I extend to you, Sir, my
delegation’s felicitations on your well-deserved election
as President of the General Assembly at its fiftieth
session. We have no doubt that with your experience and
wisdom, you will add much to this historic session. We
also pay tribute to your predecessor, His Excellency
Mr. Amara Essy, who presided over the Assembly at its
forty-ninth session with great distinction and wisdom.
To His Excellency Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, our
Secretary-General, I would like to pay a special tribute
for all he has done for peace and the promotion of the
United Nations Charter.
To the Republic of Palau, a new Member of our
Organization, I would like to say, “Welcome”. We look
forward to working closely with that country.
We are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of our Organization. On this momentous
occasion, as the Secretary-General aptly observed in his
report (A/49/1), we must resolve to
“appreciate and strengthen the accomplishments of
the past, to recognize and meet the challenges of the
present, and to design and implement a plan for the
United Nations of the future.” (A/49/1, para. 12)
We must seize this historic opportunity to forge a global
consensus behind development, in all its dimensions, as
the lasting foundation for international peace and security
and as the greatest hope of humanity.
Pakistan has been strongly committed to the noble
vision of the United Nations Charter ever since its
independence. We have continuously abided by its
17

principles. We reaffirm our faith in their timeless validity.
Pakistan will continue to extend its support and cooperation
to the collective efforts of the world for peace.
After exactly 50 years, retrospection evokes mixed
feelings. Yet members of our Organization have much to
celebrate. The decolonization process, the elimination of
apartheid, humanitarian assistance and handling of refugee
situations are some of the areas where the United Nations
can be proud of its achievements. But much remains to be
done.
The end of the cold war provided a historic
opportunity to build a new edifice of peace and prosperity:
a system in which international relations would be
conducted in a spirit of justice, equality and democracy;
where poverty would cease to exist, through international
cooperation for development; where human rights,
especially the right to self-determination, would be
promoted and protected; and where aggression would be
effectively and collectively challenged wherever and
whenever it occurred.
Regrettably, this has not happened. Now, more than
ever, it seems that the powerful countries are imposing their
will on the United Nations. The decisions and the
resolutions adopted by it reflect the interests of a few rather
than the good of all. The provisions of collective security
are being invoked selectively. Human rights standards are
being defended more vociferously in some situations than
in others. While in some cases aggression has been
forcefully and decisively resisted, in others it has remained
unchecked and even rewarded.
Jammu and Kashmir is a case in question, where the
Muslim majority continue to be denied their right to self-
determination promised to them by Security Council
resolutions. These resolutions remain unimplemented. The
denial of the right to self-determination led to a massive
uprising in the Indian-occupied Kashmir in 1989. Demand
for the exercise of this fundamental right was met with a
brutal reign of terror unleashed by the Indian occupation
forces. It continues unabated and is being pursued with
malicious intensity, with devastating consequences for the
civilian population of this internationally recognized
disputed territory. In Kashmir the principles of the United
Nations Charter, international law and international morality
have been violated with impunity. The massive and
widespread human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir
have been graphically documented by a large number of
international human rights organizations.
Since I stood at this rostrum a year ago, tensions
have further escalated in South Asia. One billion people
of South Asia are holding their breath as threats of war
keep emanating from the leaders in New Delhi.
Jammu and Kashmir continues to burn. The sons and
daughters of Kashmir continue to be killed, maimed,
executed, tortured and dishonoured. Will the new year of
the United Nations bring an end to the rape of Kashmir?
Will the beginning of the next half century of the United
Nations see the implementation of its resolutions on
Kashmir?
The Jammu and Kashmir dispute was not brought to
the Security Council by Pakistan. It was India which
moved this dispute before the United Nations. The people
of Kashmir are looking to this body to deliver them their
right to self-determination, as promised to them by this
body, by the international community and by India and
Pakistan.
Since I stood before the Assembly a year ago,
hundreds of Kashmiris have been killed by the Indian
forces. Holy places of the Muslims have been razed to the
ground by the Indian occupation forces. The holiest of the
holy shrines, Charar-e-Sharif, was burned to ashes. The
city of Charar-e-Sharif was torched. Is it not ironical that
the great Sufi saint, Noor-ud-Din Wali, buried in the
shrine there was a man who preached love and tolerance
five centuries ago to all humanity, and not just to
Muslims? Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Sikhs also
seek spiritual solace at his grave. The disdainful act of
desecration of this symbol of peace and harmony by the
Indian forces has not extinguished the spirit of freedom in
Kashmir.
The occupation forces, now numbering more than
600,000, use torture, killings and brutality against the
people, against its leaders, and even against innocent
journalists. The people of Kashmir were outraged at the
killing of a journalist, Mushtaq Ali, in the bomb blast at
the BBC office in Srinagar. The whole of Kashmir went
into deep mourning at this wanton killing. But India
refuses to look truth in the face.
The people of Kashmir and Pakistan are deeply
shocked at the killing of the Norwegian tourist by the
kidnappers of the Al-Faran Group. We join our Kashmiri
brothers in condemning this horrible act against an
innocent tourist, and we demand the release of the
remaining four tourists. We have extended every possible
cooperation to countries whose citizens’ lives are still in
18

danger, but we have a right to ask: Who are Al-Faran?
Nobody seems to have heard of this group ever before.
There is too much circumstantial evidence which points an
accusing finger at New Delhi. We do not want rhetoric; we
do not want to score points. We want the safety and the
freedom of these innocent tourists. Pakistan calls for an
independent and impartial inquiry into the hostage-taking by
Al-Faran, under the auspices of the United Nations, so that
those responsible for this act can be brought to justice.
India continues to harp on the issue of elections in
Jammu and Kashmir. Let it ask the All Parties Hurriyet
Conference, the representative party of all Kashmiri
organizations in Jammu and Kashmir and the sole voice of
the Kashmiri people, whether they want elections, or a
plebiscite and the implementation of the Security Council
resolutions.
Kashmir is an international dispute. India cannot
internalize it behind the garb of bilateralism. If this “non-
principle” was allowed to prevail as the basis for the
settlement of disputes, then there would be no international
morality left. There would be no international order, and
the world community could say farewell to peace. It would
become the law of the jungle.
In the meantime, along the Line of Control in Kashmir
our people are being killed daily and injured by cross-
border firing and rocketing. Access to over 80,000 of our
people in the Neelam Valley has been cut off by daily
Indian firing.
India claims that Pakistani militants cross into
Kashmir. In good faith and in order to ascertain the veracity
of the Indian allegations, I wrote to the President of the
Security Council last year asking for the expansion of the
United Nations Military Observer Group in India and
Pakistan (UNMOGIP) on both sides of the Line of Control.
India’s response to this constructive proposal was a firm
“No”. Instead, it deployed 800 troops per kilometre and
built three Security Zones along the Line of Control. I ask:
Can there be cross-border violations after such heavy
fortifications? By what logic can they reject our proposal
for increasing United Nations observers? The answer is
obvious. They want merely to score points in international
forums. They want to build an argument against Pakistan.
They want to convince the world that it is not the Kashmiri
people who are alienated from India, but Pakistan that is
turning a blind eye to militants crossing the Line of Control
from our side.
I ask you to ponder this Indian posture. In history
this has always been the language of the aggressor, of
those who want to maintain the status quo. I cannot
believe that Indian authorities are so naive as to believe
that the Kashmiri uprising is foreign- inspired. Other
Powers have also made such mistakes in the past, much
to their dismay and ultimate discomfiture. India must
learn from history. The march of history has never been,
and never will be, altered by a systematic falsification of
facts or a string of blatant lies. The people of Kashmir
have rejected the Indian occupation. No amount of
repression, no amount of killings, gang-rapes, torture or
mining of villages will deter the people of Jammu and
Kashmir from winning their right to self-determination.
This truth is being lost on New Delhi. For our part,
we are prepared for dialogue. We are prepared for
mediation by the Secretary-General or by the President of
the Assembly, or by any peace-loving country under any
modality, under any arrangement.
We are prepared for peace. We want conflict
resolution. We want talks but the talks must be on the
substantive issue of Jammu and Kashmir. Talks must aim
at achieving settlement. Talks must be on the basis of a
structured agenda. Once the issue of Jammu and Kashmir
is resolved, it will open the door for a solution to all
other Indo-Pakistan disputes. But our offers of talks have
fallen on deaf ears. India now hides behind a new
subterfuge that talks should be unconditional, that talks
must be without an agenda. We cannot accept this
because during the last 23 years under the Simla
Agreement, the two Foreign Secretaries met seven times
without any result. Every time a meeting takes place the
Indian side states that Kashmir is an integral part of India
and not an international dispute. This is a negation of the
United Nations Security Council resolutions. This is a
negation of the Simla Agreement, and I quote article 6 of
the Simla Agreement, which states,
“Both Governments agree ... to discuss further the
modalities and arrangements for the establishment of
durable peace and of normalization of relations”,
including
“a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir”.
The Simla Agreement is fully within the framework of
the United Nations Charter.
19

Then we are told that the Security Council resolutions
are outdated. What will the world look like if countries
were allowed unilaterally to reject United Nations
resolutions, and if this deviationist stance were to become
a universal principle of international morality? Can morality
become outdated? Can evil become good with time?
Instead, India has gone on to a feverish arms race.
When they exploded their nuclear bomb in 1974, we told
them not to push South Asia into a nuclear arms race. But
our warnings were not heeded and now, along with its
massive blue-water navy, which threatens the shores of
Africa and Asia, they have launched into an arms race in
South Asia. Their Prithvi missiles are Pakistan-specific. The
Prithvi missile is a tension multiplier: it gives Pakistan only
three minutes’ response time.
What are they arming themselves for? Who threatens
them in Asia? Their leaders talk of extending the Indian
military and naval might to the shores of the Indian Ocean.
In this day and age this approach is downright
anachronistic.
During the Eighth Summit of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which was
held in New Delhi in May this year, President Leghari
urged Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and the Indian
leadership not to take this fateful step. He urged the Indian
leadership to come to the table and solve the core Kashmir
dispute. He also warned that if India continued with this
feverish race for arms, and now for missiles, then Pakistan
would have no choice but to rethink its options within the
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
Having fought three wars to defend its territory, the
people of Pakistan feel threatened. That is why peace is
important. That is why peace is vital for Pakistan. But I
want to make it absolutely clear — and let there be no
doubt about it in anyone’s mind — that the people of
Pakistan have the will to survive, and survive they will with
dignity and honour.
One fifth of humanity, a billion people, live in the
seven countries of South Asia. The world is passing us by.
Our people are trapped in poverty, in hunger, in disease and
unemployment. Don’t our people deserve better? Don’t they
deserve a chance? Don’t six countries have a right to live
in peace in South Asia? It is our earnest hope that those in
New Delhi who threaten war should look at the state of
poverty of their own people. We hope that they have the
political will to ensure the peaceful settlement of disputes,
and there will be many peace dividends if peace comes to
South Asia.
Peace will be worth their while. Trade will flourish,
mega- projects in the Gulf, from Iran and from Central
Asia will bring prosperity to our peoples. I hope that
better counsel will prevail in New Delhi and I hope there
are still men of peace and vision left in India who will
not be the prisoners of the acrimonies of history but will
look to the future of a billion people.
The Secretary-General, in his 1995 report on the
work of the Organization (A/50/1), has recognized the
aggravation of relations between India and Pakistan as a
result of increasing incidents of violence in Jammu and
Kashmir. We would like, in particular, to facilitate the
search for a lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute. We
hope that India will also accept the United Nations
Secretary-General’s offer of good offices, as Pakistan has
done. We also sincerely hope that the United Nations
General Assembly will use its authority to exert pressure
on India to stop immediately the brutal violations of
human rights and to implement the Security Council
resolutions which ask for the holding of a plebiscite in
Jammu and Kashmir.
What has been happening in Bosnia and
Herzegovina for the past few years is a monumental
tragedy. The world has witnessed a Member State of the
United Nations being made victim of brutal aggression
and its people subjected to atrocities, massive violations
of human rights, ethnic cleansing and the abhorrent
practice of genocide — acts which would put the horrors
of the Second World War to shame. The killing fields of
Srebrenica and Zepa are sadly reminiscent of Auschwitz
and Buchenwald. Yet the international response has been
totally inadequate and has often come too late. The
Bosnian Muslims were left to defend themselves against
a vastly superior military machine, their hands tied by an
unjustified arms embargo.
Pakistan strongly reiterates its firm support for the
demand by the Bosnian people for the lifting of the arms
embargo. For its part, Pakistan remains strongly
committed to offering every possible assistance to the
people and Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We
must seek credible international guarantees for the
preservation of the unity and territorial integrity of Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
If one step is taken towards peace, the world of
Islam is prepared to take two steps more. We have taken
20

note of the action taken by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) countries and of the establishment of
the rapid reaction force. We urge the NATO countries not
to relent on the air strikes until the Serbian aggressors and
delinquents are made to pay a price for their deeds and to
act like civilized people. Unless peace is fully restored and
a just and equitable settlement is in place, the OIC will
reserve its right to challenge the illegal United Nations arms
embargo on the Bosnian people.
We fully support the Croatian efforts to recover
Krajina and their other territories from Serbian military
occupation. We demand that in the settlement Srebrenica
and Zepa be restored to their original United Nations-
designated safe-area status. We also demand that Kosovo
and Sanjak be protected from Serbian “ethnic cleansing”.
The Declaration of Principles signed recently in Geneva is
something we consider well-begun but only half-done.
There are many pitfalls, and we see many dangers in the
implementation of the Declaration of Principles. A lot more
vision and courage on the part of the world community will
be required if the entire peace plan is to be fully
implemented. We hope that the United Nations, the
European Union and NATO will demonstrate the courage
required to resolve the crisis in the Balkans.
The situation in Afghanistan makes us very sad. The
people of Afghanistan wait in anguish for peace to return
to their tortured land. There appears to be no end to the
fighting between the various groups. One and a half million
Afghans are still in my country. They too, like us, look to
the United Nations and to the OIC to bring peace to their
land.
I should like to state here unequivocally, and with all
the responsibility at our command, that in no way have we
interfered in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. We would
also urge that no other country do so. We would urge other
States not to increase the suffering of the Afghan people by
supporting one group or the other. We should all support
United Nations Special Representative Mahmoud Mestiri’s
mission to bring peace to Afghanistan, a peace based on
accommodation for all factions and all groups. This peace
can be achieved only through mutual accommodation and
national reconciliation. In the last 18 months, our Mission
has twice been subjected to mob attacks. In the second one,
26 of our officials were injured, including Ambassador Qazi
Humayun, and one staffer was killed. This is most
unfortunate. We hope that the sanctity of the Mission will
be respected and that the Vienna Conventions will be
honoured.
For over a decade, Pakistan supported the legitimate
struggle of our Afghan brothers against foreign
intervention. Once this intervention was ended, Pakistan
promoted accords among the Afghan parties and factions
for a peaceful transition from war to peace. It was as a
consequence of the compromise achieved in the
Islamabad accord of May 1992 that President Rabbani
took office. His Government was to be a transitional one
and was to prepare for a broad-based and popular
government representing all regions and political forces in
Afghanistan. Unfortunately, as the Secretary- General’s
Special Representative, Mr. Mestiri, has clearly stated, the
regime in Kabul did not allow the promised transition to
a representative government to take place.
In large measure because of this refusal to live up to
solemn agreements, fighting in Afghanistan has been
endemic during the past few years. The fortunes of war
recently turned against President Rabbani’s regime
because it became increasingly unpopular with the Afghan
people. A regime in Kabul whose de facto legitimacy we
have not questioned, a regime in Kabul that today
controls only 5 of about 32 provinces in Afghanistan: this
regime has tested our patience again and again.
This regime chooses to punish unarmed and innocent
staffers and the Ambassador. It chooses to burn down our
Embassy and its premises. But this has not made
Pakistanis angry at the Afghan nation. It has merely made
us sad, because this regime has forgotten the 14 years of
the support given and the sacrifices made by the people
of Pakistan for their freedom. Instead, it chooses to please
those who destroyed their country, who killed and
maimed millions of Afghan men, women and children,
who destroyed houses, who destroyed people’s lives, who
planted millions of land-mines across the country — a
large number of which have yet to be removed. By these
wanton acts, which go against the Vienna Conventions,
the Kabul regime wants to win the favour of those who
seek to fish in the troubled waters of Afghanistan.
The Kabul regime seeks to survive with the help of
military support from the enemies of the Afghan nation,
while it rules through a minority. It seeks to conquer
Afghanistan through military force. This is against
history. This will not happen. The regime is forgetting the
code of honour of the Afghan nation. While we in
Pakistan are sad at what has happened to our countrymen
in Kabul, the chivalrous Afghan people are angered and
incensed. We take no responsibility for what the Afghan
people will do to vindicate their honour. They know that
there never was, and never will be, interference from
21

Pakistan. The world knows that a faltering regime always
wants to lay its follies and its internal defeats at the
doorsteps of others, and for this the Afghan nation will
demand, and get, retribution.
However, this provocation will not deter us from our
steadfast path of neutrality towards the Afghan people and
the unity of Afghanistan or from non-interference in
Afghanistan’s internal affairs or our abiding friendship and
brotherhood with the Afghan nation. In the meantime, we
would like to assure the people of Afghanistan that we shall
stand by them in their hour of trial. We shall not abandon
them.
Pakistan was closely associated with the third round of
United Nations-sponsored inter-Tajik talks. While I pay
tribute to the United Nations Special Representative,
Ambassador Píriz-Ballón, for his statesmanship, which led
to the main elements for peace in Tajikistan, let me add
that our role too was to bring about national reconciliation
in that country. We shall continue to cooperate with the
United Nations to bring about complete peace in our
friendly neighbour Tajikistan.
The events in Azerbaijan, too, are a matter of deep
concern to us. We fully support the efforts of President
Gaider Aliyev for an equitable settlement of the Nagorny-
Karabakh dispute; a settlement which is based on the
removal of aggression against Azerbaijan.
We fully support the Middle East peace process. We
hope that the Palestine Liberation Organization-Israeli
accord is implemented in letter and spirit without any
recourse to delay by Israel. We have supported the Jordan-
Israeli peace accord and favour a negotiated settlement of
related issues, especially the Golan Heights, southern
Lebanon and Jerusalem.
Pakistan continues to be deeply concerned over the
situation in Somalia. The United Nations, along with the
Organization of African Unity, the Arab League and the
Organization of Islamic Conference must endeavour to
promote an early political solution in that country and its
eventual reconstruction.
In other areas which impinge on the peace and
stability of the world can be seen the lack of progress in
the field of disarmament of weapons of mass destruction,
particularly in the field of nuclear weapons.
The end of the bipolar world based on hostile camps
has removed the impediments to pursuing the goal of
nuclear disarmament. Yet the goal remains elusive. It is
incomprehensible why commitments cannot be translated
into reality. The agreements reached on the reduction of
strategic arms still fall far short of the expectations raised
by the end of the cold war. The world should resolve to
remove the scourge of nuclear weapons from the face of
this earth.
Until nuclear disarmament is realized, the nuclear-
weapon States should give unconditional security
assurances to the non-nuclear-weapon States. In this
context, the Conference on Disarmament should establish
an ad hoc committee right at the beginning of 1996 to
negotiate a legally binding convention on security
assurances. The Conference on Disarmament should also
continue its work on a comprehensive test-ban treaty for
its early conclusion.
Parallel to all these global efforts, regional avenues
should be promoted for nuclear non-proliferation. The
concept of nuclear-weapon-free zones is finally being
translated into reality in different parts of the world.
Unfortunately, the proposal Pakistan made 20 years ago
to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in South Asia has
not even taken off because of the negative attitude of
certain States in the region. Nevertheless, Pakistan has
continued to advocate efforts to eliminate the dangers of
proliferation from South Asia. To that end, we have made
several suggestions. Regrettably, they have not evoked a
positive response from India.
Pakistan has also proposed conventional
disarmament at the regional and subregional levels. We
hope that the Conference on Disarmament will deliberate
upon this approach and evolve guidelines to bring at par
the weaponry and forces of the regional States.
In our view, the emerging role of the United Nations
as a peace maker and a peace-keeper would greatly help
in achieving peace and harmony at the regional as well as
the global levels. We believe that preventive diplomacy is
the cornerstone of United Nations peace efforts. Pakistan
has been actively cooperating and participating in a major
way in United Nations peace-keeping efforts. It is a
matter of immense satisfaction that today Pakistan is the
third largest troop-contributing country to United Nations
peace-keeping operations.
Pakistan believes that certain operational realities
must be justified for the success of such operations. We
22

need a clear commitment from the international community,
accompanied by a clear political direction and a unified
command structure.
In order to ensure better and effective implementation
of Security Council resolutions, there is a need for thorough
consultations between the members of the Council, as well
as actual troop-contributing countries and the Secretariat, at
all stages of any peace-keeping operation.
As we enter the new millennium, our collective
objective should be to maximize economic growth leading
towards the ultimate objective of human development. To
promote peace and prosperity, it is essential to facilitate
rather than restrain the application of modern technology
for economic and social development.
Adequate official resources should be channelled to
those developing countries which are implementing far-
reaching economic reforms and liberalization measures. A
net flow of official assistance should be directed in
particular towards the eradication of poverty, human and
social development programmes and sustainable growth in
the developing countries. This is particularly true of Africa,
a continent which has been largely bypassed by the
economics of the twentieth century. For our part, Pakistan
extends full support to the United Nations development
assistance plans for Africa and for the Sahel.
Pakistan is encouraged by the conclusion of the
Uruguay Round, despite the partial and unequal response to
the trade interests of the developing countries. The global
economy is finally coming out of recession. New growth is
likely to be generated mostly in the developing countries,
whose integration into the world’s financial and trading
system can immensely contribute towards global output.
There is, therefore, a unique opportunity to create a just,
fair, equitable and non-discriminatory global economy.
Free markets and open economies do not imply a
disregard for the plight of the poor and the disadvantaged.
This principle must be applied as much among nations as
within nations. The aim must be to improve living
conditions for all within a dynamic economic framework.
Pakistan welcomes the constructive outcome of the recently
held Conference on Population and Development, the
World Summit for Social Development and the Fourth
World Conference on Women.
We in Pakistan are particularly aware of the need to
address the problems of the deprived segments of our
society. Development initiatives, such as the Social Action
Programme, are being formulated within the constitutional
framework. Our Constitution contains a number of articles
related to social integration with particular reference to
women and children and religious and ethnic minorities,
as well as those living in poverty. Special efforts are
being made to ensure the full participation of women in
nation building. Pakistan’s approach to employment and
poverty eradication combines policies for national growth,
employment and price stabilization with programmes that
target the poor and the vulnerable.
Pakistan would like to reiterate the importance it has
always attached to the reform of the United Nations.
Pakistan supports the reaffirmation made by the Non-
Aligned Movement that both the reform and expansion
aspects of the Security Council should take into account
the principles of the sovereign equality of States and
equitable geographical distribution, as well as the need for
transparency, accountability and democratization in the
working methods and procedures of the Security Council.
Pakistan remains strongly opposed to centres of privilege
within the United Nations system. These are
anachronistic, anti-democratic and contrary to the
principle of sovereign equality.
In conclusion, the challenges that Member States of
the United Nations confront are indeed forbidding. Yet
the opportunities for genuine peace and universal
prosperity are most promising. With good will and
cooperation, all Member States can make significant
progress at this historic session towards the vision of
peace, progress and human solidarity envisaged in the
Charter of the United Nations. This is an extraordinary
moment of opportunity. The decisions we take today will
determine whether the new era will be one of hope and
prosperity or one of despair and deprivation. The choices
to build a peaceful world are therefore entirely in our own
hands.


We
are meeting on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the
United Nations in order to assess, as we do each year, the
progress made by our Organization, an institution which
was built to uphold peace and solidarity among men.
To judge by its agenda, this session very much
resembles past sessions, but clearly this year’s session has
a much deeper meaning, because it marks the passing of
50 years for the Organization, 50 years during which the
common destiny of diverse peoples has been consolidated
and advanced, despite many challenges and perils.
It is significant on the eve of this fiftieth anniversary
to see the representative of an ancient European nation
presiding over the work of the fiftieth session. Indeed, the
continent to which Portugal belongs, with its historic role,
has always been a major actor in the mechanisms of
international relations. The election of a President from
Portugal testifies to unanimous recognition by the
international community and is also a tribute to the
President’s talent and great diplomatic abilities.
I take this opportunity to address our warm
congratulations to the President’s predecessor, our brother
and friend, Amara Essy, of Côte d’Ivoire, who so ably
and with great dedication guided the work of the forty-
ninth session.
It is also significant that this symbolic session is
taking place during the mandate of Mr. Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, elected some three years ago to head this
Organization. Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali is also known as
one of the skilled negotiators who, through their foresight
and diplomatic talent, have cleared the way for peace in
the Middle East. Today, he is working tirelessly in the
noble and challenging mission of having the United
Nations live up to its noble ideals, its inviolable principles
and its central purposes.
The Republic of Mali became a Member of the
United Nations 35 years ago, on 28 September 1960, only
six days after its accession to national and international
sovereignty on 22 September 1960.
Mali, together with some 30 other African States,
thus expanded the family of independent and free nations,
bringing to the United Nations the vitality, humanism and
generosity of the peoples of Africa.
The international personality of Mali — a
personality that has been forged through the centuries —
is based first of all on the ability of its people to live in
harmony with their neighbours and on Mali’s openness to
the world, its sense of solidarity and its steadfast
commitment to defending the values of mankind.
The Republic of Mali will continue to be dedicated
to that vocation despite the set-backs and
misunderstandings that are inherent in contacts between
diverse cultures and traditions because we have the firm
conviction that ethnic and cultural diversity constitute a
source of mutual enrichment, and a powerful stimulant to
economic, social and cultural progress.
40

Indeed, by its geographical position, Mali is at the
crossroads between northern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
It is a nation enriched by centuries of playing the role of a
melting-pot of diverse cultures.
Today, fortunately, Mali lives in an atmosphere of
good will, ethnic pluralism, religious pluralism, political
pluralism, social and cultural pluralism.
The national problem in the northern part of our
country has been making news because of partisan,
unfounded allegations broadcast across the world by lobbies
whose sole objective is to destabilize young States. The
crisis that shook the northern part of Mali by its murderous
and destructive character is one of the harshest tests that
my country has experienced. With the restoration and
consolidation of peace and the return of Malian refugees on
a massive scale, the feelings of rejection of the State, noted
with the blockages and ensuing violent reactions, have
become an anachronism in a State that is founded on the
rule of law, a State where neither the language of arms nor
that of any other form of violence is admissible as a form
of expression of the right to representation.
The successful meeting in Timbuktu between the
Government and the development partners in northern Mali
from 15 to 18 July 1995, is not only a symbol of exemplary
international solidarity but provided an opportunity for
international opinion to take note of the firm will of all
sectors of Malian society to tackle, first and foremost, the
tasks of development.
Born after a painful confinement on 26 March 1991,
the date when a popular revolution triumphed, democracy
has become a permanent and ever-present fact in the daily
life of the people of Mali, who have had to pay a heavy
price to achieve it.
The democratic revolution which took place four years
ago in Mali is a part of a general movement throughout the
world to knock down the fortresses of oppression and
alienation of peoples. It gave rise to a young democratic
State which, despite the shortcomings inherent in any
human undertaking, does represent a successful example of
the rapid construction of a State built on the rule of law.
Concerned with consolidating this democratic process,
the Government of Mali initiated, and successfully carried
out a year ago in the framework of a search for a general
consensus on all of the problems of the nation, wide
regional conferences followed by a national conference.
This forum allowed all of the forces of the nation to debate
in a transparent context all of the concerns of the people
and enabled the governors and the governed to develop
consensual solutions to face the challenges relating to the
future of the nation and the development of the country.
May I emphasize that democratic Mali has made it
a point of honour to respect human rights and the rights
of peoples. Thus a distinguished panel met on 10
December 1994, the anniversary of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights, bringing together noted
international jurists who, in a completely transparent
context, held public hearings with the Government of
Mali on its human rights management. This was a bold
exercise which set a valuable example and enabled us to
demonstrate that respect for human rights and the
establishment of a State based on the rule of law have
now become a reality in Mali.
In Mali, as in many countries, history accelerated at
a dizzying pace towards the end of the 1980s.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the end
of the division of the world into two rival ideological and
military blocs. This foreshadowed fundamental and
irreversible changes in international relations and led to a
new thinking on relations of force between great and
mid-sized Powers.
The end of this bipolar world was expected to make
the risk of a world war disappear. Mankind hoped to see
the realization of its legitimate aspirations to peace and
security. That hope quickly waned when we realized that
the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall became a
period of heart-rending conflicts throughout the world.
We have been seeing a terrible cycle of violence and
destruction shaking the very foundations of the unity,
territorial integrity and sovereignty of many countries.
Africa, it is said, is a land of fire on the belly of the
world. It remains a suffering continent. It carries within
it deep divisions and we see unbearable images of
endless lines of refugees fleeing from their own country.
The problem of refugees remains a tragedy, one which
the international community must rapidly face and
resolve.
The inter-ethnic massacres in Burundi and Rwanda
which led hundreds of thousands of victims to flee their
homes are powerful challenges to human conscience and
morality.
41

The situation in Rwanda calls for a constant effort on
the part of the United Nations to restore peace and enable
hundreds of thousands of refugees to return undisturbed to
their homes.
The tragedy of Rwanda, which does dishonour to the
human race, demands for that reason that the international
community seek a way to implement solutions to ensure
that that country shall achieve harmonious and definitive
inter-ethnic coexistence. Hence, Mali, which has a military
contingent in Rwanda, suggests that Rwanda should receive
substantial assistance from the international community.
Among the armed conflicts that afflict our continent is
that of Somalia. In that country, the situation remains
chaotic as a result of the intransigence and ambition of the
warlords. The States of that region have already made
major efforts in the search for peace and we pay tribute to
them. They should, with the assistance of the international
community of course, redouble their efforts in order to
achieve solutions acceptable to all the parties.
Should they succeed, the efforts under way in Liberia
could set an example for the settlement of local conflicts
through subregional initiatives. Since the 19 August signing
of the Abuja agreement by the parties to the conflict, a
transitional Government of National Union has been
established in the capital, Monrovia, with a view to holding
free and fair elections: a sure sign of the return of peace to
Liberia.
With regard to crisis-settlement in Africa, Angola
provides a source of great satisfaction with the signing of
the Lusaka Protocol of 20 November 1994, and especially
with the meetings at Lusaka and at Cape Town between
President José Eduardo dos Santos and Mr. Jonas Savimbi.
That impetus towards peace is being consolidated with the
participation of the União Nacional para a Independência
Total de Angola (UNITA) in the exercise of power. I take
this opportunity to offer warm congratulations to all the
African Heads of State and to the Secretary-General and his
Special Representative on their remarkable contributions to
the restoration of peace in Angola.
Mali also follows with interest the question of Western
Sahara; we sincerely hope that the organization and
upcoming holding of a referendum on self-determination
will lead to permanent peace in this north-western part of
our continent.
As the President of the Republic of Mali, Mr. Alpha
Oumar Konaré, has always stressed, Mali earnestly
encourages the creation of an African-run central
machinery to prevent, manage and settle conflicts in
Africa. We invite the international community to support
this initiative. The world must understand that the
prevention of conflicts costs mankind less than dealing
with their consequences. The Organization of African
Unity (OAU) and the United Nations must grow
increasingly involved in anticipating conflicts and less
dependent on seeking remedies after the illness has taken
hold.
A major political development of the 1990s has
certainly been the gradual return of peace to the Middle
East with the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement
in 1993. We earnestly hope that talks on the Golan
between Israel and Syria and the new agreement on
extending Palestinian autonomy to the West Bank will put
the final seal on a comprehensive peace in the region. In
the Middle East as elsewhere in the world, Mali continues
to make its modest contribution to the quest for
international peace and security.
Within the United Nations, the Non-Aligned
Movement, the OAU and all other regional and
subregional groups, my country quickly saw the need for
a new, broader vision of international relations, the only
credible alternative to the division of the world into two
rival blocs, whose bitter competition could have led
mankind into catastrophe. The end of the bipolar world
confirms the correctness and relevance of that political
perception. That is why, consistent with our convictions,
we think that for developing countries the United Nations
remains the most appropriate framework to plumb the true
aspirations of mankind: the inevitable needs of
development and the establishment of relations of greater
solidarity between countries of the North and of the
South. We must understand that growing poverty and
destitution are at the root of violence and armed conflict.
Hence, development questions remain in the
forefront of the concerns of all countries. Today,
economic performance is a criterion for assessing the
power of a State in the community of nations. Here,
unfortunately, Africa remains on the sidelines. Indeed,
despite the resumption early last year of world economic
growth after several years of stagnation, the situation of
Africa, resulting from its marginalization, continues to be
of great concern.
The efforts of Africa’s developing countries through
economic reform, structural adjustment and
encouragement of the private sector have been wiped out
42

by fluctuations in commodity prices and by excessive costs
of debt service. At the same time, direct foreign investment
in the continent remains weak. Moreover, Africa’s
burdensome debt is constantly growing, now consuming
25 per cent of our export earnings. The tragedy of this
situation lies in its concurrence with a resurgence of natural
disasters and the persistence or exacerbation of illnesses
such as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and,
especially, malaria.
“An Agenda for Development” recognizes the right of
developing countries — especially the least developed
countries — to development; it must reorient the objectives
and priorities of the United Nations system towards
socio-economic programmes and activities aimed at
eliminating poverty and developing human resources
through education, training, social integration and the
creation of productive jobs.
Unfortunately, the United Nations New Agenda for the
Development of Africa in the 1990s remains no more than
a devout wish. The only initiative under that programme —
the establishment of a diversification fund for African
commodities — has not succeeded owing to the clear
reticence of some developed countries. This proves, if proof
were needed, the scant interest in Africa’s legitimate claims
for reinvigorating the continent’s growth and development.
International trade relations have been marked by the
conclusion of the Uruguay Round of negotiations and the
establishment of the World Trade Organization. Developing
countries expect complete implementation of the Final Act
of the Uruguay Round, especially with respect to
compensatory mechanisms for the least developed countries,
for net food importers and for those which will experience
negative effects from the elimination of the generalized
system of preferences.
According to concurring estimates by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), the overall result of the eighth negotiating
cycle will benefit the industrialized countries only. To take
the example of Africa, OECD studies project losses
exceeding $2 billion by the year 2002. In this connection,
the World Trade Organization should offer bold decisions
and recommendations in favour of Africa.
Environmental questions are of major concern, for the
very survival of mankind depends on a balanced ecology.
We fervently hope that the decisions and recommendations
of the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development will be quickly implemented in order to
save our planet from dangerous, fatal deterioration. My
country, which has experienced the effects of drought and
desertification and which must still address their
consequences, attaches great value to the United Nations
Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries
Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification,
Particularly in Africa, concluded at Paris on
17 June 1994.
Among the priority challenges facing the
international community are social questions, including
overpopulation, the production, trafficking and use of
drugs, unemployment, violence, social disintegration and
the role of women in economic and social development.
We are convinced that the International Conference
on Population and Development, held at Cairo, marked
the beginning of a new process with respect to population
and development strategy. Likewise, the recommendations
of the World Summit for Social Development, held last
March at Copenhagen, should help ease the fate of the
most severely disadvantaged. The Fourth World
Conference on Women, held at Beijing from 4 to
15 September 1995, constituted a praiseworthy concrete
initiative to take true account of the role of women in
economic and social activities.
Like most other African States, Mali remains a poor
country faced with major problems — structural and
related to our circumstances — of economic development.
The implementation of our programme of action for the
1990s is founded on strategies scrupulously based on
agreements with the Bretton Woods institutions on
economic and financial policies for the decade. Besides
stemming from our national will, our country’s basic
guidelines are in perfect keeping with a strategy for
sustainable development and with the United Nations
Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries
for the 1990s.
The Republic of Mali is working tirelessly to resume
dialogue on strengthening international economic
cooperation for development through partnership. In Mali
this has been reflected in round tables with our
development partners in key sectors of the national
economy.
On population policy, our country’s activities include
the establishment of a decentralized institutional
coordinating machinery for the implementation of
population policy throughout the country, and work in
43

various areas of economic and social development.
Moreover, the United Nations Population Fund programme
with Mali has been adapted to the content and policies of
the Programme of Action adopted at the International
Conference on Population and Development.
We in Mali think that the implementation of these
various United Nations programmes and activities, based
first and foremost on an increasingly sustained national
effort, requires more vigorous mobilization of both
multilateral and bilateral assistance. Thus, it is increasingly
urgent for rich and industrialized countries to provide the
United Nations and its specialized agencies with the
resources they need to properly implement the various plans
and programmes of action adopted since the beginning of
the 1990s. That is the only way in which the twenty-first
century can see a widespread economic takeoff and shared
prosperity for all.
The Republic of Mali is unreservedly committed to
more open international cooperation based on solidarity.
Stronger still is our readiness to work towards economic
integration within Africa, most of whose States cannot
achieve sustainable and balanced development on their own.
Working through regional groupings, African countries
must carry out an economic policy of complementarity with
respect to their national production, and must limit all
competition that is harmful and that gives rise to the serious
problem of negative resource flows. These economic
entities, established by interdependent States, must enjoy all
necessary support from development partners.
The United Nations, born in the wake of the greatest
trauma mankind has ever known, set as its goal the building
of a new world through law. A powerful mechanism in the
service of peace, solidarity and development had been
created. Never before has the world produced such an
impressive arsenal of texts, conventions, declarations and
programmes of action, all aimed at defining the rules of
international conduct, preventing war and conflict,
guaranteeing peaceful coexistence and promoting
development. With the United Nations, a new international
ethic was born. The victorious Powers of the Second World
War, which retain the formidable right of veto, had a moral
duty to make that ethic a permanent one.
Having been conceived through relationships of force,
the United Nations unfortunately grew fragile owing to bloc
and Power rivalries. Hence, the Security Council, which is
none the less the main body responsible for the
maintenance of international peace and security, was often
paralysed in carrying out its basic mandate. In the course of
this half-century, several serious conflicts nearly led to a
third world confrontation. While the world has seen a
period of non-war at the global level, people themselves
have been afflicted by the balance of terror imposed by
the nuclear Powers.
The new international political context that has
prevailed since the end of the 1980s is increasingly fertile
ground for an international consensus favouring a needed
rehabilitation of the United Nations and a restoration of
its authority in carrying out its basic mandates. There
remains an urgent need to undertake the restructuring and
revitalization of United Nations structures to make them
more effective: to take more rapid, fairer decisions and to
be better able to monitor, respond and sanction wherever
and whenever necessary in the interests of the
international community.
That, indeed, is the mission of the United Nations,
which has established peace-keeping operations since
1948. It is the duty of all States to provide these peace-
keeping operations with sufficient human and material
resources, so that no one can doubt the Organization’s
credibility.
Wherever they are deployed, such operations must
also face serious attacks on human rights and the rights of
peoples. In that connection, the tragic situation in Bosnia
and Herzegovina merits the full attention of the General
Assembly. In accordance with United Nations resolutions,
the international community must restore the sovereignty
of the Bosnian people and the territorial integrity of their
Republic. The delegation of Mali, which also endorses the
relevant resolutions of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, considers that the challenge to the
international community in this former Yugoslav republic
must be addressed with determination to stop it from
becoming a dangerous precedent in international relations.
A world based on law must be supported by the
ideal of a world of justice. The need to provide
assistance, so often invoked by the United Nations and by
regional organizations, has relativized the principle of
non-interference in the internal affairs of a State when the
international community finds in that State flagrant
violations of human rights and the rights of peoples.
The United Nations has thus carried out an act of
justice and law in reestablishing republican institutions in
Haiti. It is also in the name of law and justice that Mali
calls for the lifting of international sanctions against
Libya and Iraq, whose peoples want nothing more than
44

happiness, well-being and peace. Maintaining these
sanctions, which affect only the Libyan and Iraqi peoples,
runs frankly counter to morality and to our duty to assist
and show solidarity with those peoples.
The twentieth century will have been a century of
enormous progress in all spheres, in the course of which
mankind will have demonstrated its impressive creative
capacity. It is an important symbol that it was during this
century, just a few months ago, that the international
community reaffirmed its determination to ban forever the
proliferation and use of nuclear weapons by the indefinite
extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons (NPT). The rejection of the nuclear weapon marks
an irreversible choice by the world’s peoples: in favour of
peace and development.
It is surprising that nuclear-weapon States have not
understood the extraordinary trust that the rest of the
international community has shown in them by its
overwhelming accession to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; that trust requires
responsibility on the part of nuclear-weapon States. Those
States must meet the challenge of peace by putting a
complete and immediate end to real and simulated testing
and by gradually destroying their nuclear arsenals.
As we come to the end of the second millennium, we
see a world-wide movement for democracy and freedom.
The Organization has everywhere encouraged the quest for
justice and the free expression of peoples. To consolidate
its gains and to become permanent, this vast movement
must be accompanied by the democratization of
international relations. But unfortunately, that
democratization is late in coming. The President of the
Republic of Mali has described the situation in this way:
“Present inequalities among individuals, among
communities and among States unmistakably raise the
question of justice, linked at the national level with
order and morality ... The world is composed of
ongoing disparities, which give rise to conflict and
violence. We must all understand the peril we incur by
failing to reorder present structures that are
unfavourable to the less well off and that benefit the
more powerful. We need a world of greater solidarity;
a less selfish and more humane world”.
It is, indeed, sad to note that international relations
continue to be governed from the standpoint of carving the
world up into spheres of influence and spheres of interests,
even though new political and economic changes in
developing countries demand new behaviour by our
development partners, specifically the industrialized
countries. It is increasingly clear that on the whole
international cooperation is being fueled by economic
criteria alone, to the detriment of the values of solidarity
and justice. Yet the challenges facing mankind are
common challenges. They include environmental
degradation, pollution, toxic waste, sickness, hunger,
poverty and malnutrition. The balance of the planet and
the survival of mankind depend on the collective solutions
we find to these serious problems.
It cannot be overstressed that only international
relations based on solidarity, fairness and justice can
enable us to face the challenge; and these are within our
grasp. The maintenance of peace in the coming
millennium will depend on the international community’s
ability to foster development for all. Hence, it is urgent to
restore the values of solidarity, justice and democracy in
international relations in order to save succeeding
generations.


Mr. President, I should like to say first how
pleased France is to see you personally presiding over the
work of the General Assembly. Beyond your personal
merits, which I acknowledge with pleasure, your election
underscores the important contribution to the activities of
the Organization of Portugal, a member of the European
Union with which France feels particularly close.
The United Nations is 50 years old. As the Heads of
State and Government of the European Union solemnly
emphasized in Cannes last June, the collective work since
the Second World War has been considerable. The
European Council on that occasion paid tribute to the
major contribution of the United Nations to this collective
work and gave some examples: decolonization, the
maintenance of international peace and security,
disarmament, development, humanitarian aid and, of
course, the protection of human rights.
But the successes of the Organization do not belong
solely to history. This year has shown the vitality of the
United Nations. In Copenhagen, the social dimension of
development, the struggle against exclusion and for
productive employment, which are both major challenges
for all our societies, are now within the domain of our
Organization. In Beijing, the principle of strict equality
between men and women and the right of women to
decide freely about their lives in all matters have finally
been endorsed once and for all as universal values. In
New York, the United Nations has begun preparatory
work towards the establishment of a world criminal court.
This project signals decisive progress for international
humanitarian law.
In Vienna, at this very moment, a conference on the
scourge of inhumane weapons is being held. France is
working in particular to eradicate the scourge of the
spread of anti-personnel mines. In 1993, it decided upon
a unilateral moratorium on the export of these mines.
Now the time has come to go one step farther.
Accordingly, I wish to confirm that France has decided to
adopt a unilateral moratorium on the production of all
categories of anti-personnel mines. It is therefore
12

imposing upon itself a ban on the manufacture of such
weapons. France also pledges from this point on to destroy
gradually its stock of anti-personnel mines. I call on all
Member States to join with us and do the same thing.
This year has also been marked by the success of the
New York Review and Extension Conference of the States
parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons. This success was a major step towards
disarmament. France proposes that this coming year should
be a time for further progress in this domain: disarmament
should be our common goal and it should encompass all
aspects of disarmament. France calls upon the States that
have not yet adhered to this Treaty to do so without further
delay. The struggle against the proliferation of nuclear
weapons must be universal. I suggest that all the States
which have already signed this Treaty multiply concerted
efforts to persuade the States which have not yet signed to
join them.
In addition, it is important to follow through on the
new objectives decided by the review Conference of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty in May. Among these, the most
important is the conclusion, no later than 1996, of the
comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty now being negotiated
in Geneva. The President of the French Republic,
Mr. Jacques Chirac, most solemnly reaffirmed on 13 June
1995 France’s determination to achieve this goal and to
ensure that the ban is total. France is pleased that other
nuclear Powers have in turn made the same commitment.
It calls on all nuclear Powers to ensure, together with all
the Member States of the Organization, that this pledge is
duly confirmed in the text of the future treaty and that the
negotiation of the treaty is completed before the autumn of
1996.
I take this opportunity to recall the reasons that led
France to complete the programme of nuclear tests that was
temporarily suspended in 1992. The final series of tests
now under way has no other purpose than to enable us to
sign the treaty banning nuclear tests definitively. There
were some who imagined and others who wished to make
believe that we might reconsider such a decision. This will
not happen. Once again I repeat, this is a final test series,
limited to what is strictly necessary and held under
conditions that have been proved to be harmless. It will
enable us to adhere as early as possible to the future treaty
banning tests definitively.
The disarmament effort must of course be directed
towards reducing existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
Substantial progress has been achieved over the past few
years with the destruction of a significant number of
warheads by the two main Powers. I would recall that
France for its part, although it has never contributed to
nuclear overarmament, reduced the nuclear warheads it
had deployed by 15 per cent between 1991 and 1995.
Disarmament, however, does not apply solely to
nuclear weapons. With regard to chemical weapons, I call
upon all the Member States to ratify, or for those which
have not yet done so to adhere to, the 1992 Convention
banning chemical weapons. I regret that France is the
only permanent member of the Security Council that has
ratified this Convention. I hope that the other permanent
members will do so in the coming months.
We must continue the effort to reduce conventional
forces in Europe. France took its full part in the
agreement on conventional force reductions in Europe. It
proposes that the conference which will be held in May
1996 to examine the implementation of this agreement
should focus on compliance by all States with a treaty
that is the keystone of security in Europe. This conference
should also be the occasion for further progress.
There remains the highly sensitive issue of the
Convention banning biological weapons. A serious
verification system has to be set up. I hope that the
working group responsible for this matter in Geneva
quickly establishes such a system.
My country cannot accept the argument put forward
by some that the Organization has failed in its task. We
reject the accusations of passivity and helplessness that
are sometimes made against it. Nevertheless, we cannot
hide the fact that the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary
will not be as joyful and as optimistic as we would have
liked. The image of the Organization in public opinion is
confused, even negative at times. We should try together
and with a clear head to identify the reasons for such a
situation. I am convinced they have nothing to do with
any disaffection with the Organization. Never have the
aspirations of our peoples, especially the youth of the
world, so matched the objectives of the Charter: peace
and disarmament, environmental protection, solidarity
with the very poor, aid to those who suffer, the promotion
of democracy, of liberty and basic human rights, and the
collective struggle against the major scourges of the end
of the century, namely drugs, terrorism and AIDS. In the
last few years, we have witnessed the emergence of a
body of common values on a world scale. These are the
values which the United Nations, like France, upholds;
they are the values of peace.
13

In Europe we built with our neighbours a Community
and then a European Union, and in doing so we turned a
page of a history that had so often led us to confrontation
with each other. Since 1945 Europe has known a period of
unparalleled peace. The European Union is on the verge of
being enlarged again. France warmly welcomes the
forthcoming membership of its neighbours in Central,
Eastern and Mediterranean Europe, and will do everything
to make it a great success. In this way, the unity of our
continent is gradually being organized.
The extension of the boundaries of the European
Union does not lead it to close in on itself. Quite the
contrary, Europe is opening up to nearby neighbours from
the South, as the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in
Barcelona will demonstrate. I should like to emphasize the
fundamental importance of that Conference. Europe also
wants to develop its relations with Asia; in this regard, the
first Europe-Asia Summit, scheduled for March 1996, will
be a clear illustration. Lastly, Europe is deepening its
partnership with Russia as well as enhancing its close ties
with the United States and other partners.
I would like to insist on the fact that the European
Union, under the impetus of the French presidency, has
confirmed its privileged relationship with the African,
Caribbean and Pacific countries in the context of the Lomé
Convention and its special place in North-South relations as
the leading donor of development assistance.
In all those areas, Europe has set the example.
These values of peace are also at work in the Middle
East. France welcomes the important results that have
already been achieved under the peace process. I am
thinking of the Declaration of Principles of 13 September
1993 and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty of 26 October
1994. But, above all, I am pleased to see that the principles
agreed upon in Oslo have at last borne fruit with the long-
awaited initialling of the interim agreement this Sunday.
With this, a major turning-point, manifested by the
declaration of principles, has been given concrete form. The
Israeli-Palestinian peace process is now irreversible. I also
hope that the talks between Israel and Syria will soon
resume and that negotiations will start between Israel and
Lebanon so that a just and lasting peace, in accordance with
Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and
425 (1978), be guaranteed throughout the region.
As the French President, Mr. Jacques Chirac, stated at
the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary at Geneva, the
world needs the United Nations. And it knows it, as proved
by the increasing number of tasks Member States have
entrusted to the Organization.
Therefore, today’s doubts have another origin. I see
two major causes. First, the United Nations is not shown
sufficient respect, probably because of a lack of political
will and resources. Secondly, the Organization has yet to
demonstrate its ability to reform itself.
Let me speak of respect first. One will never be able
lay sufficient stress on the devastating effect of the sight
of the Blue Berets of the United Nations Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) held hostage last spring, in chains and
humiliated in their dignity as men and soldiers. In
Somalia, in Rwanda prior to Operation Turquoise, in the
former Yugoslavia since the outbreak of the conflict, the
soldiers of peace had already found themselves in
situations that the United Nations accepted but that no
Member State would ever have tolerated. It is not
surprising that the image of the Organization has thereby
suffered.
I want to make myself clear. It is not a matter of
questioning the enormous work that has been
accomplished by the United Nations peace-keeping forces
since the end of the cold war: Namibia, Cambodia,
Mozambique, El Salvador and Haiti owe to those forces
progress that would have been impossible without the
United Nations. In Somalia, the United Nations saved
thousands of lives. Its intervention in the countries of the
former Yugoslavia made it possible to prevent the war
from spreading to Macedonia, to contain and dampen the
conflict within central Bosnia and Croatia, and, above all,
to ensure the survival of the populations in certain safe
areas, in Sarajevo in particular, for three years. However,
we have been helpless witnesses to unacceptable
suffering, to shameful operations of so-called “ethnic
cleansing” and to crimes against humanity, which the
international community was unable to prevent and before
which it remained passive.
These tragic events have shown the dangers of
mixing humanitarian and military missions and the risks
incurred when the mission conferred by the United
Nations is lacking in clarity. The Organization needs to
make itself respected when it intervenes in a conflict. Last
spring, France proposed to its partners that the time to
react had come at last. It suggested a change in attitude
and policy, with the formation of a powerfully armed
Rapid Reaction Force. We have since begun, in liaison
with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
decisive action to lift the siege of Sarajevo. This has
14

enabled the United Nations to recover the respect of all
parties.
This strengthening of the United Nations capacities for
action has no other objective than to place force at the
service of law. Only a political solution can truly settle the
conflicts brought about by the dissolution of the former
Yugoslavia.
That is why France, together with its partners in the
European Union and within the Contact Group, has taken
a clear position in favour of a settlement based on two
main principles, namely, respect for international law and
the support of the settlement by all the populations
concerned.
Respect for international law entails a rejection of any
solution which, imposed by force, would mean breaking
with the founding principles of our Organization. Bosnia
and Herzegovina is a recognized State and a Member of the
United Nations. Its territorial integrity and sovereignty must
be preserved. There is nothing to discuss or negotiate on
those two matters.
Those who have chosen to break the law and who
have committed the crimes of which we are all aware will
be held responsible individually. The International Criminal
Tribunal, whose creation was proposed by France in 1992,
must fully exert its jurisdiction.
It is also important that all the citizens of Bosnia and
Herzegovina should be able to assert their specific character
through representative entities. Let each entity have direct
management of its own affairs and even be able to maintain
special relations with States whose populations share the
same affinities. All this is legitimate so long as the
management of common interests and the exercise of the
functions of sovereignty are not brought into question.
The agreement on the principles of a settlement
proposed to the protagonists in this conflict by the Contact
Group at Geneva on 8 September of this year and accepted
by their representatives, meets these two criteria. This is
why France has welcomed it, approves it and will support
it. The agreement and subsequent actions represent an
encouraging step, but they are only a first step. The extent
of what remains to be done to end the tragedy of Bosnia
clearly shows the major role that the United Nations will
have to take. In that mission, it can rely on France’s
unwavering support. It must also rely on the support of the
international community. Peace will be the work of all.
The decline in the respect shown the Organization is
evident in another domain that also affects its survival,
namely, its financing. It is not normal for the Secretary-
General of the world’s largest Organization, faced with
the threat of imminent bankruptcy, to have fewer avenues
of recourse in dealing with his debtors than the smallest
of our businesses. It is not acceptable for Member
States — and I am not thinking here only of those that
are experiencing real economic difficulties — to show
such scant respect for the Organization by ignoring the
legal obligations they have freely accepted.
France would like to see the United Nations stronger
and more respected. For this to occur, however, it is also
essential that the Organization be reformed and adapted.
The Secretary-General has spared no effort to open
the way to reform. Under his aegis, significant progress
has been made in the management of the Organization.
All the debates in these past few years were undertaken
at his initiative and have been based on his proposals in
the Agenda for Peace and the Agenda for Development.
France is awaiting with the greatest interest the Agenda
for Democracy, which will complete this triptych in a
field in which the United Nations is called on to take the
leading role. The Organization has need, more than ever,
of its Secretary-General in order to adapt to the demands
of the twenty-first century.
However, it also requires the political will of its
Member States, and this is not sufficiently in evidence. At
the opening of this fiftieth session, my wish is a simple
one. Let us concentrate on the projects that have already
been begun so that they can be completed soon, within
the coming year. France will contribute to this, and I
should like in this respect to submit a few proposals.
One of our main objectives will be to reach an
agreement on enlarging the Security Council. Enlargement
will be successful only if the Council continues in a
lasting way to be representative of the community of
nations through a reasonable increase in the number of its
members.
I should like to reaffirm this today: the Security
Council will have to welcome Germany and Japan as
permanent members, as well as some major States of the
developing world. It would also be desirable, naturally,
for the Council simultaneously to be opened to some new
non-permanent members.
15

The negotiation on the enlargement of the Security
Council now can and should be concluded quickly. Let us
wait no longer. It is equally imperative for the discussion
on United Nations financing to produce results in the next
few months.
But we must be honest with ourselves. This
negotiation depends in part on the response to the United
States’ request for a reduction in its assessed contribution
to the budget for peace-keeping operations. I shall not try
to disguise France’s genuine doubts as to the legitimacy of
this request.
None the less, for the higher interests of the
Organization, my country is ready to examine this question
without any a priori conclusions. It does, however, set
certain imperative conditions. The first condition is that any
new scale must respect fully the real capacity of Member
States to pay. On this point I should like once again to pay
tribute to your country, Mr. President. Portugal decided this
year, of its own accord, to increase its contribution to the
budget for peace-keeping operations. The second condition
is that the agreement must make it possible for the
Organization to start off again on sound bases. All existing
arrears will therefore have to be paid up. The third
condition is that automatic sanctions should be applied to
those who do not pay appropriately in order to prevent a
recurrence of the current crisis.
This is the modest price of enabling the United
Nations to devote itself less nervously to its two principal
missions: peace-keeping and development.
Peace-keeping is the domain of the Security Council,
the only body empowered to decide on the use of force and
to determine the principles and mandate of operations
carried out in the interest of international peace and
security.
We have to learn the lessons of the experiences of
recent years. Aside from traditional peace-keeping, the
United Nations may find itself obliged, in accordance with
the mandate entrusted to it by the Security Council, to
resort to force, within the limitations of its means, in order
to preserve whatever can be preserved. United Nations
military action is often the sole recourse available to the
international community.
It is therefore essential to increase the efficiency of the
United Nations in the service of peace. Among the most
pressing matters, I wish to underline the need to set up
capacities for rapid intervention, in the framework of the
vital process begun two years ago concerning stand-by
forces. I wish also to mention the need to improve the
command of operations and the interest in a still greater
use of preventive diplomacy.
I would like to say a few words about a situation
that is of grave concern to France and that calls
specifically for urgent action in preventive diplomacy on
a large scale. I am referring to the situation in the Great
Lakes region of Africa.
Since the assassination of Burundi’s President,
Mr. Ndadaye, and the unprecedented tragedy that struck
Rwanda, this entire region has been deeply destabilized.
More than 2 million Rwandans and Burundis are living
outside their country in terrible conditions, with the
difficulties that all this entails for the host countries. The
absence of lasting political solutions, the climate of
insecurity and fear that is kept alive by all the extremists,
the suspicion reigning on all sides, the risk of new
tragedies — all this compels us to address together and in
depth the fundamental problems in this area, taking into
account their extreme complexity and the trauma caused
by the genocide that has plunged Rwanda into mourning.
France remains convinced that only a comprehensive
regional approach that is political in character will make
it possible to do this. The principle of a conference on
peace, stability and security in the Great Lakes region is
now accepted, and we welcome the recent appointment of
a Special Representative by the Secretary-General. But
time is of the essence.
This conference must be carefully prepared, with the
active participation of the States most directly involved
and interested in its success, and it must lead to the
establishment of a stability pact for the African Great
Lakes region. There are three elements that I believe to
be essential in this respect: first, the adoption of
principles for the return of the refugees and for national
reconciliation, along with a commitment by States not to
tolerate any activity hostile to their neighbours on their
territory; secondly, the conclusion of bilateral or
multilateral agreements among the States concerned to
enshrine these principles and commitments and to give
them substance; and, finally, the organization of a follow-
up mechanism under the aegis of the Security Council.
France holds the conviction that development
assistance is the second, or perhaps the first, raison d’être
of the United Nations. Here, too, the balance sheet invites
reflection. How can we not have questions about the
16

feebleness of results, the persistence of extreme poverty, or
at times even famine, these crises that erase all prospects of
development and bring indescribable suffering to
populations? How can we not have questions about the
reduced contributions of the world’s richest countries?
These failures have gone onto the record. Now we
must act, reform and take the best advantage of the
experience we have acquired. The institutions of the United
Nations and their network of representatives in the field are
strong points. The development agencies have to refocus
their activity specifically on their objectives. They have to
set real priorities aimed at addressing real needs — in other
words, first and foremost the needs of the least developed
countries.
But it would be shocking if, as I sometimes predict
will happen, reform were boosted for the sole purpose of
reducing still further the contribution of the richest States
in the struggle against human poverty.
France, together with its partners in the European
Union, hopes to bring about, through An Agenda for
Development a mobilization for development on new
foundations. The situation is too disturbing to set the
interests of the States of the North and South in opposition
to each other. We are all bound by a higher duty: the global
struggle against poverty.
If, before this session comes to a close, we are able to
enlarge the Security Council, to place United Nations
financing on solid bases, to give the Organization the
means to intervene rapidly and effectively to maintain peace
and, finally, to modernize the modalities and institutions for
development assistance, we will truly have celebrated the
fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, above and
beyond all the speech-making, in a fitting manner: by our
actions.
Allow me finally to mention a project that is
particularly dear to me: to re-establish, on the occasion of
this anniversary, the universality of our Organization, which
is reflected in the diversity of cultures and languages
manifested here.
Linguistic pluralism is essential. It reflects the right of
each Member State to understand the others, but also its
duty to make itself understood. A draft resolution on this
subject will be submitted to the Assembly; it will deal with
the use of languages in the Assembly’s deliberations and in
the Secretariat, and I hope it will enshrine the need to retain
sufficient resources to ensure the provisions of translation
and interpretation services. I am convinced that we will
reach a consensus in this regard.
Our Organization has deliberately taken its actions
for the long term. Recent events may obscure
achievements that are nevertheless solid, the results of
collective, patient, courageous work. But the gains are
there. It is up to each of us to make them known and
consolidate them so that the United Nations may continue
to fulfil the indispensable role entrusted to it 50 years
ago.