Rwanda, 2002

Allow

me at the outset, on behalf of my delegation and on my

own behalf to congratulate you wholeheartedly on your

election as President of this session of the General

Assembly. As testimony to the esteem enjoyed by you

and your country, Sir, you may rest assured of the

support of the Rwanda delegation in carrying out your

tasks.

I should like to take this opportunity to pay a

well-deserved tribute to your predecessor for the

effective way in which he guided our work during the

fifty-sixth session.

I should also like, on behalf of my Government,

to express my gratitude and appreciation to the

Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his tireless

efforts to ensure the effective and transparent

functioning of the United Nations and to promote

world peace.

The Government of Rwanda warmly welcomes

the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Swiss

Confederation to the United Nations. We are already

familiar with their contribution to the enhancement of

the role of our great United Nations family, especially

their respect for the principles of equal rights and the

right of peoples to self-determination.

In this connection, the Government of Rwanda

appeals for appropriate measures to be taken to ensure

a fair and lasting settlement of the conflict in Western

Sahara, in accordance with the purposes and principles

of the Organization. Furthermore, the Government of

Rwanda reiterates its hope that peace will be achieved

in the Middle East — a peace that guarantees the

creation of a secure Palestinian State with recognized

boundaries, coexisting peacefully with the State of

Israel, whose security should also be guaranteed.

I should like to recall that, with the collapse of

the Berlin Wall and the end of the ideological war often

referred to as the cold war, the world entered a new era,

with a new economic order. Despite the existence of

hotbeds of violence in a number of areas on all

continents, we welcome and encourage initiatives

designed to resolve the tensions created during the cold

war. In that connection, the Rwandan Government

encourages talks between North and South Korea. We

hope that the two parties will move forward towards

the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula. The

Rwandan Government also supports the principle of

one China. The question of Taiwan is an internal matter

for China and can be effectively resolved out of the

context of the ideological war that gave rise to it, in

accordance with the principle, already accepted by the

Chinese themselves, of one country and two systems.

19

This session of the General Assembly is being

held one year after the terrible events of 11 September

2001. The terrorist attack perpetrated against the

United States remains deeply etched in the memory of

the people of Rwanda, and I would like to reiterate our

solidarity with the American people. I do so with good

reason: perhaps I should recall that, since 1994,

Rwanda has been living under the perpetual threat of

terrorist groups based in the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, the most active of which is known as the

Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR), an

organization made up of elements of the former

Rwandan Army (ex-FAR) forces and Interahamwe

militias that were responsible for the 1994 genocide.

The leaders of ALIR were among those who planned

and carried out the genocide in Rwanda. Since 1994

such elements have attacked Rwanda on many

occasions, carrying out the targeted killing of innocent

people and destroying social and economic

infrastructure of national and international

significance. It was such elements that savagely

massacred American, British and New Zealand tourists

in the Bwindi park in March 1999.

Now, in an attempt to mislead international public

opinion and escape justice, the members of this

terrorist group are endeavouring to organize themselves

into political groups using a number of different labels.

The Government of Rwanda therefore appeals to the

United Nations and its Member States to take the

necessary measures to track down and arrest all those

responsible for the Rwanda genocide who are now

members of ALIR and to bring them to international

justice. We also appeal to the United Nations and its

Member States to formally condemn those countries

that finance, harbour or lend moral, material or

logistical support to the ALIR terrorist organization.

With regard to the prosecution of those accused

of the Rwandan genocide, I reiterate the appeal of the

Rwandan Government to the international community

to ensure the effectiveness and credibility of the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda so that it

can truly fulfil the expectations of the people of

Rwanda and all justice-loving people. In this

connection, special attention should be paid to the

recommendations on this subject submitted by my

Government to the Security Council. Furthermore, the

time has come for the international community to

ensure the implementation of the relevant

recommendations of the report on the Rwanda

genocide that was drafted under United Nations

auspices, known as the Carlsson report.

With regard to the destabilizing effects of the

terrorist activities of ALIR, I should like to advocate as

a remedy that support be given to the Lusaka and

Pretoria Agreements, which are designed to restore

peace in the Great Lakes region. Those two

Agreements provide for the disarmament,

demobilization, reintegration and repatriation of what

are known as the negative forces that are operating in

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which include

ex-FAR forces and Interahamwe. The Rwandan

Government appeals as a matter of urgency to the

United Nations and its Member States to spare no

effort in strongly supporting the implementation of

those Agreements.

As for Rwanda, it has done its utmost to

implement those Agreements and to work to

re-establish a genuine and lasting peace in the Great

Lakes region. In accordance with the statement made

by Paul Kagame, President of the Rwandese Republic,

on 13 September during a meeting of the Security

Council on the question of the Democratic Republic of

the Congo, I would like to take this opportunity to

announce that, on 17 September, my Government

began to withdraw its troops from the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, in conformity with the

provisions of the Pretoria Accord.

My Government is convinced that the

implementation of those Agreements will lead us not

only to the restoration of security and stability in our

subregion, but also to the establishment of a climate of

confidence and good cooperative relations that will

facilitate common actions in our struggle against the

terrorist activities orchestrated by ALIR or by any

other terrorist organization.

In this connection, I would like reaffirm the

commitment of the Government of Rwanda to

cooperate fully to achieve the success of any initiative

designed to prevent and repress terrorism in all its

forms. In this connection, and in implementation of

Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), our

Government has now ratified all the various

international instruments to combat terrorism that we

had not signed or ratified previously, in addition to the

Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention on

20

the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism, which we

had already ratified. Rwanda has just submitted its first

report to the Security Council Committee established to

follow up the implementation of that resolution.

Rwanda is resolutely determined to combat terrorism,

source of desolation and instability for the international

community. We believe that the international

community should mobilize all of its means to fight

and to put an end to poverty, which affects so much of

our population. It should do more for the eradication of

injustice and inequality in order to ensure a better

world for future generations. Thus, we call for the

strengthening of the United Nations and the entire

United Nations system to ensure the implementation of

all of the international commitments to help poor

countries. Commitments, such as those expressed in the

Millennium Declaration, in the Monterrey Consensus

and at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable

Development, should be reflected in concrete actions

without delay. Third-world countries, especially

countries of Africa, set great store by this.

In Africa, we would like to root out the causes of

poverty. We have already grasped the different aspects

of the situation and decided upon a framework to guide

us in this long struggle against poverty, namely the

New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

Within NEPAD, we have pledged to put an end to

fratricidal wars that devastate our already moribund

economies. We have pledged also to work towards

democracy, good governance, and for letting the rule of

law prevail.

The international community is hereby called

upon to assist us in this process. We ask each of the

rich countries to reexamine its positions regarding the

terms that are often linked to various interventions

aimed at helping poor countries, particularly as regards

the debt and official development assistance (ODA).

This needs to be done in order to enable these countries

to confront effectively the various scourges that

threaten them, including famine, pandemic diseases,

HIV/AIDS, malaria, and so forth, so that they can

eventually catch up with the rich countries. Hence,

globalization will become profitable for the whole of

mankind.