UN General Assembly
1991

However these were 10 years during which quietly and patiently he has seen to it that the Organization has a new confidence in itself; 10 years of rehabilitation and revitalization. The work will never be done but it will be recalled that it was under his mandate that the Organization lived through its finest hours, illustrated by the peace-keeping operations that won us the Nobel Prize in 1988; the accession of Namibia to independence; the end of the war between Iraq and Iran; the normalization of the situation in Afghanistan; the entry into force of the cease-fire in Western Sahara; the comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia; the mediation and observer missions in Nicaragua, Haiti, El Salvador and Angola; the role the United Nations played after the Gulf War; and, recently, the release of the hostages in Lebanon.