Zimbabwe, 2003

Let me congratulate you, Sir,

on your election to the presidency of the General

Assembly at its fifty-eighth session. I am confident that

your leadership as well as your vast political and

diplomatic experience will successfully carry us

through this session. We extend to your predecessor, Mr.

Jan Kavan, our sincere appreciation for the excellent

manner in which he guided the work of the General

Assembly at its fifty-seventh session, which just ended.

Our meeting today is overshadowed by the death

of Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and

of 22 other United Nations workers, who were killed in

the line of duty in Baghdad on 19 August 2003.

I join my colleagues in extending my personal

condolences and those of my Government and of the

people of Zimbabwe to Secretary-General Kofi Annan

and the bereaved families. Against this tragedy and the

inauspicious developments in Iraq, we cannot allow

ourselves to treat this session as merely routine. At the

heart of the tragedy in that nation is the unprecedented

assault on the ethic and function of multilateralism in

world affairs represented by the Security Council, the

only guarantor of global peace, order and security.

Some powerful Western nations, led by the

Government of the United States of America and the

Government of Britain, went into a war of unclear

objectives in the face of clear opposition from the rest

of the world, and, as we now know, with clear

opposition from their own people as well.

It was and remains an unjust, illegitimate war —

unjust to the extent that it was founded and prosecuted

on false words; illegitimate to the extent that it was not

sanctioned by the United Nations and has transformed

itself into an effective occupation of a sovereign

people.

There can never be world peace under conditions

of foreign invasion and occupation. There can never be

world security and order when naked power suspends,

and substitutes with unilateralism, the hallowed

principle of multilateralism, on the basis of which we

have made, kept, preserved and expanded peace since

the Second World War. We tell the General Assembly

that as a people from a continent that has suffered a

similar fate in recent history; indeed, as a people who

had to overthrow foreign imperial occupation through

costly struggles.

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It is a strange logic that the Iraqis pay for a bad

president, a bad government and a bad war by

occupation and loss of their sovereignty. Let us state

here quite clearly to both Britain and the United States

that the Iraqi people must have the sovereign right to

determine the affairs of their country restored

immediately. Like all peoples of the world, their love

for freedom and self-rule is just as strong and just as

deep as their hatred for bad leadership and bad

government. Like all peoples of the world, they are

unwilling to be occupied and governed by a foreign

coalition, however willing and powerful it may be. No

people want that, and we of Africa know it.

We must reject the present road map of naked

unilateralism for consent-oriented statecraft in world

affairs. What is the future of the world without the

United Nations? We hope the coalition that willingly

went to war with Iraq without Security Council

sanction is now willing to admit that defeating others is

not always the same as winning peace and that wars are

ended not by proclamations, but by just settlements.

Indeed, we hope that they have learned from their

costly mistakes and are willing to let the United

Nations reassert its authority in the broader search for

peace and security in Iraq.

If we are to overcome crises that could result in

calamitous wars and social breakdowns, and to achieve

peace and stability with justice, we need humane global

governance under the leadership of the United Nations,

as distinct from a unilateral global state and

government. Only that type of governance can make

and build peace, and indeed keep peace for mankind.

Let it not be said that Zimbabwe enjoys

criticizing the United States and Britain for the sake of

criticism. Our criticisms are founded on sound,

fundamental principles. Let it not be forgotten that

Zimbabwe was in the chair when the Security Council

authorized the first Gulf War. We stood firmly then by

the United Nations and the countries, including the

United States and Britain, that removed Iraq from

Kuwait. We did so on the basis that expansionism and

occupation of a sovereign country and people cannot be

right, can never be just and warranted under any

circumstances. We admired the deployment of power to

just ends, under the auspices of the United Nations. It

is the absence of the same ingredients that explains our

indignation and our sharp censure of the so-called

coalition of the willing that does not seem to recognize

that both the Iraqis and the world are unwilling to

sanction the means employed and the end achieved.

The inadequacies of existing international

institutions in dealing with present challenges is a sad

testimony to their flawed foundational conceptions

amidst changing circumstances. We have anachronistic

institutions relying too comfortably on traditional

norms to address new challenges. Decades after the

defeat of Nazi Germany, does the world still need to

rely on a system founded on the principle of rewarding

the allied Powers for defeating Nazi Germany and

thereby bringing post-world war peace?

At its foundation, the United Nations collective

system allowed two classes of response. If a minor

Power committed aggression and there was unanimity

among the five permanent members of the Security

Council, a collective response could follow. However,

if a permanent member was opposed to such action it

could use its veto. In historical terms, that approach

represents the institutionalization of a particular form

of world order, namely, the immediate post-1945 world

order, which sought to reward and empower the allied

Powers as the only competent stewards of world peace.

But the world has changed a great deal since then. Just

as many new nations have emerged since then, the

allied Powers have also evolved in ways that easily

make them actors of injustice, and therefore threats to

world peace. Global power is now unipolar.

The reality today is that we cannot treat the

United Nations system as given. The institutional

arrangements in place were relevant only for a

specified period, and must inevitably be adapted,

transformed or even radically modified as material

circumstances have changed and prevailing meanings,

practices and purposes have been challenged by new

inter-subjective voices. In today’s unipolar world, what

can the Security Council do to one of its permanent

members whose actions threaten world peace?

At a time when citizens everywhere are pressing

for a greater say in national governance, it is

imperative for us as heads of State and Government to

seek, in turn, a fairer representation through the

democratization of multilateral organizations such as

the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and

the World Trade Organization. What is good for the

goose must surely be good for the gander. The present

autocracy in global governance must be challenged

stoutly so that all nations, big or small, have an equal

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say and equal power in the way in which we govern

world affairs.

The Security Council just has to democratize, and

that means re-examining its composition and the way

in which power is distributed, and therefore exercised,

within that crucial body. I am happy that the Secretary-

General’s current report entitled “Implementation of

the United Nations Millennium Declaration”, is in

agreement with our concerns that

“The composition of the Security Council —

unchanged in its essentials since 1945 — seems

at odds with the geopolitical realities of the

twenty-first century.” [A/58/323, para. 96]

In the light of that stark reality, it is evident that the

decisions of the Security Council, which have a decisive

impact on events in the real world, increasingly lack

legitimacy in the eyes of the developing world.

Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and

the International Bank for Reconstruction and

Development, popularly known as the World Bank,

whose raison d’être was to provide assistance to the

developing world, have succumbed to the whims and

caprices of the major Powers. The Bretton Woods

institutions, in their current form and practice, are

designed to deny developing countries the capacity to

chart their independent developmental path. The

extraneous conditionalities of the Bretton Woods

institutions, imposed by the powerful countries for the

qualification or disqualification of beneficiaries, are

intended to further the national interests of the big

Powers and to justify wanton interference in the affairs

of small nations.

Is it not a baffling irony that a small country like

Zimbabwe, which, after it responded positively to a

distress call by a neighbour suffering aggression —

even by United Nations reckoning — was deemed

ineligible to access IMF and World Bank funding for

the very reason of having gone to the rescue of that

neighbour? One hopes that the new, recent realization

by the World Bank that land reforms are at the heart of

poverty eradication mark the beginning of a new

outlook on its part.

Notwithstanding that determined and resolute

attempt at frustrating our land-reform programme, the

fast-track phase through which we reasserted our

sovereign right over our land as a principal resource is

largely concluded, and is now yielding tangible

benefits to the vast majority of our people. There is a

new sense of empowerment, yielding a happy sense of

ownership, which has brought thousands upon thousands

of hitherto marginalized families back into the economic

mainstream. Zimbabwe’s National Economic Revival

Programme gives clear priority to agriculture as the

engine for economic revival and growth. We are

forging ahead on the basis of our own efforts and

support from nations of good will. We are determined to

move on and succeed. A land review committee recently

set up by my Government to assess the whole reform

programme has now submitted its findings, which will

help us in mapping the way forward to achieve

sustainable development in the agricultural sector, in

line with the criteria and objectives we set ourselves.

In the area of world trade, Zimbabwe believes in

a multilateral trading system that serves well all

members of the trading nations. It is therefore a matter

of some grave regret that the developing countries of

the South and those of the developed North could not

reconcile their differences, and thus rendered

inconclusive the Cancún mid-term review of the World

Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Development

Agenda. We in the South were right to reject the

so-called new issues that the North insisted be

negotiated first. We urge the North to engage in honest

negotiations and to desist from trying to use the WTO

forum for hegemonic ends.

Zimbabwe and other countries in the subregion

continue to grapple with the effects of the HIV/AIDS

scourge. To combat the epidemic, my Government has

declared HIV/AIDS a national emergency. We have

embarked on a national programme of prevention, the

highlight of which consists of mass mobilization to

deepen awareness and understanding of the disease. As

a result of that campaign, our infection rate in the

sexually active 15 to 49 age group has come down

from 35 per cent to 24 per cent. Through our national

efforts, the AIDS levy has to date raised $8 billion.

That money is being distributed through a

decentralized structure that ensures accessibility right

down to the village level. We call upon the

international community to complement our efforts.

The situation in the Middle East remains grave

and troubled. A conflict that is quite costly on both

sides of the divide continues unabated, with the only

response from the international community coming by

way of episodic judgements that maldistribute blame

on the basis of individual national interests. Especially

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wrong is the belief that settlement can come only through

ostracizing and even eliminating the leadership of the

Palestinian people. Assassinations and extrajudicial

killings must be rejected as a formula for peace.

Zimbabwe welcomes the measures adopted by the

Security Council aimed at strengthening the peace process

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are

encouraged by the increase, under a Chapter VII mandate,

of the force levels of the United Nations Organization

Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as

well as by the imposition of a 12-month arms embargo

over areas in the troubled eastern part of the Congo.

We also urge the international community to rally

behind the peace initiative of the Economic Community

of West African States aimed at bringing peace to Liberia.

The transition to peace in Liberia has confirmed that, with

international goodwill and support, African solutions to

African problems are possible. To strengthen the peace

process, we call upon the international community to

address the humanitarian crisis facing the Liberian

people as a result of a debilitating civil war.

My country remains committed to playing a

positive role in peacekeeping efforts carried out under

the auspices of the United Nations. Indeed, we have so

far played our part fully and magnificently.