Republic of the Congo, 1995

The General Assembly’s choice of Mr. Freitas do

Amaral to serve as President at this fiftieth session is a

fitting tribute to his eminent qualities and to the role his

country, Portugal, has always played in international

relations. I would like to congratulate him on behalf of my

delegation and assure him of our cooperation.

We are grateful to his predecessor, His Excellency

Mr. Amara Essy, for the skilful way in which he reflected

and conveyed our concerns throughout his mandate.

I would like to reaffirm the profound gratitude of the

Government of Congo to the Secretary-General, Mr.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for the concern he showed to find

a settlement to the political crisis that overwhelmed my

country in the first two years after the democratic election

of Professor Pascal Lissouba as President of the Republic.

Despite the fact that the United Nations inherited the

difficulties of what were often troubled times and despite

its often controversial role, it remains the repository of

hope for the peoples of the world. The fiftieth anniversary

is a fitting time to look at what the Organization’s

experience has taught us so that we may be able to

establish a more confident and optimistic idea of how the

Organization and mankind as a whole will move into the

third millennium.

This session with its inherent symbolism, coming as

it does at an exceptional period in the development of

international relations, places us squarely between the

fading dogmas that for a long time seemed to inspire the

perfect system of management and human development,

and the universal desire of the most destitute people for

greater political freedom, development and the assertion

of their moral and cultural identity.

As countries once subjected to ideological, political

and economic domination move steadfastly forward, the

United Nations remains, as ever, the ideal vehicle for

preventing upheaval from shattering world peace.

In other words, faced with the new world situation,

this celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of our

Organization can be analysed only in terms of a break

with the past and a time to take stock of new realities in

the face of the overriding need to establish new

machinery to govern the international community.

The various scenes rightly described for us from this

rostrum undoubtedly show the world as it is and as we

would like it to be. I, therefore, endorse the concerns and

proposals voiced here, particularly, as regards the

restructuring of the United Nations system, the Agenda

for Development. There are so many seemingly self-

evident issues that will, I am sure, enjoy the consensual

support of all delegations, as happened at the recent

United Nations conferences, which have given our States

25

a platform from which to deal with the major problems of

the world.

From Rio to Beijing, via Vienna, Cairo and

Copenhagen, we have established priorities and made

commitments that we hope will be translated into action.

As the Secretary-General of the United Nations rightly

noted in his report “An Agenda for Development”, peace is

the foundation for development. The persistence of hotbeds

of tension in certain parts of the world is not conducive to

the emergence of new prosperous nations. Quite the

contrary, in the absence of peace, these hotbeds of tension

thwart prospects for development more and more every day.

In this context, we should encourage the peoples of

Angola and Liberia to continue along the difficult path to

national reconciliation after the several years of fratricidal

civil war they have endured.

We must be gratified by the strengthening of the peace

process in the Middle East through the Israeli-Palestinian

agreement of 28 September 1995.

We should, finally, hail the recent developments in the

situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina marked by the efforts

of the parties to the conflict to seek ways and means to

achieve peace.

Unfortunately, while expressing our satisfaction at the

restoration of the democratic regime following the coup

d’état in Sao Tome, thanks to international condemnation,

we must denounce from this lofty rostrum, any seizure of

power by armed force as has just happened once again in

the Comoros.

Finally, we would like to express our great concern at

the instability and insecurity that persist in Africa,

particularly in the countries of the Great Lakes.

The situation in that part of the African continent is a

human tragedy. There, as elsewhere in Africa where

violence is rampant, ethnic hatred and intolerance have

caused massive flows of refugees to flee to neighbouring

countries.

This is what has happened in Zaire, a fraternal and

neighbouring country which, from this rostrum, appealed

for solidarity from the international community in helping

it to overcome the consequences of this tragedy with

respect for human dignity. We express the hope that this

appeal will be heeded by the entire international

community.

In the face of all this, it is not difficult to understand

why Congo cannot fail to support the idea of holding a

conference on peace and stability in that region. We wish

to state that we are ready, as are other members of the

United Nations Standing Advisory Committee on Security

Questions in Central Africa, to go along with this

initiative in accordance with the Brazzaville Declaration

on cooperation for peace and security in Central Africa.

This Declaration, adopted after the Committee’s seventh

meeting on 1 September 1995, is truly a profession of

faith, in which States reaffirm their determination to work

towards the establishment of confidence, peace and

security in the Central African region.

The valuable support which the United Nations

Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has

constantly given to our Committee has contributed to the

fruitful results our States have achieved. Furthermore, this

support guarantees success in achieving the objectives of

establishing a collective security system in Central Africa.

We thank him once again.

Today, as in the past, the limits and sluggishness of

most of the States of the African continent remain

unchanged. They are due, on the one hand, to the overall

trend towards acceptance of stereotypes and, on the other

hand, to the fact that the requirements of modern times

are out of kilter with the basic values underpinning our

societies.

Therefore, the democratization of institutional life,

which we have embraced victoriously also seems to be a

breeding-ground for long-contained contradictions. Here,

they manifest themselves as conflict, even fratricidal wars.

My own country, Congo, has not been spared these post-

democratic upheavals and vagaries.

Allow me to refrain from any dire descriptions

which the images of the tragedy experienced by the

people of Congo would conjure up. This is because I take

great pride in expressing the hope of a new African

political class, to which I belong, that it will be able to

follow in the footsteps of great democratic nations and

banish evil for ever.

This new generation would like to pioneer new

governance. By that I mean a new way of exercising

power, unflawed by hereditary belligerent instincts, that

takes account of the psychological and moral aspects of

26

our civilization and the specific features of the societal

environment without jeopardizing the universal values that

guarantee life with dignity.

In truth, I would like to invite everyone here to share

in the heartfelt cry of the citizen of a country which, having

embarked on the road to the democratization of its

institutions and thus the free choice by the people of their

leaders, has turned its back on wanton and barbaric

violence.

This violence was dictated by the obsession with

power on the part of those who lost the elections — power

at all costs, absolute power. Other examples on the African

continent support this grim picture.

The mid-term review of the democratization

process — a review that began in Africa three years ago —

prompts me to put the following questions to the Assembly,

in view of our societies’ crisis situation:

With respect to multi-ethnic States, is it legitimate to

assume that the mere codification of constitutional norms

copied from older democracies is sufficient to transform

feudal entities into democratic ones and so move on to a

market economy, and to move from autocratic tribal rule to

that of intellectual and political elites chosen for their keen

sense of duty in the service of nations?

Is it legitimate to believe and accept that simply

subordinating our assistance to African countries to the

need for their democratization will suffice to persuade their

former leaders — who for two or three decades governed

our States without opposition or any sharing of power — of

the virtues of democracy?

Such a change, in our view, can take place only as

part of a lengthy process. Furthermore, an undoubted

requirement is that Africa accede to democracy by

conducting an in-depth analysis of its contemporary

political history and then adopt rules for political

governance that have consensus as a necessary dimension,

rules that can ensure power-sharing by the major political

groups and the necessary stability for democratic

institutions. In this connection, my country’s experience has

been a sort of litmus test.

No solution could have been found without the

personal and unwavering dedication of the President of our

Republic, His Excellency Mr. Pascal Lissouba, whose

wisdom and keen sense of dialogue served as a catalyst. On

the basis of our own social values, traditions, realities and

history, our Head of State, without underestimating the

relevance of the principle that elections are necessary to

democracy, has assumed the role of a real paterfamilias,

gathering around him Congolese people of every

persuasion.

In this spirit, at the initiative of the President of the

Republic, a Forum on the Culture of Peace, organized

jointly by the Congolese Government and the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO), was held in November 1994 in Brazzaville.

The decisions taken there have enabled us to make a fresh

start. Two of them pertain to the reorganization of the

police, with a view to better adapting it to its traditional

task as a republican police force, and to the restoration of

the power of the judiciary.

Several months later, following political

consultations, a broader Government that included the

opposition was set up. The current power-sharing between

those who represent institutional legitimacy by virtue of

being elected and those who did not receive the popular

vote attests to a consensual undertaking based on the idea

of participatory democracy. This approach is rooted in the

manner in which our village communities were long

governed and reduces the sources of conflict that

accession to power could have triggered.

A democratization process that unfolds in this way

has the necessary resources at its disposal to bear fruit, if

there is peace. The quest for peace is therefore a crucial

requirement for our States. The democratization of

institutions will remain a pipe dream if there is no will,

on the part either of the African political elites or of the

international community, to approach the democratic

process in Africa in a manner that takes into account both

the quality of the political classes that governed from

independence until the beginning of democratization and

the need to restore peace where obstacles are placed in its

path or it is directly threatened.

In order to put the idea of participatory democracy

into effect, the Congolese Government, once peace had

been restored, began a national programme of

administrative and economic decentralization in order to

enable the various political forces to exercise political

power at a more grass-roots level. Today, town, village

and regional councils have been established that take part

in the decentralized governance of various communities.

Thus, decentralization is a prime example of one of the

major steps in power-sharing.

27

But in the final analysis, in Congo as elsewhere in

Africa — especially in Central Africa — peace remains

fragile. It is still, to all intents and purposes, at the mercy

of the political appetites of those who believe that, in the

name of democracy and regardless of the people’s choice,

they have the divine right to be in power and the obligation

to oppose those who accede to it.

This observation led me to ask the seventh ministerial

meeting of the United Nations Standing Advisory

Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa, which

was held in Brazzaville from 28 August to 1 September

1995 and over which I had the honour of presiding, to think

about the following point.

Democracy, which we all wholeheartedly aspire to,

will be doomed to failure if we do not take the wise

decision to equip ourselves with not only the necessary

intellectual means but also, and above all, the political will

to reflect on the kind of government our countries should

have in the world of today. This reflection must necessarily

be based on history and on the moral and legal rules that

have provided our various communities with peace, stability

and respect for the rights of the individual and for property

rights. Such reflection will be useful, I believe, if we are to

spare our peoples the ordeal of fratricidal wars.

Clearly, democracy cannot be a source of peace or

take hold lastingly in our countries if accession to political

power on the part of a group of persons is regarded by

other members of the international community as the

exercise of power by one ethnic group or a coalition of

ethnic groups. Likewise, to exercise moderation and

restraint is the moral duty of those who win elections and

who wield power. This is a crucial requirement in order to

give a feeling of security to those whose past political

practices have left them convinced that they can be in

power only if one or several members of their own ethnic

group or of their region are also involved. This is the evil

that has been eating away at Africa and at its path towards

true democratization.

In fact, a democratic regime is without any doubt the

one that will enable our countries to promote the flourishing

of their elites and to ensure their development and safety.

However, as members will note, our collective aspiration to

greater freedom and equality has at times borne the seeds

of destruction. This is because the transplant that the

surgeons of democracy thought they needed to perform

automatically on Africa — without taking into account the

possibility that certain of its elements might be rejected —

has come up against our own social realities, which are

characterized by the fact that for all time, and especially

since independence, politics has been, and remains, the

royal road to upward social mobility.

In such an environment, the rotation of power —

one of the basic rules of classic democratic regimes — is

perceived as a way of marginalizing that part of the

community that loses the political elections. The rule of

the rotation of power, which is perceived and applied by

the winners of elections as a means of removing from

power those who have lost — which in older democracies

is a normal occurrence — is viewed in our countries as

a source of conflict, as my own country’s example shows.

In such circumstances, should not the establishment

of a democratic regime in our countries be understood, in

the context of a consensual vision of governance, as a

transitory stage towards a democracy that would include

the classic concept of the rotation of power?

It would seem wise today to tackle the democratic

phenomenon by including in the rules and in the basic

foundation of democracy a peacemaking dimension that,

while stemming from our socio-political realities and our

own world view, would fit into a global framework. The

rotation of political power would, in this transitional

stage, take on a new, less conflictual dimension, while

remaining one of the elements of genuine democracy.

Such an approach would confer greater legitimacy on

those who are elected.

The international community is therefore once again

called upon to help Africa bring peace to itself and to

provide itself with stable democratic regimes. This is the

only way that Africa’s development can be achieved.

May this historic session of the General Assembly

be a decisive turning-point for new victories ushering in

a better world and an Africa moving forward towards

democracy and progress.

The meeting rose at 1.25 p.m.

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