First of all, I
should like to extend congratulations to the President on
his election.
My colleague Foreign Minister Kinkel, on behalf of
the European Union, has just given a broad overview of
our approach to the United Nations. The great challenges
which the United Nations faces today are well
summarized in his statement.
The idea that the world is divided into a North and
a South with greatly diverging interests is being replaced
by a growing awareness that the fundamental problems
we face are common, global problems - to ensure
sustainable development, to protect our environment, to
solve the population problem, to prevent social
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disintegration, to uphold justice and to protect the dignity
of the human person.
The United Nations will have to play a central role in
our common efforts to find answers to these global
problems. There is a need for coherent, integrated policies
for problems which have so far been treated largely as
separate questions - problems of peace and security,
development, trade, democracy and human rights, the
environment. The United Nations "Agenda for Peace" and
its agenda for development are closely connected.
By building on its comparative advantages the United
Nations can play its role as the primary institution for
global international cooperation which is envisaged in its
Charter. We, the Member States, will have to enable the
United Nations to do so.
Are we really providing this body with the necessary
means to live up to expectations? It has become
fashionable, when expectations are not met, to blame
shortcomings on the United Nations itself. I tend to take a
different view. Member States are to be blamed at least as
much as the Organization which struggles as our faithful
servant. Rather than making the United Nations our
scapegoat, Member States have first of all to make an
honest and serious effort, through timely and full payment
of financial contributions, to provide it with the means to
play the role we expect it to play.
But we need a change in attitude as well. As
inhabitants of the global village, we can no longer remain
indifferent to the fate of our fellow human beings, even if
they live on a different continent. CNN brings their
problems right into our living rooms, visible, immediate,
inescapable. Rwanda, Haiti and former Yugoslavia, Goma
and Vukovar - tragedies such as these touch the conscience
of citizens in all parts of the globe.
How do we respond to this? The prerequisites for
successful action by the United Nations are credibility and
legitimacy. To put it differently: the United Nations must
become an institution in which all peoples of the world are
fairly represented and have a fair say in decision-making.
There must be a balance between burdens and benefits for
all and, most importantly, there must be an awareness at the
level of both Governments and individuals that the United
Nations can make a difference.
The paradox is that the distance between decision-
makers and those represented seems to grow, in spite of the
increase in the speed and volume of communications. This
does not affect solely the credibility - and therefore the legitimacy -
of the United Nations. The credibility of State structures
at the national level is equally at stake.
Everywhere in the world, including in what used to
be called the first, the second and the third worlds, we see
a profound cynicism about government and Governments.
This is partly due to the fact that certain expectations
cannot any longer be met. The power of Governments
has been diminished because many important activities,
especially in the economic sphere, have moved from
Government into private or corporate hands. They are
not quite outside the sphere of direct action of
Governments and, for that matter, of the United Nations.
However, a substantial part of this widespread
cynicism stems from the perception of a lack of common
decency, from the feeling that Governments and
institutions work for their own good in the first place and
that the interest of the people whom they are supposed to
serve comes second.
In this respect I think we can take heart from the
success of the International Conference on Population and
Development held recently at Cairo. That success was
built on a formula that essentially amounted to common
decency, namely, to face the population problem not
through coercion and discrimination but by giving people
the means to follow, freely and responsibly, the path of
their own choice. This should serve as an example for us
as Governments with regard to other matters as well.
If we apply the criteria of fairness and decency to
the United Nations, then it is clear that major adjustments
are needed. In some fields work on this task has started
and a number of preliminary steps have been taken - for
instance, the appointment of an inspector general. We
should not deceive ourselves, however, into believing that
everything is therefore well. Good bookkeeping is
essential, but fraud never constituted the core of the
United Nations problem. Even good management,
immensely important though it is, is only a necessary
tool.
Let me mention some of my priorities for an agenda
for a revitalized United Nations. The tremendous
increase in peace-keeping operations clearly signals a
change in the role of the Security Council. The emphasis
is more and more on cooperative crisis management,
resolution and prevention in various regional conflicts.
The permanent members of the Council are expected to
take a leading role when countries are requested to
21

contribute the means needed to implement the Council’s
decisions. In this new era the yardstick for great-Power
status is no longer the number of nuclear bombs but now
the concrete contribution that a country is prepared and able
to make to the cooperative effort to stem the tide of war,
misery and poverty in the world.
For this reason the Netherlands is in favour of the
admission of Germany and Japan to the Security Council as
permanent members. Both countries have an impeccable
record as Members of the United Nations. They have
expressed their willingness to shoulder a larger part of the
common burden, and they have the power and the means to
do so. Their permanent presence on the Security Council
would therefore significantly strengthen the authority and
capabilities of the United Nations as a whole. The question
of equitable representation of various geographical regions
will also have to be addressed for the sake of the Council’s
legitimacy in the eyes of the world at large. All in all, we
believe that it is possible to achieve consensus on an
expansion to a total number of seats somewhere in the low
twenties. This would indeed be a most significant step
towards improving the credibility and legitimacy of the
United Nations.
At least as important however is enhanced
transparency and closer coordination between the Security
Council and the United Nations membership at large. My
own country’s position may illustrate this point. The
Kingdom of the Netherlands is de facto the eleventh highest
contributor to the budget of the United Nations. We are in
tenth position in terms of the numbers of military personnel
contributed to peace-keeping operations, yet we are not
involved in the Council’s decisions in which the mandates
and modalities of these operations are laid down.
As in government, there should be no taxation without
representation. The members of the Security Council have
to remember that they exercise their authority on behalf of
the entire membership of the Organization. For that
purpose they need the confidence of the General Assembly.
The Council can no longer operate as an exclusive club.
Therefore the Netherlands is in favour of the creation of a
subsidiary organ of the Council, where all aspects of peace-
keeping operations could be discussed with major troop
contributors.
Moreover, we join those who call for systematic and
independent reporting and evaluation of peace-keeping
operations. The reports should not end up, labelled
"Confidential", in the desks of the United Nations
bureaucracy. Those who contribute and the people whom
they represent have a rightful claim to this information.
On this score as well, the principle of accountability must
urgently be introduced in the interest of the overall
credibility of the United Nations.
Another area with important potential for improving
the working of the United Nations system is that of the
regional organizations. Together with Germany, the
Netherlands has argued for a more active role for the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) as the regional United Nations arrangement for
Europe. I strongly believe that the United Nations should
apply what the European Union calls subsidiarity. This
principle means that the higher level should not deal with
matters that can be dealt with satisfactorily at the lower
and more specialized level. Responsibility should be
exercised as close as possible to the grass roots.
European countries should try to solve their own
problems in the framework of the CSCE before dropping
them into the lap of the United Nations. This, however,
remains a matter for voluntary regional cooperation, and
in no way detracts from the primary responsibility of the
Security Council.
In Africa, we see encouraging signs of a
development in the same direction. In the framework of
the Organization of African Unity, as well as at regional
and subregional levels, efforts are being made to develop
a regional peace-keeping capacity. These initiatives
deserve our wholehearted support. On the other hand, the
Netherlands shares the concern of these countries that
self-reliance in this domain should not cut them off from
assistance and active involvement by the international
community through the United Nations.
In Rwanda, for instance, African countries are
contributing most of the personnel for the operation of the
United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
(UNAMIR). Other United Nations Members have
provided equipment, logistical and financial support and
transportation. The Netherlands has made a contribution
in matériel to match the deployment of a peace-keeping
contingent by Zambia. This may provide a model for
more permanent, structural means of practical cooperation
between countries in the region and those outside - a kind
of mutual adoption arrangement.
Much has been said about the need for an enhanced
early-warning capacity. In fact, in most cases the
information was available before crises erupted into
violence. But, as the former Yugoslavia has
demonstrated, early warning is not sufficient if States are
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not willing and ready to undertake early action once a
potential crisis has been identified.
A similar remark can be made about the United
Nations system of stand-by forces. This is an excellent
idea, and the system may serve as a useful database for the
United Nations. But it is no guarantee of greater efficiency
in all circumstances. In connection with Rwanda, the
system was put to the test for the first time. The results of
that test were extremely discouraging. None of the
countries that had indicated possible contributions were
willing to provide troops for rapid deployment. What is the
use of an instrument if the political will to use it is lacking?
Regrettably, lessons are drawn mostly when it is too
late. The human tragedy in Rwanda will always remain a
shame for the international community. Collectively, we
must acknowledge that we had ample warning of impending
disaster and that we could have done more to prevent the
genocide. In this context I have been struck by the words
of a high-ranking United Nations official:
"A mechanized brigade deployed in Kigali within 7 to
14 days might have stabilized the situation."
If this is true, then the moral dimension of our failure to
provide the United Nations with the necessary means
becomes all too apparent. If deploying a brigade could
have prevented the indiscriminate slaughter of many
hundreds of thousands, what prevented us from doing so?
Let us face it: the reason for our inaction was neither
lack of means nor lack of time. The reason was that, under
the circumstances, no Government was prepared to risk the
lives of its citizens. The physical danger was considered
too high.
How can we resolve this dilemma? Hand-wringing
will not absolve us from our responsibility in a situation of
genocide. Either we act upon our feeling of horror and
indignation, or we stop moralizing. If Member States are
not in a position to provide the necessary military
personnel, will it then not become unavoidable for us to
consider the establishment of a full-time, professional, at all
times available and rapidly deployable United Nations
brigade for this purpose - a "United Nations Legion" at the
disposal of the Security Council? Such a relatively small,
international, all-volunteer "fire brigade" may enable the
United Nations to save lives in situations such as Rwanda.
Its establishment could help to solve the dilemmas that we,
Governments, face when trying to come to grips with the
phenomenon of the failed State.
Of course, the preferable way to deal with conflicts
is by preventing them. In Europe, the discreet activities
of the High Commissioner for National Minorities
appointed by the Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe, and those of other actors, have undoubtedly
played a crucial role in defusing potential crises in the
Baltic and other regions. It is a fact of life in politics that
solutions and happy endings quietly achieved do not
attract the same attention as failures and disasters.
Trusted and respected personalities could play a similar
role in other regions. As Minister Hurd said last year:
for the expense involved in the deployment of one
battalion of peace-keepers, the Secretary-General can send
a great many personal representatives.
I also wish to say a few words about the aftermath
of conflicts that could not be prevented: the punishment
of those responsible for crimes against humanity. It is of
the utmost importance not only that these terrible crimes
be condemned by the international community but also
that those responsible for these crimes, as well as the
actual perpetrators, be prosecuted. Strangely enough, this
was done only at the end of the Second World War. But
now at last we see the establishment of an international
tribunal for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia
and the start of a broad discussion on a future tribunal for
Rwanda.
Punishment of war criminals and ethnic cleansers is
not a matter of revenge. It is a matter of justice and also
a matter of deterrence. Impunity encourages future
crimes against humanity. We therefore strongly support
both tribunals; as well as the early establishment of an
international criminal court that will exercise jurisdiction
with regard to serious crimes of international concern.
With the introduction of a draft statute for such an
international criminal court, a major step forward has
been made.
In closing, let me emphasize my fundamental point:
the credibility of the authority exercised by Governments
and by the United Nations. In the former Yugoslavia and
elsewhere, the world community has failed to stop the
breakdown of civil society and the descent into barbarity.
Such failures undermine people’s belief in the authority
of the United Nations, in the authority of regional
organizations, in the authority of Governments, and
indeed in public authority as such. The authority of a
national Government does not depend only on its own
credibility; it also depends on the credibility of the wider
international authority in which it participates. Therefore,
it is in our own national interest to uphold that wider
23

authority. We can only do this if we provide the United
Nations with the tools it needs to face its daunting task.


I warmly congratulate you, Your Excellency Minister Essy, on your election as President of the General Assembly at this forty-ninth session. Australia is very pleased to serve in the Assembly under your presidency and looks forward to relying on your wisdom and your experience as you preside over our deliberations.
The last year has provided its full measure of challenges for the United Nations. The hopes for a new era of peace, after the decades of sterile confrontation between the super-Powers, seem not much closer to being realized. In Southern Africa and the Middle East, there have been remarkable advances in solving some of the world's most intractable problems, but they stand in contrast to the nightmarish conflicts of Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda. These are only the latest, and most prominent, of a long string of deadly conflicts within State borders, tearing existing States apart and far exceeding the threats to peace posed by conflict between States. These intra-State conflicts have been marked by extreme savagery, each day offering new evidence of how cruel and dangerous a place the world remains for so many of its people.
The combined impact of a number of these conflicts has had a corrosive effect on the standing of the United Nations. Pictures of Blue Helmets standing by, unable to prevent conflict and impotent to save life, have become a media cliche. The role that the United Nations system has continued to play in its economic, social and humanitarian work, in responding to the "silent emergencies" of poverty and deprivation, has been overshadowed by the public image of an organization failing to meet its responsibilities and unequal to the challenges. Some of this imagery is deeply unfair, failing to take account of the innumerable constraints under which the United Nations operates - and in particular failing to acknowledge that, at the end of the day, the United Nations can do no more than what its Member States allow it to do, or give it the resources to do.
But the underlying reality is that the United Nations, and we Member States that make it up, have not yet developed a clear and confident sense of the United Nations own role in the new environment with which we are confronted - where the most common source of conflict is no longer disputes between States, but explosive conflict within States, more often than not expressed in the form of competing ethno-nationalist or religious claims.
Of course ethnic or religious difference is not, by itself, a recipe for conflict within States. Australia is just one example, among many, of a highly successful multi-ethnic, multicultural society in which tolerance and peace prevail. For ethnic or religious differences or competing nationalist aspirations to deteriorate into deadly conflict, something more is necessary. And almost invariably that something has been a failure of Governments to deliver basic needs and to satisfy the most basic aspirations of their citizens. In almost every case of major intra-State conflict of recent times, from the former
Soviet republics to Rwanda, ethnic and religious conflict has been associated with declining per capita gross national product, the rise of demagogic politics, and the collapse of effective, responsible government.
All this means that it is no longer possible, in the post-cold-war era, for the international community simply to ignore, as it largely did in the past, conflict occurring within State borders which does not significantly impact on other States. The compartmentalization which existed through the cold war years - in which peace and security issues, development issues, and human rights and justice issues were treated as being in completely different conceptual and institutional boxes - no longer seems adequate to deal with the real world distress that so many people are suffering. Basic economic needs, let alone the needs of individuals and groups for dignity and liberty, cannot begin to be met in environments where nobody's personal security can be guaranteed. And that means, in turn, that the international community cannot simply turn away from being involved in protecting human security in many of those situations which might previously have been regarded as wholly internal in character.
This truth has, of course, already been recognized to the extent that the United Nations has become involved in essentially intra-State conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti. But for the most part that involvement has been hesitant, half-hearted, lacking in confidence, worried about its rationale, too little, and too late. We have now to reach out boldly and try to recapture some of the original vision built into the stated aims of the Charter. We have to reintegrate the relationship among the three basic objectives of peace, meeting the need for security; development, meeting economic needs; and human rights and justice, meeting the needs for individual and group dignity and liberty.
The distinction between peace and security on the one hand and development on the other has too often been a matter for sterile and unhelpful debate, with attempts to trade off one for the other as key goals for the United Nations. Any viable modern concept of international peace, let alone peace within States, must recognize that the two are indissolubly bound up with each other: there can be no sustainable peace without development, and no development without peace.
In this context, Australia warmly welcomes the Secretary-General's efforts in producing An Agenda for Development which, following on as it does from An Agenda for Peace, fully recognizes the relationship between peace and development, acknowledging that equitable development eradicates many of the socio-political conditions in which threats to peace breed. It places an entirely appropriate emphasis on individual human beings as the end object and beneficiaries of our developmental efforts. This concept of course, in various guises, lies behind most of the international community's key ideas about development in recent years, including "adjustment with a human face", "human development" and, most recently, "human security". I must also applaud the focus which the Secretary-General has placed on practical international cooperation for global human security, for example in the areas of emergency humanitarian assistance, effective governance and all the social issues which form the agenda of the world social summit.
A more integrated effort will clearly be required of the United Nations system if the objectives set out in An Agenda for Development are to be achieved. It is imperative that we improve the system's ability to develop and implement social and economic development programmes in a more coordinated and coherent manner, including by finding ways to allow the Bretton Woods institutions and United Nations bodies to work in closer harmony. An example of a more systematic approach that the United Nations system might be able to adopt is the recent package of reforms undertaken by the Economic and Social Council. The new approach to operational activities, and the joint programme which the Economic and Social Council agreed to earlier this year to tackle the health and development impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, demonstrate the achievements that are possible through such reform.
But more will be required than this, including changes in the senior decision-making structure of the United
Nations Secretariat. Considerable reform in the intergovernmental elements of the United Nations system has been achieved and is being worked out, but the same is not true of the Secretariat itself. Notwithstanding some welcome recent changes, including in particular the designation by the Secretary-General of a special adviser on operational activities, I believe that there continues to be a strong case for creating a new working collegiate executive of four Deputy Secretary-Generals to work with the Secretary-General - responsible respectively for economic and social affairs, peace and security affairs, humanitarian affairs and administration and management.
A key source of threats to national and international security lies in unsustainable patterns of consumption and exploitation of resources. High population growth and competition for resources have been contributing factors in several of the recent crises involving the United Nations, including Rwanda and Somalia, and competition over scarce water resources is a potential cause of conflict in a number of regions. Such threats demonstrate how important it is, in security terms, for the United Nations to strengthen its ability to deal with development issues. The international community has developed a significant body of international laws, norms, agreements and arrangements for the rational and cooperative management of scarce resources. The United Nations system needs to ensure that it takes timely, effective and coordinated action to help implement this framework and the programmes for action agreed on at recent global conferences. The outcome of last month's Cairo Conference has provided a blueprint to address problems of population and development, acknowledging the central role of women in the development process.
For its part, the Commission on Sustainable Development must develop a genuine capacity to monitor the implementation of Agenda 21, using its political influence to bring about an observable difference in approaches to environment and development. We also attach particular importance to early implementation of the Programme of Action adopted at the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States in Barbados in May this year. No less important has been the entry into force of the Convention on the Law of the Sea. The adoption in June 1994 of the new Agreement implementing Part XI of the Convention secures a widely accepted legal order for the world's oceans, and provides, in effect, a common language for interaction between States on matters affecting two thirds of the world's surface.
From the outset of the establishment of the United Nations, the international community has acknowledged human rights as a central and legitimate subject of international attention. For many years, however, and notwithstanding the system of international human rights treaties, this attention carried with it the ideological baggage of the cold war and was too often marked by confrontation and recrimination. In recent years the international community has begun to develop more cooperative and potentially more effective ways of promoting better observance of human rights standards.
These include the creation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the promotion of national and regional human rights bodies and improved technical assistance. They also include a welcome reaffirmation in Vienna last year of the indivisibility of all human rights - economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights - in developing a base for positive change. And they include the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal to try violations of humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia. A further important specific step that Australia believes should be taken in this direction is the creation of a permanent international criminal court, to deal with gross violations of international criminal law wherever they might occur.
Human rights observance has its own profound significance for peace and security. The drafters of the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized this connection. The international community has clear obligations under the Charter to protect basic human rights, and the most basic freedom of all - the right to life - is directly dependent on the maintenance of peace. We must be prepared to accept a wider application of the notion of security as it appears in the Charter, recognizing that security in the post-cold-war era has as much to do with the protection of individuals - guaranteeing human security - as it has to do with State security - the defence of national borders.
Human security, in this view, is as much if not more threatened by intra-State conflict as it is by conflict between States, and intra-State conflict is as much a concern of the United Nations as is international conflict. The experience of the last few years underlines the lesson that a State whose Government systematically disregards human rights, ignores the rule of law and fails to strive for equitable development and distributive justice is a State showing clear signs of heading towards breakdown and civil strife. To try to anticipate with appropriate preventive strategies that breakdown and conflict is, for the United Nations system, not to go beyond its Charter mandate, but to fully realize it.
The international community has traditionally talked about security in almost wholly military terms. In a United Nations context, collective security has meant Member States renouncing the use of force against each other and agreeing to come to the aid of a Member when it is attacked. Even the more recent, and very welcome, focus on the concept of common security has been premised on the idea that States will be more secure militarily with defence strategies that are aimed at building security with others rather than against others.
If the international community is to respond fully and effectively to the new challenges of the post-cold-war era, this perspective has to be broadened. One way to do that is to talk, as many are now doing, in terms of comprehensive security, which conveys the important idea that security is multidimensional in character, demanding attention not only to political and diplomatic disputes but to economic underdevelopment, trade disputes, human- rights abuses and the like.
But Australia's preference - as I spelled out last year in addressing this Assembly, when I launched the so- called Blue Book, Cooperating for Peace - is to describe our shared objective as cooperative security. The term cooperative security is designed to embrace and capture the essence of all those three other ideas: collective, common and comprehensive security. It is designed to shift the focus away from traditional, defensive, State-centred thinking, and at the same time to convey the flavour of consultation rather than confrontation, reassurance rather than deterrence, transparency rather than secrecy, prevention rather than correction, and interdependence rather than unilateralism.
Cooperative security in practice means a whole range of different strategies designed both to prevent and to resolve conflict, certainly including the traditional United Nations roles of peace-keeping and peace enforcement. But the strategies that I want particularly to emphasize today are those at the preventive end of the response spectrum, in particular peace-building and preventive diplomacy.
As the idea of peace building has been developed by the Secretary General in An Agenda for Peace and in An Agenda for Development, it has largely been restricted to the situations of post-conflict economic and institutional restoration within countries. Australia's view is that while that is a very important element of the idea it is unduly restrictive, and that the concept of peace-building should assume a much more prominent place in our thinking about the international community's role and responsibilities.
We see peace-building as describing the whole range of strategies designed to address basic and underlying causes of disputes and conflicts: strategies aimed at ensuring that they do not arise in the first place, or that if they do arise, they do not subsequently recur. Those strategies are applicable at both intra-State and international levels. At the international level we are talking essentially about various regimes and arrangements designed to minimize threats to security, to promote confidence and trust and to create frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, especially through arms control and disarmament treaties; legal regimes such as those on maritime passage and the status of refugees; dispute- resolution mechanisms such as the International Court of Justice; and multilateral dialogue forums, such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) or the new regional Forum of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the in-country level, peace- building essentially involves strategies to encourage economic development, ensure the observance of human rights, broadly defined, and to facilitate good governance.
So perceived, peace-building lies right at the interface between the United Nations agendas for peace and for development. Peace-building activity is already occurring in a great many ways and in a great many places. The attention being given to environment, resource and population issues, the higher profile being accorded to human-rights protection and the significant progress being made on many disarmament issues are all manifestations of this at the general international level. And more attention is being given to democratization and institution-building strategies, as well as economic ones, for particular countries where effective governance has broken down, or seems about to.
What is really necessary is that more of this activity be integrated and coordinated within the United Nations system, that activities now being pursued in isolation and without any overriding sense of common purpose be better linked together. If we are to get peace, development and human rights objectives better synchronized, then some institutional changes are necessary. A good start may be to vest responsibility for developing and coordinating peace- building strategies in the position of deputy secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, a position which I suggested earlier should be created.
Whatever the achievability of peace-building international regimes in other areas, the end of the cold war has certainly opened up for the international community exciting new possibilities to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and destabilizing conventional-arms races. There is now, for example, an historic opportunity to conclude a comprehensive test-ban treaty. The decision by most of the nuclear-weapon States to maintain moratoriums on testing has made a major contribution to an improved negotiating atmosphere in the Conference on Disarmament. Australia very much hopes that the People's Republic of China will play its part in bringing those negotiations to a conclusion by likewise abstaining from further tests. Agreement on a comprehensive test ban will also have a significant impact on the achievement of nuclear disarmament, and especially nuclear non-proliferation, objectives. Australia urges all members of the Conference on Disarmament to seize this opportunity, which may not present itself again, to conclude the test-ban treaty as soon as possible.
A further vital contribution to nuclear disarmament would be made by the negotiation of a cut-off convention. Australia hopes that all members of the Conference on Disarmament will support the efforts of the Canadian coordinator and agree to a negotiating mandate by the beginning of the 1995 session.
Underlying all the efforts by the international community over the past 25 years to stem the spread of nuclear weapons has been the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NPT remains the cornerstone of international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. Its success is reflected in this phenomenon: the general expectation in the 1960s was that the world would have as many as 25 nuclear-weapon States by the 1980s, but instead, 160 countries have now acceded to the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon States, leaving only a handful outside the Treaty framework. The peaceful-use assurances derived from the Treaty and from the safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency have laid the foundation for very valuable international cooperation in fields such as nuclear power generation, nuclear medicine and agricultural and scientific applications of nuclear energy. In addition, the NPT incorporates the only commitment from the five nuclear-weapon States to complete nuclear disarmament. The cause of complete nuclear disarmament, which
Australia fully supports, is moving in the right direction, but it is clear that more needs to be done by the nuclear- weapon States if the pace is to be maintained.
A decision to be made on extending the Treaty at the NPT Review Conference next year will allow us to secure its benefits in perpetuity. This is an opportunity we must grasp to shape a world in which our collective commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, and to a world free of nuclear weapons, can be realized. Indefinite extension of the Treaty will create an environment in which the pressures for continued nuclear disarmament will be maximized, in which nuclear proliferation will best be prevented, in which trade and cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy can best be maintained, and in which the goal of universal membership of the Treaty can best be reached.
The pace of chemical- and biological-weapons disarmament continues to be encouraging. Progress is being made in preparing for implementation of the chemical-weapons Convention, and the recent Special Conference's decision to develop verification measures to strengthen the biological-weapons Convention is also very welcome. All members of the global community will benefit, in both security and trade and development terms, from the bans on these entire categories of weapons of mass destruction which will be put in place by the effective operation of both these Treaties.
In our efforts to prevent the further spread of weapons of mass destruction, we should not lose sight of the need to control conventional weaponry. Conventional weapons continue to be responsible for the overwhelming majority of the fatalities and casualties in contemporary armed conflict. In this area, the United Nations has taken an important first step in creating the Register of Conventional Arms, although I must note Australia's disappointment at the failure of its Expert Group to agree to expand the Register beyond transfers to cover productions and holdings. It is, however, most important that all States support this initial international exercise in the transparency of conventional weaponry by providing as much information as possible in their returns.
There is also a compelling need to strengthen the inhumane weapons Convention and, in particular, to extend further control over the use of, and trade in, land-mines, given the appalling and indiscriminate injuries caused to civilian populations often long after conflicts cease.
One of the most crucial elements in any functioning system of cooperative security is an effective capacity for preventive diplomacy. Australia is convinced that the United Nations can and should do more in this respect to prevent disputes escalating into armed conflict, and to this effect we propose to introduce a draft resolution on enhancing preventive diplomacy at the current session of the General Assembly.
We believe that there is widespread support for the United Nations to build stronger preventive diplomacy machinery and to develop the capacity foreseen by its founders and articulated in Article 33 to operate as an active agent in the peaceful settlement of disputes. The Organization would be able to operate more effectively in this area if it gave its staff additional skills in dispute resolution and conflict management. We commend its efforts to do so through the fellowship course of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and we will continue to provide our backing for that training. We propose that the United Nations develop a dispute resolution service within its Secretariat. We advocate strengthening the Department of Political Affairs and increasing coordination, information-sharing and early- warning capacity among and between the various elements of the United Nations system. Greater use should also be made of the resources of Member States and stronger linkages forged with regional security arrangements.
Such regional organizations and arrangements themselves can play a most useful role. We should not have unrealistic expectations of them because most cannot match the capacity of global bodies to marshal resources for peace-building or, at the other end of the scale, for military responses to crises. They nevertheless offer a way of bringing together the parties to disputes in a constructive and non-confrontational framework. We welcome recent developments to strengthen regional approaches, in particular the recent inaugural meeting of the Regional Forum of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, with its evident willingness to develop preventive diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region. We hope that others will share our interest in exploring the scope for establishing regional peace and security resource centres - to advance these objectives under the banner of regional organizations or the United Nations itself, or both.
We welcome the steps taken by the United Nations Secretary-General to strengthen the United Nations links with regional organizations. In relation to one such important organization in Australia's own part of the world, we welcome the strong support given by Member
States for the application made by the South Pacific Forum for Observer status in the General Assembly, itself a response to the Secretary-General's invitation to consider ways of further improving the coordination of the efforts of regional bodies with those of the United Nations. Australia also welcomes the regional peace-keeping exercise under way to assist Papua New Guinea achieve a peaceful resolution of the situation in Bougainville, and the Secretary-General's expression of support for that exercise.
There is no use talking about reintegrating the United Nations or reshaping its responsibilities unless the resources are there to carry out these responsibilities. The central responsibility of Member States in this respect is to set to rights the Organization's current financial problems. Australia urges, in the strongest terms we can, all Member States to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time as a matter of obligation under the Charter.
We believe that the United Nations should look carefully at strengthening measures to encourage the prompt payment of contributions. We could, for example, explore the possibility of charging interest on overdue payments or applying Article 19 of the Charter to provide for only a 24- month grace period before voting rights are lost. We believe also that present budgetary systems could well be improved, in particular those involved with the financing of peace-keeping operations. We hope that, at a minimum, this General Assembly will be able to agree on some practical steps to move towards a sounder basis for such funding. Modern management practices, including a personnel policy more clearly based on merit, need to be adopted.
Measures such as these, while valuable, are unlikely to be sufficient in themselves to meet the financial demands which will be placed on the United Nations by its new agenda. The time has come to look at more innovative approaches to raising funds. One possibility which should be examined more seriously than hitherto, notwithstanding the complexities and sensitivities involved, is the application of levies on certain kinds of international transactions, such as air travel or foreign exchange, the capacity to carry on which depends on the existence of stability between States, to which the United Nations in turn makes a major contribution. An international levy on such transactions would be an equitable way of putting a price on an important public good. And the amounts involved are very large. The total value of global foreign exchange turnover, for example, is expected to amount to over $300 trillion next year. A levy on these transactions of only 0.01 per cent, if it could be collected, would yield over $30 billion. A flat-rate $10 added to the price of air tickets for each international sector travelled would yield $3 billion, nearly enough to cover all United Nations peace-keeping activities last year.
Whatever the funding strategy adopted, the financial burden on the United Nations system and the international community could be greatly reduced by putting a greater emphasis on preventive approaches to problem solving. It is very clear that prevention is far more cost-effective in the longer term than our current pattern of responding to problems, if at all, only after crisis points have been reached.
If the United Nations decision-making bodies are to have legitimacy and guaranteed international support in responding to the range of new and difficult situations with which the international community is now being confronted - particularly deadly conflicts and massive human rights violations occurring within States - they must be representative of the broad range of interests and perspectives of United Nations Member States. This is a key reason why enlargement of the Security Council's membership is a pressing concern for this General Assembly. It should be said, at the same time, that the Security Council's legitimacy will ultimately depend, not just on its representativeness, but upon the quality of its performance, and in that context it will be very important that the Assembly apply very rigorously the criteria and qualifications for Security Council membership elaborated in Article 23 of the Charter.
The model that would most simply meet the legitimate aspirations of the largest States excluded at present from permanent membership of the Security Council - including Japan and Germany, whose claims we support - would involve the creation of five new permanent membership seats. Assuming the continuation of the existing regional groups, three new permanent members would come from Africa and Asia, one from the Western European and Other States Group, and one from Latin America and the Caribbean. Australia would prefer not to extend the veto to any new permanent member. At the same time, we believe it would be appropriate slightly to dilute the veto power of the existing five permanent members by requiring two from their number to concur in its exercise.
If - as seems not impossible - agreement on a simple model of this kind proves not easily reachable, it may be worth giving consideration to a more complex alternative model. We have in mind one which would no doubt in practice guarantee effective permanency for the largest States currently excluded from the Council, including Japan and Germany. But it would at the same time give a greater degree of flexibility to the Council's structure and greater opportunities for the recognition of several other countries which have made a major contribution to the Organization. It might, for those reasons, be a model capable of commanding more widespread support.
This alternative model would involve, in addition to the five existing permanent members - whose veto power would again be slightly diluted, as already outlined - the creation of eight quasi-permanent seats allocated among regional groups for which consecutive re-election would be possible, together with 10 rotating non-permanent seats as at present. It would make abundant sense, in our view, for the existing regional groups to be at the same time modified to reflect post-cold-war realities. A suggested way in which these 23 seats might be distributed among such a new set of regional groups is set out in the table attached to the circulated text of this statement; that table also sets out the way in which the seats might be distributed among the existing groups. On this model, the question which States became quasi-permanent members and how long they remained on the Council in that capacity would be a matter for determination by the regional group in question.
Consequential amendments would be required to Article 23 and Article 108 of the Charter, and the opportunity should, of course, be taken at the same time to remove the anachronistic enemy States clauses. An accompanying General Assembly resolution could elaborate any new regional-group arrangements.
It is, of course, the case that any change to Security Council membership is fraught with complexity and difficulty. But if we are ever to move from the stage of generalized discussion to concrete negotiations, it is necessary to put some quite specific and comprehensive proposals on the table. I certainly do not suggest that the models I have just advanced are the only possible approaches, but I do strongly suggest that the time is now ripe for us to commence such negotiation. I believe that others share our determination to move in a spirit of good will and conscientiousness to see to it that the United Nations of the next 50 years is soundly built; and an expanded, newly legitimized Security Council is a crucial foundation in this respect.
Australia wants the United Nations, over the next 50 years, to be an active and effective agent for the peaceful settlement of disputes. We want it to be a catalyst for international peace-building, working to strengthen international law, control and reverse arms races, promote confidence and dialogue between States and address underlying causes of instability, including internal conflict. We want the United Nations to promote, in more effective coordination with the major international economic and financial institutions, equitable and sustainable development and to coordinate responses to humanitarian crises. We want it to emerge even more strongly as a promoter of universal standards of human rights and their respect by Governments. We want the United Nations to pursue its objectives of peace, development and human rights in an integrated, coordinated way, with these objectives complementing, rather than being in competition with, each other. And we want it to be an Organization assured of the wholehearted backing of its Member States and provided by them with all the financial resources it requires to meet its obligations.
In short, we want the United Nations to become the Organization which was envisaged in its Charter. One of the priority objectives of our candidacy for election to the Security Council for 1997-1998 is to help in the building of such a United Nations. We believe we have valuable contributions to bring to this task, and we look forward to working closely with all our fellow Members in the shaping of a United Nations fully capable of meeting the needs and expectations of all of us in the international community over the next 50 years.


I wish to congratulate the President on his
appointment to this highly responsible and important post.
My delegation will work constructively with him during the
course of this, the forty-ninth session of the General
Assembly of the United Nations.
Since the end of the Second World War, the fiftieth
anniversary of which we shall be celebrating next year, the
world has been engaged in peace-building. It has been a
long road, and it has not been without its dramatic
moments. Over the past half century the world has come
to the brink of nuclear war many times. Now, with the end
of the cold war, with the dissolution of the bipolar world,
a new challenge has arisen in the shape of a series of wars
and conflicts based on ethnic and religious intolerance that
have exploded in many different areas of the world.
In his report "An Agenda for Peace" the Secretary
General spoke of the concentration of efforts towards
preventive diplomacy, of steps for increasing international
confidence-building and achieving early recognition of
conflict situations. Such measures have taken on special
importance in our countries with the fall of
totalitarianism, because we have inherited many long-
standing issues of conflict that had previously been
hidden and suppressed by a regime of terror in the
conditions of that time.
The United Nations, in our view, could play a
leadership role in the study of typical conflict situations.
It could systematize the approaches, principles and paths
for the resolution of traditional issues of dispute such as
border issues, the sharing or allocation of water and other
natural resources, the self-determination of nations and
territorial integrity, and the protection of minorities on the
basis of ethnic, religious, linguistic and other differences.
This would allow the United Nations to establish a legal
basis for decisions that would help decrease the potential
for new conflicts and aid in the resolution of existing
problems. Only by following the highest authority of
law, and only on the basis of international law, can we
weave a solid fabric of peace throughout the planet, in all
of its smallest corners, no matter how remote or
provincial.
Violence and intolerance among people have led to
unending war and bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia.
The tragedy of Bosnia poses a challenge to all
humankind. Fifty years ago the nations of this world,
having united, put an end to nazism and genocide. Why
then are we now moving so slowly in the face of the
violence that is obviously based on ethnic and religious
discrimination and that is reverberating throughout the
planet? We stand for a political settlement of conflicts.
We call for both sides to put an end to the bloody
slaughter. In our view, the recommendations of the
Contact Group provide a way out of this crisis and hope
that peace can be restored in the heart of Europe.
We greatly value the efforts of the Secretary-
General, his Mission and the Observer Group of the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) to resolve issues peacefully in Tajikistan. We
welcome the recently signed cease-fire in Tehran, in
accordance with which hostilities have temporarily ceased
and political prisoners and prisoners of war are being
released. We have great hope for the gradual end of this
crisis and for the unification of the Tajik peoples, who
have experienced more than enough sorrow and suffering,
for the return of all refugees to their homes and for the
restoration of peace with our neighbours. We express this
hope now, before the coming winter, and call upon all
31

countries to render vitally important humanitarian aid to
Tajikistan.
We are following with great concern and alarm the
situation in Afghanistan and welcome the efforts towards
settlement. The restoration of peace in that country and the
achievement of national reconciliation would bring long-
awaited peace to the Afghan people, who have suffered so
much, and drastically improve the situation in our region of
the world. That region is exhausted from gunfire and war.
It is yearning for trade and a return to tilling the soil.
Notwithstanding the tremendous difficulties inherent
in our search for peace and accord in that country, we urge
the world not to give in either to moral or to donor fatigue.
It is not possible to dodge responsibilities during this trying
period because the deadly conflict in this country has been
brought about by participation on many different sides.
Afghanistan has a plethora of weapons. The country is
prey to a non-stop and intensive arms race. Hope for peace
can be guaranteed only if the international community
devotes its unwavering attention and political will to
unravelling the knot of the Afghan conflict.
That is why my country has consistently called for
completion and effective implementation of the Register of
Conventional Weapons. We support the initiative of the
United States announced by President Clinton on the
ratification of and support for General Assembly resolution
48/75 K of 16 December 1993 on a moratorium on the
export of land-mines.
The Kyrgyz Republic has consistently stood for a
comprehensive, effective reduction in conventional arms.
We are actively and diligently working on the conversion
of our defence industry to civilian production. Kyrgyzstan,
as a non-nuclear State, signed the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and advocates
transforming it into an agreement of unlimited duration.
We welcome the efforts of all countries - and first and
foremost the United States of America and France - to
reach a consensus on the issue of a comprehensive nuclear-
test ban.
We support the initiatives put forward by President
Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan on confidence-building measures
in Asia, and we envisage our region of Central Asia,
located as it is between two nuclear Powers, as an area free
of nuclear weapons. That would be our Central Asian
treaty.
Our world, so full of anxiety and so weary, believes
that hope for peace is not an illusion. I recall with great
excitement the unseasonably warm day of 13 September
1993 at the White House in Washington when, after many
years of conflict, a declaration of principles on Palestinian
self-rule in Gaza and Jericho was signed by the Israeli
Government and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It is with great satisfaction and happiness that we see
together with us in this Hall representatives of the
Government of South Africa that was elected on a
democratic basis. Let us stock up on patience. We can
achieve breakthroughs and visible results on the difficult
path to peace and concord only if we do not give in to
fatalism.
United Nations peace-keeping efforts are achieving
significant success in settling many of the conflicts of our
time. We know that 75 countries are participating in 17
United Nations Missions overseeing the holding and
monitoring of elections, rendering humanitarian assistance
during disasters and restoring what has been destroyed, as
well as ensuring a United Nations military and police
presence. The issue of creating reserve peace-keeping
forces has now been raised. From this rostrum we hear
the commitment of dozens of countries to peace-keeping
operations. We need the blue helmets of peace, not the
mercenary black helmets of death which have recently
participated with increasing frequency in conflict zones
around the world.
Fully aware that peace-keeping operations are an
important factor in the future new world order, my
country, with its highly qualified doctors, nurses,
engineers and rescue workers, would like to participate in
peace-keeping operations. We accept and support the
proposals that many countries have made here at the
General Assembly during discussions of peace-keeping
issues with regard to the need and opportunities for
conducting training of military and civilian personnel on
both a multilateral and a bilateral basis. Such possibilities
are also open to us as participants in the Partnership for
Peace programme of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO).
As a country experiencing a period of emergency
and in need of immediate assistance because of natural
disasters and social hardships, we warmly support the
proposal of Argentina’s President Menem that a civilian
service be created to provide immediate humanitarian
assistance under the auspices of the United Nations.
32

Development is the main problem facing young
democratic societies. Thirty years’ experience of North-
South collaboration has taught us, the new 1990s generation
of independent countries, instructive lessons. It is easy for
our achievements and our real advantages to become lost in
the picture of the protracted drop in production levels and
the destruction of the social infrastructure. The people of
Kyrgyzstan are grateful to the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization
(WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and other institutions in the
United Nations family that have sought to help us at this
difficult time.
In the face of a sharp increase in drug trafficking,
interwoven with transnational organized crime, first in our
region and then through Russia to Europe and other
continents, we need energetic and massive measures to
block the drug-distribution routes and destroy production.
The United Nations International Drug Control Programme
has become truly critical in our region. As a whole, we
would like to see greater action and coordination of the
work of the United Nations specialized institutions with the
new States, both at their headquarters and in their regional
offices.
It is noteworthy that not only traditional developed
countries, but also developing countries, which bear the
burden of their own numerous economic and social
problems, have helped in the establishment of the newly
independent States and their entry into the world order.
And this has particular significance. We are firmly
convinced that the timely rendering of full-fledged,
effective assistance to us - countries with transitional
economies that must now choose their own paths at this
difficult time - will help us to stand more quickly on our
own two feet, form the foundation for a market economy
and develop democratic foundations for society. We
ourselves will then be able to render speedier assistance to
the more needy. We support such a policy of reaching out
towards solidarity, mutual support and collaboration.
Bearing in mind the close collaboration of countries
with transitional economies with international financial and
economic institutions, precise coordination and deeper
interaction of the work of the United Nations and the
Bretton Woods institutions are becoming increasingly
necessary.
The Kyrgyz Republic welcomes and shares the
objectives and fundamental parameters of development set
forth in the preliminary report of the Secretary-General,
"An Agenda for Development". These are peace,
economic growth, the environment, justice and
democracy.
The recent World Conference on Population and
Development in Cairo and future Conferences on social
development and the improvement of the status of women
testify to the world’s deep concern about the situation of
basic human needs at the turn of the next century. If
human rights are all-inclusive, universal and inalienable,
then these rights also pertain to all women and children
on Earth. The improvement of the status of women is
key to resolving vital social problems such as those
involving population, education and health care. In other
words, it is the most important issue on the eve of the
twenty-first century for an agenda for humanity.
In my country, we will fully support and are ready
to cooperate with the newly appointed United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights. We in
Kyrgyzstan, a country in which over 80 ethnicities reside,
seek to create equal and just conditions for all of our
citizens. There are no restrictions on the development of
culture, the arts, education or media in the languages of
all ethnic groups. Along with an increase in mosques, the
number of Orthodox and Protestant churches is growing.
Committed to ideas of friendship and concord, we are
consistently working on programmes and measures to halt
migration from our country and to preserve the present
multi-ethnic composition of society. On the basis of the
Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to
National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities
adopted at the forty-seventh session of the General
Assembly, my country, together with the Russian
Federation, cosponsored a CIS convention on the rights of
ethnic minorities, which is currently open for ratification
to all other Commonwealth members.
Democracy in my country is very fragile. Political
pluralism, freedom of the press and speech, and adherence
to human rights and fundamental freedoms in the
Republic are not accidental gifts from above but genuine
values for which a real struggle is being waged in society
- the struggle between openness and isolation, blind force
and respect for the law, totalitarian ways and commitment
to freedom. But the people of Kyrgyzstan, headed by
President Askar Akaev, having made its choice three
years ago, firmly and unwaveringly stand for democracy
and a market economy.
33

A tectonic political, social, and economic shift is
taking place across the enormous Eurasian land mass. The
success of the present transformations in Russia strengthens
our own awareness of the irrevocability of the choice of the
democratic way. Kyrgyzstan, like other nations of the
Commonwealth of Independent States, is deeply committed
to democracy, the principles of freedom and independence,
and the philosophy and spirit of the creation of peace. My
ancient people, yet still a young nation, like the "Manas" -
a Kyrgyz epic poem of a million lines - the millennium of
which we will celebrate in 1995, is undergoing a
renaissance. We realize that a long and thorny path awaits
us. But the most important thing on that path is peace,
which is the same for everyone on this Earth and is
indivisible.


We are gathered here today, in a new session of the
General Assembly, in a new year in the life of the United
Nations, one that will take us to the end of the first half
century of its existence, which we shall celebrate next year.
Half a century will have passed since the birth of a
great dream, a dream that humanity envisaged as an
endeavor for peace, reconciliation, solidarity,
rapprochement, and dialogue amongst peoples of different
ethnic origins and cultures across continents, a dialogue
amongst nations, States, ideologies, religions, and creeds
of this world, with all its differences and singularities.
Through this great dream, humanity wanted to create
an arbiter, a referee on right, justice, and peace, and a
forum in which it could discuss its problems and seek
arbitration; in which it could find a way to defend rights
when rights are denied, to defend itself when injustice
prevails, and a champion that would stand by its side
when it is threatened.
Through this dream, mankind sought to put an end
to wars and armed conflicts, to protect the sovereignty of
nations, and to guarantee respect for their independence
and free choice.
Thus, the United Nations came into existence.
The United Nations was born; and along with it, a
great project emerged - one that was expected to
contribute to the solution of the world’s crises. Alongside
the Organization, its political, security, social, economic,
and cultural organs were set up. The peoples of the
world expected a lot from those organs, and treated them
accordingly, with a deference commensurate with their
standing.
The will of this prestigious world body, which
represents the position, the decision, and the will of the
world’s peoples, is more comprehensive than the will of
any individual State, no matter how great and powerful it
may be. The peoples of the world looked up to it and
accorded it the respect normally granted to the defenders
of right and justice. Right and justice supersede political
interests, no matter how strong they may be.
How far away are we today from this dream, from
this great endeavour, from all those intentions, slogans,
ambitions, aspirations, ideals and prospects?
Where is peace in the world, when battlefronts are
widespread? What have we done about the resolution of
conflicts while conflicts escalate? What about the
elimination of violence which is still on the ascendance?
How far away are we today from protecting what is right;
from upholding the sovereignty of nations which is still
undermined; from respecting human rights and the rights
of peoples and States which are still being trampled?
What have we done about the resolutions adopted by
this very Organization, in this very General Assembly
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Hall? What about the resolutions that await
implementation, and the many others that await adoption,
and are knocking about in the labyrinths of impotence and
deals? How far away are we today from the credibility and
authority of our resolutions, from the one single standard by
which we should judge things?
I beg your indulgence for daring to voice these
questionings. I beg your indulgence, because they are
voiced by a State which is not privileged to be a member
of the club of powerful nations which dare to question the
United Nations.
I beg your indulgence, because those who need the
United Nations are not the powerful and the influential.
The United Nations was not created for them. It was
created for the oppressed, for the unjustly treated, for those
who are not powerful by any means.
The small size of States and the humble size of their
populations have never been the true yardstick by which
their role and contribution should be measured. Many
nations have had a history larger than their geography, a
role larger than their size, and a contribution far greater
than the potential of others. Lebanon is one of those
States.
We have existed for thousands of years, ever since
humanity first organized itself into entities. We have had
our political, cultural, economic, legal, and humanistic
structures ever since.

Side by side with its Phoenician civilization, Lebanon
embraced Pharaonic, Mesopotamian, Persian, Greek,
Roman, Arab, and Western civilizations. Our foremost
contribution was to give mankind its first alphabet. We
have also enriched it with our legal, intellectual, cultural,
economic, scientific, educational and humanistic
contributions.
We were present when the United Nations was born.
We were also present when the International Court of
Justice issued its first opinion, and we contributed to its
making. We volunteered to work in all the United Nations
organs and programmes at all levels. We shouldered our
share of responsibility by hosting some of them, and by
offering them the best of our men and intellectuals.
Social and cultural pluralism was our national
hallmark. In our composition, we were able to develop
an abridged formula for multicultural nation States. The
principle of state-building in the post-First World War era
was based on nationalities and ethnic origins. But today
in the era of communications super-highways, in the era
of ever-increasing demographic mobility, we have come
to recognize that this principle, when put to the test, has
failed.
While attempts have been made through the years to
obliterate the distinctive identities of peoples living under
certain regimes - as in the case of the Soviet Union
during the Stalin era - those identities have resurfaced, as
have the problems which resulted from the attempt at
their suppression.
If Lebanon were an almost unique case in the past,
given the pluralistic features of its society, it is no longer
so today. The Lebanese experience has become
commonplace, as we have come to witness through the
now commonplace demographic movement of populations
and the lowering of geopolitical barriers. While our
formula has been tested, many countries are still in the
experimental stage.
With the demise of the theory of nationalism, there
is need for a new system, one that allows for the
coexistence of different cultures and identities under the
roof of one homeland, as dictated by modern economic,
technological, and practical challenges and needs.
Lebanon, its land and its people have had to suffer
the ravages of regional and international conflicts, the
vagaries of hurricanes of international ideological
differences and their complications. But, as ever in our
history, we have been able to prove that we have the
ability to rise to the challenges that face us and that our
formula for coexistence is much stronger than some
people may have believed, merely because it is the only
feasible and practicable one.
When Lebanon was able to overcome the wars
waged by others on its soil, armed with the will of its
people and the support of its brethren and friends; when
Lebanon enhanced its internal security and stability,
reactivated its national dialogue and tore down the
barriers between its various factions and forces; and when
Lebanon started to rebuild its institutions, rehabilitate its
infrastructures and embark upon its political and
economic endeavours, it proved once again that its
34

time-honoured existence could not be wiped out and that it
was too strong to be eliminated.
But Lebanon’s full sovereignty over all its territories
and its total independence will remain compromised so long
as major parts of its soil are not under its control and so
long as the State remains unable to extend its full
sovereignty over all its national soil through its own
legitimate national forces.
So long as Israel occupies Lebanon’s territories,
despite repeated United Nations resolutions and the will of
the international community; so long as Lebanese citizens
are still languishing in Israeli detention camps, ignored by
the international community and out of the reach of the
humanitarian organizations that are not allowed to visit
them; so long as this continues, the wounds will not heal
and the blood shall not be stanched.
So long as that occupation continues over more than
one eighth of our national territory; so long as Israeli raids
continue to sow the land daily with bombs, mines and
booby traps - killing mainly our innocent children; so long
as these criminal acts continue against a heroic people that
refuses to surrender, the cries of our women and children
will continue to haunt the world along with our cries of
anger, revolt and resistance.
Until now, the occupation has failed to contain this
anger, regardless of the means employed. Day after day,
the death toll rises, ours and theirs. Blood flows in
Southern Lebanon and in the Beka’a Valley. No
technological invention, no matter how ingenious, and no
technique of war have been able to undermine our people’s
determination to regain its independence, freedom,
sovereignty and peace.
There are over 300 Lebanese men and women still
languishing in Israeli prisons. Some have died; others have
been disabled. In their prison cells, they hear about a
theory called "human rights", one that tops the agendas of
our meetings and forums. Theorists are preoccupied over
the rights of flora, fauna and the environment while our
prisoners wonder to which class they belong and under
which category they are classified.
So long as the international community addresses the
world’s problems by using more than one standard; so long
as Security Council resolutions remain unimplemented; and
so long as Chapter VII of the Charter is applied selectively
to troublemakers who lack any kind of protection, we
cannot be deemed faithful to the true mission of the
United Nations.
We have waited so long for the international
community to show some real interest. We have also
waited impatiently for the implementation of Security
Council resolution 425 (1978), only to see the Council
refrain from condemning the aggression rather than
enforce its resolutions. When it does condemn, the
condemnation applies equally to the aggressor and the
aggressed under the pretext of supporting the peace
process.
We were invited to the Madrid Peace Conference.
We were optimistic about the invitation, the content and
the sponsorship. The co-sponsors were super-Powers and
the Conference was to be convened on the basis of a just,
comprehensive and lasting peace, anchored in the
principle of "land for peace" and on the basis of Security
Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973) and 425
(1978) respectively. We accepted advice to join in that
mechanism. By accepting the invitation, we accepted the
content. We were expected to discuss mechanisms and
schedules.
Three years have passed since the convening of the
Madrid Conference. Months followed upon each other’s
heels in waiting, time and again, for parliamentary
elections, for presidential elections, for the appropriate
moment on the local level and for circumstances aimed at
improving the position of one side while isolating or
cornering the other side.
Three years have passed, and our tour of world
capitals is almost complete. From Madrid to Washington,
to Paris, to Oslo and to Moscow. We are still discussing
the basic principles which should have been settled the
very first moment the Conference was convened. The
principle of "land for peace" still awaits the definition of
the land concept. The principle of withdrawal is still
unclear, since in the way that it is proposed, it still means
occupation under different forms.
The principle of negotiating land for peace, which
presupposes equality in the negotiating positions, is
preempted by pressuring the Arab negotiator so that he is
left with nothing to offer. Resistance must stop - so we
are told - without any guarantee of withdrawal or
liberation. The boycott must end, but no guarantees are
given for the recovery of the usurped rights. We must
enter the multilateral negotiations without knowing
whether or not there will be peace and what the form and
35

content of that peace will be. We are asked to celebrate
and to shake hands without knowing what it is we are
celebrating. We are required to take into account the local
public opinion of others; we have to reassure that public
opinion of others as if we ourselves do not have a public
opinion to convince and as if we do not have our own
sceptics who question our opting for peace.
Yes, we the victims of aggression are required to give
security guarantees to the aggressor. Those without
weapons are required to reassure those who possess nuclear,
chemical and bacteriological weapons. Yes, we entered the
negotiations for peace - an honourable peace, not a guilty
one; a balanced peace, not a lopsided one; a just peace, not
an unjust one; a comprehensive peace, not a partial one; a
genuine peace, not a festive one; an equitable peace, not a
biased one; a natural peace, not an artificial one; a
permanent peace, not a temporary one; a peace of the
people, not of regimes; a peace that makes us proud, not
ashamed; a peace of loyalty to, not betrayal of our martyrs.
We want a peace that allows for the return of
refugees, rather than consecrates their dispersion; a peace
that satisfies the revolutionary, instead of provoking him; a
peace from which we draw strength; a peace we can
protect; a peace that will, once and for all, relieve the world
of this burden, the burden of our region; a peace that will
put an end to exporting anger; a peace of prosperity,
development, and stability; a peace that will allow our
widows to cease their mourning.
The days when the problems of peoples were confined
to their own countries are over. The days when geographic
and political boundaries were a barrier between peoples are
over. Our era is one of interdependence and of
communication. It is an era of the lowering of all barriers.
No country is too remote. No matter how far removed
from the area of conflict, it will still be affected by that
conflict and by the demographic problems that do not
recognize boundaries or borders, unless such problems are
stemmed at the source.
We can always be subject to nuclear, chemical and
bacteriological pollution, since there are no boundaries in
the atmosphere. The environment can very well become
contaminated, because the mountains cannot stop the wind
from blowing, and nature cannot stop rivers from flowing.
We will all be affected, whenever and wherever a
disaster strikes. We are all concerned about the world’s
security, its stability, prosperity, resources, needs,
requirements, markets and citizens, wherever they may be.
The Middle East must not forever remain a fiery
volcano that threatens the peace of the world around it,
challenges international security, and destabilizes the
world economy. It must not remain the source of the
world’s anger and resentment.
Let there be no more occupied territories, no more
acts of aggression, no more prisoners languishing in the
prisons. Let there be no more blood flowing through the
land of the prophets. Let no more darkness prevail in the
cradle of God’s religions.
This region will not enjoy more favorable
opportunities than those that exist today. Time will not
be forever on the side of those who seek peace. Our
region must produce visionaries, as it has always done,
and not manipulators of peace.
Our congratulations to you, Sir, on the assumption
of the presidency of this session of the General Assembly
cannot come from the heart in isolation of what we
expect from the United Nations during your presidency.
The efforts of the Secretary-General cannot be viewed or
appreciated outside the scope of our view of the United
Nations. May God guide you and illuminate your path in
the service of world peace to which Lebanon is dedicated
and for which it fights.