Myanmar, 1998

At the outset, Sir, let me

extend to Mr. Opertti the felicitations of my delegation on

his unanimous election to the presidency of the General

Assembly at its fifty-third session. We are confident that

under his experienced leadership we will be able to achieve

substantive progress in the deliberations of this Assembly.

I should also like to take this opportunity to pay a

well-deserved tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Hennadiy

Udovenko, who presided over one of the most eventful

sessions of the General Assembly. In particular, I would

like to express our gratitude for his skilful stewardship of

our deliberations on the reform package of the Secretary-

General, which led to the successful completion of an

important phase in the United Nations reform process.

Last year the Secretary-General presented us with his

most comprehensive and far-reaching proposals for the

strengthening and reinvigoration of this Organization. We

were also able to adopt two landmark resolutions, 52/12

A and 52/12 B, during the substantive part of the fifty-

second session to enable us to reform this Organization

and to introduce new mechanisms, including the Office of

Deputy Secretary-General, to improve its performance.

With these new mechanisms, the Organization has been

able to renew the emphasis on economic, social and

development activities. We are pleased that we have Ms.

Fréchette, an outstanding person with vast experience, as

the first Deputy Secretary-General of the Organization.

Early this year we were able to take further steps to

move forward the reform process, a process that is still

continuing. We would like to thank the Secretary-General

for his timely submission of reports and additional

explanations in response to resolution 52/12 B. We hope

that the untiring efforts of the Secretary-General will push

forward the ongoing process.

As a developing nation, we hope that the reform

process will strengthen the ability of the United Nations

to fulfil its role and functions in the field of development

and to respond effectively to the development needs of

the developing countries. In this respect, the establishment

of a Development Account under the reform process is a

welcome step.

Forward movement in the overall reform of the

United Nations is not matched by similar progress in the

reform of the Security Council. We are somewhat

disheartened over the lack of tangible results on the core

issues in the deliberations of the Open-ended Working

Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on

and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council

and Other Matters Related to the Security Council. I am

sure that every State Member of this Organization shares

the view that the reform of the Security Council is one of

the most crucial aspects of the entire United Nations

reform process. This process will be considered by the

world community as seriously inadequate, and much less

genuine, if we fail to produce a Security Council that is

truly representative of the present membership of this

Organization and can effectively respond to future

challenges. We do not believe that a body that is not

democratic and representative can really look after the

interests of the broad membership in its cardinal task of

maintaining international peace and security.

11

We all have been engaged in in-depth and intensive

discussions of the various aspects of the Security Council

reform for almost five years now. Although we had had

high hopes that the latest rounds of discussions of the

Working Group would produce general agreement on the

more contentious issues related to the Security Council, the

desired goal remains elusive. We nevertheless are gratified

to note that the Working Group has made encouraging

headway in its deliberations on measures conducive to

improving the working methods and transparency of the

Council?s activities. We believe that expansion of the

Security Council in a balanced manner is one of the main

elements of Security Council reform. We are discouraged

by the fact that it is on this core element that substantive

differences among the delegations still remain. These

fundamental differences have proved to be a major obstacle

to our forward movement towards a general agreement on

a common package.

As a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, we in

general subscribe to the common position of the Movement

on Security Council reform. However, we wish to make

some observations on certain core issues on which we feel

we should register our position.

First of all, my delegation wishes to emphasize that

the objective of the entire process of Security Council

reform is not the mere addition of a couple of countries to

its permanent membership. Although it has been accepted

in principle that three permanent seats should be allotted to

developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America,

the mode of their identification and selection, despite

various suggestions and concepts on the table, seems

intractable at this juncture and remains unsettled. Myanmar

would view with concern any move or measure biased

towards particular candidates. Myanmar believes that

countries which are capable of contributing to international

peace and security should be permanent members in the

expanded Council. We also favour the expansion of the

Security Council in both permanent and non-permanent

memberships.

We are now being provided with an historic

opportunity to devise ways of selecting new permanent

members for the Security Council.

Although there has been noticeably strong support for

expansion of the Security Council in its permanent

category, we have not been able to translate various ideas

on this question into a viable formula acceptable to all. In

this connection, the idea of rotating new permanent

members, which the Organization of African Unity has

decided to apply to the African countries, is a very

significant concept. There appear to be a growing number

of States attracted to it, and Myanmar is one of those

countries. This is a concept submitted by a particular

region for itself and not meant for export to other regions.

Nevertheless, we should not rule out the concept as one

of the possible options applicable to other regions such as

Asia, in the event that other modalities of selection or

options fail to command enough support. It is vitally

important that expansion of the Security Council in both

categories of membership take place simultaneously for

all regions.

Myanmar is one of the 74 members of the

Organization which has never been a member of the

Security Council. However deficient in its present

structure and undemocratic in its practice the Security

Council may be, its role in the maintenance of

international peace and security and the contribution made

by its members are highly appreciated by the Union of

Myanmar. Myanmar has therefore always given serious

attention to the annual election of five non-permanent

members of the Security Council.

At the same time, to enhance the role of non-

permanent members, now generally looked upon as

peripheral, we could seek a solution by improving the

working methods of the Security Council.

Inextricably linked to the expansion of the

permanent membership of the Security Council is the

veto. Debate on this question has been continuing both

outside and inside the Organization since before the

founding of the United Nations. Nevertheless, little has

been done in the years since then to rectify its injustice.

Given the present state of the discussions, the question

promises to haunt us in the future, regardless of how

strongly we may feel about the practice. While a large

majority of Member States are demanding its curtailment

and eventual elimination, permanent members continue to

be entrenched in their position that they cannot accept any

diminution of their rights and prerogatives, including the

veto.

In the context of extending the veto to new

permanent members, two main views have emerged. One

view argues for its extension to new permanent members.

In their opinion, the new members will be inferior

without the veto. The other view states that the enjoyment

of the veto, as now constituted, by the new permanent

members would entail setbacks. Therefore, to limit the

veto in scope and application for the moment with a view

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to its eventual abolishment is, in their view, necessary. In

this connection, there have been many sensible suggestions

to curtail the veto?s scope and application. They are very

interesting indeed. The most sensible of them, in our view,

is the idea of curtailing its application to issues that fall

under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. In fact,

the provisions of Chapter VII are the rationale of the

Security Council.

Myanmar has consistently held the view that the veto

is unjust and anachronistic and that its ultimate elimination

is the most logical conclusion. However, we accept that it

is unrealistic to eliminate the veto at present. We therefore

consider it unfair and discriminatory to deny the veto to

new permanent members until we can seal the fate of this

unwanted relic of the past. We strongly feel that new

members should be endowed with the same rights and

prerogatives now enjoyed by the current permanent

members.

I have dealt at some length with the United Nations

reform process. I have done so because the effective

functioning of the United Nations in fulfilling its role and

objectives is of critical importance to developing countries

like mine. It is here at the United Nations that developing

countries have sovereign equality with big and powerful

countries. It is here at the United Nations that we have to

maintain and safeguard time-bound principles such as

settling international disputes by peaceful means; refraining

in international relations from the threat or use of force

against the territorial integrity or political independence of

any State; and refraining from intervention in matters which

are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State.

These are principles that are of the utmost importance

to developing countries like Myanmar so that they can have

independence not only in name but also in reality. Only a

United Nations that is genuinely democratic will ensure that

these principles are neither diluted nor made flexible to

serve the domestic political needs of big and powerful

nations. In the age of a single super-Power, we are

witnessing too often attempts to use the United Nations as

a political tool of the big and powerful nations.

Too often we are seeing the will of the international

community become synonymous with that of the single

most powerful nation or a group of powerful nations. Only

a United Nations that is genuinely representative can look

after not only the interest of big and powerful nations but

also the interest of the whole United Nations membership,

including the weakest among them. That is why we place

so much importance on the United Nations reform process.

We had high hopes that the end of the cold war

would usher in a new international order. We had high

hopes that resources used for the arms race could be

diverted to development activities. We had hoped for

peace and tranquillity to prevail worldwide. Instead we

see instability and conflict in most regions of the

world — the crisis in the Middle East, the tragedy in

Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Angola, in the Sudan and in

Afghanistan, to cite just a few. In many of these

situations, the United Nations had to spend millions and

millions of dollars in its peacekeeping efforts. This has

caused a serious drain on the resources of the

Organization, whose finances were already in dire

circumstances mainly because of a single Member that

had withheld its contributions for domestic political

reasons.

It would be a truism to say that the United Nations

and its operations are overstretched. Much of its resources

have been diverted from development activities,

expenditures that could be put to more useful purposes for

the promotion of the economic and social advancement of

all peoples.

In spite of this situation, there are those who would

like to use the United Nations to interfere in matters

which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of

Myanmar. The present Government assumed State

responsibility to restore stability and normalcy to the

country when it was in a state of chaos and anarchy. In

the last few years the Government has restored stability

to the country. The insurgency, which has burdened the

country for the last 50 years, is now almost a thing of the

past. Peace and tranquillity prevail throughout nearly the

whole country. These are hard-earned achievements,

especially for a multi-ethnic nation such as Myanmar.

We have attained stability in Myanmar through our

own endeavours. We have not imposed any burden on the

international community. We are therefore very much

distressed that there are those who would like to use the

United Nations to intervene in matters that are essentially

within our domestic jurisdiction. It was the General

Assembly itself which adopted numerous resolutions,

including the resolution on the Charter of Economic

Rights and Duties of States, which reaffirms the sovereign

and inalienable right of each and every State to choose its

economic and political systems. We in Myanmar have

chosen the path of democracy.

It is also an irony that at a time when Myanmar has

openly and repeatedly declared that it is now in the

13

process of building a genuine democratic State with a

market-oriented economic system, political pressure has

been put on us by those who not only would like us to

adopt democracy but would also like to transplant a

democracy according to their own mould. It is unfortunate

that these proponents of a particular type of democracy

would like to use the United Nations to interfere in our

domestic political process. We in Myanmar strongly believe

that the path we have chosen is the right one and is the

most suitable to our tradition, to our culture, to our national

ethos and, most importantly, to the aspirations of our

people. We shall resolutely continue our endeavours to

build a modern, democratic, peaceful and prosperous nation

in Myanmar.

Nevertheless, there are some who entertain concerns

that difficulties relating to human rights practices in one

country could create economic problems in another. In fact,

such transborder human movements occurred among

neighbouring countries in the past for various reasons. The

important aspect is that there must be the will to resolve

and overcome such difficulties through mutual

understanding and respect. The idea of relying on others to

resolve our own domestic problems should be discouraged.

We still live in an unsettled post-cold-war period

where pockets of rising tensions still exist. We are also

confronted with a vast array of major problems awaiting

solutions. Since we last met, we have witnessed

developments that give cause for hope as well as for deep

concern. As the only multilateral forum to deal with the

problems of peace and development, the enhanced role of

the United Nations is now more necessary than ever. We all

have trust in the Organization?s capability to avert

catastrophes of all kinds and to find global solutions to the

major problems of the world. We also have trust in our

capacity to work together. It is imperative to redouble our

concerted efforts if we are to be successful in the creation

of a peaceful and prosperous world order. In this common

task, Myanmar pledges, as a responsible Member of the

United Nations, to continue its strong support for the

endeavours of the Organization to promote the economic

and social advancement of mankind and reaffirms its

commitments to the purposes and principles of the Charter.