The debt burden has become in itself a crippling

factor and needs urgently to be alleviated.

We also cannot sufficiently emphasize the

importance of official development assistance in this

regard. We therefore deeply deplore the decline in the

levels of official development assistance among the major

donor countries. Today, they stand at a historical low. We

are now, more than ever, far off the target of 0.7 per cent

of gross national product recommended by this Assembly.

This trend must be reversed.

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Mauritius took the initiative recently of highlighting

the specificities of small island economies in the context of

the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the negotiations

of a successor agreement to the Lomé IV Convention. As

a result, recent ministerial declarations adopted by both the

WTO and the OAU now contain explicit references to small

economies and their high vulnerability. This reality is now

gaining recognition within the Bretton Woods institution.

For the reasons I have just mentioned, small

economies require time and space to adjust to the new

world trade order. We therefore reiterate the need for the

maintenance of non-reciprocal trade regimes until such a

time as we are adequately prepared.

The Lomé Convention is a model of North-South

cooperation. The proposed United States African Growth

and Opportunity Act could become another. Together with

the other members of the Southern African Development

Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern

and Southern Africa (COMESA), we would like to reaffirm

our total support for its passage.

Mauritius has always accorded the highest priority to

regionalization to break out of its insularity and enlarge its

economic base. Mauritius was a major player in launching,

15 years ago, the Indian Ocean Commission and, more

recently, the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional

Cooperation.

The Assembly will appreciate that an island State like

Mauritius would be interested in the protection of the

marine environment. We recommend for the particular

attention of the General Assembly the report of the

Independent World Commission on the Oceans, according

to which the very survival of the human race over the long

term is jeopardized by the abuses to which the world’s

oceans are subjected.

We have to address as a matter of priority the three

most immediate dangers identified by the Commission: the

overexploitation of marine biological resources, the

dumping of toxic waste and the harmful effects of global

warming. While much has been achieved since the Rio

Earth Summit, we deplore the fact that the initial

momentum and urgency appear to have been lost in sterile

and fractious debate. I urge that we address these questions,

on which our very survival depends, with renewed

earnestness and a greater sense of shared responsibility.

(spoke in French)

In December we will celebrate the fiftieth

anniversary of the adoption and proclamation by this

Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For us, that will also provide an opportunity to recall

another milestone in the history of human rights: the

adoption by the French Constituent Assembly of the

declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen more

than two centuries ago.

At this historic moment, we wish to recall the

preamble of the Charter of our Organization, which

proclaims our

“faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity

and worth of the human person, in the equal rights

of men and women and of nations large and small”.

We also reaffirm our profound belief in the equality

of all rights — social, economic and cultural, as well as

civil and political. Today, Governments can no longer

flout the rights of their citizens without being subjected to

the censure of the international community. Yet millions

of inhabitants of many parts of the world remain deprived

of their fundamental rights by oppressors and tyrants who

govern by force. We have observed with horror the

atrocious crimes against the dignity and worth of the

human being committed during recent conflicts. My

Government therefore welcomes the recent adoption in

Rome of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

(spoke in English)

My Government believes that respect for human

rights is but one facet of the indispensable foundation of

the harmonious development of a country. Democracy

and transparent and accountable government, as well as

effective participation by civil society, are the other

essential ingredients for successful development.

Considering the complex sociocultural and ethnic mix of

our population, we have taken great care to ensure that all

our citizens, regardless of their origins or gender, have

equal access to education, adequate health care, proper

housing and employment opportunities. We will soon

introduce in our own National Assembly a protection of

human rights bill, which will provide for the

establishment of a National Human Rights Commission.

At the continental African level, participants at the

Third Conference of African Women Parliamentarians,

which Mauritius was privileged to host, adopted the Port

Louis Declaration, calling for increased political

commitment at all levels for the promotion of gender

9

equality and the empowerment of women. We in Mauritius

are taking legislative measures to translate our commitment

into practical reality.

We have now become even more aware of the need to

seek global solutions to our common problems. Climate

change, illicit drug-trafficking and terrorism are problems

which require a coordinated international approach. No

nation can live under a dome, with its climate isolated from

the rest of the world. No country can on its own fight

international drug traffickers or terrorism. We therefore

condemn unequivocally all forms of terrorism and call for

enhanced international cooperation to combat and prevent

its occurrence.

While social, economic and trade matters are

increasingly — and with good reason — occupying centre

stage in international forums, crucial problems of security

and disarmament continue to retain their capacity to derail

our efforts for development.

Earlier this year we were reminded of the dangers for

humanity of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the

attendant risks of a new arms race. No country can feel

genuinely secure as long as the threat of nuclear weapons

exists from any quarter. In this respect, we welcome the

stand taken by both India and Pakistan in exercising self-

restraint. We reiterate our position that any international

instrument for the elimination of nuclear arsenals should be

non-discriminatory in nature. Security for all will be

achieved only when that threat is completely eliminated.

Global nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of all

weapons of mass destruction must remain our ultimate goal.

Finally, as on past occasions, we would like to bring

up once more before this Assembly our lasting claim on the

sovereignty of two territories which were taken from our

patrimony: the island of Tromelin and the Chagos

archipelago. We reiterate our call to the former colonial

Powers to enter into constructive bilateral dialogue with my

Government for the early restoration of those territories to

the sovereignty of Mauritius.

Regarding the Chagos archipelago, this Assembly

should also be reminded that some 1,500 inhabitants — the

so-called “Illois” — were coerced to leave their homeland

to clear the way for a military base. Most of the families,

who had lived for generations on these islands, were moved

to the main island of Mauritius, victims of the then

prevailing cold war. Today, after more than 30 years, they

still experience tremendous difficulties adapting to their

present conditions. Many yearn to be resettled on these

islands. As we are about to commemorate the fiftieth

anniversary of this century’s seminal document on human

rights, we consider that we owe it to these Illois to fully

re-establish their rights, including the right of return.