South Africa, 2004

There are some matters on

which we all agree. One of these is that, later this year,

we will receive the important report that will be tabled

by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and

Change, which was constituted by our Secretary-

General. The other is that, next year, we will mark the

tenth anniversaries of the Copenhagen World Summit

on Sustainable Development and the Beijing World

Conference on Women and discuss their outcomes. The

third matter on which we all agree is that, next year, we

will observe the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the

historic Millennium Declaration.

We will also agree that we took all these

initiatives ó the convening of the social, womenís and

millennium summits and the constitution of the High-

Level Panel ó because we were of one mind that we

had a number of problems that needed to be solved. In

the Millennium Declaration, we used inspiring words

to sum up our response to these problems. We said:

ìWe have a collective responsibility to uphold the

principles of human dignity, equality and equity

at the global level. As leaders we have a duty

therefore to all the world's people, especially the

most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of

the world, to whom the future belongs.î

(resolution 55/2, para. 2)

We went on to say:

ìWe are determined to establish a just and lasting

peace all over the world in accordance with the

purposes and principles of the Charter.î (ibid.,

para. 4)

We also said that our efforts to make globalization

fully inclusive and equitable

'must include policies and measures, at the

global level, which correspond to the needs of

developing countries and economies in transition

and are formulated and implemented with their

effective participation'. (ibid., para. 5)

To this we added the commitment that

'We will spare no effort to free our fellow men,

women and children from the abject and

dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty'.

'We are committed to making the right to

development a reality for everyone and to freeing

the entire human race from want.' (ibid.,

para. 11)

Naturally, we have no choice but to agree that we

did say all these things and would undoubtedly agree

that we meant what we said. I trust that this will not

mark the end of the range of issues over which we

would speak with one voice. I say this because, when I

have asked myself the question 'Have we achieved the

goals we set ourselves?', I have found it impossible

not to answer that we have failed. There may very well

be others among us who will take a different view and

say that a good beginning has been made and therefore

that it is too early to say we have failed.

But I am certain that if we say to those affected

by violence and war that we have made a good

beginning towards the establishment of a just and

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lasting peace all over the world, they will not believe

us. I am equally certain that if we say to those who go

to bed hungry every day that we have made a good

beginning towards freeing the entire human race from

want, they will also not believe us.

I would make bold to say that the vision of

human dignity, equality and equity at the global level

that we enunciated in this imposing forum four years

ago resonates among the ordinary people who are

victims of hunger and war as a beautiful dream that

will inevitably be deferred.

Does this mean that, when we made the promises

we made, we deliberately intended to tell the billions

of ordinary people a lie? The answer to that question is

obviously ìnoî. Did we speak as we did simply

because talk is easy and cheap? Again, the answer to

that question is obviously 'no'. The question must

therefore arise as to why the grandeur of our words and

the vision they paint ó of a world of peace, free of

war, a world characterized by shared prosperity, free of

poverty - has not produced the grand results we

sincerely sought and seek.

It would seem to me that the answer to that

question lies in the fact that we have as yet not

seriously confronted the difficult issues that relate to

the uses and perhaps the abuses of power. Yesterday, in

his statement on his report on the work of the

Organization, our Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan,

spoke eloquently about the 3,000-year-old Code of

Hammurabi, and said: 'That code was a landmark in

mankindís struggle to build an order where, instead of

might making right, right would make might'

(). We took it that the Secretary-General was,

in his own elegant way, drawing our attention to the

central question of our day: the uses and abuses of

power.

Contemporary human society is characterized by

a gross and entrenched imbalance in the distribution of

power. That power is held and exercised by human

beings. As human beings, the powerful share many

things with the powerless. Together, the powerful and

the disempowered share the common human needs to

eat, to drink water, to be protected from the elements,

to dream, to love, to laugh, to play, and to live.

But life itself tells us that all of that describes

only what human beings share. The rest, the relations

among us as social beings, is defined by our varied

access to power and its exercise.

Without fear of contradiction, I have said that we

all agree that later this year we will receive the report

of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and

Change. I am equally convinced that, depending on

where we stand relative to the power equation, we will

hold radically different views about what constitutes

humanity's most serious threats and challenges, and

therefore what must be changed to respond to that

perceived reality.

Both the powerful and the disempowered will

undoubtedly agree that terrorism and war represent a

serious threat to all humanity. They will agree that we

were right to make the commitment in the Millennium

Declaration to work for

'a just and lasting peace all over the world in

accordance with the purposes and principles of

the Charter' (resolution 55/2, para. 4).

Many of those who have already addressed the

Assembly have correctly drawn our attention to many

instances of terrorism and war, to which we are all

opposed. They have spoken of the bombings of the

United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and of

the African and American lives those claimed; of the

heinous 11 September outrage in this city; and of the

acts of terrorism in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco,

Spain, Israel, Gatumba in Burundi, Beslan in the

Russian Federation, and elsewhere.

They have correctly drawn our attention to the

violent conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo,

Burundi, the Sudan, Palestine, Israel, Iraq,

Afghanistan, Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and

elsewhere, and to other unsolved problems, such as

self-determination for the people of Western Sahara,

that cry out for a solution.

Both the powerful and the disempowered agree

that the international community must act together

successfully to confront these situations and therefore

the threat and challenge of terrorism and war.

However, the powerful will also make the

additional determination that terrorism and war

constitute the central and principal threat and challenge

that human civilization faces. They will make that

determination because, almost by definition, the

terrorists target them simply because they are

powerful; they have no logical choice but to identify

terrorism as the central and principal threat and

challenge they face, and to which they must respond.

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Because of their place in the power equation,

what they decide will necessarily represent the global

decision of what constitutes the central, principal and

most urgent threat and challenge to human society,

necessitating various changes in the global system of

governance. What they decide will translate into a set

of obligatory injunctions, issued by this Organization,

which all Member nations will have to accept and

implement.

Again, both the powerful and the disempowered

will undoubtedly also agree that poverty, want and

underdevelopment constitute serious problems that all

humanity must confront. Many of those who have

already addressed the Assembly have correctly drawn

our attention to the reality of poverty, which billions

across the globe continue to experience.

Among other things, they have correctly

reminded us of the fact that some countries are poorer

today than they were a decade ago. They have pointed

to the virtual certainty that we will fail to meet the

Millennium Development Goals we set ourselves four

years ago.

Both the powerful and the disempowered agree

that the international community must act together

successfully to confront this situation, and therefore

the threat and challenge of poverty and

underdevelopment. However, the disempowered, who

are also the poor of the world, will also make the

additional determination that poverty and

underdevelopment constitute the central and principal

threat and challenge that human civilization faces.

They will make the determination that, because

they are the daily victims of deprivation and want,

which claim the lives of millions every year ó

translating into cold statistics about shortened life

expectancy - deprivation and want represent the

central and principal threat and challenge that

humanity faces, necessitating changes in the global

system of governance in order effectively to respond to

that reality.

But because they are powerless, those billions -

the overwhelming majority of the same humanity that

needs to eat, to drink water, to be protected from the

elements, to dream, to love, to laugh, to play, to live -

will have no possibility of persuading this

Organization, laughably described in the Millennium

Declaration as 'the most universal and most

representative Organization in the world', to translate

what they have concluded into obligatory injunctions,

issued by this Organization, which all Member nations

will have to accept and implement.

If, for a moment, we resist the temptation to

speak in parables or in tongues, for fear that we might

be punished for telling the truth, we must say that this

stark and simple reality reflects the distribution of

power and wealth in contemporary human society.

The wealthy and powerful feel, correctly,

mortally threatened by the fanatical rage of the

terrorists. They have the power to respond to this

present and immediate danger with all their might, and,

because they are mighty, they can determine for all

humanity that the principal threat to them is the

principal threat that all humanity faces.

The poor and powerless feel threatened by a

permanent hurricane of poverty, which is devastating

their communities as horrendously as hurricane Ivan

destroyed the Caribbean island State of Grenada.

But, tragically, because they are poor, they do not

have the means to respond to this present and

immediate danger. Neither do they have the power to

determine for all humanity that what they decide is the

principal threat they confront, is also the principal

threat that all humanity, including the rich and

powerful, faces.

In the Millennium Declaration, we spoke of the

need to implement

'policies and measures, at the global level, which

correspond to the needs of developing countries

and economies in transition and are formulated

and implemented with their effective

participation' (ibid., para. 5).

Perhaps the mistake we made was to assume that

the contemporary distribution of power in human

society would permit this outcome, and that, regardless

of this fundamental consideration, it would be possible

for the concerns of the poor to take precedence on the

global agenda and the global programme of action.

We comforted, or perhaps deluded, ourselves

with the thought that this Organization is 'the most

universal and most representative organization in the

world' - afraid to ask the question, is it?

Every year many of us who have spoken, and will

speak, from this rostrum make an annual pilgrimage to

this great and vibrant city to plead the cause of the

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poor of the world, hopeful that this time our voices will

be heard. Every year, after a few days, we pack up our

bags to return to the reality of our societies, whose

squalor stands out in sharp contrast to the splendour of

New York and this majestic precinct that constitutes

the headquarters of the United Nations.

In the aftermath, resolutions are passed. Again

and again our permanent representatives, with their

extraordinary and plenipotentiary powers, report that

those resolutions oblige us to act to thwart the deadly

plans of murderous terrorist gangs. Again and again

they report that yet another appeal has been made to

the mighty and the lowly alike, voluntarily to respond

to the cries of the wretched of the earth.

We are truly proud and inspired to see you,

Mr. President, presiding over the proceedings of the

General Assembly at its fifty-ninth session, because we

know that you will discharge your obligations as a son

of the poor of the world should. We are moved by the

fact that you had as your predecessor President Julian

Hunte, who also understood intimately what must be

done to ensure that the United Nations can become, in

reality, the indispensable common house of the entire

human family.

As an Israeli said to us at our headquarters in

Pretoria a fortnight ago, it is perhaps time that we, the

poor and powerless, abandon our wheelchairs and

begin to walk unaided. Perhaps that will help to build

the social order of which Hammurabi - and Kofi

Annan - spoke, in which right makes might and not

might, right.