General Assembly Session 55 meeting 37

The President

In the letter contained in document A/55/345/Add.9, the Secretary-General informs me that, since the issuance of his communications contained in documents A/55/345 and addenda 1 to 8, Haiti 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 the information contained in this document?

Miss Durrant (Jamaica)

Let me begin by expressing my delegation's appreciation to the President of the Security Council, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, for his lucid and concise introduction of the annual report of the Security Council to the General Assembly. This debate cannot be regarded as a ritual, as it provides a useful opportunity for Member States to assess how the Security Council has fulfilled its responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

We all agree that the character of the Security Council's work has changed dramatically since the end of the cold war and with the increase in intrastate conflicts, which have implications for international peace and security. This has broadened the scope of the issues before the Council and has challenged it to find ways to be more responsive to situations as they arise.

Over the past year, the Security Council has sought to become more responsive to the wider membership of the United Nations. It has focused attention on conflicts in Africa and is currently fully engaged in peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia and Eritrea. Earlier this year, the Council met with the heads of State and Government of the countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa and with Foreign Ministers of the Committee of Six of the Economic Community of West African States. The Council has also addressed issues such as the prevention of armed conflict, demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants, children and armed conflict, and the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers affected by armed conflict. All of these issues pose challenges to international peace and security. The debates on conflict prevention, held in November 1999 and again in July of this year, demonstrated the commitment of the Council to addressing this very important issue, in keeping with the Secretary-General's call for the United Nations in the twenty-first century to increasingly focus on preventive action. My delegation therefore looks forward to the report of the Secretary-General on conflict prevention, which is due in May 2001, and we believe that it will provide a basis for future action by the Council.

The consideration of these broad areas is an attempt by the Council to address relevant and cross-cutting issues that are outside the mandates of specific peacekeeping missions. At the same time, the Council's missions to East Timor, Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the recently concluded mission to West Africa, have provided opportunities to the international community to gain a better understanding of these complex undertakings and to respond in a timely manner to these situations.

We have seen in recent years an effort by the Security Council to respond to the call of Member States to raise the standard of its reporting to the General Assembly and to be more analytic and informative. In the past year, some progress has been recorded. We have seen some improvement in the transparency of the work of the Security Council. There has been a conscious effort to widen participation by Member States in its discussions. The Council has engaged, in a decidedly more meaningful way, in communication with affected Member States and, during this reporting period, has devised some new and made use of previously underutilized meeting formats to discuss sensitive issues with affected parties to disputes.

Jamaica subscribes to the view that, as much as is possible, the Council's work should be conducted in public. Nevertheless, the utilization of the private meetings format does allow participants to have frank exchanges of views. This format was put to good use, for example, in meetings with the facilitators former President Mandela and Sir Ketumile Masire. Arria-formula meetings have, in our view, also continued to provide an opportunity for members of the Council to interact with representatives of non-governmental organizations and other groups, which are often intimately involved with issues of primary concern to the Council. In addition, the monthly assessments by former Presidents of the work of the Council, taken together, have provided a useful overview of the Council's work. This is not to say that my delegation entertains any misperception of our having arrived at a satisfactory level of reform. There remains much to be done.

Jamaica is currently an elected member of the Security Council and we are honoured to serve the international community in this capacity. Our temporary presence on the Security Council does not, and indeed will not, obscure our vision of the need for profound changes as to how the Council is constituted and how it should operate. Indeed, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson, at the Security Council Summit on 7 September, stated that the Council must have a truly representative membership and that, by failing to take note of changes in the relative standing of States in the past half-century and the expansion of United Nations membership, the Security Council has allowed its representative character to be diminished and its democratic legitimacy to suffer.

One issue of continuing concern to my delegation is the use of sanctions. We are therefore pleased that the Security Council has decided to create a Working Group on Sanctions. We look forward to the provision of practical recommendations for streamlining sanctions regimes and for providing guidelines for the imposition and lifting of sanctions. We wish, in particular, to commend the trailblazing work done by the committees on sanctions relating to the situations in Angola and in Sierra Leone. This work has sharpened the focus on the link between armed conflict and illegal exploitation of natural resources, particularly diamonds.

In recent weeks, Member States have been paying much attention to the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305), chaired by Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi. The Brahimi report has identified significant weaknesses in the way the United Nations carries out its responsibilities in the area of peace operations and has made recommendations for our consideration on conflict prevention, peacekeeping operations and post-conflict peace-building. The Security Council has now established a Working Group tasked with undertaking a full examination of the recommendations relating to the Security Council that are contained in the Brahimi report. Council members have approached this undertaking with an open mind, but most importantly with a clear undertaking to improve the work of the Security Council in carrying out its responsibilities.

The Working Group, among other things, has undertaken to examine its decision-making process, ways in which to establish closer collaboration and meaningful consultations with troop-contributing countries, ways to ensure consistency of peacekeeping operations with international human rights regimes, how to establish clear and well-defined mandates reflecting the needs and conditions of the situations on the ground and how to involve the Security Council in conflict prevention, including closer cooperation with other United Nations organs and agencies. The Working Group has been placed on a fast track by the Security Council, a clear recognition of the Council's willingness to reform peacekeeping operations.

My delegation wishes to underscore the need for a strengthened Security Council which will effectively ensure the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. We will work towards this goal.

In conclusion, my delegation wishes to extend our sincere congratulations to the newly elected members: Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore. We look forward to working with them in the Council when they take their seats next year.

Mr. Nejad Hosseinian (Iran)

Allow me to express my appreciation to Ambassador Andjaba, Permanent Representative of Namibia and President of the Security Council, for introducing the report of the Council to the General Assembly. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Singapore, Colombia, Ireland, Norway and Mauritius on their election to the Security Council. I trust that the new non-permanent members will help enhance the openness, transparency and representativeness of the Council to the full extent permissible under the current structure of that main body of the United Nations.

Article 24 of the Charter confers on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security on behalf of the full membership of the United Nations, and at the same time it stipulates that the Council should submit an annual report and, when necessary, a special report to the General Assembly for its consideration. In other words, the General Assembly expects the Council to be accountable for its work to the membership from which it receives its powers, and the annual report of the Security Council to the General Assembly is the constitutional link which establishes accountability between the two main bodies of the United Nations.

Therefore, we attach great importance to the agenda item under consideration. However, we believe that the report still continues to be mainly a compilation of documents, remembrance of activities and restatement of facts with regard to those activities. Unfortunately, and similar to the previous reports to the General Assembly, the current 552-page report, contained in document A/55/2, covering the period from 16 June 1999 to 15 June 2000, describes only what the Security Council has done and remains largely silent about the reasons and circumstances leading to the decisions adopted. While the extensive and frequent consultations of the whole continued to be the main pillar of decision-making in the Council over the reporting period, almost no information is provided in the report on those consultations.

The General Assembly, at its fifty-first session, adopted resolution 51/193 in an effort to reform the reporting procedure of the Security Council. In this resolution, the Council is encouraged to provide a substantive and analytical account of its work and, inter alia, to include information on the consultations of the whole undertaken prior to actions by the Council on the issues within its mandate. Unfortunately, the Council continues to fall short of the wishes of the General Assembly.

As to the working methods of the Council, we welcome and encourage a number of initiatives adopted by the Council over the past few years with a view to making its working methods more transparent and democratic and its report analytical and informative. We believe that the consultations conducted in the course of the last seven years in the Open-ended Working Group on the reform of the Security Council have affected positively some aspects of the working methods of the Council, resulting in some limited progress in this field, in particular regarding transparency and the holding of public meetings.

While we believe that the working methods of the Council should be considered as integral parts of a common package, we are of the view that this should not prevent the Council from implementing the provisional agreements so far recorded in the Working Group, thus improving the Council's working methods. Therefore, we are of the view that more interaction between the Security Council and the Open-ended Working Group could result in more progress in reforming the work of the Council.

Undoubtedly, the restoration of peace and tranquillity in Tajikistan and the completion of the peace process and the achievement of national reconciliation in that country, which resulted in the successful termination of the mandate of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) in May 2000, should be inscribed on the list of those issues successfully handled by the Security Council and the United Nations system as a whole. The positive outcome of the peace process in that country is attributable, among other things, to the United Nations involvement from the very beginning of the hostilities in that country. The United Nations was instrumental in assisting the negotiation process, which was conducted under its aegis. The Security Council gave a clear mandate to UNMOT, based on the General Agreement between the parties, and supported the Mission and responded positively to its needs whenever necessary.

The United Nations involvement and the sustained political support of the Security Council proved extremely useful in dealing with the inter-Tajik conflicts. They are exactly what have been lacking with regard to the crisis in the Middle East. It is very unfortunate that, even in the face of the provocations and excessive use of force by the Israeli forces against the defenceless Palestinian civilians, which clearly jeopardized peace and security in the Middle East, a big effort was made to hold the Council back from looking into the issue. Despite the request made by several regional groups, it took a very long time to overcome the opposition to the holding of a public meeting on the Palestinian question.

It was equally unfortunate that the right of non-members to participate in the debate in the public meeting on the issue was questioned and disputed. We regret that some tried hard to prevent the general membership of the United Nations simply expressing their opinions, expectations, frustrations and even anger when the world community is incapable of protecting civilians from the cruelty of a well-armed army of occupation. While there is general agreement that the current working methods of the Council are inappropriate, and some significant provisional agreements have been reached in the Working Group in an effort to make the Council more transparent, democratic and accessible to non-members, it is distressing to witness such attempts to further restrict the holding of public meetings and preclude non-members from speaking in the Council.

More broadly speaking, the way in which the Security Council has dealt with the situation in the Middle East over the past several decades is a manifestation of the inadequacy and inappropriateness of its working methods, especially those allowing the exercise of the veto. Many times in the past the Security Council has been called upon to shoulder its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security by putting an end to the inhuman, aggressive acts of the Israeli regime. But, regrettably, the exercise, or threat of the exercise, of the veto has frequently paralysed the Council and prevented it from discharging its constitutional responsibility on such a crucial issue.

The mere existence of the right of veto prevented the Council from dealing effectively with, among others, the crises in Kosovo and the Palestinian occupied territories last year and this year. The position of my delegation on the issue of the veto has been spelled out in the position of the Non-Aligned Movement, and we hope that the Working Group on Security Council Reform will finally reach agreement on curtailing the right of veto, with a view to its final elimination.

Exacerbation of the situation in Afghanistan, due to a combination of various factors -- namely, preparation for war and periodic offensives launched by the Taliban, a severe and fast-spreading drought and harsh restrictions and inhuman treatment in the areas controlled by the Taliban -- continues to warrant close attention by the Security Council. Regrettably, the Taliban continues to defy the repeated demands of the international community, reflected in numerous United Nations resolutions, to cease insisting on a military solution of the conflict and to seriously engage in negotiations aimed at settling it peacefully. We believe that the Council should continue to send warning signals to the belligerent party and follow up on the decision it has already made. Sustained political involvement of the Council and determination in implementing its resolutions on Afghanistan is absolutely necessary for inducing the Taliban to accept a negotiated settlement.

Mr. Kolby (Norway)

My delegation welcomes this opportunity to consider the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly covering the period from 16 June 1999 to 15 June 2000. We express our appreciation to this month's President of the Security Council, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, for his excellent introduction of the report.

The report clearly shows the scope and intensity of the Council's activities in the maintenance of international peace and security. Norway welcomes the fact that the world community increasingly turns to the United Nations for solutions to conflicts, whether in South-East Europe, Western Africa or East Timor. Collective international security rests on the Member States' commitment to multilateral cooperation.

The Norwegian delegation is grateful for the confidence shown by the United Nations membership in electing Norway as a non-permanent Council member for the next two years. We look forward to working with other members of the Council and the General Assembly to further strengthen the primary role of the Council in matters of world peace.

The General Assembly has a legitimate interest in being fully informed of the activities of the Council. Norway will therefore work to make the report even more informative and useful to the membership at large.

While nothing must be done that might reduce the Council's ability to efficiently carry out its primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, it is clear that questions of peace and security are closely interconnected with issues that are the responsibility of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and other development bodies. Norway will work to strengthen the interlinkages between the United Nations peace and development efforts. Cooperation between the Security Council and the various United Nations bodies responsible for vital areas such as poverty reduction, development assistance, human rights and the environment is crucial in order to tackle the root causes of conflict.

Norway therefore stresses the need for a comprehensive approach to conflict prevention and peace-building. This entails close cooperation between the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and other relevant United Nations bodies. It also entails improved coordination within the Secretariat. We fully support the analysis and recommendations made in the Brahimi report (A/55/305) in this regard.

The Norwegian delegation has consistently underlined the importance of improving transparency and openness in the work of the Security Council. We will continue to work towards this end also from within the Council. Progress has indeed been achieved over the past few years. We welcome the fact that both regular and informal practices for sharing information with non-members have been established and further improved.

We appreciate the practice of holding open meetings on important security issues on the Council's agenda. Such meetings should ensure that the views of the United Nations membership at large are taken into account in the Council's own deliberations.

At the same time, open meetings should be clearly focused on the relevant issues and conflicts concerned, in order to ensure the highest possible efficiency in the conflict resolution activities of the Security Council.

We welcome the fact that Council meetings such as briefings by the Secretariat or Special Representatives are increasingly held in an open format rather than in consultations of the whole.

Norway would like to stress the importance of making full use of the mechanisms that have been established to facilitate consultations between Council members and troop-contributors to peacekeeping operations. All troop-contributing nations, including those participating with civilian personnel in multifunctional operations, have a legitimate interest and need to be consulted when such operations are discussed, in a way that makes their contribution to the Council's decision-making process a reality, not a formality.

Regional and subregional organizations have in recent years become ever more important instruments in the United Nations efforts to promote international peace and security. This is not least the case in Africa. Norway is proud to be working closely with such organizations, as well as with national Governments in Africa, in order to promote conflict resolution, humanitarian assistance and development cooperation. It is crucial that the Council remain fully focused on the complex challenges facing Africa.

The Security Council remains at the centre of the international community's search for lasting peace and security for the world community. This is how it should be. It is of vital importance to all Members of the United Nations that the authority of the Council remain strong and undiminished in the twenty-first century. The United Nations membership can, of course, rely on Norway's full commitment and support.

Mr. Aboulgheit (Egypt)

I wish to express my appreciation to Ambassador Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of Namibia, for his presentation to the Assembly of the report of the Security Council (A/55/2). The submission of this report is pursuant to Article 15 and Article 24 of the Charter and is an affirmation of the principle that we all uphold concerning the relationship between the Security Council and the General Assembly, permitting the latter to exercise its inherent responsibility, in accordance with the Charter, to maintain international peace and security. This enables the Assembly to pursue appropriately its work relating to the follow-up of the work of the Council, discussion of its actions and adoption of the appropriate recommendations on them.

I join many previous speakers in referring in particular to the persistence of a number of shortcomings and pitfalls in the work and current working methods of the Council. First, the Council, while having increased the number of public and open meetings this year, continues, in performing its tasks, to insist on diversifying the format of its meetings and establishing artificial criteria on attendance or participation in such sessions. This makes the Security Council a selective organ whose leadership has a limited number of voices that seek to impose themselves and their will on others, including the general membership of the Organization, which we believe has the right, in accordance with the Charter, to be fully informed of the proceedings of that important body.

Secondly, the Council continues to follow a closed and non-transparent approach that cannot be redressed through the efforts of any single party to consider situations affecting international peace and security. Yet we find it engaged for days considering requests submitted by a number of States -- not just one State -- to convene a formal meeting intended to address an issue that the entire world -- but perhaps not the Security Council -- recognizes as having a direct impact on international security. I am referring to the situation in the Palestinian territories. The Council met for hours in many meetings trying to agree on a question involving a guaranteed right of all Member States under the Charter. It finally emerged with a formula that allows some of its members to control the final format of its meeting in a very politicized manner, for which we see no place under the rules and rights enshrined in the Constitution of all Member States: the Charter.

Thirdly, regarding a related matter, we find that the Council continues its isolationist trend when it insists on exclusively designing a specific mandate for a peacekeeping operation based either on scant or incomplete information or partial or perhaps inaccurate recommendations or discussions among its members, from which those who have the practical, technical and military expertise are absent.

Therefore, we find at the end of this endeavour a set of tasks and operations that the Security Council assumes and believes that troops from a number of States, the majority of which are from developing countries, will hasten to implement and undertake. A clear example of this was manifest in the peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which Egypt decided not to participate after thorough consideration of the issue, despite many Egyptian commitments to bring about peace in Africa.

If we are to reaffirm two positive and encouraging points of Security Council resolutions of the past year, they would be the time frame for the sanctions imposed on Ethiopia and Eritrea and the embargo on illicit trade in diamonds from Sierra Leone. These are certainly encouraging examples and fully confirm what the Egyptian delegation and many other delegations had previously called for regarding the need for the Council to cease imposing open-ended and far-reaching sanctions, which it has resorted to increasingly since the early 1990s.

In this context, I wish to refer to Egypt's consistent position on this issue: that sanctions imposed by the Council should in no way have a negative impact on people and that the humanitarian aspect should be taken into account before considering their implementation, given their adverse and sometimes devastating repercussions on the infrastructure of societies, particularly since most sanctions have been imposed on developing countries.

I also wish to reaffirm the need not to allow narrow political or internal considerations of the members of the Council, in particular the permanent members, to prevail over the collective considerations of the Council or the general United Nations membership, since any practice of this kind would make the Security Council a tool for implementing the foreign policy objectives of its members, which is unacceptable by all standards.

The issue of reforming the working methods of the Council and of increasing transparency in its work is only one of the important aspects in bringing about a comprehensive reform of the work and composition of the Security Council. The Egyptian delegation is actively participating in discussions on this issue through the Open-ended Working Group on the reform and expansion of the Security Council. We look forward to its resumption of work as soon as possible.

There is one final point we must address. It concerns situations in which the Security Council faces a problem that threatens peace and security internationally or domestically. Despite that threat, the Council fails to address the situation by failing to express its opinion or taking measures or actions due to the threat by some of its permanent members to preclude or prevent the expected action or measure or the expression of opinion.

In such a case the issue should not be left up to political or military Powers or alliances to decide or act upon without a legitimate or legal United Nations framework. On the other hand, we should all be aware of the fact that in cases of such failures by the Council, the General Assembly remains the principal legislative body of the Organization that brings together all Member States and that can always express its opinion.

The General Assembly represents the international community. The resolution known as "Uniting for peace", which has been invoked on more than one occasion in the past, can be applied any time the Council fails to assume its responsibilities. Doing so precludes the possibility of leaving the door open to acts of intervention and actions and measures that do not always enjoy full international legitimacy.

Ms. Abbas (Indonesia)

Let me begin by expressing my delegation's appreciation to Ambassador Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of Namibia and President of the Security Council for the month of October, for his cogent introduction of the Council's annual report covering the period from 16 June 1999 to 15 June 2000.

We are gratified to note that the consideration of the report by the General Assembly this year once again provides an opportunity to engage in the necessary interaction and substantive dialogue between these two principal organs of the United Nations, in accordance with Article 24, paragraph 3, of the Charter. The fulfilment of such a fundamental requirement has become even more important, given the Declaration by the Millennium Summit, in our efforts to strengthen the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security in the twenty-first century.

Needless to say, such processes are bound to support and strengthen the roles of both the General Assembly and the Security Council in discharging their respective mandates. More importantly, in my delegation's considered view, the holding of this annual exercise highlights the accountability of the Council to the Assembly and also serves to achieve a better balance between the role of the Council and those of the other principal organs of the United Nations.

It is in that context that my delegation considers this year's report, which is now before us. We readily acknowledge that some of the legitimate demands made on the Council have been responded to by its members and have been reflected in its present report. Most notably, that includes increased recourse to open meetings, thereby allowing for wider participation by non-members to provide their invaluable insights into the issues under consideration. In our opinion, this is a step in the right direction that provides for more balanced and impartial decisions, particularly when those decisions have a direct bearing on the parties concerned and with regard to the effective implementation of those decisions.

Notwithstanding these steady and positive improvements, it cannot be denied that the report, regrettably, remains basically a compilation of the numerous communications addressed to the Security Council and of the decisions adopted by it. Hence, my delegation would like to reiterate its call that the annual reports of the Council should no longer be a mere description of activities and a reproduction of resolutions already known. Rather, it should contain assessments of the decisions taken on the various issues, in order to meet the need for greater clarity and understanding of the Council's reasoning and motives in adopting them.

We have also seen the procedures of the sanctions committees become more transparent and a greater flow of information become available to non-members, particularly through the briefings offered by the presidencies. Some of those were substantive and detailed.

On the other hand, while we recognize the legitimacy of sanctions as an instrument for enforcement provided for in the Charter, sanctions should have clear and specific time-frames and appropriate review mechanisms. Most importantly, they should be lifted when their objectives have been achieved. Otherwise, as we have seen, sanctions cause enormous sufferings not only for the targeted country, but also to neighbouring States and beyond.

Indonesia shares the growing distrust and scepticism about the rationale and usefulness of sanctions. We are also aware of the fact that the Security Council has imposed sanctions 12 times during the past decade and only twice prior to that period. That increase alone and its attendant humanitarian consequences call for an agonizing reappraisal of sanctions, which we believe is currently underway in the Council.

United Nations peacekeeping activities also warrant a major review to determine the causes of failures and to prevent such setbacks in the future. Past experiences have all yielded new insights that can be most useful, as the Organization will be called upon to deal with similar situations in the future. Confronted by extraordinarily rapid developments in the field, peacekeeping operations have become immensely complex, with new types of tasks being entrusted to them. Those tasks have, in turn, drawn our attention in particular to the maintenance of law and order, the recruitment of professionals, the improvement of logistics, the need for better trained and equipped troops from developing countries and for appropriate Security Council mandates, and the availability of adequate resources.

With regard to transparency in peacekeeping operations, the holding of direct consultations between the Security Council, the Secretariat and troop-contributing countries has now become an established practice, particularly when significant extensions are due. All of these are clear manifestations of the positive trends towards greater transparency in the work of the Council, which my delegation fully supports and which must be encouraged.

These issues are of immense interest and concern to Indonesia as a troop-contributing country, especially at this juncture when peacekeeping operations face new challenges and complexities and when the nature and conditions of international security are undergoing fundamental changes. The credibility of the United Nations in the new millennium may depend upon the effective implementation of its peacekeeping responsibilities, among other things. For these reasons, and to make its modest contribution in the future, my Government has recently decided to establish a national training centre for peacekeeping, in order to facilitate its continued and active participation in these operations.

The accountability of the Council will ultimately have to be judged on its record of objectivity and impartiality, fairness and just decisions. Recent events, however, tend to demonstrate selectivity and the use of different yardsticks and criteria in dealing with similar situations, which in turn could affect the credibility of the Security Council.

The Council remains our only hope for peace in a world fraught with tension and conflicts. This is reflected in its report, which describes how it continually endeavours to take appropriate action in response to threats to peace and security, to adopt various measures aimed at controlling and resolving conflicts and to muster regional and international support for those measures.

We hope that the Council will take into account the views of the general membership in its decision-making, so that its moral authority can be sustained. In that context, it is also the opinion of my delegation that the views expressed during the present debate would be of more benefit to the general membership if the Council were to give them a more in-depth assessment with a view to adopting implementable follow-up measures.

Let me conclude by expressing our congratulations to the delegations of Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore upon their election as non-permanent members of the Security Council. We wish them success in the discharge of their responsibilities. I would like also to pay tribute to the outgoing members of the Council for their important contribution to the promotion of international peace and security.

Mr. Belinga-Eboutou (Cameroon)

I begin with warm congratulations to the President of the Security Council for the month of October, His Excellency Ambassador Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of Namibia. We thank him for the very informative statement he made yesterday in introducing the report of the Security Council for the period 16 June 1999 to 15 June 2000 (A/55/2). His statement provided a full picture of the Council's work. The statistics speak for themselves: as the President of the Council recalled, and as the report indicates, the Council held 144 formal meetings and 194 consultations of the whole, and considered more than 85 reports of the Secretary-General and received 1,165 other documents and communications from States and regional and other intergovernmental organizations. The Council adopted 57 resolutions and issued 38 statements by its Presidents. Through the dispatch of Security Council missions, the Council established a presence in a number of conflict areas. As its President informed us, the Council's work is taking place in an atmosphere of increasing transparency. We welcome that trend, and we encourage the Council to continue it.

Our appreciation goes also to those members of the Council whose statements in the present debate fleshed out what might seem to some a rather dry or merely factual report, thereby enriching our understanding of the functioning of the Council and of how it shoulders its responsibilities with respect to the maintenance of peace. I am thinking in particular of the statement by the Permanent Representative of France, Ambassador Jean-David Levitte.

My warmest congratulations go also to the Permanent Representatives of Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore, whose countries, our friends, have just been elected to non-permanent membership of the Security Council.

The subject of my statement today will be Africa and the Security Council. But I wish first to make a few general comments and to pose a few questions arising out of our current consideration of the report of the Security Council. Let us recall that the report was submitted to the General Assembly under paragraph 3 of Article 24 and paragraph 1 of Article 15 of the Charter. The latter reads as follows:

"The General Assembly shall receive and consider annual and special reports from the Security Council; these reports shall include an account of the measures that the Security Council has decided upon or taken to maintain international peace and security."

Thus, the Assembly considers the Council's activities after the fact. What is the true purpose of this after-the-fact consideration? Does the Assembly have the right to guide the Council's proceedings, or does it merely have the right to receive information? Those are the kinds of issues we ought at some point to debate.

Paragraph 3 of Article 24 states that

"The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration."

Does the explicit provision that the Council should submit reports to the General Assembly "for its consideration" exclude the right of the Assembly to approve or reject such reports? That is another question worth asking.

Turning to the actual substance of the report, should the Council be required to justify the content of the reports it submits? If we merge the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 15 and its logical extension, paragraph 3 of Article 24, we find ourselves facing the very core of the problem of overlapping jurisdictions of the General Assembly and the Security Council with respect to the maintenance of peace.

At some stage, we should debate these issues with a view at least to beginning to respond to some of the questions I have raised, and to add focus to our consideration and debate on the reports of the Security Council. But in the meantime, the interest in the activities of the Security Council makes me wonder whether future discussion of the reports of the Council could give rise to an interactive dialogue. Until such an interactive dialogue comes about, would it not be possible for the Council to devote a meeting to analysing comments, criticisms and proposals relating to the report? In that respect, we welcome the Council President's invitation to the General Assembly to engage in in-depth analysis of the report and his assurance that members of the Council would take our comments and observations into consideration. His invitation and his assurances would in that way be meaningful.

These few remarks and preliminary comments lead me to the substance of my statement, which concerns Africa in the Security Council.

During the period under review, Africa has continued to occupy a prominent place on the Council's agenda. Africa's problems have continued to be discussed in the Council, sometimes at the very highest level. The results, it has to be said, have not always been commensurate with the great hopes engendered in our peoples by the news that these discussions and meetings would take place.

Africa has also given the Council the opportunity to deepen its holistic view of peace. For instance, the Council held a meeting on AIDS and its impact on peace and security.

But most importantly, over the course of this year, the Council has developed a new vision of its relationship with Africa. For instance, on 15 December 1999, it convened a public meeting devoted to the partnership between the United Nations and Africa. Reading with African eyes the report of the Security Council we have before us brings me back to this essential partnership.

Although Africa is the region of our planet that is most ravaged by armed conflict, it can and must have a better future -- a future of peace and prosperity. Its partnership with the United Nations and therefore with the Security Council is therefore not only a possibility but a vital necessity.

African problems have always had an impact on international peace and security. The enormous resources of our continent have tempted many. Africa is indeed a heavyweight in every sense. Thus the partnership I am talking about should have as its first priority the field of peacekeeping and security. Peacekeeping involves conflict prevention and conflict settlement through, among other things, the deployment of peacekeeping and peace-building operations. Action in this area -- that is to say, peacekeeping -- is the responsibility, according to the Charter, of the Security Council. But to be effective, such action must involve Africa, be carried out with its consent and be undertaken with its full cooperation.

I said earlier that Africa rejected the idea of fate and of resignation. In fact, each of the major subregions of our continent has developed a specific structure for conflict prevention, settlement and management. In Central Africa, the Economic Community of Central African States set up the Council for Peace and Security in Central Africa, assisted by a Central African multinational force responsible for peacekeeping operations.

In West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has set up a Mediation and Security Council and a Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). In southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has an ad hoc arrangement responsible for peace and security which, on a case-by-case basis, decides on the deployment of subregional forces. In East Africa, we have the Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD).

Along with these subregional agencies, we have a specific Organization of African Unity (OAU) body responsible for conflict prevention and settlement.

All of this demonstrates that Africa possesses structures whose capabilities must be strengthened by the Security Council if the latter truly wishes to maintain international peace and security in Africa.

Our continent is a partner that is capable, institutionally speaking, of meeting the requirements of Articles 52 and 53 of Chapter VIII of the Charter. What is required is to improve and consolidate regional measures in the areas of conflict prevention, early warning and peacekeeping. Such a strengthening of Africa's capacities should also involve financial support for peace agreements. This is self-evident.

Let us recall that in other regions of the world the signing of such agreements always goes hand in hand with a financial arrangement to address in particular the social problems that may arise. Any peace agreement that does not provide for such a financial arrangement has the seeds of insecurity embedded in it. What future could there be for a peace agreement if, for example, no provision were made for the reintegration of ex-combatants? What future would a peace agreement have with no provision made for child soldiers?

I wish to conclude by inviting the Security Council to reflect upon the idea of appointing someone whom we might describe as an Africa coordinator to work with the Secretary-General. That person's task would be to secure full implementation of the requirements of Article 54 of the Charter of the United Nations, for that Article requires that the Security Council shall at all times be kept fully informed of activities undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements or by regional agencies for the maintenance of international peace and security. Such a coordinator's job would also be to act as an interface between the Secretary-General and African leaders. Lastly, the Africa coordinator would be responsible for assisting the Security Council and the General Assembly in implementing the recommendations of the Secretary-General contained in his report on the conditions for lasting peace and sustainable development in Africa.

Today we have before us the report of the Security Council, the organ responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Africa is the region of the world that is hardest hit by these conflicts. That situation, as I said earlier, is not determined by fate. Africa rejects the idea of fate.

Allow me to recall the Secretary-General's statement to the Security Council of 29 September 1999:

"However imperfectly, Africans have provided many important signs of their own yearning for peace, stability and development and their willingness to work for it. The right kind of support now, carefully directed to those best able to use it, could help Africans turn a corner and set the stage for a brighter future. Let us seize this moment." (S/PV.4049, p. 5)

At a time when the Assembly is about to take action on the report of the Security Council, let us act in such a way as to ensure that the Security Council helps Africa to be its partner for and in the maintenance of peace and security.

Mr. Lacanilao (Philippines)

First of all, the Philippine delegation would like to thank Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia for his lucid presentation of the report of the Security Council to the General Assembly at this session. The Philippine delegation also extends its congratulations to the delegations of Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore for their recent election to the five non-permanent Council seats that will be vacated at the end of this year. The Philippine delegation is convinced that these incoming members will make a positive contribution to the future work of the Council.

The General Assembly considers the annual report of the Security Council every year during its regular session, when Member States engage in their annual ritual of delivering statements, making observations and more or less providing sophisticated analyses of the manner in which the Council conducted its business in the previous year.

This yearly exercise has its function and purpose, which is to allow States not members of the Security Council to air their views on the work done by the Council over the past year. But it also typifies the growing chasm between the Security Council and the General Assembly. There has been palpable discontent in what has been said from this podium on how the Council seems to conduct its business on a daily basis, almost oblivious to the general sentiments of other Member States.

While this proposition could be a topic for intense debate, it is a fact that the only chance for States not members of the Council to express their views on the Council's work amounts to a grand total of one or two meeting days in the Assembly's regular session. It is therefore not difficult to imagine that the two bodies -- the General Assembly and the Security Council -- would seem out of step with each other on important issues. If the United Nations wants to face the challenges of the future more effectively, the divide that grows ever wider between the Security Council and the general membership of this Organization must be bridged. This could be achieved in various ways.

Regular consultations must be conducted between the General Assembly and the Security Council, particularly on the exercise of the Council's extraordinary enforcement powers under Chapter VII of the Charter. The imposition of sanctions and the finalization of peacekeeping mandates are important issues on which consultations would be both beneficial and necessary. Experience has shown that sanctions have had some harmful effects on the civilian population and third States. Some sanctions regimes have been on the books for several years but have little to show in terms of achieving the political objective for which they were intended -- to change the conduct of erring Governments and regimes. In the meantime, sanctions have imposed a heavy toll on civilian populations and third States.

To be effective and just, the imposition of sanctions must have the broad support of the Member States of the United Nations. While unanimity of view would not be a realistic goal, the Security Council must obtain the support of a critical mass of the United Nations Members if any sanctions regime is to be established. This is a practical consideration if the integrity and the fairness of the sanctions regime are to be upheld.

The maintenance of international peace and security is a core function of the United Nations. Peacekeeping is an integral cog in the mechanism. It is in peacekeeping where the partnership of countries for the cause of peace finds tangible expression. Where personnel resources for peacekeeping become critically short, as has tended to happen in recent years, the contribution of even small countries becomes indispensable. In the last few years, we have seen peacekeeping, from Dili town to Freetown, become transformed permanently. Peacekeeping has evolved in such a way that it cannot be sustained unless it receives a fair amount of support from the broad membership of the United Nations. Not one country, no matter how powerful, could be the world's policeman. Alas and alack, global peace and stability can be realized only through the sincere partnership of all.

It is in this context that consultations between the General Assembly and the Security Council find political significance. More transparency on the part of the Council would enhance the trust and confidence of Member States with regard to it and its work on matters of importance to the international community. Such openness would provide more political support to the Council, which would augur well for the achievement of global peace.

The Philippine delegation commends the Security Council on its initiative during the past year to become more transparent and open in its work. Many of us have had the chance to participate in a number of open Council meetings and briefings on various issues of significance to the United Nations. Regular briefings have also been given by the President of the Council on the results of the Council's informal consultations. The Council has also conducted dialogue with troop-contributing countries on many occasions, which has helped a great deal in communicating needs and resolving difficulties in specific mission areas. This practice is a step in the right direction towards making the process of deploying United Nations peace missions fully participatory and consultative.

While this trend is heartening, the path to full partnership between the Security Council and the General Assembly remains steep and arduous. Much would need to be done to overcome the general feeling of resentment that the Security Council has become a private club that conducts private meetings to the exclusion of the general membership of the United Nations. A genuine mechanism of interaction and consultation between the Security Council and the General Assembly must be established. The work for peace is not a zero-sum game, where one body must work to the exclusion of all others. There must be room for everyone's contribution if the United Nations is to attain its cherished goal of peace and progress for all.

Although the General Assembly will debate this issue about a month from now, the question of Security Council reform inevitably comes to the fore when its work is under consideration by the General Assembly. At this stage, when the United Nations has 189 sovereign States in its roster of Members, it would appear pertinent to question whether the present number and structure of Security Council membership still fully and fairly represent the interests of the general membership of the United Nations. With only five of its members having a permanent tenure in the Council, while the other 184 Members have to wait their turn to fill up the 10 non-permanent seats for a two-year term, the United Nations has continued to be a crudely lopsided Organization. One wonders how this internal balance could be sustained for long without permanently damaging the ability of the United Nations to fulfil its mandate.

The present arrangement and set-up of the Security Council were concocted 55 years ago, when many who are present in this Hall today were not yet born. More significantly, it was a time when the world and the United Nations were confronted with different challenges and realities from what they face today. It is time to seriously review and then change the present paradigm.

The reform of the Security Council has been on the table of the Open-ended Working Group for the last seven long years. We need to rekindle the fire, to move the Working Group along at a quicker pace. We cannot wait another 55 years for the Working Group to provide answers to the question of Security Council reform. World events will not have the patience to tolerate our hesitation and endless posturing on this issue.

Mr. Sharma (Nepal)

Allow me first to express my delegation's sincere thanks to Ambassador Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of Namibia, for his lucid introduction of the annual report of the Security Council to the General Assembly. The long report reflects both the range and the complexity of work the Security Council had to undertake during the period under review. The Security Council deserves our appreciation for painstakingly compiling the report and presenting it to the general membership, in accordance with the United Nations Charter.

The fact that two of the four missions launched during this period -- in Kosovo and East Timor -- were in the realm of nation-building confirms the multiplicity of challenges the United Nations faces in keeping the peace. Over the years, there has been a consistent demand by the general membership to make the Security Council more transparent and democratic in its functions and more representative in its structure. Judging from the present state of affairs, we have barely scratched the surface, and much remains to be done to achieve those fundamental goals.

Nepal duly appreciates that some progress has been made in the procedural reform of the Security Council. Under the Charter, Member States have conferred on the Council the primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, the responsibility the Council undertakes on behalf of the general membership. It is therefore the obligation of the Council to take the non-Council members into confidence by consulting them and keeping them informed every step of the way. Our powerful friends who are represented on the Security Council without facing elections have, in fact, a moral obligation to pay particular attention to making the process more democratic.

In this context, the open briefings for non-Council members and private meetings with the troop-contributing countries, though certainly welcome developments, are far from sufficient, for they do not provide an opportunity for non-Council members to contribute their views and perspectives in order to make peacekeeping and peacemaking more effective.

The open debates, on the other hand, seldom have much bearing on real decisions of the Council in real situations. Undoubtedly, they make abundant sense as an academic exercise with lofty philosophical flourishes. What non-Council members are asking for is not theoretical discourses, but rather the opportunity to share their perspectives, contribute their input and offer their advice in a process in which they have a great stake. It might not be possible to hold prior consultation with non-Council members in emergency situations, but it would only be just and fair for Member States to be consulted before they are asked to put the lives of their personnel on the line and to commit their resources. After all, the democratic principle, which we all tout, warrants that Member States are given voice and information before they are asked to make their commitments to take risks. The formal meetings, used only to formalize the decisions arrived at in informal meetings held behind closed doors, have remained mere formalities of no substantive significance.

It is imperative that the Council apply objective criteria when deciding to mount an operation. It is worrying, however, that there are ample examples where the Security Council has not been even-handed in addressing peace and security issues. Often, the national interests of certain Members have outweighed the larger interests of regional and global peace. This is especially agonizing for small States, whose security depends for the most part on the Security Council. The Rwanda report of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities indicates that clearly.

One major issue that greatly concerns us is that of sanctions. While they are a useful Charter-mandated tool, wide-ranging impacts require that they be applied carefully and sparingly. Frequently sanctions cripple innocent people in countries on which they are imposed, and not those whom they are meant to affect. At the same time, sanctions frequently hurt third countries and make them innocent victims as well. If they are to be imposed at all, sanctions should be tailor-made to hit the target, not the surroundings. Furthermore, if sanctions hurt innocent third countries, there must be a provision to compensate them for any undue suffering and loss that they incur.

We commend the courage of the Brahimi Panel, which has boldly pointed out where the blame lies. It also points to the ambiguous and unrealistic mandates that were responsible for the failure of a number of missions. In addition, the Panel's report (A/55/305) offers a number of useful recommendations to revamp the management of peace and to minimize failures in the future.

Our leaders reaffirmed at the recent historic Millennium Summit the need to maintain peace and security more effectively. They resolved to strengthen respect for the rule of law in international affairs and to make the United Nations more effective by giving it the resources and tools it needs to do its tasks.

If we are to realize the vision of the Millennium Declaration, we need comprehensive reform of the Security Council. Nepal is open to an expansion of the Security Council based on a ratifiable consensus. We believe, though, that there is a crying need for the general membership to feel confident that the reformed Council will be more democratic, more transparent, more representative and more accountable. Member States must be able to see these qualities in the approach and deeds of the Security Council while the reform proposals are under consideration.

Humanitarian intervention has been one of the contentious subjects. We have spoken at length on this issue before, and we remain firm in our position.

It is time to ask ourselves: how long can we afford to go without effectively addressing the root causes of conflicts? Most conflicts, as we know, have their genesis in poverty and social exclusion.

Investment in education, health and poverty reduction can produce dramatic results in promoting a durable peace. The Security Council should work in partnership with the Economic and Social Council, as well as with other relevant organs and agencies, to help address these issues. It must exercise restraint, resisting the temptation to go beyond the scope of its mandate, which stretches it thinly, vitiates its effectiveness and undermines the other competent bodies.

The obligation arising from the trust that the general membership places in the Security Council has to be fulfilled with the utmost care, so that the General Assembly is not neglected or sidelined.

Before I conclude, I heartily congratulate Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore on their well-deserved recent election to the Security Council. I am confident that the new members will work to make the Council more responsive to the expectations of the membership, whose trust they embody as its elected representatives.

Mr. Mutaboba (Rwanda)

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