General Assembly Session 55 meeting 3

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

I declare open the Millennium Summit of the United Nations.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

I now invite representatives to stand and observe one minute of silent prayer or meditation.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

We meet today at the United Nations to celebrate the new millennium and to declare our vision for the future. We have come together sent by the peoples of our common globe. We articular authority. It will resonate for years to come and guide the efforts of the international community.

We have a task and we need to fulfil it. Our task is threefold: we need to meet the demands of the outside world, we need to clarify the role of the United Nations in world affairs and we need to change the United Nations to be a modern, effective Organization.

The world outside this building is changing with an ever greater speed. Humankind faces both daunting challenges and unprecedented opportunities. We need to act together to address globalization. We must make the best of the opportunities and face the challenges with wisdom, justice and courage. It is our responsibility to save the environment -- our common heritage -- for future generations.

The human being is at the centre of our work. Every human being is valuable. We need to work together as fellow citizens and partners: women and men, black and white, children and adults, rich and poor, strong and weak. Together we are strong.

I salute you, Mr. Secretary-General, for your report, which has been valuable in inspiring the Millennium Declaration. The overriding theme of your report is globalization, which in itself is an embodiment of the challenges, opportunities and rapid change. We know the causes and many of the consequences of globalization. This gives us an opportunity to influence the change for the better. This is the core of your report and the resolute message of our Declaration.

We the peoples make the critical choices. A global marketplace is an effective means of creating and distributing wealth, but it must be governed by a fair set of rules, by the people and for the people. Also at the national level the key to development and progress is democracy, respect for human rights, rule of law and good governance. Without a solid domestic foundation, a country will fail even under the best of global rules.

Our planet is a global village, but not all the houses are alike. This village suffers from poverty. To eradicate poverty we need solidarity. Solidarity grows from individuals.

There is a continued need for multilateralism. In an interdependent world, no nation is an island and everybody's fortunes are linked. The United Nations is the stronghold of multilateralism and should continue to be so.

This Millennium Summit is the moment to reflect on the future of the United Nations. The United Nations is often the only one out in the field to assist, to advise and to build institutions. It is imperative that the Member States give it the means and resources that will enable the Organization to fulfil its mandate.

We cannot expect the United Nations to accomplish everything alone. To be successful and credible, it must act in partnership with other organizations and with the civil society. We must make the Organization reflect the world as it is today.

I have just declared the Millennium Summit open. Let us feel the humility and a sense of history of this moment. Let us turn this into an event which will make a difference. Let us also use to the fullest the opportunity to meet together and bilaterally, and to reach a meeting of minds. Let us feel our responsibility towards our fellow citizens. We have the means if we have the will. Let us make this Millennium Summit a great success.

I now give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Sam Nujoma, President of the Republic of Namibia and Co-Chairperson of the Millennium Summit of the United Nations.

The Co-Chairperson (Namibia)

I am mindful of what our seating arrangement represents for all those present and in the eyes of the world. By a happy coincidence of circumstances, the two Heads of State of Finland and of Namibia are co-chairing this historic Millennium Summit. We will, naturally, rely on the wise counsel and assistance of our illustrious Secretary-General.

This arrangement was made because the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly was under the presidency of my compatriot, the Honourable Theo-Ben Gurirab, Namibia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the fifty-fifth session will be under the presidency of Mr. Harri Holkeri, former Prime Minister of Finland, who started his work yesterday. I am grateful and thank my colleagues and delegations for this honour. I am most delighted to congratulate my dear colleague and Co-Chairperson, Her Excellency Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, on her election. I renew, once again, my pledge and determination before you all to do all I can to work hard and make a meaningful contribution towards the achievement of the best possible conclusion of the Summit, of which all of us and future generations will be proud.

Peoples of the world have high expectations for social change; determination to put things right; to put men and women on the same footing before the law; to conquer fear, poverty and alienation in society; and to use the benefits of science and technology for peace, human security, empowerment of the poor, poverty eradication and sustainable development.

We have come to United Nations Headquarters to exchange views and agree on all the necessary steps that we must take, individually and collectively, to strengthen "the role of the United Nations in the twenty-first century". We are here because we believe in the United Nations, in its Charter and in the common objectives and principles for which our indispensable Organization stands. We are here as world leaders. And now is the time and today is the day for a new beginning to give renewed impetus to peace, cooperation, development, security and stability in the world.

United Nations peace operations are another area of common concern. Armed conflicts and civil wars, as well as the vicious and destructive acts of terrorist groups, are condemnable things that perpetuate human suffering and severe hardship in the world. It is in this connection that the recent release of the Brahimi report (A/55/305) on United Nations peace operations is so important and timely. This much awaited report has been placed before the Millennium Summit and we must consider it as our own plan of action.

As Heads of State and Government and eminent personalities, we must add our voices to the call for the observance of the Olympic Truce during the forthcoming Olympiad, which will be held at Sydney, Australia, from 15 September to 1 October 2000. Our message for global solidarity, goodwill and human brotherhood must be clear and solemn. We are doing this in the spirit of building a peaceful and better world through sport. May peace prevail on earth.

I now give the floor to the Secretary-General.

The Secretary-General

I much regret to have to open our proceedings on a sombre note. The safety of United Nations personnel in both peacekeeping and humanitarian missions is a matter of vital concern to all of us. Before delivering my prepared statement, therefore, I must inform heads of State and heads of Government of a tragedy that has occurred in West Timor. A few hours ago, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Atambua was deliberately attacked by a militia opposed to the independence of East Timor. My Special Representative in East Timor has informed me that at least three international staff were killed. The rest of the staff are being evacuated to East Timor.

This tragedy underlines once again the dangers faced by unarmed humanitarian workers serving the United Nations in conflict or post-conflict situations. The Security Council and I myself have repeatedly expressed concern about the safety of United Nations personnel in the field, both military and civilian. I have taken up the matter with the Indonesian Government at the highest level, and I will keep the Assembly informed about developments.

May I ask the Assembly to observe a minute of silence in honour of those brave colleagues who have lost their lives.

The Secretary-General

Ladies and gentlemen, I am deeply honoured to welcome you all. Never before have the leaders of so many nations come together in a single assembly. This is a unique event, a unique opportunity, and therefore a unique responsibility. You, ladies and gentlemen, are the leaders to whom the world's peoples have entrusted their destiny. They look to you to protect them from the great dangers of our time, and to ensure that all of them can share in its great achievements.

In an age when human beings have learned the code of human life and can transmit their knowledge in seconds from one continent to another, no mother in the world can understand why her child should be left to die of malnutrition or preventable disease. No one can understand why they should be driven from their home, or imprisoned and tortured for expressing their beliefs. No one can understand why the soil their parents tilled has turned to desert or why their skills have become useless and their family is left hungry. People know that these challenges cannot be met by one country alone, or by government alone. Change cannot be held back by frontiers. Human progress has always come from individual and local initiatives, freely devised and then freely adapted elsewhere.

Your job as political leaders is to encourage such initiatives, to make sure that they are not stifled and that all your peoples can benefit from them, and to limit, or compensate for, the adverse effects that change always has on some people, somewhere. Your peoples look to you for a common effort to solve their problems. They expect you to work together, as Governments. And they expect you to work with all the other institutions -- profit and non-profit, public and private -- where human beings join hands to promote their ideas and their interests.

People want to see this happen between neighbouring countries, and among all the countries of each region. But since today's biggest challenges are global, they expect above all that we will work together at the global level, as the United Nations.

My friends, that is why we are here. We are here to strengthen and adapt this great institution, forged 55 years ago in the crucible of war, so that it can do what people expect of it in the new era, an era in which the rule of law must prevail.

Last month I sent you a report (A/55/305), produced by a Panel of experts, which makes detailed suggestions for strengthening the United Nations in the crucial area of peace and security, the area where people look especially to the State, and where the world's peoples look to the United Nations, to save them "from the scourge of war". Please consider that report very seriously.

It is not only in that field, however, that the United Nations needs strengthening. We must strengthen it across the whole range of our activities.

The Secretary-General

At the beginning of the year, in my own millennium report (A/54/2000), I suggested a number of ways to make the Organization a more effective tool, better suited to improving the life of every individual, no matter where. Some of the specific initiatives I set out in that report are already in a pilot phase. They are encouraging examples of innovative partnerships which the United Nations should maintain in the future.

I am gratified that Member States have deemed it useful to use my report as a basis for the draft political declaration that has been referred to the Summit for adoption at its conclusion. I therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, not to limit yourselves to declarations of intent, but to consider your declaration as a plan of action, and to ensure that it will be amply followed up.

The Secretary-General

We need to decide our priorities. And we must adapt our United Nations, so that in future those priorities are reflected in clear and prompt decisions, leading to real change in people's lives.

That, my friends, is what the peoples expect of us. Let us not disappoint them.

The Co-Chairperson (Namibia)

I thank the Secretary-General for his statement.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

I would now like to draw the attention of Members to a draft resolution that appears in document A/55/L.2 and that contains the United Nations Millennium Declaration. Draft resolution A/55/L.2 was circulated to delegations this morning and distributed in the Hall.

Before we turn to the list of speakers, and in order to avoid disrupting the speakers, I would like to seek the cooperation of representatives in refraining from expressing congratulations inside the General Assembly Hall after a statement has been delivered. I thank representatives in advance for their cooperation.

I would also like to remind participants that the General Assembly has decided that each speaker will have five minutes to make a statement during the Millennium Summit. In connection with the time limits, a light system has been installed at the speakers' rostrum. The system functions as follows. A green light will be activated at the start of the speaker's statement, an orange light will be activated 30 seconds before the end of the five minutes, and then a red light will be activated when the five-minute limit has elapsed.

May I appeal to all speakers to cooperate in observing the time limit in making their statements so that all those inscribed on the list of speakers for a given meeting will be heard at that meeting. I thank representatives in advance very much for their cooperation.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States of America.

President Clinton (United States)

Let me begin by saying it is a great honour to have this unprecedented gathering of world leaders in the United States. We come together not just at a remarkable moment on the calendar, but at the dawn of a new era in human affairs, when globalization and the revolution in information technology have brought us closer together than ever before. To an extent unimaginable just a few years ago, we reach across geographical and cultural divides. We know what is going on in each other's countries. We share experiences, triumphs, tragedies, aspirations. Our growing interdependence includes the opportunity to explore and reap the benefits of the far frontiers of science and the increasingly interconnected economy. And as the Secretary-General just reminded us, it also includes shared responsibilities: to free humanity from poverty, disease, environmental destruction and war. That responsibility in turn requires us to make sure the United Nations is up to the job.

Fifty-five years ago the United Nations was formed "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war". Today there are more people in this room with the power to achieve that goal than have ever been gathered in one place. We find today fewer wars between nations, but more wars within them. Such internal conflicts, often driven by ethnic and religious differences, took 5 million lives in the last decade -- most of them completely innocent victims.

These conflicts present us with a stark challenge. Are they part of the scourge the United Nations was established to prevent? If so, we must respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, but still find a way to protect people as well as borders.

The last century taught us that there are times when the international community must take a side -- not merely stand between the sides or on the sidelines. We faced such a test -- and met it -- when Mr. Milosevi tried to close the last century with a final chapter of ethnic cleansing and slaughter. We have faced such a test for 10 years in Iraq, where the United Nations has approved a fair blueprint spelling out what must be done. It is consistent with our resolutions and our values, and it must be enforced. We face another test today in Burma, where -- in defiance of repeated United Nations resolutions -- a brave and popular leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, once again has been confined, with her supporters imprisoned and her country in distress.

But most conflicts and disputes are not so clear-cut. Legitimate grievances and aspirations are piled high on both sides. Here there is no alternative to principled compromise in giving up old grudges in order to get on with life.

Right now, from the Middle East to Burundi to the Congo to South Asia, leaders are facing this kind of choice between confrontation and compromise. Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Barak are with us here today. They have promised to resolve the final differences between them this year, finally completing the Oslo process embodied in the Declaration of Principles signed seven years ago this month at the White House.

To those who have supported the right of Israel to live in security and peace, and to those who have championed the Palestinian cause these many years -- let me say to all of you, they need your support now more than ever to take the hard risks for peace. They have the chance to do it, but like all life's chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is not a moment to lose.

When leaders do seize this chance for peace we must help them. Increasingly, the United Nations is being called into situations where brave people seek reconciliation but where the enemies of peace seek to undermine it. In East Timor, had the United Nations not engaged, the people would have lost the chance to control their future. Today I was deeply saddened to learn of the brutal murder of three United Nations relief workers there by the militia in West Timor, and I urge the Indonesian authorities to put a stop to these abuses. In Sierra Leone, had the United Nations not engaged, countless children now living would be dead.

But in both cases the United Nations did not have the tools to finish the job. We must provide those tools -- peacekeepers that can be rapidly deployed with the right training and equipment; missions well defined and well led and with the necessary civilian police.

We must work as well to prevent conflict; to get more children in school; to relieve more debt in developing countries; to do more to fight malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, which cause one quarter of all the deaths in the world; to do more to promote prevention and to stimulate the development of and affordable access to drugs and vaccines; and to do more to curb the trade in items that generate money that make conflict more profitable than peace, whether diamonds in Africa or drugs in Colombia.

All these things come with a price tag, and all nations, including the United States, must pay it. The prices must be fairly apportioned, and the United Nations structure of finances must be fairly reformed so that the Organization can do its job. But those in my country or elsewhere who believe we can do without the United Nations, or impose our will upon it, misread history and misunderstand the future.

Let me say to all present that this is the last opportunity I will have as President to address this General Assembly. It is the most august gathering we have ever had because so many of you have come from so far away. If I have learned anything in these last eight years, it is that whether we like it or not, that we are growing more interdependent. We must look for more solutions in which all sides can claim a measure of victory and move away from choices in which someone is required to accept complete defeat. That will require us to develop greater sensitivity to our diverse political, cultural and religious claims, but it will require us to develop even greater respect for our common humanity.

The leaders here assembled can rewrite human history in the new millennium. If we have learned the lessons of the past, we can leave a very different legacy for our children. But we must believe the simple things: that everywhere, in every land, people in every station matter. Everyone counts, everyone has a role to play, and we all do better when we help each other.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea.

President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea)

Never before have the peoples of the earth focused as much attention and expectations on the United Nations as they are doing now, on the occasion of this session, because we are marking, at a time of uncertainty for mankind, what history will record as the Millennium Summit.

Despite the major advances and progress achieved in the development of science and technology, in the resolution of conflicts in various regions of the planet and in the changes made through democracy, respect for human rights and good government, the turn of the century shows us a world that is threatened and in a permanent state of uncertainty about the destiny and survival of mankind.

If we study closely the causes of this degrading situation, we find that to date we have not known how to treat the individual, the bearer of eternal values, the key to and the beneficiary of all development efforts worldwide.

It has also been observed that if the growth and the prosperity of some nations are based on the marginalization and the impoverishment of others, the outcome can only be a world in tension, dominated by injustice and intolerance.

Over recent years and at various meetings of outstanding importance that took place in almost all continents throughout the world -- particularly the Mexico World Conference on the rights of women in 1975, the Copenhagen meeting in 1980, the World Summit for Children in 1990 and the recent evaluation of social development in Geneva, we have broadly identified and raised the serious political, economic and social problems that afflict humanity, particularly in the developing countries.

In this light, we appreciate the outcome of the recent G-8 Summit in Okinawa, which recognized need for greater political will and commitment to contribute to relieving the suffering of the peoples of the world.

Indeed, the vast majority of the world's population, and particularly of third world countries, are victims of poverty, economic crisis, debt, great pandemics and endemic diseases, extreme poverty and many natural disasters.

Nonetheless, we note with great concern the clear inadequacy of the present structure of the United Nations to overcome this overwhelming situation, face these serious problems and meet the requirements and the demands of the twenty-first century.

Thus, we advocate that, in order to be coherent and efficient, the United Nations must develop at the same pace and adapt itself to the events of every historical moment. In this regard, if the United Nations does not democratize itself and become universal, in accordance with the principle just mentioned, and heed equally all nations, it will not be likely to carry out justly and equitably its predominant role in facing the threats and challenges of the twenty-first century.

We therefore raise the voice of Equatorial Guinea, joining those clamouring for the urgent and necessary reform and strengthening of the United Nations system at this historic Millennium Summit.

I wish to conclude by congratulating the Secretary-General and sharing the observation in his report that

"Globalization offers great opportunities, but at present its benefits are very unevenly distributed." (A/54/2000, para. 13)

Globalization should be a positive force for the entire world population and should not leave millions of people marginalized by poverty. We must govern better, and we must learn to govern better together. For these two tasks we need effective States and Governments that promote mankind as the bearer of eternal values, the key to and the beneficiary of all our efforts.

The Co-Chairperson (Finland)

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, Constitutional President of the Republic of Guatemala.

President Portillo Cabrera (Guatemala)

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