Sri Lanka, 1993

It gives me great pleasure

to see an eminent son of Guyana guiding this forty-eighth

session of the General Assembly. Sri Lanka and Guyana

have a long tradition of cooperation at the United Nations,

in the Non-Aligned Movement and in the Commonwealth.

Sri Lanka also expresses its appreciation to His

Excellency Mr. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria, who presided

over the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly.

Before I proceed, may I take this opportunity, on behalf

of the Government and the people of Sri Lanka, to express

our profound sorrow over the terrible tragedy that has struck

the people of India in the wake of the devastating earthquake

this week.

I bring best wishes from His Excellency

Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, President of Sri Lanka, and best

wishes for the success of this session of the Assembly in its

endeavours for world peace.

Sri Lanka welcomes the new Member States admitted

to the United Nations this year.

We thank the Secretary-General, His Excellency

Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for his dedication and

courageous leadership in meeting the challenges of peace

and development that lie ahead.

Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 37

It is four years since I last addressed the Assembly.

Our hopes voiced at that time for the post-cold-war global

order are now being realized, although there are problems of

instability in the international arena.

The current international political trend gives us fresh

hope of relations being conducted between States in

accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter.

Regarding Palestine, Sri Lanka has welcomed the

mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation

Organization and Israel. We hope that the interim

arrangements now being worked out will lead eventually to

a comprehensive and durable settlement of the Palestinian

problem in all its aspects.

In South Africa, the Non-Aligned Movement’s resolute

opposition to apartheid and its advocacy of a free,

democratic and non-racial South Africa stands vindicated.

As President Nelson Mandela described it last week, "the

countdown to democracy" in South Africa has begun.

Cambodia, a founding member of the Non-Aligned

Movement, is now free. We welcome this development and

congratulate the United Nations on its role.

These developments certainly give us encouragement

and hope. But this does not mean that the world is now free

from tension and disputes.

The situation in Bosnia gives grounds for a vote of

no-confidence on the political leadership of our times. It is

a situation which has shocked the world. It is clear that the

international community is still incapable of rising above

narrow and parochial considerations. It is vital that an early

solution be found which will meet the aspirations of all the

parties concerned.

We have watched with alarm the rising tide of racism

in many countries, which violates the very foundations of

their cherished goals and objectives. It is not relevant here

to diagnose the causes, but these dangerous and ugly trends

must be checked. This is not just a challenge to

Governments alone. All men and women of good will must

join together to fight this evil.

The implementation of recent arms-limitation

agreements and the shelving of plans to extend the arms race

into outer space have enhanced the prospects for genuine

disarmament. Since 1991 world defence spending has been

set on a downward course. We must bring about a

successful conclusion to the 1995 conference on the

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Sri Lanka is pleased at the recent successful conclusion

of the Convention on chemical weapons.

At the same time, genuine disarmament must also

incorporate measures to reduce the flows of conventional

arms. The uncontrolled movement of arms and explosives

to extremist fringe groups threatens to destabilize small

countries.

In a similar context, Sri Lanka wishes to draw the

Assembly’s attention to the initiative to enforce an

international ban on the use of mines in warfare. The tragic

consequences of mine warfare are visible in the thousands of

amputees in many parts of the world and call for urgent

international attention.

Today it is widely recognized that security can no

longer be reduced to military considerations alone. Security

must take account of economic crises, poverty, hunger, mass

migrations, international terrorism and environmental

pollution. These developments require the revitalization of

the United Nations.

In 1995, the United Nations will celebrate its fiftieth

anniversary. The founding principle of the United Nations -

the sovereign equality of all States - remains valid today.

The Secretary-General has emphasized this principle in his

report "An Agenda for Peace". The principle of sovereign

equality must be put into practice if the bold proposals in

"An Agenda for Peace" are to succeed.

As the transition to a new global order continues, the

United Nations will come under greater pressure to live up

to its ideals. However, in order to command the widest

possible support, the United Nations must operate on the

basis of an acceptable set of guiding principles. With regard

to national disputes, United Nations intervention must be

considered only upon the request of the Member State

concerned. Indigenous peace efforts must be encouraged

and respected.

Regionalism has received a new impetus. The United

Nations should extend its fullest cooperation to these

regional trends and initiatives. A lingering obstacle to

regional unity is the question of border disputes. The

Non-Aligned Movement has made useful proposals in this

regard, including the suggestion by Sri Lanka that a border

disputes commission be formed. Most recently, the Security

Council itself had to lend its authority to resolve the border

38 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

dispute between Kuwait and Iraq, and we support all

relevant Security Council resolutions in that regard.

Let me now turn to South Asia, my own region,

consisting of seven States and accounting for over 1 billion

people. Some 12 years ago, I had the pleasure of

inaugurating, in Colombo, the first meeting to launch the

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation

(SAARC). Since then, it has been a matter of constant

satisfaction to note the steady development of regional

cooperation in South Asia. Today, we had the pleasure of

hearing the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, current Chairman

of SAARC, under whose able leadership SAARC is moving

forward. Last year, during the period of our chairmanship,

Sri Lanka guided SAARC in several new directions. These

included poverty alleviation, the establishment of the South

Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement (SAPTA), the South

Asia Development Fund and a Charter for Children. In Sri

Lanka’s view, SAARC should now extend its horizon

beyond economic and social cooperation.

With a view to sharing our regional experience with the

international community, Sri Lanka supports the subject of

poverty alleviation as a major theme for consideration at the

forthcoming World Social Summit. It is our firm conviction

that structural adjustment programmes in developing

countries must provide a safety net for the poorest of the

poor until the fruits of economic growth are widely

distributed throughout society.

Yesterday, we commemorated the third anniversary of

the World Summit for Children. Within SAARC, we have

already set ourselves certain attainable mid-decade goals for

meeting the basic needs of the children of South Asia. We

welcome the World Conference on Women in Beijing as an

opportunity to focus world attention on issues related to

women and development.

As an island nation, Sri Lanka has special interest in

international endeavours to create a new legal regime of the

oceans. In 1971, the declaration of the Indian Ocean as a

zone of peace was proposed by Sri Lanka. The world scene

has since changed and the time has now come to examine

new, alternative approaches. Yet another regional initiative

by Sri Lanka is the Indian Ocean Marine Affairs Conference

(IOMAC), a cooperative endeavour to develop the region’s

marine resources.

The commitment of the Sri Lanka Government to

ensuring the human rights of all our citizens is central to all

our policies, and we will maintain our policy of candid

cooperation with the United Nations. The dictates of

humanitarian law must be respected. Where economic

sanctions are invoked as a tool of punitive action, let us

ensure that the humanitarian needs of the people of the

country involved are fully protected.

Neither the end of the cold war nor the new thrust of

economic liberalism has in any way diminished Sri Lanka’s

commitment to non-aligned principles. At the Jakarta

Summit, there was a consensus that the political campaigns

against racism, colonialism and apartheid had now been

largely completed. The central unresolved issue of our time

remains the economic disparities between the developed and

the developing countries. Economic interdependence is a

global reality. We reiterate the Non-Aligned Movement’s

appeal to the developed countries to consider favourably the

call for a new compact on development between the North

and the South, a new liberal democratic partnership for

global economic solutions. There is now a relative

abundance of liquidity in private markets. Access to these

resources is not easily affordable for the developing

countries because of the private market rates. A mechanism

is therefore needed to bridge what is available and what is

affordable. Such an initiative is most urgent in view of the

economic difficulties facing developing countries.

Furthermore, today there is increased need for global

economic cooperation owing to the emergence of many new

States. All the needed assistance must be provided for these

new States to complete their journey to democracy. But this

must not be achieved at the expense of other developing

countries.

In South Asia, we have embarked on policies of

export-led growth and trade and foreign-exchange

liberalization. We have done so despite the severe effects on

us of unfavourable trends in commodity prices and

protectionist measures in the markets of developed countries.

Our efforts at national and regional levels will succeed only

if there is a reciprocal commitment to free-trade policies at

the international level. In this connection, it is imperative

that the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations be concluded

soon, in a fair and just manner. We hope that the

industrialized countries will be able to resolve the issues that

divide them. At the same time, however, they must not

concentrate on their own problems to the exclusion of a

balanced result for all participants in the negotiations.

Sri Lanka is an island nation with a unique commitment

to social welfare. For many years, it needed virtually no

budget for defence. When terrorism broke out in such force,

many thought Sri Lanka would disintegrate.

Forty-eighth session - 1 October l993 39

Most recently, the world was shocked by the brutal

assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, the duly

elected Head of State. This act of terrorism, aimed at

destabilizing the country, was confounded by the peaceful

transfer of power within 24 hours, thus vindicating the

strength and maturity of Sri Lanka’s constitutional and

democratic system.

The Government has never wavered from its objective

of seeking a political solution to the North-East conflict. I

myself have spent some 14 months negotiating with armed

groups, to find a peaceful solution acceptable to all. During

these 14 months, there was peace in the North and the East

but, unfortunately, at the end of this period these groups

broke off negotiations for reasons undisclosed to me. I also

presided for one and a half years over the All-Party

Conference, which examined the question of a political

solution for over eight months.

A Select Committee of Parliament, chaired by an

Opposition Member of Parliament, has been working over

many months to reach a political settlement. Thus the

search for a political solution continues. In the thick of the

conflict we have maintained the flow of food, medical and

other supplies, and services such as education and health to

the affected areas. Many have acknowledged that this is an

exceptional achievement.

On the economic front, the Government has steadfastly

followed open economic policies since 1977. As a result,

Sri Lanka is today well on the road to attaining newlyindustrialized-economy status. Foreign investment recorded

a quantum jump last year, clearly reflecting investor

confidence in Sri Lanka’s economic stability and

predictability. It is our firm conviction that in a

multi-ethnic, multicultural society, sustained economic

growth is the best defence against divisive forces.

When I addressed the Assembly in 1988, I suggested

that we project our vision beyond this building, and beyond

the resolutions and speeches, to focus on the impact of our

work on the millions of people we represent.

It would be wise to remind ourselves that the

maintenance of world peace is multidimensional and the

United Nations political agenda must go hand in hand with

its development agenda.

Our nations are all travellers together on the road to the

future. How will the future judge us? It will not be by our

military victories and parades of power, nor by our eloquent

debates and sophisticated slogans. We will be judged by our

success in turning weapons into tools of development, in

banishing poverty, hunger, disease and ignorance and in

learning to live in a sustainable environment in harmony

with a fragile and finite world.