Sri Lanka, 2001

Every speaker

from this podium during the special debate on

terrorism, the debate on dialogue among civilizations

and our current general debate has said, suggested or

implied that 11 September has changed the world

irrevocably. Indeed it has. A democracy is an open

society. Movement is free. Speech is free. All the

citizens of a democratic society are free to lead their

lives in freedom, subject only to the rule of law. Fear

and the spirit of democratic freedom are two totally

opposite states of mind. Yet, today, fear stalks the

United States of America, where democracy has

flourished vigorously for so long, bringing prosperity

to its people and taking human achievement to

unimagined heights of excellence.

There can be no argument that terror in all its

manifestations must be fought relentlessly and

globally. Gone are the days when a country affected by

terror, as my country has been for two decades, can be

told by the international community, “We are sorry

about what is happening in your land, but there is

nothing we can do to help you because we have no

laws to combat terror.” When our Central Bank was

bombed and destroyed, when the Temple of the Sacred

Tooth Relic, one of the holiest shrines of Buddhism,

was bombed and saved from destruction only by a

miracle, when a commuter train carrying workers home

was attacked with explosives, when thousands of

people, including monks, women and children were

slaughtered, when Muslims were massacred in a

mosque while at prayer, when a President of Sri Lanka,

Ministers and Members of Parliament and many other

elected leaders were assassinated, let alone a Prime

Minister of India, when a suicide bomber at an election

rally attacked the incumbent President of Sri Lanka,

killing and wounding scores of innocent bystanders and

grievously wounding her in the right eye, the sight of

which was lost — all this and much more has happened

at the hands of a terrorist group in Sri Lanka — we

received merely sympathies, condolences, expressions

of shock and outrage, while the funding that fuels the

terrorism in my country went on apace in the great,

liberal democracies of the West. When half of the

aircraft in our national airline were damaged or

destroyed by those same terrorists on 24 July, we were

advised by some Governments to negotiate. We were

reminded that “violence begets violence”.

That approach has changed dramatically in recent

days, or so it seems, because terrorism has assailed the

national interests of many countries. Terrorism is no

longer the curse of the poor. Now, more than ever

before, when a terrorist attack takes place somewhere

in the world, “never send to know for whom the bell

tolls”, as John Donne said nearly four centuries ago,

for surely “it tolls for thee”.

The United Nations has focused sharply on

building consensus to fight terror. Two important

United Nations conventions were adopted with

admirable speed — the International Convention for

the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the

International Convention for the Suppression of the

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Financing of Terrorism. Another important convention

is being considered at this session by the Ad Hoc

Committee on International Terrorism, which is chaired

by Sri Lanka. Since we have been so severely affected

by terrorism, it is only natural that we should play a

leading role in designing the legislation that the

international community should adopt and implement

to combat terrorism.

There is a particularly abhorrent brand of

terrorism that the world can never condone — that is,

the forcible conscription of young children for battle,

widely practiced by the terrorists of Sri Lanka and well

documented by Amnesty International, the United

Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Special

Representative of the Secretary-General for Children

and Armed Conflict. It would be a permanent blot on

humankind’s conscience if these poor children were to

be consigned, unnoticed and uncared for, to their

miserable fate.

While terrorism must continue to be fought,

relentlessly and by everyone everywhere, sooner rather

than later the international community will have to

focus its collective attention on the question of

analysing and diagnosing the causes of terrorism,

preventing and finally eliminating it before it becomes

a problem of such deadly dimensions that it threatens

the whole world. The causes of terrorism cannot be

ignored. To examine the roots of terrorism and the

culture in which it breeds in a systematic, objective,

well-informed manner is not, by any means, to yield to

terrorism. It is not a manifestation of weakness for the

international community to examine the root causes of

terrorism. It is axiomatic that a contented people do not

rise up to destroy the society in which they live. If the

world has become a village, surely we must take care

to ensure that the villagers living down one road in the

village are not given cause to become resentful and

angry at the opulence enjoyed by other villagers living

down another road, only a stone’s throw away.

Might I suggest, therefore, that this General

Assembly consider the convening of an international

group of eminent persons with the appropriate

backgrounds in all relevant fields, representative of all

regions of the world, appointed by the President of the

General Assembly, the President of the Security

Council and the Secretary-General, with the request

that the group report to the General Assembly, the

Security Council and the Secretary-General within an

appropriate time frame on terrorism and its prevention.

Thus, inescapably we will have to revisit and re-

address the old questions that have haunted the United

Nations ever since it was born — that is, the questions

of poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance and injustice.

These questions have been with us for a long time.

They have received answers which are, to a large

extent, no more than faint-hearted attempts to forge

solutions that look grand on paper but are incapable of

implementation due to the lack of funds and the lack of

political will.

The formulation of policy has always been far

easier than its implementation and, when we look to

the future through the ultimate prism — namely, the

funding available — we face once more the bitter truth

of which our colleagues from the developed world have

been warning us year after year: “the funding globally

available is far from promising”.

We in the developing world have also been

warning our colleagues for so long, when a developing

country is unable to generate a sufficient amount of

domestic capital, public or private, it is to international

capital that we, in the developing world, have to turn;

and, as international private capital is sensitive to the

rate and continuance of profitable return, it is only

official development assistance (ODA) that remains.

On 8 November, only a few days ago, at the

European Union’s (EU) Development Council in

Brussels, a common statement was delivered by the

five Ministers for Development Cooperation of

Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and

Sweden. Their words convey far more effectively, and

with far greater authority, than my words could

possibly do, the thoughts of developing countries on

the question of development aid, and, therefore, I take

the liberty of quoting that common statement in its

entirety:

“In the Millennium Declaration, the

international community recognized the fight

against poverty as the greatest challenge to our

global governance system”.

“The events of 11 September have made it

even more crucial to deal with these problems.

We not only need a global coalition against

terrorism. We need a global coalition against

poverty as well.

“The Secretary-General of the United

Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, at the Conference on

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the Least Developed Countries in May 2001,

remarked that only a few countries have lived up

to the goals of devoting 0.7 percent of their gross

national product (GNP) to official development

assistance (ODA), and that the least developed

countries suffer disproportionately as a result of

that.

“We need better and more effective

development assistance: policy coherence, lower

transaction costs by harmonization of procedures.

We need sharper focus on the importance of

strong institutions and sound economic and social

policy. But we cannot expect to reach our

common goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015

without increasing aid volume.”

I continue to quote from the common statement:

“There is no need for a new set of standards.

All United Nations members, with the exception

of the United States, have accepted a long

established standard volume of ODA for donor

countries: 0.7 percent of GNP. But the

international community is still a long way from

making this standard a reality.

“Although the EU has stressed the

importance of the 0.7 percent target in the

conclusions of the European Council in Göteborg,

the EU’s record is no exception: in 2000, member

States gave an average of only 0.33 per cent of

GNP in ODA. This is better than the OECD

average of 0.24 per cent, but it is still a long way

from the target.”

“In fact, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark

and Luxembourg are the only EU member States

that meet the ODA standard. Norway, a non-EU

member, is also part of this exclusive club.

Luxembourg, the newest member of this group,

has proved that it is possible to raise ODA to 0.7

per cent of GNP in a short period of time.

Together we make up the G-0.7.

“The G-7 is full of promises. If all the rich

countries would just implement what they have

committed themselves to, as the G-0.7 have done,

we would not encounter these financial

constraints. Having said that, we do realize that

ODA is not the only way forward. We also must

take into account fair distribution of resources,

debt relief, open markets, good governance and

the role of the private sector. A reform of the

Common Agricultural Policy is a great challenge

to the EU.

“We welcome new and innovative financing

options, but the main problem is that some

countries are not providing adequate ODA

resources. Obviously there is a lack of political

commitment in setting budget priorities. These

countries need to change their political priorities

in order to comply with their international

commitments.

“EU Declarations like the one made in

Göteborg do call for that much needed

compliance — that is to say, they call on us to

keep the promises we have already made — but

they do so only in general terms. We now need to

pick up the pace.

“We call on EU members to make a firm

commitment at the International Conference on

Finance for Development in Monterrey in 2002

and to formulate individual plans and timetables

in order to make concrete progress in reaching the

goal of 0.7 per cent of GNP to ODA.

“Today’s EU Development Council in

Brussels is a good opportunity to further

strengthen the relations in our global world. It

should send a long awaited signal that we are

serious about our commitments to developing

countries.”

I wish to place on record the high appreciation of

my Government to the Governments of Denmark,

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden for

those frank and refreshing observations.

We in the developing world will certainly look

with much expectation to the International Conference

on Financing for Development that will convene in

March next year. We cannot but hope that,

notwithstanding the continuing difference in positions,

a secure foundation for a partnership for the future will

be formed there, within which both the strong interests

of the developing world and the strong concerns of the

developed world can be adequately accommodated.

And I would think that undoubtedly the

developed world too will, after the events of 11

September, look to the future with a frame of mind

different from its frame of mind before that fateful

date. Development, stability and contentment for all

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people are no longer charitable objectives. They are in

the self-interest of all.

Most certainly, neither we in the developing

world nor those in the developed world can allow

abject, desperate poverty, without any hope of a better

future, to become a fertile field for those who wish to

fan the flames of discord and hate and make it their

business to wreak death, destruction, terror and

mayhem.

Fifty-six years ago almost to this day, the

Constitution of the United Nations Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Organization was proclaimed in

words that have a prophetic resonance today:

“... since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in

the minds of men that the defences of peace must

be constructed;

“... ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has

been a common cause, throughout the history of

mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between

the peoples of the world through which their

differences have all too often broken into war;

“... the great and terrible war which has now

ended was a war made possible by the denial of

the democratic principles of the dignity, equality

and mutual respect of men, and by the

propagation, in their place, through ignorance and

prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men

and races;

“... a peace based exclusively upon the political

and economic arrangements of governments

would not be a peace which could secure the

unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the

peoples of the world, and...the peace must

therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the

intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.”

These are noble words of timeless quality. But

words, however noble, which remain untranslated into

deeds become shallow, tawdry, degraded.

All nations, all the peoples of the world, must

realize that we are slipping into a crisis of a kind we

have never encountered before. The spectres of fear,

doubt, uncertainty, mistrust and suspicion stalk the

world. The hour is late. The hour is grave.