Sierra Leone, 2005

The delegation of

the Republic of Sierra Leone wishes to express its

profound appreciation for the significant contribution

of the President of the General Assembly at its fifty-

ninth session to the work of the Assembly and to

congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption of the

leadership of this body at its sixtieth session. You and

your predecessor will always have a special place in

the history of the United Nations as Presidents of the

General Assembly at the height of the Organization’s

reform process.

The United Nations was founded on the principle

of multilateral cooperation for the maintenance of

international peace and security. For 60 years, it has

been the focus of its Members — rich and poor, big

and small — for carrying out that critical

responsibility. Today, for many of its Members, the

Organization is the great hope, not only for the

achievement of peace and security, but also for the

attainment of every objective of human aspiration,

particularly development, human rights, freedom and

democracy.

The United Nations was designed to serve the

world of the aftermath of the Second World War — a

world different in many ways from today’s world. That

is why my delegation has welcomed with total

commitment reforms in the United Nations system to

reflect the realities of today’s world, and we will

continue to participate fully in the reform process.

We welcome the outcome document (resolution

60/1) of last week’s summit and applaud the

negotiations that led to its adoption by consensus. The

success of those negotiations indicate that, in spite of

our differences and individual sovereign interests,

Member States recognize that we have more things in

common than things that divide us and that, for a better

world, common interests must enjoy precedence over

individual interests.

The rhetoric that has accompanied the outcome

document has been impressive and reassuring,

especially for developing countries and countries in

conflict or emerging from conflict. If those soothing

statements are matched by action, this year’s United

Nations summit and General Assembly session will

have a landmark effect on the Organization and on the

world. We are optimistic that it will.

This is the last Assembly session before the

completion of the withdrawal of the United Nations

Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at the end of

December. UNAMSIL has achieved successes that are

unique in the history of United Nations peacekeeping

efforts. Sierra Leoneans will forever remember the

positive difference that the Mission made in their

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country’s crisis and in their lives. For that, we can

never sufficiently thank the United Nations and the

entire international community for coming to our

rescue and for standing by us when we could not stand

alone. In particular, we are profoundly grateful to

countries that contributed troops to UNAMSIL and

countries that financially supported the Mission.

With a tremendous feeling of relief, we welcome

the proposal to constitute an integrated United Nations

office to succeed UNAMSIL, with the objective of

supporting Sierra Leone in continuing to address

critical areas of concern, including the causes of the

conflict, consolidating the peace, human rights,

development, legal, judicial and governance reforms,

the rule of law and security. That measure has allayed

the fears of Sierra Leoneans that UNAMSIL’s

departure would create a security vacuum and would

mark the end of programmes associated with the

Mission. We eagerly look forward to yet another

success in the United Nations peacekeeping experiment

in Sierra Leone.

Today, the Organization is preparing to transform

its peacekeeping functions in Sierra Leone to meet

some of the post-conflict needs of the country. That is

a landmark decision that could serve as a model for

effective coordination of strategies and programmes

among the United Nations, its agencies and

programmes, and organizations and development

partners in countries emerging from conflict.

We note with interest that the architecture and

plans for the operation of the new integrated office

were based on close and extensive cooperation among

relevant parties of the United Nations Secretariat and

various United Nations agencies and organizations that

constituted the country team. Sierra Leone hopes that

that process of consultation and cooperation will

continue. We urge the United Nations Mission to work

closely with existing national institutions and with

other initiatives that we have set up over the past five

years to tackle post-conflict problems. We have no

doubt that the new office will provide a “guinea pig”

for the work of the proposed United Nations

Peacebuilding Commission, to which we will spare no

effort to lend support.

As members are aware, it is not enough to

establish these short-term yet essential post-conflict

bridges; what we desperately need is the mobilization

of resources, including those required for capacity-

building for sustainable economic and social

development. The objective is not merely to ensure that

Sierra Leone and other countries emerging from

conflict do not slide back into conflict; rather, the

ultimate objective must be to ensure that Sierra

Leoneans do not remain in abject poverty.

The creation of the Peacebuilding Commission

will be in consonance with the views expressed by my

country’s President five years ago when, from this

rostrum at the Millennium Summit, he spoke about the

imperative of adaptation by the United Nations. He

pleaded with the Organization to continue to adapt and

equip itself to deal with the perennial problems and

new manifestations of human insecurity and

underdevelopment. He also spoke about some of the

ways in which Sierra Leone had tested the capacity of

the United Nations to adapt itself to respond to local

and global challenges.

The three main elements — development, peace

and security and human rights — highlighted in the

Secretary-General’s report entitled “In larger freedom”

(A/59/2005) and in the outcome document (resolution

60/1) of last week’s High-level Plenary Meeting are all

interrelated. However, as the document states,

development is a central goal by itself. That is why no

one should be surprised at the importance that Sierra

Leone — a poor country emerging from a devastating

conflict — attaches to the development cluster of the

outcome document, including the section on ways in

which to meet the special needs of Africa.

The people of Sierra Leone continue to attach

importance to the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) and to the commitments our heads of State or

Government made in the Assembly five years ago. The

principal purpose of the just-concluded High-level

Plenary Meeting was to renew our determination to

fulfil those commitments.

The General Assembly would be interested to

know that the food security objective of ensuring by

the year 2007 that no Sierra Leonean goes to bed

hungry is consistent with, and directly linked to, the

MDGs; so are the objectives embodied in our Poverty

Reduction Strategy Paper. We are determined to

continue to work with our development partners to

achieve those objectives.

For the overwhelming majority of us, “freedom

from want” means the collective national and

international responsibility to eradicate extreme

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poverty, the collective responsibility to ensure that

people in all regions of the world enjoy, first and

foremost, their human right to food, basic health care,

education, clean water and other amenities that sustain

life. As we see it, “freedom from fear” means the

collective responsibility of all States to remove and

eliminate threats to the safety and security of people

everywhere, such as the illicit traffic and use of small

arms and the accumulation of nuclear and other

weapons of mass destruction. “Freedom from want”

and “freedom from fear” also imply the responsibility

to accept without reservation the relationship between

disarmament and development.

Furthermore, “freedom to live in dignity” implies

the collective responsibility of all States to ensure that

their peoples are treated with dignity. This includes the

protection of all the economic, social, cultural, political

and civil rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights. In our view, that responsibility

implies cooperation and assistance where necessary to

enhance the capacity for prevention and protection. In

this connection, Sierra Leone is grateful for the

assistance it continues to receive from the United

Nations in the field of human rights.

Sierra Leone has continued to make giant strides

in all areas of human endeavour since the end of armed

conflict in 2002. Since then, presidential,

parliamentary and local elections — the latter ushering

in a revival of local government that had been dormant

for nearly 30 years — have been held in conformity

with democratic principles and practice. We are now

preparing for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary

elections to consolidate further our gains in the

democratic process.

Sierra Leone believes that children are the best

investment to ensure a bright future for our country.

Consequently, we hold the view that development and

respect for human rights start with them and that the

Millennium Development Goals are a critical tool for

achieving those goals. That is why we have increased

the space devoted to education, as indicated by

enrolment figures that have jumped from 659,503 in

the 2001-2002 academic year to 1,158,399 in 2003-

2004 — this in a country whose total population is

5 million.

We believe that the sound administration of

justice, in particular strict adherence to the rule of law

and human rights, is indispensable to attaining durable

peace and political stability. Accordingly, the

Government has re-established civil authority

throughout Sierra Leone through the reopening and

strengthening of judicial and law enforcement

institutions, and we are in the process of establishing a

national human rights commission.

Two transitional institutions, the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission, which has just published

its report, and the Special Court, have contributed

immensely to the peace process. It is the Government’s

intention to implement the Commission’s

recommendations, to which we attach great importance

as a crucial instrument of durable peace.

Let me take this opportunity to appeal to the

United Nations, the international community and our

friends to support the Special Court to enable it to

accomplish its mandate.

There is no doubt that the United Nations and the

international community have made important strides

in addressing impunity. However, it is our belief that

the international community should do more than

support the international tribunals, truth and

reconciliation commissions and other mechanisms of a

transitional justice system. It is our fervent hope that

the process of peace and reconciliation in Sierra Leone

will not end with the report of the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission or the end of the work of

the Special Court. Reconciliation would be incomplete

without addressing the special needs of the victims of

the heinous crimes that were perpetrated on civilians

during the armed conflict.

I solemnly appeal to the international community

to assist us in supporting victims of war crimes and

crimes against humanity. Within its limited resources,

the Government has made every effort to address the

special needs of the victims of the heinous crimes

committed during the 11-year rebel armed conflict. But

we need international support for these victims

through, for instance, the Special Fund for War Victims

envisaged under the 1999 Lomé Peace Agreement and

the National Commission for War-Affected Children.

This address would be incomplete without

reference to the security situation in the West African

subregion. While Sierra Leone is enjoying relative

peace and stability and the capacity of its security

forces continues to be enhanced by the International

Military Advisory and Training Team, there is still an

air of uncertainty in the neighbourhood and the

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subregion. Because of the porosity of the borders and

the historically fluid nature of the conflict in the

subregion, we will feel safe and secure only in a

conflict-free region.

In the light of this, I would like to appeal to the

United Nations, the international community and our

friends to continue to support measures to resolve the

conflicts that have plagued the subregion for so long

and diverted scarce resources and energy from

development. But let me remind members about the

imperative of recognizing the fact that the achievement

of lasting peace requires wholesome measure for the

entire subregion. In particular, we recommend a

subregional approach by the United Nations, the

African Union, the European Union, the Economic

Community of West African States and other interested

parties to post-conflict activities, including

disarmament, demobilization and reintegration,

security-sector reform and post-conflict peacebuilding.

Finally, at the time of the debate of the sixtieth

session of the General Assembly, we should be

reminded that the United Nations is and should remain

at the centre of efforts to harmonize activities to attain

its common objectives. This Organization belongs to us

all and operates in the larger interest of all its

members. Let this sixtieth anniversary be a time for

recommitment to the principles and purposes of the

Charter, a time for renewed determination to build on

the successes of this great Organization.