General Assembly Session 50 meeting 40

The President

I should like to draw the General Assembly's attention to document A/50/444/Add.6.

In a letter contained in that document, the Secretary-General informs me that, since the issuance of his communications dated 19 and 22 September and 2, 4 16 and 18 October 1995, Chad has made the necessary payment to reduce its arrears below the amount specified in Article 19 of the Charter.

May I take it that the General Assembly duly takes note of this information?

The President

This afternoon we hold the last meeting of the Special Commemorative Meeting of the General Assembly on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations.

The President

The Assembly will first hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Sali Berisha, President of the Republic of Albania.

President Berisha (Albania)

I deem it a special pleasure to congratulate you, Sir, on your election as President of the General Assembly for its fiftieth session, as well as the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for his skilful leadership of the Organization.

Today, 50 years after the United Nations Charter entered into force, we have come here with the unflinching confidence that the purposes and principles enshrined in it have served and will serve mankind to attain its aspirations to peace and global security, the equality of peoples and their right to self-determination, international cooperation for development and progress, and respect for freedoms and human rights.

The Republic of Albania highly appreciates the contribution of the United Nations during this half-century to the prevention of a global conflict, the settlement of conflicts, the enhancement of international security, and the mitigation of the suffering of millions of people caught in the grip of conflicts or poverty, and its support for economic development in the world and for the democratic process.

The United Nations is commemorating its fiftieth anniversary at an important turning-point in the great achievements of mankind, among them the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the communist dictatorships, under which many countries, including Albania, suffered a great deal. The fall of the Iron Curtain -- and the United Nations also had a positive influence on that event -- averted the threat of a large-scale confrontation and ushered in a period of difficult transition for the countries of Eastern Europe, but not only for them. In this process, international institutions turned out to be not always interlocking, but sometimes interblocking.

The international community, heading into the twenty-first century, is growing ever more aware of the need to redirect its advance towards a more reliable international order for everyone. The United Nations and its agencies can render a new contribution to this trend, to the benefit of present history.

As a Balkan country, Albania is greatly concerned about the infringement of human values and the violation of the international conventions and agreements in the former Yugoslavia. We have condemned Serbian aggression -- the cause of the suffering of millions of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina -- and the creation of "ethnically cleansed" territories by force. We support the peace talks initiated by the United States, and we take the view that the involvement of troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is vital, not only to establish peace and a lasting settlement that does not rehabilitate the aggressor in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also to prevent a chain of conflicts in the Balkans and beyond -- something that the ultra-nationalist forces would like to instigate.

Besides, the Balkan crisis started in Kosova, and without a settlement of the Kosova issue, there can be no long-term peace in the former Yugoslavia or stability in the Balkans. It is indispensable that the questions of putting an end to the violation of the human and national rights of the Albanians in Kosova, restoring the democratic institutions there and commencing talks between the Belgrade authorities and the legitimate representatives of the Albanians of Kosova, in the presence of a third party -- talks including the question of resolving Kosova's future status in accordance with international agreements -- be included in the package of Contact Group negotiations on a solution to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. By insisting on the implementation of General Assembly resolution 49/204 of last December, which includes these demands, the United Nations would be doing a great service for peace and security in our region and continent.

Albania remains determined to oppose the changing of borders through violence and to establish relations of regional cooperation with its neighbours. In compliance with this policy, we consider as a real achievement the commitment -- an undertaking by the Presidents of Bulgaria, Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania in this very palace of the United Nations two days ago -- to build an integrating horizontal transport and telecommunications corridor to radiate to other States, within and outside the region. This corridor will bring greater closeness and unity between our countries themselves, between the Balkan countries and the European Union, and between East and West. The project has aroused the interest of the European Union and the United States. We would greatly appreciate the commitment of the World Bank and other financial institutions to its realization.

I think that the vertical corridor between Ljubljana and Athens could be the object of another integrating project in the Balkan peninsula.

Over the 50 years since the inception of the United Nations, Albania survived one of the most bitter dictatorial experiences of the continent. In flagrant violation of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which it had signed, more than 400,000 Albanians were jailed, interned, tortured or executed, and thousands of religious institutions in the country, many of them centuries old, were dynamited and demolished.

I am very pleased to declare today that the rule of law and the market economy have been established in Albania and that all the former communist laws have been replaced. Though, in the past, it was a country where freedoms and human rights were prohibited by law, in Albania today there are hundreds of private newspapers and magazines. From a country where religious beliefs were banned, it has turned into a centre of religious tolerance par excellence. A country that used to regard the Bretton Woods institutions as enslaving, it now cooperates very successfully with them, as it does with very many different United Nations agencies.

Although it was the last State to sign the Helsinki Final Act, Albania today meets the criteria of the Copenhagen Document on human and minority rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Though, in the past, a country of total collectivism, the Albania of today attributes 75 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to the private sector and boasts a two-digit economic-growth rate and a one-digit inflation rate, while the GDP-foreign debt ratio is less than 10 per cent.

All this testifies that freedom is working in Albania. From the most isolated and closed country of the planet, it has turned into a country which has resolutely committed itself to full integration into the international community -- at the regional level by becoming a member of the Council of Europe, and at the global level by actively participating in the activities of this Organization. Albania has attached due importance to fulfilment of its financial obligations to the United Nations and has expressed its willingness, and made preparations, to provide troops for United Nations peace-keeping operations.

The decision of the Albanian Government to declare the country a candidate for a non-permanent Security Council seat allocated to the Eastern European Group for the term 1996-1997 is an expression of the will and readiness of Albania for more active participation in the Organization. We think that the small countries too can make a valuable contribution to the United Nations, and we consider the lack of equitable representation an expression of discrimination against them that violates the very spirit of the Charter.

The Republic of Albania supports the proposal to increase the membership of the Security Council, as this would better conform to the new reality and would add to efficiency in the Council's work. The increase in the number of Members of the Organization -- more than threefold -- over the last 50 years calls for a reassessment of the role of the small States, which are very interested in having a powerful Organization and aspire to making an active contribution to its activity. We consider it important to create conditions in which these countries enjoy more equitable representation on the main organs.

With the adoption of the Declaration at the end of these special meetings, the Republic of Albania will commit itself to cooperation towards revitalizing the role of the United Nations in the fields of peace, progress, equality and justice, with a view to serving the present generation and guaranteeing a better world for future generations.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of Albania for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Fidel Ramos, President of the Republic of the Philippines.

President Ramos (Philippines)

As a country that signed the United Nations Charter in San Francisco in 1945, and as the current Chairman of the Group of 77, the Philippines considers it an exciting privilege to take part in the work of the United Nations.

In five turbulent decades we have seen the decolonization of virtually the whole world, the rise of human rights to the forefront of world concerns, the engagement of our world community in reform for the welfare of children, women, minorities and the environment, and, most of all, the work of re-engineering development in the poor regions of the world. Now we must ensure that this Organization is adequate to meet the challenges of a new era.

Let us remember that the United Nations was created -- as the Charter says --

"to promote ... better standards of life in larger freedom"

all over the world.

Today, we know that poor countries -- given the right policies and just a little assistance -- can actually develop and raise their standards of living. Yet, sadly, we find in the developed countries, and even in some of the more advanced developing nations, a deplorable effort to turn back the tide by closing their markets to exports from other countries and raising false issues about the environment and labour standards.

We must therefore now press forward even more intensively the work of the United Nations to spread economic progress and social justice, the lack of which is the root cause of conflict. Let us with equal dispatch strengthen the United Nations agencies involved in promoting social justice and economic progress.

The fact remains that the gap between rich and poor nations endures, and in some cases is widening by dangerous proportions. Peace cannot grow in any society gripped by poverty and misery.

In the work of peacemaking, adjustments are clearly in order. While the threat to global peace from nuclear confrontation has greatly diminished, in its place have arisen many regional and ethnic conflicts that are as deadly and that constitute both a challenge and an affront to the collective conscience of mankind. Therefore, we should not neglect the chance to push the United Nations into a more forthright stand against all acts, methods and practices of terrorism, for terrorism is a dagger aimed at the very heart of each nation's security, and at global stability.

Moreover, we must condemn the grotesque obsession with nuclear weapons and other instruments of mass destruction and work concertedly for the conclusion next year of a comprehensive test-ban treaty that will put a stop to all nuclear testing for all time.

On behalf of the Group of 77, I also draw the Assembly's attention to the problems arising from the large-scale migration of workers. For the great majority of them, migration means deprivation of rights, double standards in the eyes of the law and, worse, exposure to violence and abuse. We urge the convening by the United Nations of an international conference specifically to address the plight of migrant workers. That the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families remains to be ratified by many countries is just one more reminder of the difficult road we still have to travel.

Finally, let us not allow this commemoration to pass without addressing the issue of reforming the United Nations, its organization, its processes and its finances. The most efficient organization in the world cannot effectively function without stable and predictable financing. We therefore call upon all Members to fulfil their financial obligations to the United Nations and to do so on time. We support reform of the Security Council itself. We believe that the membership should be enlarged and reapportioned to ensure equitable representation of all geographic regions and of the developing countries.

This is not to express impatience with an institution that has served our world with such dedication for half a century. This is rather to express the hope that our United Nations of the future will be even more caring and proactive and the bridge to the fulfilment of our peoples' aspirations.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of the Philippines for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

President Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

The fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations is indeed an occasion to reflect on its past, present and future role and function. We join the chorus of well-deserved praise to the United Nations for its sterling role in the prevention of global conflict and for its support of the various struggles for decolonization and the achievement of self-determination.

For us in Africa, the contribution of the United Nations in the decolonization and democratization processes has been an outstanding and honourable one, with the result that today southern Africa, once described by a Portuguese seafarer as a "region of storms", has finally and truly become a region of good hope where the oppressive settler regimes once consolidated by the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, apartheid and other ruthless systems of governance have succumbed to the revolutionary will of the majority, paving the way to peace, stability and regional cooperation.

But the departure of colonial rule has not left us unscathed. The ethnic and tribal hostilities fomented by colonial regimes in their divide-and-rule power strategy have persisted in several of our countries, tearing some of our nations apart. The intensity and viciousness of ethnic wars are as manifest in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia and Somalia, as they are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and yet genocide taking place in Rwanda is accorded less significance by the world than genocide in Bosnia. Somalia is left burning while catastrophe stalks. Western United Nations forces withdraw from Somalia only to deploy under the cover of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Bosnia. Where, we ask, is the brotherhood of man? Where, we ask, is man's impartiality? Where, indeed, is the proof of his non-racialism? Is it a scourge to be black, we ask?

What has happened to our universally accepted concept of the global village? Do we need drug traffickers, merchants of terrorism and pandemic diseases to be persuaded that the concept is real enough? I fear that, if we today neglect the tragedy of the millions of the starving poor and refugees, we shall tomorrow surely reap the whirlwind of another "black death".

The many changes that have taken place in our international relations demand to be reflected in the structures of our international organizations. The need for the restructuring and transformation of the United Nations to reflect the realities of today's world and not those of 50 years ago is exceedingly urgent. The Security Council, as now constituted, empowers only a small minority of the victorious allies of a war of half a century ago to continue to wield sweeping powers that enable it to take or block decisions affecting the destiny of the majority of Member States sitting in the General Assembly. This despotism in the Security Council, especially the power of veto, defies logic and runs counter to the very democratic principles and values that are demanded of Member States in their domestic political practices. We have listened to the statements of the leaders of these historically privileged countries, and none of them made any reference at all to the need for democratizing this institution. I ask them all to answer the question of whether or not they accept the principle of democracy for the United Nations. Is it yes or no?

Membership in the Security Council must reflect a fair geographical representation of all the regions in the world. Indeed, the United Nations system as a whole needs to be reformed and revitalized in order to render it more transparent, accountable and democratic.

Our hope that the establishment of the World Trade Organization would herald a new framework for an equitable and fair international trading system is already proving forlorn. Current trade relations are still bedeviled by the old reflexes of protectionism and unilateralism. The Bretton Woods institutions remain unreformed and, as their structures continue to defy democracy, they continue to act as dictatorial taskmasters on behalf of the world's rich and powerful nations, their harsh and punitive measures thus wreaking havoc on our poor societies still struggling to wriggle out from under the colonial legacy of misery and developmental neglect.

It is no secret that the United Nations is now in the grip of a financial crisis. For the Organization to meet its growing responsibilities and challenges, Member States have to honour their Charter obligations. A car without fuel will not perform; neither can a United Nations without resources.

In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm my country's commitment to work for a better world, while reiterating the view that the challenge of today is for us to transform and strengthen our world body for the benefit of future generations. A democratic world needs democratic institutions at both the national and the international levels. The United Nations must therefore reflect that world.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas, President of the Republic of Lithuania.

President Brazauskas (Lithuania)

All of us gathered here in the most important assembly hall of the planet are united by the hope and belief in a new world order, in a world based on the unity of nations in the pursuit of peace and prosperity on Earth. It is not solely for the purpose of marking this special occasion that we should reflect upon the experience of this unique Organization. We must enhance its effectiveness and establish new collective mechanisms to surmount the challenges of the present and those that lie ahead.

Since the collapse of the bipolar system, the world has been more acutely confronted with old and seemingly intractable problems in the fields of international migration, population and the environment. New concerns dealing with the development and consolidation of peace, social justice and democracy have emerged.

Lithuania considers the State responsibility for good governance and economic and social stability to be the means to guarantee human security and prosperity. At the same time, we are striving to build a civil society that can actively and responsibly participate in the resolution of international problems.

Today Lithuania takes pride in its good relations with all neighbouring States. These relations are based on law and the principles of good-neighbourliness. To achieve this, we had to transcend negative historical stereotypes, as well as to overcome re-emergent suspicion and mistrust. The world could achieve significant progress if the majority of States succeeded in maintaining such cooperative relations with their own neighbours.

Today, the role of the United Nations has increased significantly in the realm of international peace and security. Lithuania supports the leading role of the United Nations in peace-keeping operations and the recommendations laid out in "An Agenda for Peace".

Present-day realities confirm that the ideological confrontations of the cold-war era have been replaced by long-term localized conflicts. The importance of preventive diplomacy becomes even more evident in preventing the outbreak of armed conflicts and the humanitarian crises that often accompany them. For this reason, Lithuania greatly values the work of the Organization in this area as well as in post-conflict situation management. The new era demands more effective and complementary interaction with regional structures, such as the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Western European Union.

We are in favour of a more defined distribution of goals and tasks and increased coordination of the respective activities of United Nations peace-keeping operations and preventive diplomacy missions. Lithuania actively participates in these initiatives and is willing to increase its involvement in the maintenance of international security.

Lithuania is well aware of the fact there could be no other United Nations. At the same time, we understand the need for reform of this institution. The United Nations, like its Member States, has had its share of successes and failures. The Organization has not had the capacity to keep up with the ever-evolving challenges facing the international community. The United Nations has thus fallen into a deep crisis and a difficult financial situation. Regrettably, this also points to a clear lack of collective political will on the part of Member States.

Reform must begin with the strengthening of the United Nations system and the expansion of the Security Council. Lithuania supports the inclusion of Germany and Japan among the permanent members of the Security Council and seeks to ensure the adequate representation of the interests of small States in this body. The Organization must resolutely meet the ever-evolving challenges to humankind: transnational crime, drug trafficking, international terrorism and the spread of AIDS.

We do not question the priority accorded to international peace and security issues. But the security and peace-keeping functions of the United Nations should not be pursued at the expense of economic and social programmes. We will seek to have the economic and social policy needs and priorities of the countries in transition reflected in the "Agenda for Development", as we did earlier this year with respect to the work of the international conferences in Copenhagen and Beijing.

Fifty years of United Nations work have been crowned with tangible and laudable achievements. Most importantly, the number of democratic States has increased dramatically over those years. The global nuclear threat has decreased. Yet the thread of life remains vulnerable. We have no other choice but to live together, seeking to better understand one another and to cooperate more closely.

That is the basis of my optimism and faith in man as well as in the future.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of Lithuania for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Martti Ahtisaari, President of the Republic of Finland.

President Ahtisaari (Finland)

The founding fathers of the United Nations had the vision of a global system of collective security. Mindful of the lessons of the 1930s, they wanted to ensure prompt action by the United Nations to keep watch on the state of peace and security, seek cooperative solutions, and deal effectively with aggression. The cold war ruined this vision. Now we have the historic opportunity to restore the United Nations as originally conceived. Yet our Organization is crippled by massive non-payment of properly assessed contributions, in breach of Charter obligations. I am deeply concerned about this tendency to run down the United Nations.

It is also customary to criticize the United Nations and its Secretariat. I have worked in the United Nations, and I know that there are a great many dedicated and competent men and women in this Organization, led by our Secretary-General.

Today the world needs the United Nations for global governance: to foster peace and enhance the rights of every human being through sustainable development. Our immediate task is to provide effective follow-up to the successful conferences held in Rio, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing.

More than ever, the Security Council is needed to ensure effective action for peace. A representative Security Council, reflecting the realities of today's world, is the best guarantee of effectiveness. Finland therefore supports an enlarged Security Council, including new permanent members from all regions.

The end of the cold war has provided the United Nations with new opportunities to strengthen international peace and security. It has helped the world to focus on threats to our common security which are not amenable to resolution by military means. This is already true in Europe, the principal theatre of the cold war, with the European Union as the main actor projecting stability and prosperity throughout the continent.

Two recent reports of the Secretary-General have focused global discussion. "An Agenda for Peace" and "An Agenda for Development" provide a wealth of ideas to meet the challenges of the post-cold-war world. It is our duty, as leaders, to turn ideas into practice.

I shall take up one proposal which the Secretary-General placed before us in his Agenda for Peace. He has suggested that the United Nations should have its own rapid reaction force when there is an emergency need for peace-keeping troops.

I find myself in profound sympathy with the Secretary-General's concerns. My own involvement with the United Nations has convinced me of the need for the international community to react in a rapid and concrete manner to emergencies. I am convinced that the United Nations should establish, as part of the reform, an effective, integrated, multinational crisis management capability to meet the challenge of future emergencies.

Discussion to date has shown that perhaps the most practical way to make progress in the short term is to further develop the existing stand-by forces arrangement. Stand-by arrangements are not enough to guarantee the availability of troops. Therefore we must think ahead. The Nordic experience in peace-keeping provides a solid foundation for innovation. The Nordic countries have already created two joint battalions that now operate successfully as part of the United Nations peace forces in the former Yugoslavia.

A well trained and lean force that could be quickly dispatched by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to perform demanding humanitarian or peace-keeping missions is a necessity for the future. The Government of Finland is at present preparing a Finnish stand-by force for this very purpose.

I propose that the Secretary-General entrust an eminent person, independent and well qualified in both the military and political practice of peace-keeping, to sift from the plethora of ideas a limited number of practical and politically feasible recommendations for action by the time of the next General Assembly.

For five decades, the United Nations has sought to provide security in the broadest sense of the word. The world Organization has been a source of inspiration and an obstacle to cynicism. We may not always recognize its efforts, and we may sometimes even resent them. But we cannot do without it.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of Finland for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Levon Ter-Petrossian, President of the Republic of Armenia.

President Ter-Petrossian (Armenia)

Armenia, as a State, was not among the original signatories of the United Nations Charter. Nevertheless Armenia, as a nation, had sent to the battlefields of the Second World War some 600,000 of its sons and daughters, nearly half of whom never came home. It is in their memory that Armenia, as an independent State, is proud to take its rightful place in this Assembly to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations.

In view of the situation in 1945, it was only natural that the Charter of the United Nations should deal primarily with the maintenance of international peace and security. The United Nations played a pivotal role in the reconstruction that followed the devastation of the world war, and it has so far been able to prevent the world being plunged into global conflict. Even during the cold war, the very existence of an international forum in which countries might discuss global issues prevented the outbreak of many conflicts.

The United Nations continues to play a constructive role in containing regional conflicts, for instance in the negotiations aimed at settling the conflict in Nagorny Karabakh under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In this respect, I should like to reaffirm the resolve of the Armenian side to comply with the longstanding cease-fire and to transform it, as soon as possible, into a lasting peace.

Safeguarding peace is but one of the objectives of the Organization. The United Nations, and the world, have made significant progress on many fronts since 1945. Thanks to the decolonization process, the elimination of apartheid, the collapse of the old order and the emergence of new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union, hundreds of millions of people have been assured the fundamental right of self-determination and their rightful voice in the community of nations.

Our Organization has also enabled nations the world over to express their views on a broad range of subjects, including strategies for economic and social development, human rights, environmental protection and the promotion of international law. At the same time, the work of United Nations specialized agencies has directly improved the lives of millions of people throughout the world.

Armenia would like the United Nations to be strengthened and to be accorded greater respect. We are grateful to the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros-Ghali, for the tireless efforts he has made to reform the United Nations system in this changing world. Under his guidance, substantial progress has been made in the management of the Organization. At his initiative, discussions have taken place in recent years on the proposals he made in "An Agenda for Peace", in "An Agenda for Development" and, more recently, in his "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace'".

Before concluding, I should like to salute all those who have served the United Nations over the past 50 years, and to pay special tribute to the men and women who have given their lives in the line of duty. We honour their memory, and we pledge to continue their mission.

The President

I thank the President of the Republic of Armenia for his statement.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, President of the Republic of Haiti.

President Aristide (Haiti)

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