UN General Assembly
2012

﻿It is a great pleasure for me to address this great General Assembly for the second year in a row. Last September, I tried to convey to the Assembly a message of progress and hope. Today I bring from the people of Timor-Leste a message of both joy and thankfulness. The United Nations has been in Timor-Leste since the difficult times of our emancipation, having led the popular consultation of 1999. Since then, it has been enormously challenging to build from scratch the foundations of a new State under the rule of law, based on democratic governance and respect for human rights. As such, after the United Nations Mission in East Timor, we had missions such as the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor, the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste and the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) accompanying us in this crucial journey of State-building, as well as in the creation of an atmosphere of reconciliation and harmony, with a view to achieving peace and stability.