Sierra Leone, 2006

The delegation of

the Republic of Sierra Leone would like to

congratulate the President on her assumption of the

responsibility for directing the work of the sixty-first

session of the General Assembly. It is our pleasure to

reaffirm our confidence in her ability to run the

Assembly, as well as to pledge our unflinching support

and cooperation during her tenure.

Let me also take this opportunity to pay special

tribute to her predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, for his

commitment and diplomatic skill, which enabled him

effectively to manage the Assembly and help the

reform process to achieve some major successes during

his presidency.

A year ago, the heads of Member States of the

United Nations declared their commitment to the

reform of the Organization, in order to reflect its

experience in the course of 60 years of existence and

its ever-expanding role within the context of the

realities of the current world order. The process has,

understandably, been painfully slow, because of the

multiplicity of competing national interests. While my

delegation appreciates the progress made so far,

particularly in the form of the establishment of the

Human Rights Council and the Peacebuilding

Commission, we are unhappy about the sluggish pace

of Security Council reform, a matter that is close to the

heart of Africa.

As a Member State deeply committed to the

African position on United Nations reform, my

delegation would like to urge the reform of the

Security Council to move faster so that our continent

can take its rightful place in the United Nations organ

that is responsible for the maintenance of international

peace and security. Obviously, the Security Council

can never be the just, democratic and representative

body that it should be if Africa, with 53 Member States

in the United Nations, does not have permanent

representation proportional to its size.

As a least developed country (LDC) emerging

from a devastating conflict, we are also concerned that

development has not been treated with the prominence

and urgency it deserves in the reform process,

considering its cause-and-effect relationship with

conflict and human rights. That relationship was

succinctly recognized in one of the outcomes of last

year’s High-level Plenary Meeting of the General

Assembly, which stated that our nations and peoples

could not enjoy development without security, nor

would they enjoy security in the absence of

development, and they would not enjoy either without

respect for human rights. The need, therefore, to

support development programmes — including the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development — as the

foundation for peace and security cannot be

overemphasized.

We are particularly happy about the establishment

of the Human Rights Council, whose operation, we

hope, will be above the weaknesses that demoralized

the former Human Rights Commission. We call on all

Member States, in particular the Council’s founding

members, to set and maintain standards that will justify

the optimism that the new Council will refrain from

practices that discredited the Human Rights

Commission.

Of particular interest to us as a post-conflict

country, however, is the Peacebuilding Commission,

whose mandate is to support the recovery of societies

emerging from conflict. We thank the Commission for

choosing Sierra Leone as one of two countries where it

will begin operation. We assure the Commission of our

fullest support and cooperation. As it will soon

discover, if it has not yet done so, we have already

embarked on the path of peacebuilding and

consolidation, having carefully formulated policies and

activities aimed at achieving lasting peace, security and

stability, which are the critical requirements for

meaningful development.

We have developed a poverty reduction strategy

paper that has attracted support from a number of

donor agencies and friendly countries. We have

produced a peace-consolidation strategy paper, which

is to be presented to the Peacebuilding Commission for

support in addressing some of the challenges facing

our country in the areas of governance and security

prior to the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary

elections in 2007.

For the Peacebuilding Commission to be able to

work in Sierra Leone on the basis of concrete, first-

hand information, we have extended an invitation to

the Commission to visit Sierra Leone. We are looking

forward to receiving the Commission in Sierra Leone.

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone

completed its peacekeeping mandate and closed down

at the end of 2005. But the United Nations did not

06-53005 24

leave behind a complete vacuum, it left the United

Nations Integrated Office for Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL)

to support our post-conflict recovery programme. We

thank the United Nations for its continued support and

assure the Organization that its contribution will not be

in vain. We have no doubt that the combined efforts of

the Peacebuilding Commission, UNIOSIL and the

Government will achieve the desired objective of

peace, security and development in the country.

The people of Sierra Leone are proud of their role

in resolving their own conflict, as well as of their

successes in the democratic process. We had a highly

successful democratic election in 2002, barely five

months after the end of the conflict. That was followed

by local government elections as part of a governance

decentralization process. Our second post-conflict

presidential and parliamentary elections, which will

mark a transition in leadership, are scheduled to be

held around this time next year. Sierra Leone cannot

afford having that watershed election go wrong, but we

need assistance to carry it out properly. I therefore

appeal to the United Nations, the European Union,

other members of the international community and our

bilateral friends to continue to help us, both financially

and technically, to make the elections another

milestone achievement in Sierra Leone’s peace and

democracy processes.

The people of Sierra Leone are conscious of the

fact that the peace they now enjoy is a product of the

support of, and cooperation with, the United Nations

and the international community. At this stage in our

history, the country is faced with three sets of

challenges as a nation: we must rectify the

accumulated errors of past policies; we must repair the

damage and heal the scars left by the conflict; and we

must chart an appropriate path for the development of

our small country in the twenty-first century. We have

the natural resources to be able to do that. With time,

our human resources will also measure up. Above all,

at this time we need the sustained engagement of

international partners. That is why we are seeking to

expand and reinforce our partnerships with the external

world — partnerships that can support us now, and

remain with us as we pursue a longer-term agenda for

sustainable development.

Finally, we are in a conflict-ridden region and the

peace in Sierra Leone cannot be sustained in isolation.

We therefore urge the United Nations to continue its

efforts to pursue durable peace in the West African

subregion.