General Assembly Session 62 meeting 8

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by the President of the Republic of Rwanda.

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I have the honour to welcome to the United Nations His Excellency Mr. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, and to invite him to address the Assembly.

President Kagame (Rwanda)

May I start by expressing to you, Mr. President, my Government's congratulations on your election as the President of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.

Let me also use this occasion to thank the outgoing President, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, for the excellent manner in which she presided over the General Assembly at its sixty-first session.

Every year the General Assembly provides the world's leaders with an excellent opportunity to focus our attention on the challenges we commonly face. While some of the challenges can be addressed nationally, the most critical are often not confined to national borders and therefore require a concerted Nations in providing the leadership and platform to address global challenges.

That is why it is vital that the United Nations continues to undergo comprehensive reforms to render it more versatile, effective and efficient. As the Secretary-General correctly observed in his report on this subject, the United Nations is "not optimally configured".

Some of the ongoing reforms such as the implementation of "one programme, one budgetary framework and one office" at the country level is a good start for rendering this international body more responsive. We are pleased that Rwanda was selected as one of the eight first pilot countries for this reform.

In the same context of the ongoing reforms, the proposal to restructure the gender portfolio is most welcome. We agree with the findings of the High-level Panel that the United Nations contributions to gender issues have been incoherent, under-resourced and fragmented. The proposed reforms will assist in overcoming those shortcomings.

However, we still eagerly await the reform of the Security Council to render it more representative of the world community and more transparent in its operations and decision-making processes. We believe that this would equip the United Nations with greater legitimacy and capacity to maintain world peace and security.

Let me briefly touch on a number of pressing challenges the global community currently faces. While our continent has been consolidating peace and security, there are persistent problem areas that need attention. Today in the Great Lakes region, those who committed genocide in Rwanda in 1994 continue their destructive activities. Almost 14 years after their deeds in our country, they are still sowing mayhem in the region. They rape, murder, terrorize and plunder with impunity. Their leaders are active in Africa, Europe, America and other places, where they continue to promote the ideology of genocide. There can be no doubt that those terror groups constitute a threat to international peace and security. The presence of the costly United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has not diminished their activities.

I once again call upon the international community, in collaboration with the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to end the threat posed by those negative forces once and for all. Rwandans and the region as a whole need peace and stability so that we can concentrate on the business of economic growth and development.

For our part, we pledge renewed commitment to making our contribution to the restoration of peace and stability in the Great Lakes region and in other parts of our continent. In that respect, we express our solidarity with the long-suffering people of Darfur and commit ourselves to contributing to peace efforts in that part of the world, in close cooperation with the Government of the Sudan, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations. Rwanda welcomes Security Council resolution 1769 (2007) authorizing the creation of the United Nations-AU hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur, and calls for its speedy deployment. In the same spirit, we urge the international community to support peacebuilding efforts in Somalia. It is critical that resources be made available on an urgent basis to enable the deployment of the pledged peacekeeping forces by African countries.

Through the United Nations, we express our collective determination to promote socioeconomic transformation for greater and more rapid wealth creation, which in turn will permit improved lives. On that note, we also join the many other countries that are putting forward the suggestion of a moratorium on the death penalty as a way of improving those lives and valuing them. That challenge remains daunting in the developing world, where extreme poverty still affects millions of people.

The solutions include increased productive capacities on the part of the developing world, side by side with the opening of global markets to the developed world to permit greater trade and investment. A fair global trading system is central to wealth creation. Improving the quality of development aid would supplement that effort, based on a shared understanding that aid is most effective when it is aligned with national development priorities.

Our ultimate goal of improving lives globally cannot be realized if the challenge of climate change and the associated widespread environmental degradation is not sufficiently tackled. Rwanda appreciates the convening of the high-level meeting on climate change by the Secretary-General earlier this week. We also look forward to the United Nations climate change conference scheduled to take place in Bali, Indonesia, this December, which should provide a clear road map of how we are to consolidate our gains and gather pace in protecting our environment.

The global challenges of poverty, ignorance, terrorism, conflict and climate change require us to act collectively in a manner that the founders of this Organization captured eloquently in the words "We the peoples of the United Nations". As we begin this sixty-second session of the General Assembly, let us recommit to our common aspirations and responsibilities for realizing peace, prosperity and freedom above any narrow interests. Only then can we hope to realize the ideals contained in the Charter of the United Nations "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and to "promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom".

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I wish to thank the President of the Republic of Rwanda for the statement he has just made.

The President

The Assembly will now hear an address by the President of the Republic of Croatia.

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I have the honour to welcome to the United Nations His Excellency Mr. Stjepan Mesi, President of the Republic of Croatia, and to invite him to address the Assembly.

President Mesi (Croatia)

When I first took the floor seven years ago to address the representatives of the States of the world on behalf of the Republic of Croatia, I started off with the words "time is running out". At the time, I did not even imagine that I would have to repeat those very words seven years later, but with a greater sense of urgency. However, current circumstances, the problems facing us and our inability or inadequate ability to deal with them compel me to repeat, here and now: Time is running out.

When we attended the millennial session marking the beginning of the new century and the new millennium, we also formulated our millennial goals. Quite appropriately, we identified our tasks and our aspirations. However, what is not appropriate is the fact that the implementation of the Millennial Goals is not proceeding at the proper rate or in the proper manner if we want them to be meaningful.

We are running late; hence my warning: Time is running out. Among all global organizations, the United Nations is that which has been most sympathetic to the problems of developing countries and where loud and justified requests have been voiced to stop the stratification of the world into the haves and the have-nots. I have also attended sessions and conferences dealing with the issue, and I have repeatedly drawn attention to underdevelopment as a generator of global terrorism, along with inequality in international relations and unresolved regional crises. Nevertheless, underdevelopment and poverty still weigh upon a substantial part of humankind, and the preferred methods for fighting terrorism have so far been shown to be less than efficient, and sometimes even counterproductive. We are also running late in that regard, and time is running out here, too.

We have wanted and still want this Organization, our own Organization, to be fit for better and more functional action in current conditions. In other words, we want to reform the United Nations; we want to transform the Organization from a reflection of a world long gone into an instrument for safeguarding peace, establishing stability and ensuring development in the contemporary world and the world of future generations.

By declaring its candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council, Croatia wishes to affirm its commitment to the global Organization and its readiness to take part in its reform. I do not want to misuse the time at my disposal to lobby for that candidacy. Our deeds say more than our words, and our deeds include a successful struggle for national independence, despite an imposed war; the peaceful completion of that struggle through cooperation with the United Nations; a courageous confrontation of the past and of the truth about that past; the establishment of good relations with all our neighbours, including those that waged war against us; the promotion of the peaceful resolution of conflicts, always and everywhere; current participation in 15 United Nations peacekeeping missions, which puts Croatia at the very top of those countries whose soldiers are today maintaining peace under the blue flag. Let me emphasize that they are participating only in those missions that are under a United Nations mandate. In short, we are putting forward our candidacy as a mature European democratic country committed to the goals of the United Nations, and there is nothing more to be said about it.

As I have already said, we demonstrate our commitment by supporting the reform of the world Organization, but even in the realization of that noble and certainly unavoidable goal we are running late. Even among us, there are voices suggesting that we renounce the United Nations. There is less and less time for action. Even in that context, then, I must reiterate: Time is running out.

In recent decades, this Hall has heard many debates on the need to establish new political and economic international relations. Such new relations can be based only on equality. It is true that the high and the mighty have a greater responsibility, but it is also true that no one -- no one at all -- can or may have greater rights, much less usurp such rights by force, just as nobody's rights can be denied by force. That holds true for global and regional developments alike. Unfortunately, force is still present in international relations, and on the European continent we are witnessing dangerous signs of a possible renewal of the arms race. Such a trend should be stopped and such conditions changed. There is not much time. Once again, time is running out.

By complying with the requirements of often uncontrolled development -- and not only in the most developed countries -- and by giving in to the aggressive needs of capital, guided exclusively by interest and never by social factors, we have agreed to condemn millions of people to death by starvation and for lack of basic medical care, and hundreds of millions to bare survival in poverty, with no prospects. However, by destroying nature, we have also jeopardized everyone's survival. Climate change and global warming are only two indicators, albeit the most evident, of the situation to which I am referring. The summit on climate change proved that we are all aware of the danger we are facing. Those who underestimate and even deny that real danger will simply have to face the truth. We are already living that truth; fast, coordinated and responsible action is called for. That action must serve the interests of all, even if it may momentarily run against the interests of some, because time is running out dangerously.

We have not met yet again in the General Assembly in order to describe our world and our environment from our individual perspectives. Our mandate is not mere diagnosis. Our mandate involves healing, changing and improving. With a foreign policy based on the value of the European Union, which it will enter soon, and with its desire to develop good relations with everyone willing to reciprocate, the Republic of Croatia has shown by deeds that it is aware of the fact that there is no time to be lost. It has also shown the capacity to act and to get things going in a positive direction, both in its own interest and in that of others.

We have only one world. Its destiny is in our hands. There is room for everyone in this world, but this world can, may and must be only a world of equals, of people enjoying not only equal rights but also equal opportunities, knowing that nobody, however big and strong, can live alone and only for his own sake, and that together we can change our world. Even more importantly, however, together we can save and preserve it for future generations. But let us not forget: time is running out.

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I wish to thank the President of the Republic of Croatia for the statement he has just made.

The President

The Assembly will hear an address by the President of the Republic of Serbia.

The President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I have the honour to welcome to the United Nations His Excellency Mr. Boris Tadi, President of the Republic of Serbia, and to invite him to address the Assembly.

President Tadi (Serbia)

I welcome the opportunity to address, on behalf of the Republic of Serbia, the General Assembly of the United Nations, the highest body of the world family of sovereign nations.

I congratulate Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his election to his very responsible post. I also congratulate the newly elected President of the General Assembly, Mr. Srdjan Kerim, who hails from our region of South-East Europe.

Serbia attaches exceptional importance to the role that the world Organization, and the Security Council in particular, play in maintaining international peace and security and in safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Member States. Proceeding from the Charter of the United Nations as the cornerstone of the current international legal order, Serbia calls for its consistent implementation.

The sixty-second session of the General Assembly is taking place at a very important moment for Serbia as the negotiation process on the future status of its province of Kosovo and Metohija is under way. Proceeding from the firm position that the independence of Kosovo is unacceptable to Serbia, we have offered special rights and competences to Kosovo Albanians for the autonomous development of their community within the Republic of Serbia.

In defence of the State sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, our negotiating team has offered a decentralization model based on European solutions that would protect the interests of Kosovo Albanians, as well as the threatened interests of the Serbian and other non-Albanian ethnic communities in the province, in an effective way. Serbia offers solutions that would definitively solve, through mutual agreement and with the implementation of European values and rules, an old inter-ethnic conflict and open the prospects of reconciliation and coexistence within a modern, democratic and European Serbia. My country is ready to compromise, yet we wish to point out that the legitimate interests of democratic Serbia and the specific needs of the threatened Serbian community in the province, as well as of other communities that have fallen victim to expulsion, such as the Roma and Gorani communities, must be respected. Let me recall that more than 200,000 Serbs have left Kosovo since 1999; to date, according to the official data of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, only 7,100 have returned.

Today, negotiations are under way under the auspices of the Contact Group, but a legitimate decision on the future status of Kosovo can be taken only by the Security Council. Only a decision taken by that institution can be based on international law.

Persistent in our request that the territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia be respected, we call for the attainment of a compromise solution through diplomatic, legal and peaceful means, and not through war and violence. It is precisely for those reasons that democratic Serbia does not accept that the threat of violence made by the party we are negotiating with is an argument for redrawing the borders of legitimate democracies and for violating the norms of international law. My country is therefore steadfast in warning of the unforeseeable consequences of that unprincipled and dangerous policy, and remains committed to the search for a peaceful and compromise solution through dialogue and in full respect for the Charter of the United Nations.

Serbia would also like to recall that threats have been bandied about of late that the Kosovo Provisional Institutions will unilaterally declare independence on 11 December. We point that out because of the fact that the international legal order would never be the same following a one-sided recognition of Kosovo's independence, while many separatist movements the world over would exploit the newly established precedent. Many regions in the world would thereby be destabilized. We therefore call on the legitimate representatives of the Kosovo Albanians to proceed to the resumed negotiations without prejudging the outcome, so that a compromise solution acceptable to both parties can be achieved, leading to long-term Serbian/Albanian reconciliation.

This year, Serbia is presiding over the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In that capacity, we have made every effort to make a maximum contribution to the strengthening of democracy, the protection of human rights and the rule of law -- the basic values of the oldest pan-European organization. We have also sought to strengthen synergy between the Council of Europe and the United Nations, especially in the field of human rights.

It is in the strategic interest of Serbia to become a member of the European Union. We are working hard to become a candidate member by the end of 2008. We are engaged in the process of Euro-Atlantic integration through the Partnership for Peace programme. We have thereby clearly evinced our acceptance of European values and our readiness to develop our country in accordance with the highest European standards.

We are convinced that the European perspective on the entire Western Balkans is the most effective way to stabilize the situation and accelerate the development of all countries in the region. Only thus shall we overcome the problems inherited from the past and encourage a spirit of tolerance and commitment to the same goals and values, which will provide a basis for building stable and lasting peace in our region.

Unfortunately, the question of war crimes continues to burden relations among Balkan countries. For its part, Serbia has done everything within its power to track down, arrest and transfer to The Hague those accused of war crimes, thereby demonstrating its commitment to cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to a successful end. That is not only Serbia's international obligation; above all, it is our debt to ourselves and to our neighbours. By punishing criminals and building a stable and prosperous region, a common space integrated into the European Union, we can ensure a better future for all citizens.

It is with pleasure and optimism that we note that, step by step, South-East Europe is becoming a region of good-neighbourliness and cooperation. There are numerous examples of very successful initiatives and concrete forms of cooperation, the contribution of which to the promotion of peace and mutual trust is exceptionally important. There is hardly any field in which we have not yet established a mechanism of mutual cooperation. That proves unequivocally that this is a lasting, strategic orientation of all countries in the Balkans and a reflection of their common aspiration to the full inclusion of our region into European integration.

President Tadi (Serbia)

Global problems call for global answers, and all Member States are therefore required to participate actively in their solution. Today, as we face completely new and specific challenges that threaten international peace and security and pose a threat to overall development and prosperity, we are becoming increasingly aware of the great need -- perhaps greater than ever before -- for the United Nations.

Terrorism is one of the greatest scourges of the present-day world. In order to fight and eradicate it effectively, we must take a global, coordinated approach, as well as vigorous action at the regional and country levels. Last year, Serbia hosted the regional summit meeting on terrorism, organized crime and corruption.

As can be seen, we cooperate very closely with our neighbours in order to forestall threats. An excellent example of that cooperation was the recent joint exercise of the armies of Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria, which provided abundant evidence of our three countries' collective readiness to combat terrorism and any other threat to the security of our citizens. Serbia also initiated the signing of an agreement with neighbouring countries on cooperation in the protection against natural disasters. The recent catastrophic fires that engulfed Greece and the manner in which we reacted provided eloquent proof of the vital importance of mutual dependence and solidarity in the Balkan region.

Numerous crises continue to plague the world. Some are dormant, some are escalating, while others threaten to provoke conflicts that could engender dangerous consequences, destruction and humanitarian catastrophes. Our experience to date makes us believe even more firmly that lasting, just and stable peace and security can be achieved only peacefully, through dialogue, mutual respect and cooperation.

Serbia believes that the United Nations continues to be an irreplaceable international authority and mechanism for the prevention of crises and the resolution of conflicts. Successful and timely deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces is an important aspect of the maintenance of international peace and security. We support the efforts of the Organization to further strengthen the efficiency of its peacekeeping capacities. Serbia therefore considers that only gathered together around common goals and objectives and united in action can we make a vigorous stand against such global threats to international peace and security as terrorism, bellicose extremism, mass poverty, organized crime, pandemic diseases and the harmful consequences of climate change.

Global warming is surely a major problem of our age and rightly figures as one of the central topics on the agenda of the sixty-second session of the General Assembly. That phenomenon -- which, arguably, may affect all humankind -- knows no national borders and circumvents no part of the world. To solve it, therefore, we must address it very seriously, as it brooks no delay and all Member States must get on board. Within the Belgrade Initiative, Serbia has proposed that activities to stop global warming be carried out also at the regional level and that a regional centre for South-East Europe be set up in Belgrade to that end. We also emphasize that plans to reduce harmful emissions must take into consideration the level of the economic development of various countries as well.

The complex of relations among different cultures, civilizations and religions is also a question that deserves to be at the focus of the attention of the United Nations. A truly multi-ethnic, multi-confessional and multi-cultural country, Serbia fully understands all the sensitivity of those questions and treats them with due attention. We are well aware that the world of the twenty-first century must not be based on intolerance on any ground. We, the leaders of the United Nations Member States, are entrusted with a great responsibility to make every effort to ensure that all the diversity of this world be comprehended and accepted as the wealth of all, rather than as the cause of new divisions. Indeed, dialogue and mutual tolerance must prevail as the basic principles of our mutual relations, both within States and internationally.

As a responsible member of the world community and international organizations, Serbia fully respects the Charter of the United Nations and the international legal order established by the Charter. Building a truly democratic society in our own country, we call for the democratization of international relations on the basis of the strict implementation of the Charter and other generally accepted norms and standards.

President Tadi (Serbia)

We firmly believe that only equitable cooperation among countries and peoples, respect for basic human rights and fundamental freedoms, and mutual trust can guarantee stable international peace and security. At the same time, short of the political stability and economic prosperity of States, there is no successful cooperation at the bilateral, regional and global levels. The precondition for stability and dynamic economic development is equal access to new technologies and modern scientific achievements.

President Tadi (Serbia)

The Republic Serbia is willing and ready, alongside other countries, to be actively involved in the process of United Nations reform and revitalization in order to make the world Organization capable of effectively facing the challenges of our times. Our historic responsibility is to ensure future generations a much better environment than that in which we live today. The Republic of Serbia remains devoted to achieving the goals of the United Nations and, along with other countries, is ready to work on further strengthening the integrity of the world Organization under its Charter.

The Acting President

On behalf of the General Assembly, I wish to thank the President of the Republic of Serbia for the statement he has just made.