South Africa, 2005

First, I would like to salute

Mr. Jean Ping, the outgoing President of the General

Assembly, for the work he did to guide the General

Assembly as the nations of the world considered the

immensely important matters that led to the elaboration

of the outcome document that was adopted last night.

I would also like to congratulate you, Sir, on your

election to preside over the sixtieth session of the

General Assembly. We are confident that you will lead

the Assembly well as it confronts the challenge of

implementing the decisions taken during the

millennium review summit and remains seized of other

important matters that were not adequately addressed

in the outcome document.

Shortly before we convened here for the

millennium review summit, an important meeting of

Christian leaders took place in Washington, D.C. Those

leaders issued a communique entitled ìA Call to

Partnershipî, directed at our summit meeting. In part

the call says,

"At the urgent call of church leaders in the

southern hemisphere, we came together at the

Washington National Cathedral as Christian

leaders from diverse traditions and places, both

rich and poor, in the South and the North, united

in a common concern for those of us living in

poverty. We see their faces; we hear their voices;

they are a part of us, and we are a part of them."

As the United Nations reaches its sixtieth

anniversary, we give thanks for its work in

peacemaking and global reconciliation,

particularly the historic commitment to eradicate

poverty in the Millennium Declaration of 2000.

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Five years have passed, and, despite the triumph

of principle, there has been a failure in practice.

In this communique, we offer our partnership to

the leaders gathered at the World Summit at the

United Nations in building a global movement to

make real the promises of the Millennium

Development Goals as a crucial step towards a

more just world for all God's children.

We believe that God calls us to place

people struggling with poverty at the centre of

our concern. Globalization has brought

unprecedented economic growth. At the same

time, one sixth of the world's people still fight

daily for survival under the crushing burden of

extreme poverty. The increasing concentration of

wealth in our world, while so many suffer, is a

scandal that impoverishes us all.

"We believe that the spirit of partnership

between rich and poor, exemplified in the MDGs,

is a way the world can address poverty in all its

dimensions. In particular, we support the goal of

a global partnership for development, and believe

that the Churches can make a unique contribution

to that partnership."

If nothing else, the fact that the religious leaders

who issued that call gathered from many parts of the

world to agree on a message to our summit Meeting

must remind us that the masses - the people who

elected us - entertain high expectations about the

United Nations. They see this Organization as their

pre-eminent partner in the continuing struggle to build

a better and humane world.

They challenge those of us who have the

privilege to represent our States in the United Nations

to build, strengthen and direct this world Organization

so that it can, indeed, play its role as a pre-eminent

partner of the peoples of the world in constructing a

better and more humane world.

Accordingly, I believe that we must view with the

greatest seriousness their conclusion that five years

have passed since we adopted the Millennium

Declaration and that, 'despite this triumph of principle,

there has been a failure in practice'.

Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the

destructive fury of the Second World War and the

villainous genocide committed during that war, the

United Nations was formed, in the words of the

Charter, "to save succeeding generations from the

scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought

untold sorrow to mankind".

Responding to the universal demand for human

and peoples' rights, the founders declared that they

were forming the United Nations "to reaffirm faith in

the fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth

of the human person, in the equal rights of men and

women and of nations large and small" and to

"promote social progress and better standards of life in

larger freedom".

As we gather here, in part to celebrate the sixtieth

anniversary of an international Organization

established to bring hope to the peoples of the world,

we cannot avoid asking some hard questions. That is

necessary if we are to live up to our obligation to

ensure that the United Nations discharges its

responsibilities, described by the religious leaders who

met at the Washington National Cathedral as

peacemaking, global reconciliation and the eradication

of poverty.

We must ask ourselves how well prepared the

United Nations is today, 60 years after it was

established, to save succeeding generations from the

scourge of war; to protect and advance the fundamental

human rights of all; to protect and advance the dignity

and worth of each human person; to ensure equal rights

between men and women; to ensure equal rights

between nations large and small; and to promote social

progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

We must ask - and answer honestly - whether

what we do as the United Nations is properly described

as a triumph of principle but a failure in practice, as the

religious leaders put it.

The reality is that, 60 years after the United

Nations was formed as a response to the appalling and

ghastly results of the crime of racism, we are still

confronted by the cancer of racism. Although the

United Nations has adopted important decisions on that

matter, and convened the necessary conferences to

unite the peoples of the world against racism, those

who continue to fall victim to that crime against

humanity would find it difficult to cite the instances

when the United Nations came to their aid.

Sixty years after the United Nations was formed,

the indecencies of war and violent conflict continue to

afflict innocent people, evidently because we, the

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United Nations, lack the will to live up to the

commitment that was made when this Organization

was established.

Africans, who have been exposed to many violent

conflicts since the United Nations was formed, are

particularly keen for this Organization to live up to its

obligation to save succeeding African generations from

the scourge of war. Even as we speak, the United

Nations is faced with the urgent task of taking the

necessary action in CÙte díIvoire to help to bring a

lasting peace to that important African country,

opening the way to its reunification, the holding of

democratic elections and the promotion of social

progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

to use the words of the Charter.

A similar challenge faces this Organization with

regard to the restoration of lasting peace in Darfur in

the Sudan, building on the historic conclusion and

implementation of the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace

Agreement, signed in Nairobi, Kenya, earlier this year.

Only 11 years ago, we experienced a terrible

genocide in Rwanda, and thousands were killed in the

internecine conflict that took place in the Balkans.

Those who were exposed to the savagery would be

fully justified in concluding that the United Nations

had betrayed its commitment to the peoples of the

world.

I am certain that all of us are impatient to see an

end to the conflicts in the Middle East, including Iraq,

and in particular the restoration of the rights of the

people of Palestine, in the context of the successful

implementation of the road map.

While we welcome recent positive developments

in this regard, we must accept the reality that every day

that passes without the full implementation of the road

map only serves to point an accusing finger at us, the

United Nations, accusing us of not having done

everything we could to help secure the just and lasting

peace that is the right of the Palestinian, the Israeli and

the Arab peoples.

We have all recognized the serious and urgent

threat posed by international terrorism to all our

nations. We have all accepted the reality that we need a

multilateral response to that common threat. Yet we

have still not succeeded in arriving at a common

definition of that threat or identified its fundamental

causes.

The issues of non-proliferation and the

disarmament of weapons of mass destruction are

matters of critical concern to all nations, both large and

small. Yet we failed to address those matters in the

outcome document adopted at the review summit last

night, even as the issue of nuclear weapons and their

non-proliferation is among the most prominent items in

world news and on the international agenda. None of

us could justly claim that our failure as the United

Nations to take specific decisions on these matters

served to enhance global security in the face of the

threat of weapons of mass destruction.

With regard to the issue of Iran, we firmly believe

that negotiations should resume and that the matter be

settled within the framework of the provisions of the

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

and with the full participation of the International

Atomic Energy Agency.

The gap between the rich and the poor is

becoming worse within and between countries, as

observed by the United Nations Development

Programmeís 2005 Human Development Report, which

states that the gap between the average citizen in the

richest and in the poorest countries is wide and is

getting wider. It states that in 1990 the average

American was 38 times richer than the average

Tanzanian, while today the average American is 61

times richer.

The same report states, on page 3,

"In 2003, 18 countries with a combined

population of 460 million people registered lower

scores on the human development index (HDI)

than in 1990 - an unprecedented reversal. In the

midst of an increasingly prosperous global

economy, 10.7 million children every year do not

live to see their fifth birthday, and more than 1

billion people survive in abject poverty on less

than a $1 a day."

Accordingly, if we pause and scan the road

travelled to judge whether we have succeeded in saving

the world from the scourge of war; whether we have

built a world that has reaffirmed faith in fundamental

human rights; whether we have created a world that

has restored the dignity and worth of the human

person - a world that has entrenched equal rights for

men and women and for nations, large and small - the

answer from the majority of the people of the world

may very well be a resounding "No".

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The United Nations has adopted many decisions

intended to help address the various global challenges

that have persisted over the 60 years of its existence.

Accordingly, we have the necessary policies to address

the social, economic, political and other problems

facing humanity. We have also adopted comprehensive

and clear programmes to give effect to those policies

and have identified the resources required for their

implementation.

The questions we must answer are: why have we

not implemented these programmes, and what must be

done to correct the situation?

The process of globalization means that our

common world is more integrated today than it was

when the United Nations was formed 60 years ago.

Similarly, the interconnectedness of the issues of

peace, security, development and human rights has

never been more pronounced than it is today. All this

means that the imperatives that made it necessary and

correct to establish the United Nations as part of a

desirable system of global governance are that much

more compelling today, and that the necessary reform

of the Organization must take place to ensure that it

reflects the new global realities since it was formed

and that it is empowered to respond effectively to the

urgent challenges that face all humanity.

And yet, the painful paradox we face is that it

seems obvious that, over the years, there has been a

continuous erosion of the authority and prestige of the

United Nations and a sustained drift towards its

marginalization in terms of playing its rightful role, as

so clearly defined in the United Nations Charter. At its

sixtieth session, the General Assembly has the heavy

responsibility to reassert the critical need for the

United Nations to discharge its responsibilities as

spelled out in that Charter. Experience over the last 60

years has shown that, to address the criticism levelled

against the Organization by religious leaders ó that

there has been a triumph of principle and a failure in

practice ó we must be ready to engage in a sustained

struggle to ensure that the vision contained in the

United Nations Charter is actually translated into

reality.

As we engage in this struggle, we should say, as

did the religious leaders who met at the Washington

National Cathedral, that we are united in a common

concern for those of us living in poverty: "We see their

faces; we hear their voices; they are a part of us, and

we are a part of them."

Let me close by reiterating our deepest

sympathies and condolences to the Government and the

people of the United States in the wake of the death

and destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.