San Marino, 1999

Mr. President, on behalf

of the Government of the Republic of San Marino, I wish

to congratulate you on your election to the presidency of

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the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly. You

represent a geographical region, the African continent,

which can significantly contribute to identifying the major

causes of world problems and help to evaluate their effects.

You can lead this Organization towards desirable and

concrete results.

A particular acknowledgment goes to President Didier

Opertti. San Marino had the opportunity and privilege to

work in close cooperation with him and to ascertain his

undeniable and extraordinary skills and the remarkable

accomplishments reached during his mandate.

Finally, I would like to congratulate the three new

States which have recently joined the big family of the

United Nations. I am deeply convinced that countries never

involved in wars possess an inestimable richness and can

transmit to the whole world their history of peace and

tolerance, helping us reach the goals set forth in the

preambular paragraphs of the Charter.

The Republic of San Marino believes that the United

Nations is, and must remain, the forum for international

negotiations best suited to the nations’ expectations. We

reiterate its central role in the prevention and management

of international crises, particularly in the field of peace and

security, through the necessary updating process of its main

operative organs, and primarily the Security Council, which

should never be delegitimized.

The Council’s reform, in the context of a larger reform

of the United Nations system, is a fundamental step in the

construction of the new international structure. The reform

originated from the need to update the composition and the

modus operandi of the most important United Nations

organ to operate in a deeply changed international

environment.

We are particularly thankful to the Secretary-General

for courageously proposing, and partly already

accomplishing, a complete, wide-ranging programme of

reforms to strengthen the United Nations. This programme

will progress because only an Organization in constant

evolution will be able to prevent, in some cases, and to

tackle, in others, the challenges of the next millennium.

San Marino feels internationally responsible and it

feels the need to mobilize all its strength to find solutions

of solidarity to the serious problem of the external debt of

developing countries.

Faced with 3 billion people who still live with less

than $2 a day, faced with 130 million children without

access to education and 1.5 billion people without

drinking water, we must support action aimed at creating

sustainable development and healthy economic policies.

The imbalance between rich and poor countries must not

become irreversible, with tragic consequences for all

humankind.

San Marino shares and supports the series of

programmes and plans announced and applied by creditor

countries and by the major world financial institutions to

tackle this serious emergency. Programmes and plans

have so far shown themselves to be insufficient to tackle

the problem of debt in a decisive way.

We hope that the United Nations will intensify the

debate aimed at an equitable and durable solution to the

problem. In particular, we hope that the General

Assembly and the Economic and Social Council will

represent the best laboratory of ideas for its definition.

San Marino shares the ethical approach to the situation

through solidarity and development. We believe this will

give more hope to the people affected by this heavy

burden.

In the past year the Republic of San Marino was one

of the first countries to ratify the Statute of the

International Criminal Court, convinced that such an

institution is indispensable for the future world order. In

international society, it represents not only a political

advance, but moral progress, too.

The Republic of San Marino has recently established

a permanent court of arbitration, trusting it will become

a trustworthy and impartial international instrument for

the resolution of national and international disputes. We

are convinced that such an instrument will be duly

evaluated by all Member States of the United Nations and

that they will shortly be able to subscribe to a proper

convention. We further believe that this initiative could

represent a significant contribution by our country to the

international community.

At the outset of the third millennium, we still find

disconcerting the coexistence of a large, consolidated

corpus of humanitarian laws and human rights and the

spread of atrocities beyond all limits, affecting almost

exclusively civil populations, mainly women and children.

The international community can rightly state that it

has reached goals in the field of humanitarian law and

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human rights that were unimaginable 50 years ago.

However, these considerable goals have been reached only

with the simultaneous application of established rules. In

this regard, we appreciate the tireless work of the Special

Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and

Armed Conflict, aimed at filling the deep gap between

legality and accepted practice, and at underlining the

absolute need in the community of States for the full

application of and respect for, international law. San

Marino has great expectations of the future World Summit

for Children.

In every country and in every culture there are

messages of peace which are often forgotten, neglected or

ignored. It is the responsibility of the United Nations, its

specialized agencies, and all of us to rehabilitate those

messages through the awakening of our conscience and the

application of a universal culture of peace. This will happen

if we are able to courageously identify and defeat the seeds

of violence.

Therefore, we have to decide now what culture we

want to defend: a culture where violence is considered an

inevitable evil from which we can only protect ourselves,

or a culture where violence can and must be eradicated.

The preamble to the Constitution of the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO), which includes the words,

“since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in

the minds of men that the defences of peace

must be constructed”,

remains today, in our opinion, the right perspective, because

peace-building through dialogue, education and acceptance

of differences is the best guarantee for the survival of

humanity.

We all know that there are 45 armed conflicts going

on at this very moment all over the world. Sadly, the

spilling of stains of hate and violence constantly destroys

the hope that humanity will soon prepare to use the so-

called “peace dividend”, resulting from the end of the

balance of terror between the super-Powers, for positive

goals.

The Republic of San Marino deeply appreciates the

recent Security Council resolution expeditiously

establishing a multinational peace force to change the

situation in the East Timor crisis. What the United

Nations is starting is a risky mission, but it will contribute

to increasing the role and dignity of the United Nations,

underlining its force as an impartial and neutral institution

deploying itself as a bulwark against prevarication to

defend the life and the dignity of humankind.

It is with great satisfaction that the Government of

San Marino acknowledges the renewed impetus and

momentum of the Arab-Israeli peace process negotiations.

San Marino regards with equal satisfaction the present

search for political solutions at the end of the Balkans

conflict, activating a channel of concrete solidarity for the

population of Kosovo.

The people of San Marino sadly regret to see that

the important and topical question of the death penalty

has not been included in the General Assembly’s agenda.

San Marino intends to continue to voice its protest against

capital punishment, firmly convinced that the abhorrent

instrument of death consciously and legally inflicted by

one human being on another can be considered neither a

valid and effective answer to defend society nor a

deterrent against the spreading of criminality.

On behalf of the Government of San Marino, I wish

to acknowledge once more the focal role of the United

Nations with respect to the major challenges at the end of

this millennium and the momentum that the greatest

international Organization can provide for a new century,

in which the supremacy of a culture of peace over a

culture of war, of a culture of life over a culture of death,

of the full realization of human dignity over its systematic

violation, will prevail.

It is in this spirit that I wish good work to you, Sir,

and to all the members of the Assembly.