Sixty years ago,
Prime Minister Peter Fraser of New Zealand told
representatives to the San Francisco Conference that its
sole aim should be
“the setting up of a world organization that will
really work, and that will be the background for
an orderly progress towards security, prosperity
and happiness for all the people of all nations”.
The new organization would only work, he said, if its
members were determined to stand by their
commitments and principles.
Today the essential concept of the United Nations
remains robust. We can be justly proud of its
achievements in many areas including humanitarian
assistance, development and peacekeeping. But we
have collectively underperformed in others, sometimes
with tragic results.
Our task this sixtieth anniversary is twofold: first,
to recommit ourselves as Member States to the
enduring vision and values of the Charter and,
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secondly, to retool the United Nations machinery to
meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
The Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1) provides
the blueprint for the way forward. New Zealand would
have liked more progress in a number of areas, such as
more detailed agreement on the establishment of the
Human Rights Council and more authority to the
Secretary-General to manage resources in return for
greater accountability. We deeply regret the failure to
endorse further disarmament and non-proliferation
measures.
But we are encouraged by the many significant
advances, including recognition of the need for more
and better aid, establishment of the Peacebuilding
Commission, a doubling of resources for the Office of
the Commissioner for Human Rights and the
recognition of our shared “responsibility to protect”.
We have as our theme for the General Assembly
implementation of our summit undertakings. We share
accountability for getting the job done. I shall confine
my comments here to the results of the summit.
New Zealand is pleased with the Summit
Outcome as it relates to development. It represents a
shared commitment by all Member States to the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and
recognizes the important partnership between
developed and developing countries in the effective use
of aid.
This year New Zealand has increased its
development assistance by 23 per cent. Our official
development assistance (ODA) programme has a focus
on poverty elimination, with a core, but not exclusive,
focus on the Pacific. We strive to address aid
effectiveness, the particular problems faced by small
island developing States, HIV/AIDS, the empowerment
of women, sexual and reproductive health and rights,
education for all, sustainable development and trade
access.
On trade, we look forward to an ambitious
outcome across all aspects of the Doha Development
Agenda, including in agriculture, improved market
access, the elimination of export subsidies and
substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic
support. Improving the coherence of trade policies and
development initiatives remains a critical element in
achieving the MDGs.
New Zealand welcomes the decision to establish
a Peacebuilding Commission to help break the cycle of
conflict by better coordinating long-term international
recovery efforts and ensuring sustained political
attention to those who need it. We must now move
swiftly to get the Commission up and running by
December this year. We look to the General Assembly
President to take a lead in holding consultations to
achieve this. The core elements of the framework have
already been discussed at length and in detail. With
good will and determination, we can surely arrive at
agreement within the next few weeks on a package.
This should ensure balanced membership and flexible
reporting arrangements. We would caution against
raising the bar for assistance too high, and we hope
that all States in need of help will be able to approach
the Commission.
Our leaders have spoken with one voice and
unequivocally to condemn all forms of terrorism. We
must build on this and honour our undertaking to
conclude negotiations on the comprehensive
convention on international terrorism at this session.
New Zealand will continue to work closely with our
friends in the Pacific region to improve our collective
abilities to identify, prevent or respond to terrorist
threats. Consolidating reporting requirements created
by Security Council resolutions would, we believe, be
one step towards enhancing the counter-terrorism
programme of the United Nations. We think it very
important that Member States should now support the
Secretary-General’s counter-terrorism strategy.
One of the most far-reaching achievements of the
summit, as many countries have acknowledged, is our
collective acceptance that there is a responsibility to
protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity. We must now
all be prepared to assist the United Nations in
establishing the early warning capability referred to in
our outcome document. It is vital that, when the need
arises, we give effect to our resolve and follow the
principles we have agreed upon.
In this context, New Zealand wishes to reaffirm
its commitment to ending impunity for those
responsible for the most serious crimes of concern to
the international community. Adoption of the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court was an
historic moment for the United Nations and one that
demonstrated the breadth and depth of political will to
end impunity and to secure the rule of law.
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The absence of any reference to a commitment to
end impunity or of any acknowledgement of the
International Criminal Court’s central contribution to
this goal is one of several telling silences in our
summit outcome.
We are particularly pleased that leaders have
recognized the need to conclude, during this session,
negotiations on the draft protocol to the Convention on
the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel.
This will be a major priority for New Zealand. We call
on all Member States to contribute constructively to
this process, so that we can reach agreement on a
protocol and demonstrate our full support for the work
of United Nations personnel in the field.
New Zealand welcomes the emphasis on human
rights in the outcome document. That the budget of the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is
to be doubled and her Office strengthened is an
overdue recognition of the gap between expectations of
delivery and resourcing.
While progress has been made through the
summit decision to establish a Human Rights Council,
we regret that the opportunity was lost to reach
agreement on details of the Council’s mandate and
operation, despite the support of a great majority of
Members for such a package. A small minority cannot
be allowed to veto the establishment of the Council.
Over the next weeks we must redouble our efforts
to translate that broad support into specifics on what
the Council will look like and on its mandate. We shall
look to the President to set a work programme that will
aim for agreement on the details.
Our second human rights priority for the sixtieth
session is to see negotiations completed on the draft
convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
The constructive and collegial spirit of delegations in
the Ad Hoc Committee on the rights of persons with
disabilities has been extraordinary. New Zealand is
confident that it will be possible to conclude the
negotiations in 2006 if the Ad Hoc Committee is
enabled to meet for three weeks next January.
Our ability to strengthen the United Nations
across the board in development, security and human
rights will be enhanced by implementing summit
undertakings on Secretariat and management reform.
We need particularly to improve the managerial
effectiveness and accountability of the Secretary-
General. He should be given, as he has requested, the
tools that he needs to manage the Secretariat.
We strongly support the review of all budgetary
and human resource rules and regulations and the
review of mandates. We support also the increased
focus on ensuring ethical conduct on the part of all
United Nations personnel. We believe a system-wide
code of ethics and an independent ethics office would
facilitate that. New Zealand also welcomes the
commitment to strengthening the United Nations
Office of Internal Oversight Services.
The outcome document calls for early reform of
the Security Council, and the General Assembly is to
review progress on this issue by the end of the year.
New Zealand continues to believe that the Security
Council needs to be more effective and more
representative for the twenty-first century, although we
have no illusions about the difficulties of reaching
agreement on this.
We should in the meantime renew our efforts to
improve the working methods of the Security Council.
For those many Member States who rarely, if ever,
occupy a non-permanent seat on the Council, there
should be other ways to participate in Council
decisions and contribute to discussions.
We, as Member States, have shown in finalizing
the summit outcome a mixture of courage and
creativity on the one hand and of stubbornness and
hesitation on the other. The implementation period
ahead gives us a second chance to make good on those
moments when we allowed agreements to slip through
our fingers. We put our trust in our President to set up
the structures for ongoing work and to be the catalyst
to motivate and energize us.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge the much
valued contribution that former President Ping made
over the last year, and we thank him.


Mr. President, first of all, I
would like to congratulate you on your election as
President of this session of the General Assembly and
to thank your predecessor, Mr. Ping, for all his efforts
during his tenure. I would like also to thank the
Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for all his
endeavours in seeking the preservation of this great
institution’s integrity as well as world peace.
This year’s session of the General Assembly
comes days after a landmark meeting of world leaders
at which they adopted a blueprint that aims to increase
the efficiency of the United Nations in the prosecution
of human rights abuses and in the preservation of
world peace and security. Moreover, that instrument
calls on all to move forward with a much-needed,
comprehensive programme of reforms at the United
Nations, including in the Security Council.
This clearly demonstrates our faith in the primacy
of the role of the United Nations in the preservation of
world peace, as the embodiment of our collective
desire and will, and as the legitimate body for crisis
resolution within the framework of every individual
State’s sovereignty.
Truly, the only way out of this dangerous impasse
is a return to a multipolar world order, based on the
rule of international law and justice and on respect for
every nation’s sovereignty. Moreover, such a wise
approach should be complemented by serious and
concerted efforts to fight poverty and oppression and,
consequently, the root causes of terror.
The core values of a democratic and just world
are best served by enhancing the capabilities of the
United Nations and its instruments, and by reinforcing
in-house democratic values. This institution should
remain the primary defender of such human values as
freedom, justice and peace.
The advances in telecommunications and
information technologies, signature traits of
globalization, have led to a withering of geographical
boundaries, along with a strengthening of multinational
corporations, and hence the need for a new approach to
tackling our world’s problems in international
relations. The “crumbs” from the rich nations have
become insufficient to satisfy the needs of a third
world seeking to extract itself from backwardness and
to eradicate poverty and disease. Those ailments have
spread beyond the boundaries of the great development
divide and serve as a stern wake-up call and a ticking
bomb for us all to heed.
That is why it is imperative to call for a serious
and urgent dialogue between North and South, for
rapid and eased transfer of technological advances and
capital, and for bolstering the development of those
nations that seek modernity. Moreover, it is crucial to
encourage interaction and cooperation between
developing States through such forums as the summit
that was held in Brasilia last May, where Arab nations
met the nations of South America. Lebanon looks
forward to the follow-up meetings of the Brasilia
summit, considering the importance of cooperation
between those two important geographic blocs.
At this juncture, it is logical to ask whether
extremism, terrorism and wanton violence against
innocent civilians are the by-products of the
environment of seclusion and deprivation. In view of
the rapid spread of terrorism, we feel that the approach
to countering the plague of terrorism remains
superficial and unable to tackle the root causes of the
plague.
Having suffered the awful consequences of that
plague, Lebanon was always a bellwether in
condemning all terrorist acts around the world. That is
because few nations have so endured and continue to
endure the consequences of that evil. That is why we
know that an effective anti-terror campaign requires an
environment of constructive cooperation worldwide,
remote from politically motivated campaigns of
vilification, and as a platform for a clear definition of
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terrorism, remote from the wilful or unintended
conflation of the inalienable right of people to fight
occupation and acts of wanton terror.
Therefore, and in order to conclusively win the
war on terror, the security approach should be
complemented by mid- and long-term approaches
aimed at resolving political crises in order to deprive
the terrorists of all legitimacy. That is why tackling the
problems of oppression and occupation, along with
bolstering development, education and the attainment
of a better life, will surely lead to shrinking the human
pool that feeds extremism.
For decades now, the Middle East has witnessed
conflicts and unresolved disputes and, as a
consequence, has been subject to the festering wounds
of terrorism. Needless to say, the core of the problem
remains the fact that Arab lands are still under
occupation in spite of the many resolutions of
international legitimacy, many adopted in this very
edifice, calling for an end to occupation.
The immediate implementation of those
resolutions, as well as General Assembly resolution
194 (III) — which affirms the right of return of the
Palestinian refugees to their lands confiscated by Israel
and bars the resettlement of the uprooted Palestinians
in their host countries — remains the only way to
defuse and to dry up the wells of extremism. That will
pave the way to a comprehensive, just and peaceful
settlement in our region, as foreseen in the 1991
Madrid peace summit and the implementation of the
land-for-peace principle.
Those principles of peace were confirmed as a
strategic choice by all Arab leaders during the Beirut
Arab summit of 2002. Sadly, the initiative has yet to be
seized upon to resolve regional conflicts and to achieve
a final and peaceful settlement in the Middle East.
Awaiting the historic resolution of the conflict,
Lebanon commends the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
for all that it does, and calls upon the international
community to bolster its capabilities in order to
alleviate the hardships of the Palestinian refugees in
their places of “temporary” residence.
The daily Israeli violations of Lebanon’s
territorial integrity and aggressions against the people
of South Lebanon have made that important part of my
country yet another point of tension in the Middle East.
Israel’s violation of the Blue Line and its continuing
occupation of parts of my country, along with the
imprisonment of scores of our citizens without any
recourse to due process, are in clear violation of
international law, to say nothing of the lethal hardships
faced by our citizens in the freed areas of South
Lebanon due to the thousands of land mines planted by
Israel during its two-decade occupation of South
Lebanon.
My country continues to adhere to a
comprehensive and just peace settlement, to the
principle of non-aggression, and to respect for human
rights, and yearns for the implementation of all
international resolutions towards those ends. In the
meantime, we cannot but value the role played by the
United Nations in South Lebanon through the United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) — a role
that has been extended to and benefited Lebanon for
almost three decades. Our clinging to the UNIFIL
presence emanates from our commitment to peace and
security, pending a final resolution of the conflicts in
the region.
Here, I would like to avail myself of the
opportunity to salute the UNIFIL forces active in South
Lebanon, to thank them for their sacrifices, and to bow
in memory of the fallen peacekeepers.
Lebanon has long endured Israel’s wars and
occupation, despite a Security Council resolution
calling for the immediate cessation of the occupation.
Alas, Israel ignored that resolution for over two
decades. That gave birth to a staunchly national
movement of resistance and defence of Lebanon’s
territorial integrity, as guaranteed by the Charter of the
United Nations under the right to fight occupation.
Despite the persistence of all the aforementioned
conditions of occupation, violations and aggressions,
and due to Lebanon’s adherence to all resolutions of
international legitimacy — an adherence based on a
clear understanding of the world community’s
demands — the Government of Lebanon launched an
internal dialogue between all Lebanese groups in order
to maintain our unity, security and stability, and to
reinforce our internal and international positions. We
look forward to maintaining that rapport with the world
community in order to achieve those noble goals.
Since the historic reconciliation at Taef, Lebanon
has enjoyed over a decade of stability and tranquillity,
quickly recapturing its regional pre-eminence and its
8

pioneering role as a land of religious tolerance — an
example to follow in the dialogue of civilizations.
Moreover, Lebanon has enjoyed an unprecedented
level of economic revitalization and has been able to
forge iron-clad unity in its armed forces and civil
institutions.
However, Lebanon has recently gone through
some horrific and fateful events, one of which — the
assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri —
constitutes the hardest blow in its modern history. That
assassination caused great grief for our nation, and the
repercussions were felt throughout the world. We look
forward to the timely and prompt disclosure of the
International Inquiry Commission’s results of the
investigation into that heinous act, and we thank the
Security Council for consenting to Lebanon’s request
to appoint such a Commission.
Moreover, Lebanon appreciates the great efforts
undertaken by the Inquiry Commission in its search for
the truth, and will afford the Commission all the
support that it needs in order for us to prosecute the
culprits to the full extent of the law. That underlines
the commitment of Lebanon and of the world
community in the fight against terrorism.
Despite the abominable assassination of Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri and the ensuing national malaise,
we were able to conduct exemplary parliamentary
elections, which have been heralded by most observers
as yet another landmark in the democratic history of
Lebanon.
United Nations and international monitoring
officials testified that those elections were held in
accordance with the highest standards. Consequently, a
Government of national unity has been formed, which
has taken upon itself the task of immediately tackling
Lebanon’s internal and external affairs, within the
framework of a serious dialogue aimed at achieving a
national consensus and the preservation of what we all
desire, namely, Lebanon’s stability and national unity.
The new Lebanese Government is determined to
undertake a comprehensive plan of reform that will
encompass all political, administrative and economic
aspects, and as a first step it has established a much-
needed consultative national body to formulate a new
electoral law that will live up to the recommendations
of the European Union’s delegated commission.
Moreover, the Lebanese Government looks
forward to the valuable support of the United Nations,
and conveys the gratitude of the people of Lebanon.
Finally, we commend the precise follow-up provided
by the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund for the rebuilding of a solid national economy.
From this rostrum, we set forth Lebanon’s
struggle for freedom, justice and the rule of law. It has
been Lebanon’s fate to walk this path in a region of
festering, decades-long conflicts and disputes. As such,
it has ended up paying an exorbitant price in wars,
occupations and assassinations. But Lebanon has been
relentless in its devotion to what is good and right, and
has always been able to defeat the forces of sedition
and destruction.
Today, we owe our moment of triumph to our
perseverance and to the international community’s
commitment to Lebanon. We ask that you take our
hand, once again, as we cross the threshold from fear
and war to hope and peace.


At the
outset, I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on your
election to the important post of President of the
General Assembly at its sixtieth anniversary session
and to wish you every success in your responsible and
difficult task. May I also extend our thanks to your
predecessor, Mr. Jean Ping, for his successful
presidency of the previous session of the Assembly.
The summit that ended yesterday demonstrated
that the United Nations remains the universal
Organization capable of making an important
contribution to strengthening international peace and
security, achieving sustainable development and
finding adequate answers to new global challenges and
threats. In that regard, I hope that this sixtieth
anniversary session of the General Assembly will
become a major event in and give people some hope
for the future.
The rapid changes in today’s world have not
bypassed Kyrgyzstan. Our people, not indifferent to its
own destiny and future, in March of this year chose its
own path to development, progress and creativity.
Another page has been turned in Kyrgyzstan’s modern
history. We enter the twenty-first century full of
resolve to achieve our deepest aspirations and hopes
for peace, prosperity, progress and freedom. We are
confident that that the goals reflected in the
Millennium Declaration will be achieved in the Kyrgyz
Republic as elsewhere.
If it is to preserve the respect and to justify the
hopes of peoples, the United Nations must not lag
behind the swift and ever accelerating changes taking
place in the world today. It must not only adapt to
current realities, but also create more effective
machinery for addressing new challenges and risks.
Kyrgyzstan is convinced that United Nations
reform should fully reflect the will, fundamental rights
and interests of all States Members and peoples.
In recent years, the Security Council has been
repeatedly criticized for its failures in the maintenance
of international peace and security. It is therefore
extremely important that the Security Council find the
most effective way to meet its basic responsibility for
the maintenance of international peace and security.
Kyrgyzstan has consistently advocated expansion of
the membership of the Security Council and reform of
its working methods in order to make it more
representative, democratic and, above all, more
effective. We believe that the reform of the Security
Council should be based on the principles of
universality, efficiency and broad geographic
representation. The Council’s decisions must be as
timely as possible and their implementation
correspondingly expeditious and effective.
The Kyrgyz Republic shares the position that
United Nations reform will be successful only if
Security Council reform is followed by reform of the
General Assembly and the Economic and Social
Council. We support efforts to enhance the activities of
the General Assembly and to strengthen the
coordinating functions of the Economic and Social
Council. Effective coordination among the three
principal organs is extremely important in addressing
the complex problems facing the world today.
We all realize how great and complex are the
challenges facing the United Nations in the
maintenance of peace and security. Kyrgyzstan intends
to make its contribution to those tasks. For the first
time, it has offered its own candidature for non-
permanent membership of the Security Council for the
term 2012-2013. We understand the great responsibility
that membership of that crucial organ of the United
Nations entails. I would venture to assure the
19

Assembly that Kyrgyzstan will make every effort to
increase its cooperation with Member States in all
regions and to become a reliable partner in resolving
global political issues.
Today, the United Nations and its agencies are
more engaged with issues of development than with
those of security. While many United Nations agencies
deal every day with the problems of development,
there is only one permanent organ that deals with
security issues. In our opinion, given globalization and
the interrelationship of all issues relating to man-made
and natural disasters, along with international terrorism
and extremism, the United Nations capacity to
maintain global security must be considerably
strengthened. We believe that development
programmes should be endowed with preventive
powers to ensure security and safety.
The history of international relations in the
second half of the last century shows that it is virtually
impossible to preserve international peace and security
when certain basic conditions of life remain unmet.
Poverty and deprivation lead to tension, which in turns
leads to breaches of international peace and security. It
is no accident that it is precisely the poorest regions of
the world that suffer the most serious regional
conflicts. If it is to achieve its security and
development targets, the international community must
adopt a more balanced policy.
The world community must work actively to
overcome disparities and inequalities between the
countries of the North and the South. We feel that the
United Nations needs to establish interactive
machinery to resolve the issues that cause the poorest
countries to opt out of the process of global
development and decision-making. The countries of the
South should become full partners in decisions
involving global problems.
Kyrgyzstan remains committed to the Monterey
Consensus, whereby the developed countries will
increase their development assistance and poor
countries will adapt themselves to using that assistance
more effectively. At various high-level forums, we
have come to understood the concepts of sustainable
economic development and sustainable human
development. We fully support those concepts, with
substantive provisions reflected in our national strategy
and programmes.
Furthermore, the successful implementation of
the national development programmes of many
countries is directly linked to regional and international
cooperation. It is at the juncture where all of those
interests meet that the United Nations and its agencies
must further enhance their role and coordinate their
efforts.
We support the proposal for national development
strategies to be adopted by 2006 and implemented by
2015 as indicators for the implementation of the
development goals set out in the Millennium
Declaration. In our opinion, the United Nations should
mobilize new resources, strengthen coordination and
increase its contribution to the resolution of
development issues.
Donor countries must now move from paying lip-
service to their obligations to concrete action. In that
regard, the Kyrgyz Republic welcomes the decision of
the European Union to allocate 0.7 per cent of its gross
national income to official development assistance by
2009. Kyrgyzstan also advocates the identification of
an acceptable level of indebtedness and the adoption of
urgent and commensurate measures to ease the debt
burden of developing countries.
Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked, mountainous country.
Mountain States are characterized by remoteness,
difficult accessibility, the scarcity of information, harsh
geo-climatic conditions, and high costs of living. While
receiving financial aid from the developed countries,
Kyrgyzstan itself is a donor of environmental services
whose value increases yearly. So, for example, the
Kyrgyz Republic is one of the principal repositories of
glaciers and suppliers of fresh water in the region.
Moreover, in the context of the International
Convention on Biological Diversity, Kyrgyzstan also
operates a network of biosphere areas and releases
much less greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than
most other countries of the world, thus contributing to
the preservation of the planet’s ozone layer.
At the same time, unfortunately, in our territory,
our many stockpiles of radioactive waste are an
inheritance from the military-industrial complex of the
former Soviet period. Their maintenance and the
prevention of further potential ecological accidents for
the entire Central-Asian region are an excessive burden
for Kyrgyzstan. We believe that the international
community, with a coordinating role for the United
Nations, should more actively involve itself in those
20

areas of environmental risk and provide more financial
and technical assistance to avert global and regional
ecological disasters.
We also believe that the United Nations should be
more active in assisting poor and developing countries
regarding sustainable development by creating
machinery to shift the burden of external debt to
sustainable development. A significant amount of our
income goes to servicing our debt, hindering the socio-
economic development of mountainous areas.
In addition to disaster preparedness and
mitigation, Kyrgyzstan supports initiatives on the
creation of a worldwide early warning system for
natural disasters. As a mountain country, Kyrgyzstan
regularly faces serious and frequent natural disasters,
such as earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, and the
flooding of cities and settlements. In our harsh
experience, the consequences of such natural disasters
divert huge sums from economic and social
development and highlight the importance of
strengthening ecological security. As a first step,
Kyrgyzstan offers the use of its territory as a pilot area
for the prevention and mitigation of such natural
disasters.
I would also like to express our support for the
establishment of a committee of regional organizations
under United Nations auspices. Such a committee
would enable the exploitation of untapped potential of
the regional and subregional organizations in the
prevention and settlement of conflicts and other
important regional problems. Regional structures with
such potential that are now operating effectively should
play a mutually complementary role in facing new
threats and challenges. Kyrgyzstan supports the
participation in the work of the committee of such
organizations as the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, the Collective Security Treaty
Organization, the Euro-Asian Economic Union and the
Central Asian Cooperation Organization.
We also support measures to enhance the
effectiveness of peacekeeping operations and welcome
the Secretary-General’s proposal on United Nations
standby forces of peacekeepers and civilian police.
The Kyrgyz Republic is the only country in
Central Asia that participates in United Nations
peacekeeping operations. We have sent military
observers and staff officers to the United Nations
missions in Liberia, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Serbia and
Montenegro, and the Sudan. We are proud of our
contribution and are resolved to continue supporting
that noble endeavour.
Kyrgyzstan actively supports the efforts of the
international community to restore and strengthen
peace in Afghanistan and has opened its territory to the
forces of the counter-terrorism coalition and the
Collective Security Treaty Organization to provide
regional security measures.
We remain committed to the establishment of a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia. The text of
the agreement on such a zone has been agreed by five
countries of our region and we are pleased that the
Kyrgyz Republic is to be the depositary of the treaty.
We feel that this is evidence of the great respect and
trust in which our Republic is held with regard to the
initiative to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone. I am
firmly convinced that the establishment of such a zone
in our region will strengthen global security and
regional stability. We hope to obtain the corresponding
support of the world community.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the world
community is going through a difficult phase in the
establishment of a new system of international
relations. Clearly, it will be a long, drawn-out process.
The States Members of the United Nations should
affirm their readiness to find practical solutions to the
most essential problems of our time: combating
poverty, famine and disease and to work for sustainable
development. This session of the General Assembly
will be remembered as the session of reforms.


The delegation of
the Republic of Sierra Leone wishes to express its
profound appreciation for the significant contribution
of the President of the General Assembly at its fifty-
ninth session to the work of the Assembly and to
congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption of the
leadership of this body at its sixtieth session. You and
your predecessor will always have a special place in
the history of the United Nations as Presidents of the
General Assembly at the height of the Organization’s
reform process.
The United Nations was founded on the principle
of multilateral cooperation for the maintenance of
international peace and security. For 60 years, it has
been the focus of its Members — rich and poor, big
and small — for carrying out that critical
responsibility. Today, for many of its Members, the
Organization is the great hope, not only for the
achievement of peace and security, but also for the
attainment of every objective of human aspiration,
particularly development, human rights, freedom and
democracy.
The United Nations was designed to serve the
world of the aftermath of the Second World War — a
world different in many ways from today’s world. That
is why my delegation has welcomed with total
commitment reforms in the United Nations system to
reflect the realities of today’s world, and we will
continue to participate fully in the reform process.
We welcome the outcome document (resolution
60/1) of last week’s summit and applaud the
negotiations that led to its adoption by consensus. The
success of those negotiations indicate that, in spite of
our differences and individual sovereign interests,
Member States recognize that we have more things in
common than things that divide us and that, for a better
world, common interests must enjoy precedence over
individual interests.
The rhetoric that has accompanied the outcome
document has been impressive and reassuring,
especially for developing countries and countries in
conflict or emerging from conflict. If those soothing
statements are matched by action, this year’s United
Nations summit and General Assembly session will
have a landmark effect on the Organization and on the
world. We are optimistic that it will.
This is the last Assembly session before the
completion of the withdrawal of the United Nations
Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at the end of
December. UNAMSIL has achieved successes that are
unique in the history of United Nations peacekeeping
efforts. Sierra Leoneans will forever remember the
positive difference that the Mission made in their
2

country’s crisis and in their lives. For that, we can
never sufficiently thank the United Nations and the
entire international community for coming to our
rescue and for standing by us when we could not stand
alone. In particular, we are profoundly grateful to
countries that contributed troops to UNAMSIL and
countries that financially supported the Mission.
With a tremendous feeling of relief, we welcome
the proposal to constitute an integrated United Nations
office to succeed UNAMSIL, with the objective of
supporting Sierra Leone in continuing to address
critical areas of concern, including the causes of the
conflict, consolidating the peace, human rights,
development, legal, judicial and governance reforms,
the rule of law and security. That measure has allayed
the fears of Sierra Leoneans that UNAMSIL’s
departure would create a security vacuum and would
mark the end of programmes associated with the
Mission. We eagerly look forward to yet another
success in the United Nations peacekeeping experiment
in Sierra Leone.
Today, the Organization is preparing to transform
its peacekeeping functions in Sierra Leone to meet
some of the post-conflict needs of the country. That is
a landmark decision that could serve as a model for
effective coordination of strategies and programmes
among the United Nations, its agencies and
programmes, and organizations and development
partners in countries emerging from conflict.
We note with interest that the architecture and
plans for the operation of the new integrated office
were based on close and extensive cooperation among
relevant parties of the United Nations Secretariat and
various United Nations agencies and organizations that
constituted the country team. Sierra Leone hopes that
that process of consultation and cooperation will
continue. We urge the United Nations Mission to work
closely with existing national institutions and with
other initiatives that we have set up over the past five
years to tackle post-conflict problems. We have no
doubt that the new office will provide a “guinea pig”
for the work of the proposed United Nations
Peacebuilding Commission, to which we will spare no
effort to lend support.
As members are aware, it is not enough to
establish these short-term yet essential post-conflict
bridges; what we desperately need is the mobilization
of resources, including those required for capacity-
building for sustainable economic and social
development. The objective is not merely to ensure that
Sierra Leone and other countries emerging from
conflict do not slide back into conflict; rather, the
ultimate objective must be to ensure that Sierra
Leoneans do not remain in abject poverty.
The creation of the Peacebuilding Commission
will be in consonance with the views expressed by my
country’s President five years ago when, from this
rostrum at the Millennium Summit, he spoke about the
imperative of adaptation by the United Nations. He
pleaded with the Organization to continue to adapt and
equip itself to deal with the perennial problems and
new manifestations of human insecurity and
underdevelopment. He also spoke about some of the
ways in which Sierra Leone had tested the capacity of
the United Nations to adapt itself to respond to local
and global challenges.
The three main elements — development, peace
and security and human rights — highlighted in the
Secretary-General’s report entitled “In larger freedom”
(A/59/2005) and in the outcome document (resolution
60/1) of last week’s High-level Plenary Meeting are all
interrelated. However, as the document states,
development is a central goal by itself. That is why no
one should be surprised at the importance that Sierra
Leone — a poor country emerging from a devastating
conflict — attaches to the development cluster of the
outcome document, including the section on ways in
which to meet the special needs of Africa.
The people of Sierra Leone continue to attach
importance to the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) and to the commitments our heads of State or
Government made in the Assembly five years ago. The
principal purpose of the just-concluded High-level
Plenary Meeting was to renew our determination to
fulfil those commitments.
The General Assembly would be interested to
know that the food security objective of ensuring by
the year 2007 that no Sierra Leonean goes to bed
hungry is consistent with, and directly linked to, the
MDGs; so are the objectives embodied in our Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper. We are determined to
continue to work with our development partners to
achieve those objectives.
For the overwhelming majority of us, “freedom
from want” means the collective national and
international responsibility to eradicate extreme
3

poverty, the collective responsibility to ensure that
people in all regions of the world enjoy, first and
foremost, their human right to food, basic health care,
education, clean water and other amenities that sustain
life. As we see it, “freedom from fear” means the
collective responsibility of all States to remove and
eliminate threats to the safety and security of people
everywhere, such as the illicit traffic and use of small
arms and the accumulation of nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction. “Freedom from want”
and “freedom from fear” also imply the responsibility
to accept without reservation the relationship between
disarmament and development.
Furthermore, “freedom to live in dignity” implies
the collective responsibility of all States to ensure that
their peoples are treated with dignity. This includes the
protection of all the economic, social, cultural, political
and civil rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. In our view, that responsibility
implies cooperation and assistance where necessary to
enhance the capacity for prevention and protection. In
this connection, Sierra Leone is grateful for the
assistance it continues to receive from the United
Nations in the field of human rights.
Sierra Leone has continued to make giant strides
in all areas of human endeavour since the end of armed
conflict in 2002. Since then, presidential,
parliamentary and local elections — the latter ushering
in a revival of local government that had been dormant
for nearly 30 years — have been held in conformity
with democratic principles and practice. We are now
preparing for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary
elections to consolidate further our gains in the
democratic process.
Sierra Leone believes that children are the best
investment to ensure a bright future for our country.
Consequently, we hold the view that development and
respect for human rights start with them and that the
Millennium Development Goals are a critical tool for
achieving those goals. That is why we have increased
the space devoted to education, as indicated by
enrolment figures that have jumped from 659,503 in
the 2001-2002 academic year to 1,158,399 in 2003-
2004 — this in a country whose total population is
5 million.
We believe that the sound administration of
justice, in particular strict adherence to the rule of law
and human rights, is indispensable to attaining durable
peace and political stability. Accordingly, the
Government has re-established civil authority
throughout Sierra Leone through the reopening and
strengthening of judicial and law enforcement
institutions, and we are in the process of establishing a
national human rights commission.
Two transitional institutions, the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, which has just published
its report, and the Special Court, have contributed
immensely to the peace process. It is the Government’s
intention to implement the Commission’s
recommendations, to which we attach great importance
as a crucial instrument of durable peace.
Let me take this opportunity to appeal to the
United Nations, the international community and our
friends to support the Special Court to enable it to
accomplish its mandate.
There is no doubt that the United Nations and the
international community have made important strides
in addressing impunity. However, it is our belief that
the international community should do more than
support the international tribunals, truth and
reconciliation commissions and other mechanisms of a
transitional justice system. It is our fervent hope that
the process of peace and reconciliation in Sierra Leone
will not end with the report of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission or the end of the work of
the Special Court. Reconciliation would be incomplete
without addressing the special needs of the victims of
the heinous crimes that were perpetrated on civilians
during the armed conflict.
I solemnly appeal to the international community
to assist us in supporting victims of war crimes and
crimes against humanity. Within its limited resources,
the Government has made every effort to address the
special needs of the victims of the heinous crimes
committed during the 11-year rebel armed conflict. But
we need international support for these victims
through, for instance, the Special Fund for War Victims
envisaged under the 1999 Lomé Peace Agreement and
the National Commission for War-Affected Children.
This address would be incomplete without
reference to the security situation in the West African
subregion. While Sierra Leone is enjoying relative
peace and stability and the capacity of its security
forces continues to be enhanced by the International
Military Advisory and Training Team, there is still an
air of uncertainty in the neighbourhood and the
4

subregion. Because of the porosity of the borders and
the historically fluid nature of the conflict in the
subregion, we will feel safe and secure only in a
conflict-free region.
In the light of this, I would like to appeal to the
United Nations, the international community and our
friends to continue to support measures to resolve the
conflicts that have plagued the subregion for so long
and diverted scarce resources and energy from
development. But let me remind members about the
imperative of recognizing the fact that the achievement
of lasting peace requires wholesome measure for the
entire subregion. In particular, we recommend a
subregional approach by the United Nations, the
African Union, the European Union, the Economic
Community of West African States and other interested
parties to post-conflict activities, including
disarmament, demobilization and reintegration,
security-sector reform and post-conflict peacebuilding.
Finally, at the time of the debate of the sixtieth
session of the General Assembly, we should be
reminded that the United Nations is and should remain
at the centre of efforts to harmonize activities to attain
its common objectives. This Organization belongs to us
all and operates in the larger interest of all its
members. Let this sixtieth anniversary be a time for
recommitment to the principles and purposes of the
Charter, a time for renewed determination to build on
the successes of this great Organization.


I wish first of all to
congratulate Mr. Jan Eliasson on his election as
President of the General Assembly at its sixtieth
session. We are convinced that, given his extensive
experience in international relations, this session will
have a fruitful outcome. My delegation pledges its
support and full cooperation in his endeavours for the
success of this historic session. I should like also to
convey to the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, deep
appreciation for his efforts in promoting the noble
ideals and causes of our Organization.
The strength of our Organization lies in its
universality and legitimacy, anchored in the Charter of
the United Nations and in the fundamental principles
of international law. Among these cardinal principles
are respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and
8

equality of States, non-interference in their internal
affairs and the non-use or threat of use of force.
International issues today are of such a scale and
complexity that they can be resolved only through
multilateralism and by collective action founded on the
values of solidarity and universality, as embodied in
the United Nations. Only by working together can we
hope to discharge our responsibilities. We must at the
same time ensure the Organization’s credibility by
adapting it to the global realities of the twenty-first
century.
The High-level Plenary Meeting provided a
useful impetus towards meeting the goals and
challenges of the twenty-first century. The outcome
document of the 2005 world summit included measures
to strengthen the United Nations. My delegation wishes
to underscore the need to preserve and promote the
centrality of the General Assembly as the highest
deliberative and decision-making organ of the United
Nations. Myanmar also agrees that the Security
Council should be reformed to reflect world realities so
as to be more effective. Since the Council has primary
responsibility for world peace and security, the process
of its expansion should be managed with the utmost
seriousness. Any decision in that respect should be
arrived on the basis of the broadest possible agreement
of the membership.
In the context of the reform process, we must
avoid the introduction of new concepts that have no
basis either in the Charter or in international law.
Acceptance of such concepts would go against the
principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-
interference, which form the very basis of the system
of international relations.
I am happy to see that the outcome document
contains elements that we hold dear. The document
underscores in particular the obligation of all Member
States to refrain from the threat or use of force in any
manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United
Nations. Charter provisions provide the necessary
principles for the use of force as a last resort. We have
always strongly held the view that Article 51 of the
Charter, which deals with the right of individual or
collective self-defence, should not be rewritten or
reinterpreted.
We believe, however, that there some areas
remain that should be further revisited in order to
address our concerns.
Regarding the establishment of the Peacebuilding
Commission as an intergovernmental advisory body,
we feel strongly that there must be adequate
representation by developing countries in the
Organizational Committee. Developing countries have
a strong case, since they are major contributors of
military personnel and civilian police to United
Nations missions.
In strengthening human rights mechanisms, we
must address the root causes of problems, namely, the
use of selectivity, double standards and politicization.
It must be borne in mind that the Charter places human
rights in the context of international cooperation.
During this session, we will be considering the
mandate, modalities, function, size, composition,
membership, working methods and procedures of the
envisaged Human Rights Council. Given the
importance that we all place on human rights,
developing countries must play an active role in the
negotiation process. We would like to see the initiation
of open, transparent and inclusive negotiations at an
early date.
The threats we face today do not respect national
boundaries; they are interconnected and complex.
Terrorism, illicit drug trafficking, transnational
organized crime, weapons of mass destruction, poverty
and hunger, and the alarming spread of highly
infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria are some of the threats we can ignore only
at our peril. Efforts and strategies to tackle
transnational issues need to be coordinated at all levels
and carried out with the necessary respect for the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.
My country is a State party to the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and
its supplementary Protocols to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and
Children, and against the Smuggling of Migrants by
Land, Sea and Air. It has enacted legislation to control
money laundering and to render mutual legal assistance
to combat transnational crime. It is a State party to
almost all of the United Nations conventions on
terrorism. It has also actively participated in regional
and international efforts against international crime.
Myanmar is against all forms and manifestations
of terrorism. Myanmar is of the view that terrorism
should be combated in accordance with international
law and obligations. The issue should not be used as a
9

pretext for intervention in the internal affairs of other
States.
Sixty years after the Second World War, the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
particularly of nuclear weapons, remains a formidable
challenge. Nuclear proliferation is on the increase, and
there is also considerable concern that non-State actors
could gain access to such materials and technologies.
All States must take action in a multilateral framework
to make substantive progress towards disarmament,
including nuclear disarmament, and nuclear-weapon
States should reaffirm their commitment to negative
security assurances vis-à-vis non-nuclear States. The
outcome document, however, failed to address the
important issue of disarmament and non-proliferation.
This is an issue of great importance, and we should
make every effort to ensure that this vital issue is not
sidelined in international forums.
At the twentieth special session of the General
Assembly, on narcotic drugs, it was emphasized that no
single State can combat the scourge of narcotic drugs
on its own. In my country, the problem of narcotic
drugs is a bitter colonial legacy. We have therefore
made the elimination of narcotic drugs a national
responsibility and have formulated strategies and
tactics to end the problem of opium poppy cultivation
through a 15-year comprehensive plan and the
supplementary New Destiny Project. These efforts
have resulted in a drastic reduction in opium poppy
production. As a result, the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported a 73 per cent
decline between 1996 and 2004. Myanmar’s efforts to
eradicate poppy cultivation, opium and heroin
production and drug trafficking and abuse complement
the objectives set forth by the United Nations.
Myanmar is also taking urgent measures with its
neighbouring countries to exercise control over
illegally trafficked precursor chemicals used in the
production of synthetic drugs. We have developed
bilateral, trilateral and multilateral cooperation in the
subregional, regional and international contexts.
World leaders pledged in the Millennium
Declaration that the world of 2015 would be better than
the one in which we live today. They made a solemn
commitment to implement the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). To achieve the MDGs,
both the developed and the developing countries must
act in a cooperative manner. The developed countries,
in particular, must fulfil their commitments and meet
the internationally agreed official development
assistance target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national
product. Debt relief must also be provided to
developing countries, including grant-based financing
and 100 per cent debt cancellation.
In Myanmar, we are making satisfactory progress
towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals
by 2015. In our drive to eradicate poverty we have
achieved significant results through the designation of
24 special development zones in the states and
divisions of the country, in order to achieve equitable
and balanced development throughout the country.
Myanmar is endeavouring to achieve development
mainly relying on its own resources without assistance,
particularly from international financial institutions.
With external financial assistance, however, our
development efforts can be accelerated.
Myanmar is a multi-ethnic nation comprising
over 100 races. Immediately after independence, the
country had to face the scourge of insurgency. This has
posed a serious impediment to our national
development endeavours. Based on the bitter lessons of
the past, we have today embarked on a programme to
make law, order and national stability prevail. As we
are able to build peace and stability, we have been able
to focus our attention on economic development,
giving priority to human resource development. While
endeavouring to achieve comprehensive development
of the country, we are at the same time implementing a
seven-step political programme for a smooth transition
to a democratic State.
In this regard, understanding and support from
the international community would enable us to
achieve our cherished goal more expeditiously.
Unwarranted pressures will, however, delay our
progress. We, for our part, are resolute in our
determination to achieve our goal of establishing a
modern democratic State.
Myanmar is poised on the threshold of a new era.
We are at a point when all our attention must be
devoted to crossing the threshold and entering a new
era.


It is my firm opinion that
we achieved important results at our summit. We
created a peacebuilding commission and agreed to
establish a human rights council. We have good
language on development, including unanimous
agreement on the Millennium Development Goals, and
we agreed on the responsibility to protect. We made
progress towards consensus on the fight against
terrorism and agreed on some essential management
and reform issues.
Some have expressed disappointment about the
results of the summit and, indeed, not all of our
ambitions were achieved. Does that imply that it is
wrong to be ambitious? Of course not. In a world
society of 191 Member States, we must accept that the
end result of negotiations will always reflect a
compromise between different ambitions, and that we
have to be tolerant of each other’s diverse views and
interests.
As regards my own country’s expectations, it is a
matter of concern that we did not agree on any
measures to counter the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction — one of the greatest threats to
humankind. We had also hoped for more specific
agreement on the modalities for the human rights
council and would have preferred clear parameters for
the use of force, as well as solid language on the
International Criminal Court. And the Netherlands
would have liked to give the Secretary-General more
scope to carry out his management responsibilities.
But all in all, we have made clear progress. So let
us now agree to remain ambitious, to move forward
with implementing the programme we have agreed, and
to allow the United Nations to deliver on our promises.
I look forward to the outline of work the President of
this Assembly has announced, and I fully support the
accountability pact with which the Secretary-General
has challenged us.
We have also achieved something else, something
less apparent but equally important. We have
reaffirmed our political and moral support for a
fundamental underlying principle, namely, that we
need to build bridges through dialogue and cooperation
and that we have to promote respect and tolerance. And
we all share the conviction that, in promoting respect
and tolerance across the globe, the United Nations has
a central role to play.
According to a well-known saying, there is only
one thing we cannot tolerate, and that is intolerance.
Indeed, the struggle to protect tolerance from
intolerance is one of the great challenges of our time.
It is in the interest of all States to take up the
fight against radical ideologies that turn people into
terrorists. Terrorism, as we all know, is a cross-border
threat. People of all persuasions and beliefs are its
innocent victims. And so we must respond collectively,
both to terrorism and to the radical ideologies that feed
and breed it. Rwanda and the wars in the former
Yugoslavia are sharp reminders of how the political use
of intolerant and racist rhetoric can even lead to
genocide or ethnic cleansing.
Still, I do not believe there is or will be a clash of
civilizations. But there is a clash between the tolerant
and the intolerant within and across our societies,
within and across our civilizations.
That is why it is now so important to take on the
radical ideologies that foster violent extremism.
Security Council resolution 1624 (2005), calling on all
States to prohibit, by law, incitement to commit a
terrorist act or acts, sends an important message to the
hate-mongers.
To fight an effective battle against violent
extremism and terrorism, we must strike a careful
balance between judicial and police measures, on the
one hand, and meaningful dialogue on the other. Let us
learn from each other in that respect. I believe that peer
review in the human rights council could, in future,
help us all to maintain that careful balance.
Let us invest in a global culture of tolerance and
mutual respect. We must not look at cultural, religious
and ideological differences as unbridgeable divides
separating adversaries. Instead, we should join forces
for a global society in which the quest for greater unity
goes hand in hand with respect for diversity.
22

The best way for societies to protect tolerance is
for them to treasure their identity and, at the same
time, dare to reassess the validity of their prevailing
norms and standards. Recent events in the Netherlands,
for example, have confronted our society with the
question of how to protect our centuries-old tradition
of tolerance from those who would abuse it to sow
hatred and division. That process of reflection is an
ongoing one, but part of the answer is to constantly
remind ourselves that it is wrong to hold an entire
community accountable for the deeds of individuals.
Let us all vow to protect tolerance from
intolerance. Let us invest in mutual respect and try to
change the mindset of those who propagate intolerance
and violent extremism. That will require permanent
dialogue, with a central role for the United Nations, the
only truly global platform we possess.
Serious dialogue can also help to clear up
misunderstandings. One of the most striking
misunderstandings concerns the nature of secularism,
by which I mean the separation of State and religious
institutions. That separation protects the freedom of all
citizens of all religious backgrounds, as well as of
people who do not practice any religion. In the
Netherlands, as elsewhere, politicians and political
parties may be inspired by religion, as long as the
institutions remain separate.
That is precisely why, in my country and across
the European continent, there is a place for Islam, just
as there is a place for other religions. There is a place
for any form of Islam that allows believers to be both
Muslims and citizens of a democratic society.
Citizenship means more than just holding a
passport. True citizenship calls for an active
contribution to the society of which one is a part. It
also calls for a society that is open to the many and
varied contributions of all its citizens. Radical
ideologies that push people to isolate themselves from
the rest of society and to reject or even attack the spirit
of democracy will run up against our determined
refusal to give even one inch, in my country and, I
hope, everywhere. For intolerance is a global, cross-
border phenomenon, which is why we so urgently need
the United Nations at our side.
United Nations reform will mean making good on
our promises. It will require determined
implementation of the plans and proposals we have
agreed on. If we are serious about our effort to build a
more humane, dignified and just world, United Nations
reform must also strengthen the protection of tolerance
from intolerance.
In our fast-changing world, people long for safety
and certainty, and that is understandable. But leaders
all over the world have a duty to explain that narrow
worldviews, with no place for differences, can offer no
genuine protection. Without respect for diversity, there
can be no unity.
If we want to protect tolerance from intolerance,
we should look critically at what we teach our children.
How can we expect them to become tolerant adults if
they learn in school to despise people of other faiths
and ethnicities? It is not enough for Governments to do
polite business with other Governments; they should,
at the same time, not allow hotbeds of intolerance to
exist in their societies.
There is an old saying that we reap what we sow.
If we wish to reap a harvest of tolerance and mutual
respect, and foster a sense of common purpose, then
we must set to work now. Let us begin sowing the
seeds of tolerance and mutual respect here at the
United Nations, the world’s main crossroads of
civilizations.


Australia is a founding
Member of the United Nations, and we have long
supported this Organization’s important role in world
affairs. The United Nations has many achievements to
celebrate in its sixtieth year. Equally, the sixtieth
anniversary places the shortcomings and indeed the
failings of the United Nations under a microscope for
all to see.
In approaching this occasion, the United Nations
and its Members have been presented with a challenge:
to find practical and workable ways to bring greater
security and prosperity to the people of the world
through a reformed United Nations system. This has
not been easy. The reform agenda is simultaneously
vast and urgent, with agreement on approaches
difficult — at times impossible — to achieve, as the
recent summit process made clear.
Australia welcomes the summit’s progress in
some important areas, particularly the agreement to
establish a Peacebuilding Commission to assist fragile
States, a field of endeavour where Australia has long
been active in its own region, as I have outlined in
previous addresses to the General Assembly. We also
welcome the fact that States have agreed for the first
time that the international community, through the
United Nations, has the responsibility to act to protect
populations from gross and systematic violations of
human rights.
We also welcome the call for early conclusion of
a comprehensive terrorism convention and early entry
into force of the International Convention for the
Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.
We are pleased that, on development, the Summit
Outcome (resolution 60/1) recognizes what already
underpins Australia’s approach to development
assistance: that good governance, sound economic
policies, anti-corruption measures and trade
liberalization are critical elements in fighting poverty
and promoting economies and stable communities.
Australia has a proud record of assistance in these
areas, further underscored by our announcement last
week of an increase in Australia’s overseas aid
allocation to about 4 billion Australian dollars by
2010 — a doubling of aid from 2004 levels — as well
as generous contributions of 10 million Australian
dollars to the Democracy Fund and 3 million to the
Peacebuilding Fund over three years.
As a nation that strongly supports an ambitious
outcome of the Doha round of multilateral trade
negotiations and recognizes the crucial importance of
this to developing countries, Australia also welcomes
the pledge and challenge put forward by President
Bush a week ago (see A/60/PV.2): that the United
States is ready to eliminate all tariffs, subsidies and
other barriers if other nations do the same.
But alongside these welcome outcomes, many
questions and, in some cases, vast disappointments
remain. On arms control and non-proliferation, we
have absolutely nothing to show — an extraordinarily
poor outcome given a contemporary global security
environment in which proliferation threats are so
clearly evident.
The outdated ideology that too many delegations
brought to negotiations was a damningly deep
reflection on the intergovernmental process at the
United Nations. We did not grasp the opportunity
provided by the largest-ever gathering of world leaders
to produce a political declaration defining acts of
terrorism.
How can some nations continue to assert that the
deliberate maiming and targeting of civilians is
sometimes justified?
How is it — after atrocities in Sharm el-Sheikh,
Istanbul, Jakarta, Riyadh and on a daily basis in Iraq —
that some continue to employ double standards,
deceiving themselves into believing that such terrorists
could ever be considered to be “freedom fighters”?
This is not an argument about the merits of a
particular cause. It is about the moral imperative to
outlaw behaviour that offends civilization.
We were disappointed that the summit missed the
opportunity to make progress on Security Council
reform to ensure that the Council’s membership and
5

functioning match the priorities and the realities of this
century.
While the summit resolved to create a Human
Rights Council, the outcome document is
disappointingly short on detail. A new Human Rights
Council must overcome the credibility deficit that
plagues current human rights machinery and that sees
some of the most egregious human rights abusers
elevated to positions of leadership.
Australia will participate constructively in
negotiations on the shape of this new Council. We will
also more than double — to $650,000 — our
contribution to the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights.
Finally, the management reforms agreed at the
summit are a step in the right direction, but they are
just that — one step.
The Secretary-General needs more authority and
flexibility to manage the United Nations. And — as
recent inquiries have highlighted in sobering detail —
the United Nations accountability, audit and oversight
systems must be massively strengthened. It will not be
easy, but we must address anew our failures.
The summit heralded an historic shift in our
thinking on humanitarian intervention, showing a
willingness to embrace a new mindset, one which
addresses our responsibility to watch out for each other
in times of need — our collective “responsibility to
protect”. Too often the world has stood by watching
humanitarian disasters unfold before international
machinery has creaked into action.
In Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo, action
taken was too little, too late. Today, the situation in
Darfur epitomizes those shortcomings.
As the Summit Outcome makes clear, all States
have a responsibility to protect their own population
from egregious crimes such as genocide and crimes
against humanity. Where a population is suffering
serious harm, and the relevant State is unwilling or
unable to stop this, the principle of non-intervention
should yield to the collective responsibility to protect.
The Security Council must now rely on this new
consensus to respond more effectively to humanitarian
crises.
We have a responsibility to react faster to
situations of compelling human need, and we must do
more to help countries rebuild, recover and reconcile
after conflicts or disasters.
In the last year we have seen the people of
Afghanistan and Iraq exercise restored democratic
rights. The international community must continue
support for their transformations, help them to leave
behind the experience of brutal dictators and narrow
regimes, and ensure that progress and democracy take
root.
Ceding any ground in Iraq or Afghanistan to the
tyranny of terrorism and the violent suffering it brings
would be a backward step in our global campaign, a
campaign we continue to fight but have not yet won, as
the July terrorist attacks in London and the ongoing
terrorist menace in South-East Asia and elsewhere
make clear. There remains an urgent need for nations to
come together to confront terrorists in the battle of
ideas, contest extremist ideologies, and build greater
and more productive dialogue between faiths and
civilizations.
Australia is doing its utmost in our region to
tackle terrorism and the ideology that feeds it. United
Nations machinery must also play a part. Many
Member States still need assistance to implement
United Nations counter-terrorism standards and build
their counter-terrorism capabilities — the kind of
outcomes Australia is already pursuing in cooperation
with its regional partners. Leaders made some progress
in this direction last week but did not adopt the
Secretary-General’s counter-terrorism strategy.
Australia welcomed the General Assembly’s
adoption of the International Convention for the
Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism in April this
year. Our Prime Minister, John Howard, signed that
Convention for Australia at the summit. It is now
imperative that we redouble our efforts to conclude a
comprehensive convention against terrorism during
this session of the General Assembly. Closing the gaps
in the counter-terrorism legal framework is an essential
complement to our concerted efforts to prevent future
attacks and to prosecute those who commit terrorist
acts. Effective international efforts to criminalize such
acts are a vital step forward.
The world today is confronted by a menace not
envisaged at the time the Geneva Conventions were
drafted — terrorist organizations and their foot
soldiers, like those captured in Afghanistan, who bear
arms on a battlefield but pay no heed to the laws of
6

war, fight for no regular army, wear no uniform and
bear no recognizable insignia. Just as international law
evolved to deal with a scourge of another age —
piracy — so today a comprehensive convention against
terrorism is needed to help deal with these perpetrators
of terrorist acts.
The summit was a lost opportunity on
disarmament and non-proliferation. Multilateral non-
proliferation regimes are being tested now by a small
minority of Governments that flout the norms and
standards observed by the rest of the international
community and which in doing so imperil the security
of us all.
A dangerous new dimension to this global
challenge is the known ambition of terrorists to acquire
weapons of mass destruction. It is therefore imperative
that we take practical action against proliferation as it
occurs, through innovative measures such as the
Proliferation Security Initiative that complement and
reinforce multilateral regimes.
Earlier this year I saw firsthand the Review
Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons be thwarted by
a few countries determined to prevent consensus.
Australia — together with the overwhelming
majority of States — remains unwavering in its support
for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and we will continue
to take a leading role in universalizing the Additional
Protocol on strengthening nuclear safeguards, making
it a precondition for the supply of uranium to non-
nuclear-weapon States.
It is not acceptable, in the current global climate,
that we have not started negotiations on a fissile
material cut-off treaty, a treaty which would reduce the
risk of leakage of fissile material to proliferators or
terrorists and would buttress nuclear disarmament
gains made to date.
I am pleased to be chairing the Comprehensive
Test-Ban Treaty Article XIV Conference this
afternoon, looking for ways to accelerate that Treaty’s
entry into force.
A firmer and more active Security Council role
on the issue of weapons of mass destruction is also
sorely needed.
Australia is a committed and long-term supporter
of the United Nations and of the vital role that it can
play in promoting international peace and security. We
have a proud record of contributing to United Nations
activities, funding and debates, extending back to its
formation in 1945.
But we are not an uncritical supporter. The need
to reform the United Nations has been a consistent
theme since I first addressed the General Assembly at
its fifty-first session in 1996. Such a need is all the
more compelling today.
The reality is that there continue to be States
failing or in precipitous decline for no reasons other
than poor leadership and poor governance — with
disastrous results for human lives. What does it say
when the international community proves to be
unwilling to act when misrule has caused life
expectancy to plunge in what was one of Africa’s most
promising countries — from around 63 years in the
early 1990s, to just under 34 years in 2004? Would
today’s United Nations be able to prevent another
Rwanda?
We and the publics of the world expect much of
the United Nations, and rightly so. The stakes are too
high in this complex and challenging security
environment to accept anything less. We all have a part
to play. There was some welcome progress at the
summit; but where we have fallen short we must
acknowledge it and be ambitious in pursuing more
meaningful reform. Large challenges loom before us.
We should approach them with a degree of realism.
Australia does not believe that the United Nations is
the answer to all the problems of the world. But the
Organization does have a role to play. When we call on
the United Nations, it must be able to fulfil that role
effectively and expeditiously. The publics of the world
expect nothing less.


My delegation associates
itself with the compliments extended to you, Sir, on
your election to the presidency of this session and to
your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Jean Ping of
Gabon.
The United Nations was born 60 years ago when
the brutality of war impressed itself on all as far
12

beyond human comprehension and tolerance. The
Organization became a source of hope, founded as it
was on the inalienable, interlinked and mutually
interdependent pillars of development, human rights
and security.
Member States of this Organization have
increasingly yearned for its reform in order to make it
more democratic and responsive to the needs of all
nations, rich and poor, big and small, strong and weak.
We should recall that the last reform of the United
Nations was in 1963, a good four decades ago. Against
this background, my delegation pays tribute to the
Secretary-General for his report entitled “In larger
freedom: towards development, security and human
rights for all” (A/59/2005). That report formed the
basis for discussions by Member States as they
prepared for the five-year review of the Millennium
Declaration and for this sixtieth session of the General
Assembly. It raises critical issues regarding the reform
of this world body to enable it to meet the challenges
and threats of the twenty-first century — a daunting
task indeed.
However, we have noted with regret that some
Member States have relegated to the back burner
critical issues of development, giving priority instead
to security issues, particularly the reform of the
Security Council. As a result of this trend, we foresee
an emerging, untenable and, indeed, unwarranted
situation with the potential to divide regions and/or
continents and to adversely affect cordial relations
between States.
In order to move in unison, the international
community should strive to advance the global
development, human rights and security agendas
simultaneously. All agree that the HIV and AIDS
pandemic has emerged as a major threat to
development, reversing, as it does, all the gains that
have been made so far. We all also agree that the
ravages of extreme poverty continue to haunt us.
Needless to say, extreme poverty constitutes a violation
of human dignity. Armed conflicts also hamper
development. Africa presents a classical example of
how those menaces compromise not only peace and
security, but also development, thus militating against
respect for human rights.
Indeed, it is no coincidence that development has
been one of the key objectives of most, if not all, major
United Nations conferences and summits in the
economic, social and related fields. Hence, my
delegation welcomes the efforts of those donor
countries that have achieved the 0.7 per cent target of
gross national income as official development
assistance (ODA), with 0.2 per cent of gross national
income for the least developed countries. We also
welcome initiatives by some countries to set up
timetables for fulfilling their ODA targets. However,
we reiterate our appeal that developed countries abide
by their commitments to help developing countries in
all the relevant areas. They have to accelerate and
increase the flows of ODA and foreign direct
investment. They also have to adopt appropriate
measures to fully integrate small and vulnerable
economies into the multilateral trading system, cancel
debt, transfer technology, render financial and
technical assistance and provide capacity-building
programmes for developing countries.
On this auspicious occasion, my delegation
expresses sincere appreciation for all initiatives
recently taken to address the needs of developing
countries, especially the debt cancellation extended by
the G-8 countries to highly indebted poor countries.
However, we appeal for debt cancellation for all least
developed countries in order to enable them to redirect
their meagre resources to national development
programmes. It is an irrefutable fact that a substantial
percentage of the national budgets of least developed
countries that do not fall within the Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries Debt (HIPC) Initiative category is
consumed by servicing their debts.
Lesotho supports the launching of a series of
“quick wins”, as recommended by the Secretary-
General in his report, as this would go a long way
towards broadening commitment to the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) and promoting economic
growth in many developing countries. In our view, the
criteria for the selection of countries for the
implementation of the “quick wins” should be fair and
transparent.
Terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction to non-State actors, the existence of nuclear
weapons, and armed conflict top the list of global
security issues. There is, therefore, an urgent need to
conclude a comprehensive convention on terrorism.
My delegation hopes that the General Assembly will
soon initiate negotiations on an international
instrument to prevent the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction to non-State actors. We regret the fact
13

that the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT) was not able to reach consensus. However, we
wish to emphasize the need for all States parties to
adhere to the three pillars of the Treaty — namely,
disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of
nuclear energy. We also wish to encourage the nuclear-
weapon States that have not yet ratified or acceded to
the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty to become parties to those important treaties.
The notorious use of small arms and light
weapons in armed conflicts is well documented.
Lesotho therefore regrets the inability on the part of the
Open-ended Working Group on small arms to adopt a
legally binding document. We also attach great
importance to the issue of prevention of internal armed
conflicts by the international community. While we
support the moral obligation behind the proposed new
concept of the “responsibility to protect”, we suggest
that the issue should be subjected to further
consideration by Member States, guided by the
fundamental principles enshrined in the United Nations
Charter. Needless to say, the sanctity of Article 51 of
the Charter should be preserved.
The Kingdom of Lesotho considers it the
responsibility of the international community, with the
United Nations playing the central role, to put in place
effective measures aimed at preventing genocide,
ethnic cleansing and the atrocities perpetrated on
women and children caught up in armed conflict.
Consequently, my delegation considers the enhanced
role of the major organs of the United Nations,
particularly the General Assembly, to be of paramount
importance. One of the major constraints of the United
Nations is that it lacks a mechanism designed to avoid
State collapse and the slide into war, or to assist
countries in their transition from war to peace. It is
within this context that Lesotho supports the proposed
establishment of a Peacebuilding Commission.
In the area of human rights, we support the
elevation of the Commission on Human Rights to a
Human Rights Council, a body that would be apolitical
and insist on the protection both of civil and political
rights and of economic, social and cultural rights. For
my delegation, the flaws of the Commission lay mostly
in its focus and not necessarily in its size.
It is in this twenty-first century that peace,
security, the right to self-determination, respect for all
human rights and fundamental freedoms must be
guaranteed as the norm rather than the exception.
Hence, our call for the right to self-determination of
the Palestinian people and complete withdrawal from
their occupied territories, the independence of the
Saharawi people, the lifting of the unilateral economic
embargo against the people of Cuba and the end to
armed conflicts, particularly in Africa. These matters
must be addressed and resolved urgently,
comprehensively and honestly, without fear or favour,
and without malice to anybody.


We congratulate the
President of the General Assembly on the assumption
of his office. His extensive experience in multilateral
affairs will undoubtedly be an invaluable asset in our
work.
The 2005 world summit has clearly demonstrated
that, in five years, we have not given poverty
eradication the highest priority on our international
agenda.
It is clear that in too many countries the
Millennium Development Goals will not be realized; in
some, the situation is worse than five years ago. How
then do we assure the marginalized people of our world
that we are serious about achieving the Millennium
Development Goals by the year 2015? The only way is
by showing that there is the global political will to use
the outcome document as a platform for action.
In his report “In larger freedom”, Kofi Annan
stressed that the priority objectives of the United
Nations over the coming years should be to secure for
people “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”.
What is often not recognized is that a person who is not
free from want can only live in fear.
The greatest evil — the most effective and
consuming terrorism of our age — is the terrorism of
abject poverty. It is a poverty in which millions of
people live in terror because they know that sooner, not
10

later, they might die from hunger or from preventable
diseases.
Every day in our region of Central America and
the Caribbean, our people face threats to their human
security: from AIDS, drug trafficking, trafficking in
human persons, crushing poverty and growing
inequality.
A new security approach is therefore required to
contain these threats. We must promote the
humanization of security rather than embark on efforts
to militarize globalization. We must focus on stopping
the deaths that occur every day, most often from
preventable causes. Global security cannot be built on
a minefield of poverty and disease.
Prioritizing human security does not mean
neglecting national sovereignty or State security. As
part of our national security strategy, we remain
committed to fostering a culture of peace and the
peaceful resolution of conflicts.
In the Middle East, we are encouraged by the
Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. We join others
in calling upon the Government of Israel to continue
the withdrawal from all Palestinian territories. We look
forward to the implementation of its commitments in
accordance with the road map that will lead to the
realization of two independent States, Palestine and
Israel, coexisting side by side in peace and security.
The 23 million people on Taiwan also deserve to
live in peace and security. We therefore continue to
urge the United Nations to take up the plea of Taiwan
to participate in this world body. Taiwan has earned its
place among the community of nations.
Belize continues to be plagued by an
anachronistic claim to its territory from our neighbour
Guatemala. But, encouragingly, earlier this month
Belize and Guatemala signed a new agreement under
the auspices of the Organization of American States.
Under that agreement, if we are unable to resolve the
dispute through negotiations, the Secretary-General of
the Organization of American States can then
recommend that we submit our differences to an
international juridical body. We therefore hope that we
can ensure the early and final resolution of this dispute,
so that we can cooperate more effectively to combat
our common problems of poverty and underdevelopment.
We all recognize that there can be no security
without development. The world summit outcome
document maintains the vision of development
elaborated in the Millennium Declaration, the
Monterrey Consensus, the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation and other outcomes, including the
Mauritius Strategy.
If we are to make measurable progress in
development, we must urgently implement the global
partnership for development. That global partnership
involves returning development issues to the forefront
of trade negotiations. Without a deeper commitment
from developed countries to trade regimes that are
more just, the future of the sugar and banana industries
in countries such as Belize hangs in the balance. We
must therefore spare no effort to ensure that the latest
Doha development round concludes on terms
favourable to developing countries like Belize.
As a coastal nation with a significant population
in low-lying areas, my country emphasizes the need for
new action to ensure environmental sustainability,
particularly as it relates to climate change. We agree
with the Secretary-General that:
“One of the greatest environmental and
development challenges in the twenty-first
century will be that of controlling and coping
with climate change.” (A/59/2005, para. 60)
The increased temperatures occasioned by
climate change are likely to lead to greater frequency
of life-threatening weather systems. The most
vulnerable to these changes will be small island
developing States and coastal nations like Belize. It is
therefore incumbent upon the international community
to improve the framework for action to cope with
climate change. The eleventh session of the Conference
of the Parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change is an opportunity to
forge wider and more inclusive cooperation to address
that grave danger.
So much of what we hope to achieve depends on
a United Nations that is effective and credible. Some
recent reports point to systemic problems throughout
the United Nations Organization. These, in our view,
provide evidence of an Organization that is flawed —
not one that is irrelevant. Belize therefore continues to
view the United Nations as an indispensable
Organization. It is the only global Organization that
has the capacity to meaningfully foster peace, security
and sustainable development for the peoples of our
world.
11

But the United Nations must reinvent itself to
meet the needs of today’s geopolitics and unique global
challenges. The General Assembly and the Economic
and Social Council must be revitalized and
strengthened. Similarly, the Security Council must be
reformed to make it more accountable, inclusive and
representative of the current membership of the United
Nations.
The establishment of the Peacebuilding
Commission and of the Human Rights Council are
important, but we must define ways in which these
bodies can reinforce the work of the other principal
organs of the United Nations.
In the five years that have elapsed since the year
2000, our collective lack of political will has resulted
in the loss of millions of children, women and men to
hunger, disease, HIV/AIDS and other preventable
causes. But we can halt and reverse that trend. We must
give a reformed United Nations, as the ultimate
expression of multilateralism, the means to carry out
its mandate, as set out in Article I of the Charter: “To
achieve international cooperation in solving international
problems of an economic, social, cultural or
humanitarian character”.
Our world is besieged by such problems. We can
carry out this mandate by implementing all the
commitments we have made since the year 2000, or we
can ignore them and condemn many millions more to
live in misery or die in pain. The choice is ours.