UN General Assembly
1997

from this rostrum by President Idriss Déby during the commemorative meeting on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. My Government, a victim of the scourge of mines, welcomes the adoption on 18 September last of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti- Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The international situation remains alarming, even if peace ad security are not gravely threatened at the global scale. In Africa, despite the hopes born of the democratization of the political life of many countries, hotbeds of tension still persist. In Angola, implementation of the settlement plan advocated by the international community is running aground on obstacles that jeopardize a final return to peace in this country. We call again on all parties, particularly UNITA, fully to implement the Lusaka Protocol. Periodic clashes remind us that in Somalia, the hatchet has not definitely been buried, despite numerous attempts at reconciling the fraternal Somali people. The Great Lakes region is progressively entering a phase of relative calm despite sporadic incidents