Tunisia, 2014

At the

outset, I would like to extend my warm congratulations

to Mr. Sam Kahamba Kutesa, representative of the

friendly nation of Uganda, on his election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth

session. I would also like to express my thanks and

appreciation to Mr. John Ashe and his team, as well as

to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In this world, where a surfeit of bad news

overshadows the good work of creativity, reform

and recovery, we continue our peaceful transition to

democracy. We have managed to eliminate a dictatorial

regime at the least possible human cost. We have begun

a difficult transitional stage with a comprehensive

national dialogue, and we have written a consensual

constitution and built democratic State institutions.

We are now preparing for legislative and presidential

elections to be held before the end of the year in order

to transform Tunisia into a stable, democratic, forward-

looking State. Internal and external forces continue to

undermine our democratic, peaceful transition through

terrorist acts and political assassinations. However, our

people are resolved to pursue their efforts to achieve

success, despite the aggression of diabolical forces.

Tunisia today is a test for a peaceful democratic

transition in an Arab country that lived for too long under

despotism. We are attempting to reconcile democracy

and political Islam. We are pursuing an ongoing national

dialogue. We are distributing authority between secular

modernists and Islamists. We are using moderation to

grapple with the counter-revolution and to eliminate

the residues of despotism through a just transition. We

are also testing new socioeconomic approaches. We are

promoting comprehensive development initiatives that

will combat poverty and that will be in harmony with

the environment. We have a broader social vision in line

with the policies and vision of the United Nations with

regard to addressing global warming, climate change

and the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, as

well as the Secretary-General’s Global Education First

Initiative. We are also committed to our own policies

that aim to achieve world peace, especially within the

Arab world to which we belong, and on the African

continent, where we seek to definitively overcome the

past and look to the future.

Tunisia’s development process is unfolding in the

heart of a region that is currently witnessing political

upheavals that, in some cases, have had painful

consequences for us too. Transnational radical armed

groups have since the beginning of the revolution been

targeting us and have killed many of our soldiers and

security personnel, hindering our security apparatus

in an attempt to abort the drive for democracy and

to impose alternatives rejected by the majority of our

people.

The volatile situation in Libya is cause for concern

because the stability of that sister neighbouring

country affects our own stability. We hope that the

Libyans will, through national dialogue, achieve an

advanced, democratic stable State without outside

military intervention, which would only add insult

to injury. We encourage the wise men of Libya, both

within and outside that country, to preserve broad

national consensus and the security, unity, stability and

prosperity of their country through a peaceful, political

solution. We hope from the bottom of our hearts that

our brothers will manage to achieve that.

We are concerned by the spread of violence

on the eastern front of the Arab world, which has

reached unprecedented levels of brutality, including

decapitation, the chopping off of hands and the

execution of prisoners. We are appalled by such

violence and attacks on our Christian brothers and

other religious minorities, who form an integral part

of our Arab and Islamic heritage and culture. We are

ashamed of such practices in the name of our Allah,

who defines himself as the compassionate and the

merciful. According to the Koran, whoever kills an

innocent soul kills all humankind, and whoever gives a

new life to such a person saves all humankind. That has

happened all too frequently of late. Nothing can justify

the indiscriminate violence at such unprecedented and

horrific levels. We condemn the execution of prisoners,

be they Arab, Muslim, French, American or British. We

are all human beings and belong to one human family.

We seek to understand this phenomenon so as to be able

to address its root causes.

The violence and counter-violence we are

witnessing today are the cumulative result of five

decades of misguided policies of despotism that denied

people their rights and basic freedoms, distributed

wealth to some and consigned others to poverty. Such

policies, which have exploited religion in the service

of politics, are like magic that has now turned against

the magician. They run counter to Arab and Islamic

civilization. The problem cannot be solved by entrusting

it to the police and army. The situation demands bold

policies that take into account all those levels and that

establishes regimes that are in harmony with their

people. All political prisoners should be released and

there should be an ongoing national dialogue with the

participation of all moderate political sectors that are

committed to peace. The economy needs to serve the

interests of the majority, with an emphasis on advanced

education under the banner of freedom and respect for

the values of the Arab and Muslim countries. Only such

policies will lead to united, peace-abiding societies.

Our people yearn to improve their standard of living

and to broaden the vistas for future generations.

For many decades, some of the major Powers

supported despotic regimes in our country on the

pretext of maintaining stability. If the same problems

are not to be repeated, they must help to achieve internal

reconciliation. Resorting to military solutions may lead

to meaningless wars that could endanger the whole

world. We therefore strongly call for the blockade of

Gaza to be lifted in order to enable it to build a port and

airport, and not just to open the border crossings but also

to fulfil the political right of the Palestinian people to a

geographically contiguous, secure, independent State,

with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Gazans who are

living without shelter are pleading to our consciences

for the reconstruction of Gaza and return children to

their destroyed schools’ classrooms and playgrounds.

We pray to God to end the nightmare engulfing the

people of Syria through the banishment of its dictator

and the formation of a Government of national unity.

Tunisia, as a Member of the United Nations,

understands how important it is that the Organization

be capable of dealing with such huge global changes.

We support the granting of permanent membership in

the Security Council to Brazil, Germany, Japan and

India, to be followed by permanent-member status for

an African country, to enable it to deal with the world

of today, which is no longer that which existed at the

end of the Second World War. That war ended with

the defeat of fascism, dictatorship and Nazism and,

eventually, Communist totalitarianism. While so much

of today’s world has been democratizing so rapidly, it

is now threatened with climate, economic and political

problems. To deal with them, every country must

preserve its gains and create the machinery needed for

prevention, protection and commitment.

It is good that we have the International Criminal

Court (ICC) for punishing despots who abuse their

peoples’ rights; we should also have a tool that prevents

them from surviving and staying in power. Tunisia

has therefore proposed establishing an international

constitutional court that could advise all liberated

peoples and hand down decisions on illegitimate,

bogus elections that lead to Government by force,

which clearly runs contrary to international legitimacy

and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This

idea has been well received in academic circles and

international symposiums. We reiterate our call for

support for such democratic institutions so that this

proposal can be presented to the Legal Committee.

We hope that an international court such as this can

be realized and could enable us to deter despots, support

freedom and democracy and eradicate the sources

of violence and conflicts among peoples. I hope that

establishing such a court will not require the decades

that it took to bring about the birth of the ICC, and we

hope that Tunis, our capital, can have the honour of

hosting one of the United Nations institutions that have

so far been the preserve of the advanced countries of

the northern hemisphere. It is high time to give some

thought to allowing the liberated cities of the South to

host such institutions.