Niger, 1993

On behalf of the Niger and its people, I wish to extend my

warmest salutations to this distinguished Assembly. It is

truly with great pleasure that I am taking part in the general

debate of the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly.

As the first democratically elected President of the

Niger, I have come to bring members and all the peoples

represented here a message of esteem and friendship,

goodwill and cooperation from the people of the Niger. I

have come to express the pride of the people of the Niger in

belonging to the great family of the United Nations. I have

come to reassert its powerful and sincere faith in the ideals

and principles expressed in the United Nations Charter. I

have come to share its anxieties and concerns with members

and to state our determination to join with all the members

of the Assembly in the efforts to build a better world for

present and future generations.

First, however, may I join the speakers who have

preceded me in extending to you, Mr. President, our sincere

6 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

congratulations on your well-deserved election as President

of the General Assembly at its forty-eighth session.

By unanimously giving you the heavy task of guiding

its work, the General Assembly pays a well-deserved tribute

to your skills and to your country, Guyana, for its invaluable

contribution to the efforts of the United Nations to achieve

its noble ideals. Of course, I also congratulate the other

members of the Bureau, who I am certain will spare no

effort to support you in the successful accomplishment of

your difficult functions. I also assure you of the full

cooperation of the Niger delegation.

To your predecessor, Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria, I

express the compliments of the Niger delegation for the

competence, efficiency and tact with which he presided over

the work of the last session.

Finally, I pay a special tribute to our Secretary-General,

Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for the fresh dynamic he has

brought to the United Nations, with a firm commitment to

international development, peace and security. This work

since his election to the head of the world Organization

clearly reflects our concerns. On behalf of Niger, I warmly

congratulate him.

From 29 July to 3 November 1991 the active elements

of the nation of Niger held a National Supreme Conference,

which was a historic opportunity to consider the results of

Niger’s 30 years of independence and lay the foundations for

further efforts to strengthen the cohesiveness and unity of

our people and guarantee them the conditions for sustained

and harmonious development.

Following that Conference, Niger resolutely set forth on

the path of democratization, to build for our people a State

of law founded on the principles of pluralist democracy and

committed to observing and guaranteeing respect for human

rights as defined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of

Human Rights and in the 1981 African Charter of Human

and National Rights.

As a prelude to the democratization process, the people

of Niger, by an overwhelming majority, adopted in a

referendum on 26 December 1992 the Constitution of the

Third Republic, which guarantees the human rights set out

in various international instruments and enshrines the

separation of powers between the executive, legislative and

judiciary branches. Furthermore, the Constitution contains

many other innovative elements, such as providing for the

establishment of a high council of communication, an

independent administrative body to ensure and guarantee the

freedom and independence of the communications media and

fair access for political parties, associations and citizens to

official means of information and communications.

The Constitution of 26 December 1992 proclaims

Niger’s commitment to spare no effort to achieve the ideal

of African unity, as well as its willingness to cooperate in

friendship and equality with all peoples devoted to peace,

justice and freedom.

Once the Constitution was adopted the people of Niger

went to the polls on 14 February 1993 to elect the 83

Deputies of the National Assembly, the legislative body of

the Third Republic. This Assembly is in every way

representative of the ethnic diversity of our people and its

political points of view. Indeed, through the creation of

special districts during the elections, in addition to the

regular administrative districts, every ethnic group in Niger

is today represented in the National Assembly. The

government majority is made up of an alliance of nine

political groups, while the opposition is made up of a

grouping of three parties holding 33 of the 83 seats in the

National Assembly.

The democratization process undertaken by my country

was completed by the holding, from 14 to 27 March 1993,

of two-stage presidential elections, in which eight political

groups took part. The result was that the people of Niger

entrusted me with the onerous task of leading them into the

future. It is important to note that throughout the process

the people of Niger demonstrated great maturity and behaved

in an exemplary manner. Tens of thousands participated,

travelling great distances and braving the extreme

temperatures that are typical of Saharan Africa. They took

part in a calm, peaceful and disciplined manner, always

maintaining the very powerful feelings of brotherhood and

of belonging to a single nation that unite them. Such

conduct, which I am happy to praise once again here, earned

the people of Niger the esteem, consideration and respect of

the hundreds of international observers from all over the

world who monitored the elections and attested to their

fairness and openness.

The people of Niger thus made its choice, deciding that

democracy would be the framework of its future. This

choice is, to be sure, in keeping with the changing times, in

keeping with the direction of history. But we know that

democratization is a long-term undertaking requiring patience

and selflessness. The great democratic nations of today

themselves travelled a long road before reaching their

current stage of development.

Forty-eighth session - 28 September l993 7

Young nations such as Niger which have firmly chosen

this path must overcome many obstacles and difficulties

resulting from the weakness of their socio-economic

structures and the international environment.

For my country, one of the most important difficulties

is the armed rebellion in the north, which poses grave risks

to its unity. This inherited situation is in large part caused

by the drought in the Sahel, which is making living

conditions precarious for its nomadic peoples, who already

face a most hostile and arid environment. The situation is

a cause of great concern to Niger. Therefore, immediately

it took office on 23 April 1993 the new Government

knuckled down to finding ways and means to allow a fair

and speedy solution to the problem to prevail in peace and

brotherly trust.

The Government has been helped in this undertaking by

the valuable assistance of friendly countries, to which I

extend our sincere thanks and deep gratitude. Thanks to

these efforts, on 11 June 1993 the negotiations resulted in a

three-month truce which was scrupulously respected by the

parties and whose terms were recently renewed. There are

encouraging signs of a speedy solution to this problem being

found, and we intend to devote the needed energy to it.

From this rostrum dedicated to peace I express the hope

that all the sons of the Niger nation will work together to

surmount their present difficulties and build a fraternal,

democratic and prosperous Niger.

The World Conference on Human Rights held at

Vienna from 14 to 25 June 1993 reaffirmed that the right to

development is a basic human right. It affirmed that

democracy, development and basic human rights are

interdependent, reinforcing each other, and it stressed the

overriding need to support the process of democratization in

developing countries if we wish to ensure its success.

Niger remains convinced that freedom and democracy

need water to grow, just as fish need water to swim, and that

they need to be buttressed by economic and social progress.

Similarly, we are convinced that international peace and

security cannot prevail in the world unless we take into

account the vast mass of mankind’s legitimate yearnings for

economic and social progress.

Thus, development is a major challenge for the

fledgling democracies. They must give an urgent and

compelling reply to the question: how can we maintain and

cultivate our faith? That is the ardent question of millions

of men and women who went to the ballot box to vote and

who, after the euphoria of victory, find themselves

confronted with the harsh realities of their lives, the endless

problems of survival.

I know that the Assembly has a broad awareness of the

countless difficulties that paralyse our peoples in their daily

lives and impede their development.

I know that the Assembly is fully informed about the

unspeakable hardships our peoples have endured for decades

and our thoughts about them. Indeed, for year after year and

session after session, we have been constantly seized of such

great topics as the deterioration in terms of trade, the

buttressing of protectionism, the debt crisis, the continuing

deterioration of the environment, the growing shrinkage of

public development assistance, population growth, and

reforms in structural adjustment.

The listing of those great topics is but an imperfect

summary of the fate and the enormous poverty that is the lot

of a large portion of mankind.

The economic situation of the African continent

provides an edifying example of that state of affairs. Africa

has been experiencing a widespread economic crisis of

unprecedented severity, the result of a long period of

economic recession. For years now, the continent has

suffered from this prolonged recession and from a decline in

living standards and a breakdown in the social fabric that is

so widespread and so deep that many of the benefits gained

in the early years of independence have now been

irretrievably lost. Today, real per capita income has sunk

below the 1980 level.

The relationship between investment and gross national

product continues to deteriorate. Our economies are marked

by budgetary and trade imbalances and large import

reductions, aggravated by the drop in the price of raw

materials.

According to some estimates, the ability of some

countries to repay, based on exports, is diminishing. Thus,

the debt-export relationship, which stood at 97 per cent in

1980, fell to 233 per cent in 1985 and stood at

approximately 333 per cent in 1992.

In any event, economic indicators give only an

incomplete picture of the situation and do not enable us to

visualize the consequences of drought, famine and the

deterioration of the environment. The slump means that in

some regions of Africa the standards of living, which had

already been among the world’s harshest, have deteriorated

8 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

even further, reaching levels that are unacceptable for a

modern civilization.

Yet the Governments of those countries have

recognized their own weaknesses and laid out areas of

responsibility. They have courageously undertaken harsh

reforms and adopted painful austerity measures for their

people aimed at improving their economic and financial

environment.

For a number of reasons, these adjustment policies have

not produced the expected results. I should point to two of

them.

First, there is the inadequacy of financial and material

means, which has prevented us from achieving results and

consolidating our gains.

Secondly, there is our States’ burden of foreign

indebtedness, which has reached an intolerable level and

which continues to weigh ever more heavily upon them,

worsening their economic and social difficulties.

In those circumstances, how can we expect the poor

countries to develop?

Underdevelopment is making daily headway, and the

list of countries eligible for the soft conditions of the

International Development Association is growing.

For that reason, from this rostrum Niger is calling upon

the developed countries to give proof of greater solidarity by

agreeing to a blanket cancellation of the debt of the least-

developed countries.

Niger had hoped to hear of this decision following the

meeting of the Group of 7, but, unfortunately, the seven

most-industrialized countries did not move to improve the

repayment abilities of the debtor countries.

Hence, we must curb this development, which has a

negative impact on our countries. We must find ways and

means to reverse present trends. We must act in order to

restore hope to Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Niger earnestly hopes that the first Copenhagen summit

on social development will not be another meeting with no

follow-up.

Similarly, the international conference on population

and development planned for 1994 should provide an

opportunity for rich and poor to join efforts against hunger

and malnutrition.

Closer to home, in a few days an international

conference on African development will be held on the

initiative of the Government of Japan. Niger hopes that that

meeting will come up with the necessary radical measures to

solve the problems of the African continent.

The world is now enjoying one of those propitious

moments for peace that history occasionally provides us.

Prospects today enable us to hope for a better future.

The end of East-West antagonism has given rise to a

powerful movement towards peace and has simultaneously

awakened great hopes for sustainable development.

Disarmament, as set forth in the United Nations

Charter, must entail a system of collective security designed

to avoid any excessive stockpiling of weapons. Indeed, it is

of primary importance to establish confidence between

neighbouring countries that share a similar destiny owing to

the many ties joining their respective populations. It is also

essential that States without weapons of mass destruction

have guarantees that their territories will never serve as

testing grounds. We believe it is essential that the resources

thus freed be devoted to eradicating poverty, which still, at

the end of the twentieth century, is creating conditions of

shocking poverty intolerable to the human conscience.

Another ground for hope is the recent United Nations

Conference on Human Rights, which has declared the right

to development to be a universal and inalienable right, an

integral part of fundamental human rights.

Hope was also created by the last Rio summit meeting,

which focussed world attention on the threats to our

environment, highlighted the existing interrelationship of

development and the environment and thereby stressed the

overriding need to ensure its preservation in the interests of

present and future generations.

Pledges to finance the programmes of Agenda 21 have

already been recorded. Niger hopes that the fine hopes

awakened in Rio will very soon be translated into concrete

actions. That is why we welcome the creation of operational

machinery such as the Commission on Sustainable

Development and the intergovernmental committee to draft

an international convention on desertification and drought.

Niger, which has had to deal with the galloping and

frightening encroachment of the desert, is following with

close interest the work of this committee.

Forty-eighth session - 28 September l993 9

I have spoken at length about Niger and about our

concerns and our hopes. However, I should not like to give

the impression that the great problems of the world are

matters of indifference to us. Notwithstanding the difficult

times through which we are passing, Niger is attentive to

what is going on in the rest of the world. We are

encouraged by developments in the situation in South Africa,

and we were relieved to hear the announcement that the first

free, democratic elections there would be held on 27 April

1994. In this regard, we join in the appeal of our brother

Nelson Mandela that the international sanctions imposed on

South Africa be lifted. We believe that the adoption of such

a measure would help to create in that country the

atmosphere of détente and trust that is necessary if the

emergence of a multiracial, egalitarian and democratic

society is to be promoted. This would lead to South

Africa’s entry into the African arena and its return to the

concert of the civilized nations of the world.

It was with real relief that we received the results of the

Geneva negotiations between the various parties to the

conflict in Liberia, which led to the signing of the Cotonou

agreements in Benin. This outcome suggests that peace is

beginning to return to that country. Niger supports action by

the Economic Community of West African States with a

view to securing respect for these agreements by all the

parties concerned.

We also welcome the talks in El Ayoun on Western

Sahara. These talks open up new prospects for a final

settlement of this conflict, which has lasted far too long.

Now more than ever before, other regions of the

African continent require our close attention and action.

This is true of Angola, Mozambique and Somalia.

Representatives may rest assured that Niger unreservedly

supports all Security Council resolutions that promote the

return of peace to this long-suffering country.

I wish now to praise Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s

dynamic work towards elimination of the numerous sources

of tension and conflict in Africa and in the world at large.

We wish to thank him, in particular, for the insights and

thoughts contained in the report entitled "An Agenda for

Peace". We have familiarized ourselves with the many wise

proposals that the Secretary-General has put forward in that

document. In particular, we share his views regarding

preventive diplomacy. It was in this spirit that the

Organization of African Unity, at its 29th summit meeting in

Cairo, equipped itself with machinery for the prevention,

management and resolution of conflicts in Africa.

Away from the African continent, we welcome the

signing by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel,

on 13 September 1993 in Washington, of the agreements on

mutual recognition and on autonomy for the Gaza Strip and

Jericho.

We hope that the momentum for peace that is

beginning in certain parts of the world will move to Bosnia

and Herzegovina, which has suffered far too long.

It is on this hopeful note that I shall conclude my

statement. But first I should like, on behalf of Niger, to

welcome the arrival in the great family of nations of Eritrea,

the Principality of Monaco, the Principality of Andorra, the

Czech Republic, the Former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia and the Slovak Republic. Their presence among

us strengthens the universality of the United Nations and

testifies to the value of the Organization’s action in support

of the widespread progress of mankind.