São Tomé and Príncipe, 2007

Thank you for inviting

me to be here today. I bring you greetings from the

people of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and

Principe. This is my first opportunity to personally

congratulate Mr. Ban Ki-moon and to thank him for

taking on the huge responsibilities he has assumed as

Secretary-General. We offer him our full support for

the difficult tasks ahead.

I would also like to congratulate Mr. Srgjan

Kerim for his election as President of the current

session and to thank Ms. Al Khalifa for her work in

guiding the sixty-first session so well.

I would like to take this opportunity to

congratulate the Secretary-General for the choice of the

topics for this session, such as climate change, finance

for development, the Millennium Development Goals

and countering terrorism.

We come together this year at a time of enormous

challenges for the United Nations. The world situation

is very serious. One difficulty is that the problems are

of such enormous complexity that the mass of facts

presented to the public by the media make it

exceedingly difficult for average people to understand

the situation.

Many of us in this room today live far from the

troubled areas of the earth. So, it is, perhaps, hard to

comprehend the plight of long-suffering peoples like

those in Afghanistan, Darfur, Iraq, Palestine, Sierra

Leone and Somalia, among so many others. But we

must reject prejudice and discrimination and end those

conflicts.

For those who still ignore our existence, may I

remind them that my country, Sao Tome and Principe,

is an African nation composed of two islands in the

Gulf of Guinea and independent from Portugal since

12 July 1975. So, I wanted to say that we also join the

calls to defeat terrorist extremism everywhere.

However, we have already seen that this will not be

achieved by military force, but by ideas and ideals that

win hearts and minds.

Regarding the Millennium Development Goals, I

want to express my regret that so little progress has

been made towards achieving these worthy ends. How

can we ignore those who are to be helped by those

Goals, the least, the last and the lost? As the Nobel

Laureate Martin Luther King once said,

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice

everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable

network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of

destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all

indirectly”.

I join previous speakers in saying that despite all

the technological and scientific advances, half of the

world’s population lives on less than $2 per day.

Twenty per cent of everyone alive suffer from chronic

hunger. Every single day, 30,000 children die

needlessly from dehydration, diarrhoea or infections,

which could be all too easily prevented or cured. In

many countries, children are not even given a name

until they are one month old because so many of them

do not live that long. One billion adults today are

illiterate; 100 million children cannot go to school

because of their poverty.

Now, with regard to how to finance development,

we are told that globalization is the way, that a rising

tide will lift all boats. But in many parts of the world

the rising tide of globalization lifted the yachts and

swamped the rowboats. Can private corporations

realistically be expected to combine their

entrepreneurial activities with furthering social causes?

Obviously, some companies must improve their

practices and be held accountable for cleaning up their

environmental disasters, such as those in the Niger

Delta. But to cast companies in the role of economic

reformers is unrealistic. It seems that perhaps

globalization has made the right to shop more

important than the right to vote.

At the same time, we must also be realistic about

the results of aid. It seems that international

organizations sometimes suffer from poverty of

expectations. Our own people in the developing world

are also at times crucified on the poverty of their own

desires. Instead of raging against our destiny, we have

lowered our standards. I think the humiliation of

poverty actually scorches the heart and creates despair.

How can we come here year after year and see

this despair, disease and hunger and not feel enormous

sorrow? We must accept that global poverty is the

disgrace of our affluent era. So how do we alleviate

poverty? Many say that Africa is poor because of bad

governance and corruption. I strongly reject that view.

Is it shameful to remember how all of our countries in

Africa, all of us, were when we became independent,

or how we were even more recently in Sao Tome and

Principe.

Let me say a little bit about how it was and how it

is in Sao Tome and Principe. The majority of people

grew up in wooden shacks, with no running water, no

electricity, no toilet and no chance for an education. In

1975, the country emerged from centuries of slavery

and oppressive colonialism to independence with

almost no teachers, no doctors, totally unprepared to

govern ourselves or create an economy that did not

depend on slave or contract labour as the only means

of profit. We have struggled. We have stumbled. But

today we have a vibrant and stable democracy that we

are proud of. We have a high percentage of girls in

school. We have literacy rates far above the average in

the developing world. We have free health care for all

of our citizens, although it is woefully inadequate for

lack of funds. We have almost eradicated malaria. We

have low corruption, while also being rated among the

best countries in the world for freedom of the press.

We spend almost no money on defence and we have

never fought a war.

We are grateful for aid. My people would suffer

even more than they already do without the World

Food Programme, for example. The World Health

Organization and the Global Fund to fight tuberculosis

and malaria are working with us very well. The

Republic of Taiwan, the people of the island of

Formosa, with their well-known generosity and special

attention to our realities, have been crucial in our own

success against malaria. Many organizations and

individuals have worked with us for many years with

open hearts and generous spirits, and we thank them all

for that.

Throughout our 32 years of independence, we

have followed the advice of international organizations

and built up some $350 million in bilateral and

multilateral debt, most of which was recently forgiven

under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative

and other programmes. Allow me to take this

opportunity to present, on behalf of the people of Sao

Tome and Principe, our deepest gratitude.

As long as massive poverty, injustice and obscene

inequality persist in our world, none of us can rest. I

say to all, please do not look the other way. Do not

hesitate. The future might say that what we failed to do

was tragic, but let me also say that what we did do was

truly heroic.

Finally, before ending, and as I have done in prior

years, I wish to refer to two situations to which I call

the attention of members and implore their solidarity,

regardless of whether they are poor or rich.

One of those situations is the issue of Taiwan.

There are 23 million people living on Formosa island,

also called Taiwan. They do not ask the international

community to help them because they are poor. On the

contrary, they are one of the main recognized world

economic powers, and they are helping other countries,

such as Sao Tome and Principe. They only ask to be

recognized as a sovereign country and to be included

as such on the lists of the United Nations and its

agencies. This is a question of justice.

Also a question of justice is the issue of the

United States Government lifting the embargo against

Cuba, repealing the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 and

allowing for free trade and free travel. Let the Cubans

settle their problems among themselves. This is a

democratic act.

I thank all members for being here today and

listening. May God bless us all.