Sri Lanka, 1996

For Sri Lanka it is a

matter of particular pride and pleasure that we have a

distinguished representative of an Asian country, Malaysia,

presiding over the fifty-first session of the General

Assembly. Sri Lanka and Malaysia have long enjoyed the

warmest ties of friendship. We congratulate the President,

and offer him our unstinted support. We also wish to

express our appreciation of the contribution made to the

success of the historic fiftieth session by His Excellency

Diogo Freitas do Amaral of Portugal.

Last year at our Special Commemorative Meeting we

pledged to bequeath to the twenty-first century a United

Nations equipped, financed and structured to serve

effectively the people in whose name it was established.

This pledge we must not fail to honour. The peoples of the

world will be watching us closely during this session and

thereafter to see how well we are proceeding to redeem the

promise we made last year in such fine phrases and

rhetoric.

The financial constraints confronting the

Organization have tempered the once heady enthusiasm

among nations for radical reform. Sober pragmatic

conclusions now seem inevitable. Yet we must remember

that our task, as Sri Lanka’s President pointed out last

year, is to:

“enhance the capacity of the United Nations, rather

than merely effect economies and scale down its

scope.” (Official Records of the General Assembly,

Fiftieth Session, Plenary Meetings, 35th meeting,

p. 9)

A viable resource base for the United Nations can be

assured not only by effecting greater financial

responsibility and sound management, but also, more

urgently, by a serious commitment by all Members to

honour the financial obligations they are bound to comply

with within the terms of the Charter.

We agree that the Secretariat of our Organization

needs to be rationalized further. The Organization is now,

I believe, sufficiently mature to effect cuts where cuts are

due. Programmes affecting developing countries need to

be lean, effective and sustainable, which is not the same

as saying they should not be touched. Prudent, well-

conceived economies could be, and have been, put into

effect. We must reform, not deform, the Organization.

Above all, the United Nations desperately needs a sound

financial base. Without that, there will be no prospect of

building the streamlined, efficient and effective world

Organization that we all dream of. We will merely waste

our time and energy building castles in the air.

The working groups on the question of equitable

representation on and increase in the membership of the

Security Council and on the strengthening of the United

Nations system have made some progress, although no

finality has been reached in regard to the main areas of

focus. We believe, however, that these efforts should

continue. We should redouble our energies to reach

consensus.

The main organs of the United Nations, it must be

emphasized, will be credible and effective only to the

extent that they secure the confidence of the general

membership and ensure that their decisions enjoy general

acceptance. With regard to the Security Council, it is our

view that today’s political and economic realities, rather

than yesterday’s military power, need to be reflected in any

decisions to be taken on questions such as that of the

permanent membership of the Council and the enlargement

of its overall membership.

The United Nations must neither master nor servant

be.

First, despite fashionable theories about the need to

limit national sovereignty, the members of the Organization

remain sovereign, independent States. Each State, however

small and weak it may be, jealously guards its sovereignty.

Hence, where the United Nations intervenes, it should do so

expressly within the terms of the Charter. The consent and

cooperation of States are vital to ensure the success of any

United Nations endeavour which impinges on the territory

of a Member State. Only such an approach would guarantee

the safety and security of United Nations personnel and the

welfare and interests of the people in the receiving State.

In playing its role in conflict resolution and

peacemaking, it is important that our Organization should

not stray into domestic issues and conflicts which are

within the domestic jurisdiction of the States concerned.

The Organization should play its role only with the

acceptance of the countries concerned. This position arises

from the simple logic that the States concerned are best

equipped, in the first instance, to deal with these issues,

being familiar with the socio-economic milieu in which

they arise. Otherwise, United Nations action could be

counter-productive and could lead even to the exacerbation

of conflicts. Nor should United Nations mandates be used

to serve the interests of any one State or group of States.

The United Nations must not be used as a franchise to give

legitimacy to causes that may not reflect the general will of

the membership, on whose behalf the Security Council

should act at all times.

Now more than ever before we must reaffirm our

collective respect for the fundamental principles of the

Charter of the United Nations. The smaller nations of the

world must receive constant reassurance from the larger

nations that their interests will be safeguarded and their

sovereignty respected. The smaller nations have only the

United Nations to look to for the protection of their

national interests.

First, translated into practical terms, developing

countries, which are under-represented, need to have their

numbers increased in the Security Council. Secondly,

there are Member States in the Organization which

advance arguments to support permanent seats in the

Council no less cogent than the arguments tendered 50

years ago to justify the special status of the current five

permanent members.

My delegation also notes the useful discussions that

have taken place on the subject of “An Agenda for

Peace”. We feel that further work needs to be done in this

area.

The subject matter of the Agenda for Development

is of crucial importance. It underlies the central role of

our Organization in the field of economic cooperation and

development. While noting the progress that has been

achieved in this endeavour, we should reiterate our

commitment to move speedily in this area which vitally

concerns the economic advancement and stability of

developing countries.

I turn now to the problem of terrorism. The epithet

“terrorist” has been too often hurled unjustifiably at

genuine national liberation movements, those, for

instance, which struggled against foreign occupation and

apartheid. The legitimacy of such organizations has been

recognized by the United Nations. They are organizations

which have sat with us here to discuss the issues which

had compelled them to armed action. We are happy to see

those true movements of the people now occupying seats

in this Organization as full Members. We should not

spend time seeking to evolve a comprehensive definition

of terrorism, lest we become helplessly mired in a

semantic minefield. An international consensus against

terrorism, based on the recognition of stark reality, has

matured over the years. It is imperative now to implement

that consensus.

The world is aware that Sri Lanka has been racked

with the anguish of a violent ethnic conflict which has

sapped our energies for almost two decades. We have

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been dealing for many years with an armed group which

seeks to dismember our country by violent means, resorting

to terrorism as a means of achieving this illegitimate goal.

This group — the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

(LTTE) — has been perpetrating a series of terroristic acts,

causing death and destruction in many parts of my country.

This extremist group does not in any meaningful sense

represent the people they claim to fight for. They have

never sought a mandate from the people at an election.

They have kept out of the democratic mainstream, when

many of the minority parties have entered the consultative

process to seek redress for their grievances through

democratic means.

We are working on a set of proposals introduced by

my Government to address minority grievances, which

includes far reaching constitutional changes.

The LTTE does not believe in the path of peaceful

negotiations, having put their faith in the power of the gun.

The peace process, they fear, would marginalize them;

hence the recourse to increased violence. We are aware

that — in terms of finance, equipment and war matériel —

this group draws support from persons outside our country,

but not from other States. There is not a single State that

supports them either in word or deed. They receive support

from misguided members of the Tamil community who live

and work in the affluent countries, or through extortion,

drug trafficking, gun-running, people-smuggling or other

illegal activities in many developed countries, in abuse of

the hospitality of the host Governments and in violation of

their laws.

In Sri Lanka, the terrorists have deliberately targeted

civilians. They have bombed a rush-hour commuter train

and busy office buildings and have shot up rural villages,

causing the death of thousands of innocent civilians,

including large numbers of women and children. Many

thousands have been injured and maimed. As Sri Lanka’s

President emphasized last year at the fiftieth-anniversary

session, concerted international action is essential to combat

terrorism and compel terrorists to renounce violence.

On that occasion President Clinton remarked that no

one was immune from terrorism.

The summit meeting of the Group of Seven and

Russia in Lyon and the subsequent ministerial meeting on

terrorism in Paris took bold initiatives which need to be

developed into practical action. The proposals for a

convention on terrorist bombings and the proposals to

prevent the abuse of asylum and refugee laws are

particularly timely initiatives. Sri Lanka looks forward to

their elaboration during this session.

Efforts need also to be made to further strengthen

and give legal effect to the 1994 Declaration on Measures

to Eliminate International Terrorism. Now we need more

than a mere declaration; we need a convention on

measures to combat terrorism. Concerted international

cooperation is necessary to ensure that the terrorist does

not enjoy safe havens anywhere in the world. The

territory of no State should be permitted to be used in any

manner that would encourage or sustain terrorist activity

in another. Fund-raising activity on foreign soil in

particular, either directly or indirectly through so-called

charitable funds, must be prohibited. Should terrorism be

permitted through international apathy to fester, it would

poison the international body politic, enervating

democratic processes, processes the international

community is obliged to sustain.

It would be myopic for a nation to stand aloof or to

disown responsibility for combating acts of terrorism

which may seem too distant to evoke anything more than

curiosity. With the English poet John Donne, I would say,

“never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for

thee.” Terrorists have the means to move freely across

borders, have used chemical weapons, and could well

have access to nuclear weapons.

Global interdependence is undoubtedly a modern

reality. However, opinions vary on the real implications

of that phenomenon on the economies of developing

countries. In the development debate, globalization and

the call for integration into a single global economic grid

are held out as the primary or even the sole option for

developing countries seeking cooperation with developed

countries.

But cooperation must not be confused with

conformity. The specific character of individual

developing countries, including the social and political

compulsions facing their Governments, needs to be taken

into account. Globalization involves the free flow of

capital, the liberalization of trade, the privatization of

State enterprises, the freezing of price controls and the

scaling down of welfare measures even for the most

vulnerable sectors of the population. These have not

always proved to be a panacea for those developing

countries which have accepted them as economic

injunctions.

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It is important that such institutions as the World

Trade Organization, the successor institution to GATT, be

sensitive to the concerns of developing countries in such

matters as external investment flows, which should not be

clogged with linkages to issues more relevant to other

organizations and institutions. Similarly, while sound social

and environmental policies are essential for all societies,

arbitrarily imposed standards should not be used as excuses

for trade discrimination or concealed protectionism. The

Government of Sri Lanka has provided opportunities for its

private sector to advance as the principal engine of growth.

Sri Lanka continues to welcome investment — economic

and technological collaboration with foreign entrepreneurs

on the basis of mutual benefit. These efforts, however,

would be negated if such economic cooperation were

pursued only on terms overwhelmingly favourable to one

side.

Despite the pressures and tensions caused by a

situation of conflict, we have succeeded in keeping our old

democratic institutions and traditions alive and strong. We

give our best attention to the protection and promotion of

human rights. In furthering an elected Government’s

accountability to its own people, the Government of Sri

Lanka has taken several measures to strengthen the legal

framework and ensure the effective implementation of

human-rights standards. One of the significant measures we

took this year was the establishment by act of Parliament of

a Human Rights Commission. We have ensured that the act

guarantees independence of action for the Commission. The

areas of competence of the Commission include monitoring,

investigative and advisory functions. The act also addresses

the question of liability of non-State actors for human-rights

violations.

My Government has decided to accede to the Optional

Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights as a logical next step in a series of national

measures. Sri Lanka will thus be among the few countries

that have taken the progressive decision to ratify the

Optional Protocol. The Government has given the highest

priority to Sri Lanka’s obligations under international

covenants and we are committed to continuing our

cooperation with United Nations human-rights mechanisms.

Looking at the world, we see that, in Bosnia,

following the Dayton Agreement, the guns have been

finally silenced, and we are happy to note that the peace

Agreement is holding up. Sri Lanka has condemned the

atrocities committed in Bosnia, particularly the inhuman

and cruel treatment of the Muslims. We believe that a

settlement will not be complete unless those responsible

for the atrocities are brought to justice.

In the Middle East, we hope the peace process will

move on, without losing the momentum it had gained,

despite the changes in the political scene in that area. Sri

Lanka reiterates its support for the peace process, the

realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian

people and the establishment of conditions of peace and

stability for all States in the region to live within secure

boundaries. We commend the efforts taken by the United

States of America, other concerned States and the States

of the region to achieve the objective of bringing peace to

the Middle East.

We share the concerns of the world community in

regard to the crises that have overtaken Liberia and

Burundi and express our fervent hope that peace will be

restored to these troubled regions.

In our own region, South Asia, we have recorded

progress in our efforts at regional cooperation. We

celebrated the tenth anniversary of the South Asian

Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) last

December, heralded by the coming into force of the South

Asian Preferential Trade Arrangement. SAARC has set

itself the goal of achieving a South Asian free-trade area

by the early years of the new century. The private sectors

of our region are engaged in close cooperation. We

remain deeply committed to our abiding concern of

alleviating, if not eradicating, poverty in our countries

within a realistic time-frame.

Sri Lanka has turned increasingly towards promoting

economic cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific

region with which we identify closely. We see regional

cooperation as a source of political stability as well as

mutual economic benefit. We have recently become a

partner in the Indian Ocean rim initiative. We have

applied for membership of the Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation Council. We also expect that, when the

required ratifications are completed, the Indian Ocean

Marine Affairs Cooperation will provide a further impetus

to technical and other cooperation among Indian Ocean

countries. At the political level, Sri Lanka, with other

members of the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on

the Indian Ocean, is reviewing the concept of the Indian

Ocean as a zone of peace in the light of current realities

in the region.

I wish to refer at this point to the Non-Aligned

Movement, of which Sri Lanka is a founding member.

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Today — 26 September — is a particularly significant date

for Sri Lanka, which commemorates a great patriot, the late

S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who was assassinated on this date.

He was Prime Minister from 1956 to 1959. He ushered in

a uniquely peaceful, non-violent transformation of Sri

Lankan society. His electoral victory in 1956 led to the

empowerment of the rural, the underprivileged, the mass of

the people of the country, and set the country’s foreign

policy firmly towards non-alignment.

Two days ago, we celebrated the thirty-fifth

anniversary of the founding, in a formal sense, of the Non-

Aligned Movement. Mr. Bandaranaike did not live to see

the Non-Aligned Movement firmly established in 1961.

However, in 1956, 40 years ago, he addressed this General

Assembly and said:

“We are supposed to be the uncommitted' nations. I

strongly object to that word. We are committed up to

the hilt. We are committed to preserve decency in

dealings between nations, we are committed to the

cause of justice and freedom....

“No doubt the prevention of war is a necessary factor

for peace, but peace, believe me, is something much

more positive than that, for peace in its true sense

means human understanding, human friendship and

cooperation out of which, indeed, peace in its true

form alone can arise. I look upon the United Nations

as the one machine available to mankind today

through which it can express this unconquerable spirit

of man in its efforts to achieve that peace, friendship

and collaboration.” (Official Records of the General

Assembly, Eleventh Session, Plenary Meetings, 590th

meeting, p. 234-35)

The policies he initiated in respect of Sri Lanka —

and I confine my remarks to foreign policy — were carried

forward by his successor, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike,

who, as Prime Minister, attended the first Non-Aligned

summit in Belgrade in 1961 and subsequently presided over

the fifth summit of the Movement in Colombo.

The Movement, which has a membership of 113

countries, is today the largest grouping of independent

sovereign States in the world, apart from the United

Nations itself, which have come together with the common

objective of achieving peace, prosperity and the welfare of

their people, a majority of whom belong to the third world.

With the end of the cold war, there were sceptics who

thought that the Movement would die in the absence of a

clear role for the future. We have been able to dispel this

misapprehension and chart a new course for the

Movement. It has emerged today as the voice of the third

world, of the smaller countries which are crying out for

a place in the sun and demanding opportunities for

economic development and self-expression.

Although the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of

Nuclear Weapons has been extended indefinitely, it is to

be remembered that the total elimination of nuclear

weapons is the ultimate end of the non-proliferation

process. As a member of the Conference on

Disarmament, our delegation has worked hard to ensure

that all nuclear testing be banned as an interim measure,

leading eventually to the total elimination of all nuclear

weapons. The text of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-

Ban Treaty adopted by the General Assembly a few days

ago was the result of several years' patient negotiations,

yet its terms do not contain a firm and clear commitment

to nuclear disarmament and the total elimination of all

nuclear weapons. We would have expected the scope of

prohibition to be truly comprehensive and the provisions

for entry into force not to be self-debilitating. We look

forward to the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons

Convention as well as the Convention relating to

bacteriological and toxin weapons.

Sri Lanka remains a loyal and dedicated Member of

the United Nations committed to upholding the noble

principles of the Charter. Our faith and trust in this great

institution, fashioned half a century ago, despite all its

weaknesses and failures discerned in the intervening

years, remains steadfast. These blemishes are after all but

a mirror-image of the infirmities and inadequacies of all

human kind. So we have no need to be either discouraged

or despondent. We stand firm in the belief that the United

Nations is still the best hope for this world. Indeed, we

have no alternative or option in this matter, for to give up

hope is only to slide into the depths of despair.

But our hopes for the United Nations must be

grounded in action, in a firm resolve to act decisively in

the best interests of this great institution, indeed of all

humanity, untainted by the narrow national interests

which have dogged our path in the course of these past

five decades. This is no easy task, but unless we remain

unyielding in our determination to ensure that the United

Nations remains faithful to the tasks envisioned by its

founders, we will have failed the generations that follow

us in the twenty-first century.

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