Zimbabwe, 2008

I wish to begin by joining

those who have congratulated Mr. d’Escoto Brockmann

on his election as President of the General Assembly at

its sixty-third session. My delegation is confident that,

under his able stewardship, the General Assembly will

make progress on many issues scheduled for discussion

during the current session. I would also like to pay

special tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Kerim, who

successfully presided over the General Assembly at its

sixty-second session.

The focus of our discussions at the present

session, namely, the impact of the global food crisis on

poverty and hunger in the world, as well as the need to

democratize the United Nations, relates well to our

Millennium Development Goals. For us in the

developing world, the eradication of poverty is the first

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of our priorities and should indeed continue to receive

serious attention.

The current global food crisis, characterized by

escalating food prices, is causing untold suffering for

the majority of poor people in many developing

countries. That has been compounded by the energy

crisis, with devastating social and economic

consequences, especially for the most vulnerable in

society such as women, children, the elderly and

people living with HIV and AIDS. The crisis now

qualifies as a humanitarian emergency that requires

global solidarity to provide post-haste assistance in the

form of food, water and energy.

For most developing countries, the crisis is

competing with other pressing demands for scarce

resources for development, including achieving the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially as

we are faced with declining official development

assistance and foreign direct investment. The trend

will, regrettably, reverse some of the progress made

towards the attainment of the MDGs. It is therefore

crucial that national efforts aimed at addressing the

global food and energy crises be complemented by

appropriate international assistance and interventions,

including debt cancellation for low-income,

food-deficient developing countries so as to release

more resources to fight hunger.

Adequate support for food production

programmes is absolutely necessary. We call for more

research into better seed varieties and assistance in

irrigation technology and improved water harvesting

methods, necessary to mitigate the effects of climate

change on agriculture. Zimbabwe believes that the

challenges of climate change should be addressed in

the context of development programmes that recognize

the three pillars of economic and social thrusts, as well

as environmental protection.

In the past year, Zimbabwe is proud to have

played its modest part in promoting sustainable

development through its chairmanship of the sixteenth

session of the United Nations Commission on

Sustainable Development. The session examined the

obstacles and barriers to development in the areas of

agriculture, land use and rural development, and to

drought-mitigation measures and desertification

prevention in Africa. My Government, which was an

active participant at the High-Level Conference on

World Food Security, held under the auspices of the

Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome in June

this year, will continue to play its active role in

formulating policy recommendations on the subject of

sustainable development targets.

We share the view that trade is an important tool

for development, and so we reiterate our call for an

open, rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory

trading and financial system that seeks the removal of

the main trade barriers. Tariffs have unfortunately

remained high on goods from developing economies,

such as textiles and farm products. It is therefore

disturbing that the Doha Round negotiations have

collapsed without any indication of when they will be

reconvened.

The objectives of the Charter of the

United Nations in the economic arena will remain

unfulfilled unless all Member States genuinely and

seriously participate in efforts to redress challenges

that persist in developing countries. Social justice,

political stability and sustainable development in most

developing countries can best be achieved through

genuine and committed support for empowerment

programmes through, inter alia, just land ownership

patterns. We understand only too well in our context

that sustainable development is not possible without

agrarian reform.

My Government has therefore gone a long way

towards laying the foundation for sustainable food

production through its land reform programme. The

majority of our rural people have been empowered to

contribute to household and national food security and,

indeed, to be masters of their own destiny. However,

the effects of climate change, which have included

recurrent droughts and floods in the past seven years,

and the illegal, unilaterally imposed sanctions on my

country have hindered Zimbabwe’s efforts to increase

food production. Once again, I appeal to the world’s

collective conscience to apply pressure for the

immediate removal of those sanctions by Britain, the

United States and their allies, which have brought

untold suffering to my people.

Zimbabwe has always been and continues to be a

firm believer in multilateral approaches to solving

disputes, as opposed to the unilateralism favoured by

some countries. Our experience has shown that the

cooperative and pacific approach often leads to lasting

solutions to conflicts. We therefore deplore the

vindictive approach, which is often characterized by

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self-righteous finger-pointing, double standards and the

imposition of unilateral sanctions, to coerce smaller

and weaker countries to bow to the wishes of militarily

stronger States.

In addition, the unilateral and coercive economic

measures that we have witnessed in recent years are

again completely at cross purposes with the principles

that guide international cooperation, as enshrined in the

Charter of the United Nations.

Not long ago, some permanent members of the

Security Council sought to invoke Chapter VII of the

Charter of the United Nations so that its weight of

sanctions and other measures could be applied against

my small country, which, by any stretch of the

imagination, is no threat to international peace and

security. What insanity is this that has afflicted some

world leaders? Should that sacred document, the

Charter of the United Nations, be allowed to suffer

such undeserved emasculation and disgraceful abuse?

And where is the protection of small and innocent

countries like mine from threatened and real acts of

aggression and punitive acts, often based on

completely false allegations of violations of the rule of

law, democracy or human rights? By the way, those

who falsely accuse us of those violations are

themselves international perpetrators of genocide and

mass destruction.

The innocent masses of men, women and children

who have perished in their thousands in Iraq surely

demand retribution and vengeance. Who shall heed

their cry? Surely those who invaded Iraq under false

pretences and on the strength of contrived lies and in

complete violation of the Charter of the United Nations

and international law must be made liable for them.

They must be made to answer for their acts of

aggression.

Zimbabwe derives solace from the fact that there

are some permanent members of the Security Council

that have taken principled stands in defending the

Charter and protecting our sovereignty by ensuring that

the Council acts not only within its mandate, but also

impartially, objectively and justly. Indeed, their sense

of justice ensured that Zimbabwe — a country that

poses no threat to regional or international peace — did

not fall prey to the cocktail of lies and machinations

that had been designed by our detractors to encourage

United Nations sanctions against us under Chapter VII.

We thank them for upholding truth and objectivity.

While we recognize the important role of the

good offices of the Secretary-General in helping

Member States to resolve political and other problems,

we are of the view that international civil servants

should discharge their noble duties with sensitivity and

neutrality. At no time should they seek to pander to the

whims and caprices of the mighty against the weak.

Similarly, we call on certain Security Council members

to desist from abusing the Secretariat in an attempt to

promote their political interests. It is our firm belief

that the Secretary-General and his staff should be

allowed to serve all Member States without fear or

favour.

We reiterate our long-held view that the Security

Council as presently constituted is undemocratic. Its

present configuration renders it subject to manipulation

by the powerful countries that use the Council as a

readily available legitimizing forum for their political

machinations. Thus, it is imperative that the Security

Council be democratized by ensuring equitable

geographical representation through an increase in its

membership. Zimbabwe remains steadfast in its

support for the Ezulwini Consensus, which calls for

Africa to have two permanent seats with the same

powers and prerogatives as the current permanent

members, as well as two non-permanent seats.

We share the view that the General Assembly, a

body that represents all of us and enjoys a wider

representation of States, must continue to be the

supreme decision-making body of the United Nations.

We call for its revitalization to make it more effective

and to enable it to fully carry out its Charter mandate.

It is our fervent hope that a revitalized General

Assembly will reassert its prestige, its pre-eminent

role, its authority and its capacity to guide and direct

other organs of the United Nations system. In that

context, the tendency of some members of the Security

Council to usurp the power and mandates of the

General Assembly must be resisted.

I am pleased to report that the inter-party talks in

Zimbabwe — for which our regional grouping, the

Southern African Development Community (SADC),

appointed a facilitator — ended with the signing of an

agreement on the formation of an all-inclusive

Government on 15 September. That was achieved

entirely through African mediation, which is clear

testimony that Africa is capable of overcoming its own

challenges and problems, which, by the way, are often

the remnants of colonialism. African leaders, working

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together, were able to find an African solution to an

African problem. In that regard, I wish to pay special

tribute to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa,

whose patience, fortitude, sensitivity, diplomatic skills

and painstaking work made it possible for the

Zimbabwean parties to overcome what had appeared to

be insurmountable and intractable difficulties in

reaching an agreement.

I would like to extend my thanks to SADC, the

African Union and individual African and other leaders

who lent their support to that initiative. My party, the

Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, will

abide by the spirit and letter of the agreement to which

we have appended our signature. As the Government,

we are prepared to cooperate with all other countries

that respect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. I would therefore

like to appeal to those members of the international

community that have imposed illegal sanctions against

Zimbabwe to lift them so that my country can focus

undisturbed on its economic turnaround programme.

In conclusion, we hope that we will continue to

shape an Organization that upholds universal values

and interests, attends to the urgent needs of those in

need and remains in the service of humanity. Long live

the United Nations!