The nations speak; caught in the throes of pervasive change, seeking effective and swift responses.

The 1992 general debate--taking place at a time of both "unprecedented opportunities" and "sober assessment", in the words of General Assembly President Stoyan Ganev--saw a record-breaking 167 speakers address the new and complex problems facing the world community.

One by one, they stood at the familiar green marble podium, many stressing that the United Nations must become "truly effective and swiftly responsive" to the new world order, undertaking preventive diplomacy and peacemaking activities to safeguard social and economic conditions for all.

As the annual forum for the Organization's 179 Member States, the three-week debate which began on 21 September, provided "a multidimensional view of virtually every major international problem", said President Ganev at its conclusion on 8 October. The 47th Assembly session had convened, he said, at a "crucial moment" in UN history. He emphasized the importance of realizing the Assembly's "full potential as an unprecedented world parliament".

The parade of speakers, which included 24 Heads of State, 1 Vice-President, 13 Prime Ministers, 10 Deputy Prime Ministers, 103 Foreign Ministers and 16 Permanent Representatives, also "reflected a cohesion of ideas regarding the critical need for reform" in the UN, including the General Assembly, Mr. Ganev said.

A strong impetus for future reform was found in Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's historic "An Agenda for Peace". Foreign Minister Mario Carias Zapata of Honduras said the noteworthy report embodied "both vision and realism that will enable us to make progress in forging a more secure and prosperous world".

Sustainable development was another concern; developed nations "must reduce pressure on the environment through corrective action to enable developing countries . . . to achieve environmental space for industrialization", said Ahmed Hassan Diria, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Republic of Tanzania.

Commenting on many crises around the world, almost every nation lamented the bloody conflict raging in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a reported 100,000 people had been killed since the spring of 1992. Speedy and resolute action was called for to end the carnage.

Reflecting the strong sentiments of Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, forcefully declared that the war in "beleaguered" Bosnia and Herzegovina was not a civil war but "a war of extermination waged openly on the people of a sovereign, independent State whose territory has been occupied by the perpetrators of that brutal and savage aggression".

Only if the UN and regional organizations proved "capable of protecting individual States from external aggression and minorities from domestic persecution will it be possible", said German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, "to make the desired transition from policies of national hegemony and armament to the rule of law, collective security and economic and social development".

The world was "far from being peaceful, just and secure", concluded Indonesian President Soeharto, who also spoke on behalf of the 108-member Non-Aligned Movement. "Simmering disputes, violent conflicts, aggression and foreign occupation, interference in the internal affairs of States, policies of hegemony and domination, ethnic strife, religious intolerance, new forms of racism and narrowly conceived nationalism continue to obstruct the building of harmonious coexistence between States and peoples and have even led to the disintegration of States and societies." He stressed: "A world caught in the throes of pervasive change and transition is basically an unstable and unpredictable world."

Africa

In search of solutions to economic malaise

The political impasse in South Africa and the economic crisis stifling the continent--home to a majority of the world's least developed countries--weighed heavily on the minds of African delegates. These countries, which form the

overwhelming majority of the UN membership, were also greatly concerned with the continuing economic difficulties of developing countries in general.

Commenting on the "rising levels of poverty among vast sectors of the world's population", President El Hadj Hassan Gouled Aptidon of Djibouti said that redefining international cooperation for development must be the new priority of the multilateral programmes. "It is thus essential to define a broader approach to this cooperation, one which pays particular attention to the developing countries in general, and to the least developed countries in particular, with a view to achieving sustainable development."

Imbalances between developed and developing countries were being exacerbated, stated Theodore Holo, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Benin. if current trends persist until the year 2000, he said, "the citizens of the richest nations will have an average annual income of more than $13,600, while those from the least developed African countries will have an average per capita income of only $217--that is, $12 less than in 1985".

Drought and desertification further threatened the economic prospects of many developing countries, stated Sir Ketumile Masire, President of Botswana. Urgent measures to combat these scourges, including negotiation of a desertification convention, would, he said, "contribute substantially to the search for solutions to the economic malaise facing our continent".

Many Africans felt that the UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development (1986-1990) had not achieved its objectives because of the international community's failure to provide the requisite resources. Thus, Africa's partners must have the political will to live up to their commitments so that the successor to the Programme--the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s--can succeed in accelerating the transformation, integration and diversification of African economies.

On the continuing struggle in southern Africa, hope was expressed that the stalled negotiations between Pretoria and the African National Congress would be resumed soon.

The decisive steps taken by the Security Council in Somalia were commended, but some speakers said the extent of the suffering could have been greatly alleviated had action been taken faster.

Hope was also expressed that the parties in Angola would accept the results of the UN-monitored elections; that there would be a negotiated settlement to the long and costly civil war in Mozambique: that efforts by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would bring about peace and democracy in Liberia; and that the UN would ensure that the referendum plan for Western Sahara was carried out in a manner that reflected the genuine aspirations of the Sahrawi people.

The UN appeared to be the ideal forum for seeking and identifying solutions to the problems of all kinds assailing the world, observed Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, speaking on behalf of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). "It is here that modern history is being woven and it is here that ideas are expressed that plant the seeds of the future."

ALGERIA

Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi said: "The so-called world order remains a concept without substance for the overwhelming majority of mankind, whose economic and social situation is steadily deteriorating and who also have reason to fear that this new order is being established outside the bounds of the basic principles of the . . . Charter and without meeting the need to democratize international relations." Initiatives to restructure the UN should aim at a "correct balance of prerogatives between the General Assembly and the Security Council", and also allow access to the Council for all major cultural, political and geographic groupings. Efforts to implement the Western Sahara settlement plan should be redoubled. He called for a peaceful solution to tensions between Libya and the major western Power's.

ANGOLA

Domingos Manuel Nginga, Vice-Minister for External Relations, said the process of peace and democratization under way in Angola "cannot but have positive repercussions and effects in the international sphere". The poverty growing daily in the African continent was worsened by natural calamities that exacerbate the present grave economic and social situation. In South Africa, he called for the establishment of a transitional government and elaboration of a democratic constitution and for holding free elections based on the principle of "one person, one vote". Also, Mozambique should persevere in its peace effort, assisted by the international community, with a view to achieving peace and national reconciliation. On East Timor, there should be direct negotiations between Portugal and indonesia without excluding the legitimate representatives of the Maubere people.

BENIN

Theodore Holo, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said Africa's economic horizon was "darkening daily", with a continent-wide debt of more than $270 billion. "In 1990, our States had to pay out $23 billion to service this debt." Benin appealed for urgent international action to reduce Africa's debt burden and increase financial flows for its development. Measures to ease or cancel debt should be accompanied by detailed, explicit programmes on conditions for financing structural adjustment programmes and repaying that debt. To reach the objectives of the New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, the international community should support African efforts to achieve autonomous growth and socio-economic development. Firm support was also needed to restore peace in Liberia, Somalia and elsewhere in Africa, which had "suffered too much".

BOTSWANA

Sir Ketumile Masire, President of Botswana, welcomed the resumption of negotiations in South Africa, saying they were the country's "only hope". The African economic situation was "still bleak". Many economies had "stagnated or retrogressed" during 1991. The New Agenda for Africa should be translated in concrete programmes to put Africa on the path to economic recovery and development. "The problems of poverty, unemployment, huge foreign debt, budget deficits, lack of market access, high interest rates and the environment are not the problems of any one country or group of countries. No one country can solve them in isolation", he stated. He noted that the magnitude of the "serious drought crises ravaging southern Africa" was daunting and urged negotiation of a desertification convention.

BURKINA FASO

Foreign Minister Thomas Sanon said the Security Council's role and composition must be reviewed. "But we fear that the discussion might be limited to merely expanding a club whose members would continue to view their status as a privilege, not a weighty responsibility." Furthermore, he said, "there can be no true security or just and lasting peace while three quarters of mankind continues to live in destitution, wretchedness and ignorance". Africa still bore an external debt of more than $2 36.7 billion, and faced tariff and customs barriers, high rates of population growth and painful structural adjustment programmes. "The rewards of the tireless efforts by African countries have not been commensurate with the sacrifices we have made. The promises of the North remain promises."

BURUNDI

Prime Minister Adrien Sibomana said: "While a series of events, of which everyone is aware, is persuading peoples to work together to achieve economic and even political integration, nations are being torn apart by very bloody fratricidal conflicts." One had only to consider the "extremely worrying" situation in Somalia to realize that "the world is still a theatre for tragedies that one cannot bear to watch". Men and women continue to "wallow in deprivation", especially in Africa, "where ignorance, hunger and sickness still reign on a grand scale".

CAMEROON

Pascal Biloa Tang, Permanent Representative to the UN, said that in Africa, there was "an unprecedented economic crisis, aggravated by natural disasters, civil war's and the social consequences of structural adjustment, which threaten the process of democratization". The UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s must be launched urgently. He hoped that the conference on the development of Africa, to take place in Japan in 1993, would mobilize additional resources to re-launch growth and start economic recovery in that continent. Also, a "harmonious transition" in South Africa "to a democratic, non-racial and united country free of violence" was in everyone's interest, he stated. He wanted economic, social and cultural rights to be accorded the same importance as civil and political rights.

CAPE VERDE

Foreign Minister Jorge Carlos Fonseca said Africa was the continent most affected by drought and desertification. A global plan was required to face that "calamity" successfully. The Assembly must find ways to "restore its lost prestige" and a relative balance among regions must be achieved in the Security Council. The precarious economic situation in which developing countries found themselves offered fertile ground for the resurgence of conflict. Outs is an era of armed confrontation and profound changes in the international scene", he declared. "But it is equally an era that offers a unique opportunity and exceptional conditions that nurture great expectations and hope in the shaping of a better and more peaceful relationship between nations aimed at building a collective future of peace and well-being."

CHAD

Foreign Minister Mahamat Ali Adoum said the international community must bring sustained pressure to bear to ensure that "the vestiges of primitive racism will yield to a democratic, multiracial and egalitarian South African society". Chad deplored the break-up of the Somalian nation "as a result of the appetites of certain warlords there". it was high time that the international community ended "this abominable carnage whose victims are always the same: women and children". He urged the heads of the Somali factions to sit down at the negotiating table and try to end "the terrible tragedy of the Somali people". Chad also urged Liberia's "primary leaders" to "heed the voice of reason". There was a real desire for change and progress in the world. "Men must show that, having avoided a nuclear holocaust, they are now capable of building a universal peace through development."

COMOROS

Amini Ali Moumin, Permanent Representative to the UN, said: "The profound and far-reaching transformations that our planet has undergone during the past four years are very encouraging. General ideological confrontation is rapidly disappearing, and dictatorial and authoritarian Governments are falling one after another. We are witnessing a renewal of freedom, equality and respect for the dignity of man." His country favoured dialogue and a peaceful solution to the question of the Comorian island of Mayotte. Nevertheless, it noted "with some bitterness" that France had showed no evidence of a desire to find a solution to the problem.

CONGO

Benjamin Bounkoulou, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Hydrocarbons, said Africa was suffering from drought, famine and disease--an "appalling picture" that called for action by the international community. Along with the questions of the maintenance of peace, drug abuse, the environment and humanitarian assistance, Africa was one of the five UN priorities in the 1990s. Paradoxically, however, since the adoption of the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, the implementation of that programme, "based on a new partnership", was suffering from a lack of priority. All parties in South Africa must agree to end the violence and must show restraint. The Liberian and Somalian tragedies continued to give reason to fear the destabilization of a number of States.

COTE D'IVOIRE

Foreign Minister Amara Essy was confident of the international community's ability to mobilize support for the African countries' efforts to realize the aims of the new UN Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, which constituted a major challenge that must meet with success if Africa was "not to be irredeemably marginalized at the dawn of the twenty-first century". Africa "needs to be considered by the rest of the world as a partner rather than a burden. The partnership it seeks implies dignity rather than dependency, mutual interests rather than charity."

DJIBOUTI

President El Hadi Hassan Gouled Aptidon said the new Programme for the Development of Africa in the 1990s--a contract between Africa and its international partners--merited international support. A climate of security was needed, conducive to resumption of dialogue for the emergence of a united, democratiC and non-racial South Africa. in Somalia, he said, the tragedy was not inevitable: "human stupidity sometimes causes more devastation than natural disasters". That country had returned to a state of "veritable barbarism". The result of the "tenacity of the oppressive, tyrannical warlords and clans" had "reduced a whole country to rubble". It was a "wasteland ruled by armed gangs of bandits and looters", with death, human misery and abject poverty rampant.

EGYPT

Foreign Minister Amre Moussa said that the Security Council's "ever-increasing role" necessitated a review of its membership and the scope of its responsibility "so that it may be a genuine reflection of international and regional forces". The establishment of a new world order "cannot and should not be realized through imposition or coercion, but rather through a democratic process in which all peoples and States of the world would have a role and a say". That could be achieved only through the UN. "Middle East Arab and non-Arab States, with the exception of one, have joined the international system of inspection or the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons." Israel's "massive arsenal" negated the effectiveness of disarmament instruments, he stated.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

Don Benjamin Mba Ekua Miko, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Francophonie, said that in South Africa, apartheid and racial discrimination continued to claim innocent victims. "Selfish political interests" in Somalia and the desire for power had combined with natural disasters "to accelerate the disappearance of an entire nation". The civil war in Liberia continued to claim victims and had spilled over its borders, destabilizing countries of the subregion. The increasingly acute economic and financial crisis afflicting all countries, and the developing ones in particular, could be solved by a reduction in military budgets, progress in disarmament, curbing of the arms race, democracy, free markets and respect for fundamental freedoms. His country "flatly" rejected the March 1992 report of the Human Rights Commission.

ETHIOPIA

Seyoum Mesfin, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, said, regarding Somalia, that "certain quarters" were undermining the peaceful resolution of the crisis by supplying weapons to the warring factions instead of relief assistance to the suffering people of Somalia. He called on "these quarters to desist from attempts to polarize the region of the Horn of Africa" and instead to work with the Governments of the region, the UN, the Organization of African Unity and others to restore lasting peace and stability in Somalia. "Democracy cannot be nurtured and sustained to grow into a robust institution in countries characterized by economic deprivation and destitution." It was therefore imperative to democratize the international economy with the same vigour deployed to democratize international politics.

GABON

Pascaline Bongo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Francophonie, said that third world countries should be represented in the Security Council as permanent members "in order to make decision-making at that level more democratic". The Assembly's political role and the Economic and Social Council's supervisory functions should be further strengthened to make the entire UN system more dynamic. The creation of an increasing number of subregional and regional economic groupings, as well as the globalization of international trade, had turned the world into "one immense market whose working rules should be equitable". Africa--70 per cent of whose exports consisted of prime commodities--had been hard hit by the fall in their prices. Gabon advocated the creation of a sort of "Marshall Plan" for Africa.

GAMBIA

Omar B. Sey, Minister for External Affairs, said: "Today we are witnessing the emergence of a new world order grounded in the principles of respect for human rights, political pluralism and self-determination. This new world order, which is still unfolding, marks the end of the cold war and the beginning of a strengthened role for the United Nations.". Nowhere was the economic situation "more bleak and desperate" as in Africa, where the cumulative debt stood at around $272 billion, the approximate equivalent of 90 per cent of the continent's gross national product. He echoed the Secretary-General's proposals to cancel official bilateral debts and other semi-official debts such as export credits, as well as the substantial reduction of debts owed to multilateral financial institutions, which account for 40 per cent of sub-Saharan servicing.

GHANA

Mohammed Ibn Chambas, Provisional National Defence Council Deputy Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said the Security Council's present composition, "with the outmoded and obviously undemocratic permanent-five arrangement that reflects the post-Second-World-War situation and its 10 two-year rotative seats for the rest of the world, flies in the face of a global reality in which we are all expected to play our part in maintaining the peace". He said: "The creeping tendency on the part of certain nations to see themselves as policy-makers and executors on behalf of the entire United Nations membership through their predominance in the Security Council does not send out welcome signals to the rest of us as equal partners in world affairs."

GUINEA

Ibrahima Sylla, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said: "The new world architecture is taking shape against a backdrop of persistent poverty and misery in the South, in contrast to the general well-being in the North." Most African countries had undertaken deep political, economic and social reforms. But the efforts undertaken on the national, subregional and regional levels had not enjoyed the expected international support, "The international community must . . . build on the ruins of the old East-West order, a new order based on more dynamic and more innovative North-South relations." Poverty undermined the fabric of States and threatened "the very foundation of human rights".

GUINEA-BISSAU

Boubacar Toure, Permanent Representative to the UN, said the determination to democratize in Africa--"an almost forgotten continent"--was facing difficulties that stemmed from the implementation of structural adjustment policies, which did not have the expected donor support. "This situation worsens the state of impoverishment and the feeling of frustration of our peoples. The dependence of Guinea-Bissau, in particular, and of African States, in general, on international agencies and bilateral partners is there strengthened." There could be no real democracy without development. In spite of efforts to implement structural adjustment programmes, "our economic situation and living conditions are becoming increasingly difficult". He called urgently for the rapid establishment of an intergovernmental committee to develop an

international convention to fight drought and desertification.

KENYA

Wilson Ndolo Ayah, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that some 2 million people would be condemned to certain death before the human tragedy in Somalia was eventually brought to a conclusion. All Somali factions should discuss a durable solution. In South Africa, he looked forward to the resumption of a Convention for a Democratic South Africa talks to accelerate movement towards genuine democracy. He was pleased that the Earth Summit had called attention to the need to start work on an international convention on desertification, with special reference to Africa. Protectionism, along with subsidies, had adversely affected the ability of developing countries, particularly those in Africa, to earn badly needed foreign exchange and had resulted in developing countries losing some $500 billion a year.

LESOTHO

Major-General Elias Phisoana Ramaema, Chairman of the Military Council and Council of Ministers, was optimistic as the UN was "now poised to assume a major role in shaping the new world order". Never before had such a congenial atmosphere prevailed "for collective action towards creating a secure and viable future for mankind". He voiced "the lingering perception on the part of developing countries, particularly small States, that the post-cold-war era can potentially lead to their political and economic marginalization". The efforts of many developed countries "in nurturing the seed of democracy" would need to be complemented by enhanced resource flows from developed countries to assist developing countries "not only to escape from the vicious circle of underdevelopment, but also to institutionalize a culture of democracy".

LIBERIA

Gabriel Baccus Matthews, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the interim Government of National Unity, said Liberians wanted an end to the civil war. "We want a unified country. We want free and fair elections." There was no reason "for the pitting of Liberians against each other in a zero-sum game and the transformation of the country into a mass grave". There was still a need for continued humanitarian assistance to Liberia. He also called on the international community to support wholeheartedly the New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s in order to grant relief to African countries. "If we muster the courage and the will to face squarely the new realities of the post-cold-war era, then the chances will be enhanced of a stable international environment in which the United Nations can promote social progress and development while keeping the peace."

LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA

Ibrahim Muhammad Al-Bishari, Secretary of the People's Committee of the People's Bureau for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, said that what had become known as the Lockerbie Case "pinpoints the dangers inherent in the tendency of certain States to use the powers of the Security Council to achieve their own private objectives and to use double standards in dealing with issues before the Council in a manner that deals high-handedly and arbitrarily with the sovereignty and rights of small and vulnerable countries". Libya called for a peaceful settlement to the situation that has evolved from the Lockerbie incident, "a settlement that will safeguard the rights of all, maintain the principles of international law, and save the world from escalation and confrontation". The "unjust sanctions" against Libya had caused "a great deal of human and material harm, loss and suffering to the Libyan people", and should be lifted.

MADAGASCAR

Foreign Minister Cesaire Rabenoro said newly independent States and new Member States had called for the implementation of democratic rules within the UN. "It is therefore not astonishing to hear them speak at one point of expanding the Security Council, at another of eliminating the veto right, or at another still of extending or modifying the exercise of that right." The right of veto was challenged by everyone except those who had it. The 1945 Charter had to be revised. "It will still be necessary for the five permanent members to agree as a whole to renounce their implicit veto right when it comes time for ratifying whatever changes the sovereign Assembly may adopt. That is the only way for us to overcome the impasse." As long as "the international political situation is under a burden, the search for a solution to the development crises will be in vain".

MALAWI

Lovemore G. Munlo, Deputy Minister for External Affairs, supported the combined efforts of the UN, the OAU and the Organization of the Islamic Conference in working to achieve peace and stability in Somalia. The end of the 16-year civil war in Mozambique meant that the Nacala and Beira corridors, Malawi's "most cost-effective routes to the sea", would begin to function at full capacity. He hoped that the more than 1 million refugees Malawi had hosted from Mozambique would return to their homes. Southern Africa was experiencing the most serious drought in living memory, which had a major debilitating effect on development efforts.

MALI

Foreign Minister Mohamed Alhousseini Toure said: "The international community must strive to free up, for the poorest countries, sufficient resources to correct the imbalances in our economies, to mitigate the effects of adjustment on the most vulnerable sectors and to permit the financing of priority programmes for basic development." it also had to set up, "for its own survival, collective management of the environment that is more responsible than it has been in the past, that is fairer and truly universal". At a time when the international community "thought it had seen the last of the great human tragedies which have long darkened many regions of the world, now societies of old civilizations have been drawn into the whirlwind of fratricidal conflicts".

MAURITANIA

Mohamed Abderrahmane Ould Moine, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said it was "no longer acceptable that Islands of wealth should persist in an ocean of poverty". International problems could not be solved "in the absence of sincere and effective cooperation between all peoples". The UN was at "an important crossroads". It must "regain its prestige . . . to rise to the many challenges posed by the international changes on the horizon". The economies of developing countries were continuously deteriorating. "Unless something is done to combat this situation, it will become impossible to build a world where stability reigns."

MAURITIUS

Paul Raymond Berenger, Minister for External Affairs, said the "upsurge of racism and xenophobia in certain countries of the West" was a matter of great concern to Mauritius, which considered "the discrimination in the treatment of migrant workers and foreign students in those countries a human rights violation". It was "a matter of deep regret that some countries that have come to the fore as champions of human rights should themselves be found wanting on that level. Let them put their human rights house in order first before decrying and acting on violations beyond their frontiers." He deplored the fact that "some private companies based in Europe are shamefully exploiting the situations of disarray and complete chaos prevailing in Somalia to dump toxic waste on its territory".

MOROCCO

Abdellatif Filali, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said that with regard to the question of the "so-called Western Sahara", Morocco had continued to adhere firmly to the settlement plan. It continued to extend full cooperation to the establishment of mechanisms envisaged in that plan and the implementation of the rules agreed upon with a view to organizing the referendum as soon as possible. The emergence of the Arab Maghreb was inevitable, and its establishment on sound and solid foundations was more than necessary and beneficial to the countries of that region, the Mediterranean and the entire world. Africa "has been forgotten and marginalized, regardless of its deepening economic crisis, the aggravation of its foreign debt problems and the collapsing prices of its export raw materials".

MOZAMBIQUE

Foreign Minister Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi said the economic cost of the "horrendous war" in Mozambique, ravaging his country for 16 years, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and resulting in the destruction of the economic and social infrastructure, had been estimated at $20 billion. There was "no justification whatsoever" for the war's continuation. All political forces should pursue their political objectives through democratically accepted norms of conduct, without resorting to violence. Elections were to take place a year after the signature of the General Peace Agreement, he said. There was a "national political will" to turn those elections into a real success. Mozambique would "appreciation ate and acknowledge every possible material and financial assistance" from the international community so that the process might be conducted "without major bottlenecks and be truly just, free and fair".

NAMIBIA

Foreign Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab, referring to the "outstanding dispute between Namibia and South Africa on Walvis Bay and the offshore islands", said a joint transitional administration of a limited duration would be established over those territories on 1 November 1992. It would be known as the joint Administrative Authority and headed by two Chief Executives, one Namibian and one South African. In the meantime, the two Governments would keep negotiations going on "the core issue of reintegration", in accordance with Security Council resolution 432 (1978). In South Africa, the UN presence "should be prolonged and the size of its team increased in order to monitor the violence and assist in the transition to a democratic, non-racial and united South Africa". For now, he said, the situation remains "explosive and dangerous".

NIGER

Hamidou Hassane Diallo, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, said the climate of confidence that had been created by the end of East-West rivalries was a "decisive turning-point in the history of mankind, marked by profound and rapid political and social changes brought about by powerful currents towards freedom, justice, democracy and human rights". That positive development made it imperative for the international community to search for "a new world balance that takes into consideration the aspirations and needs of all of the components of international society". Rival factions in Somalia should cease their hostilities and respect a cease-fire.

NIGERIA

Foreign Minister Major-General Ike Omar S. Nwachukwu said there was a need to increase the number of permanent seats in the Security Council. Africa must not continue to be a region without representation in the Council's permanent membership. Nigeria, the most populous African nation, with the largest economic potential and its proven commitment to the cause of world peace and security, possessed the qualifications to fulfil Africa's aspiration in that regard. The economic recovery and development of African States depended primarily on policies pursued by African Governments. However, the success of such policies rested in part on the fairness of the international economic system and the transfer to African States of adequate resources to enhance their growth-oriented policies. Arms expenditures should be diverted to development programmes.

RWANDA

Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye declared: "Mankind remains torn by bloody conflicts and wars that result from anachronistic situations of colonialism, oppression, racism ideological intolerance. The seeds of blind violence are multiplying wherever the sovereignty of peoples and the territorial integrity of States are being undermined and wherever the dignity and fundamental rights of man are being trampled upon by totalitarian regimes." The restoration of democracy and political pluralism were "preconditions for the success of the new world political order". The process of democratizing Rwandese political life was viewed as a solution to the war that had been going on in his country since 1 October 1990. "This unjust, fratricidal and costly war has no objective raison d'etre." Rwanda felt that there could be no military solution to the conflict and was committed to a negotiated solution.

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE

Foreign Minister Albertino Braganca said: "In view of the high level of dependence of the so-called third world countries on the outside world, no development will be possible unless we see a change in the unequal terms of exchange that condemn the gigantic effort of many peoples to the caprices of a free market in which decisions are taken totally without their consent. Powerless victims of the imponderables of the world economy, in which they play but a marginal role, the nations of the third world will never be in a position to meet the development challenge unless fairer and more appropriate mechanisms are introduced in international economic relations to alter the terms of the involvement of those nations in the process of world exchanges." The human community's hopes for a better world "are reflected in a common desire to create a new world order based on respect for the legitimate rights of peoples . . . and on active solidarity between the rich and poor peoples of our planet".

SENEGAL

President Abdou Diouf, speaking also on behalf of the OAU and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said: "Here is a continent (Africa) which is rich in minerals and mining resources but in which--paradoxically--most of the poorest countries are to be found." Democracy had made great progress in recent months. Authoritarian regimes had yielded to democratically elected Governments. Everywhere, "confrontation is yielding to joint efforts and bullets to ballots". The solution or prevention of conflicts in Africa would be possible only if arms supplies to belligerents and other forms of outside intervention were halted. He proposed a resumption of the North-South dialogue, and he stated that peace and security were "precarious without the eradication of poverty and misery and without a reduction of the gap separating the North and the South".

SEYCHELLES

Danielle de St. Jorre, Minister for Environment, Economic Planning and Foreign Affairs, said: "Noble ideas, lofty sentiments and good intentions are not enough for the well-being of humankind. . . . Today, the world is again experiencing upheavals and disruption. We are seeing States imploding. Peoples are plagued by hunger, destitution and poverty. We are powerless witnesses to this grim spectacle, whereas we should be the artisans of change." While the rich nations, with about 15 per cent of the world's population, controlled more than 80 per cent of the world's income, more than half of humankind lived in low income countries and some 3 billion people possessed only 5 per cent of the total income. There were increasing tensions between the industrialized North, "certain that it is in the right", and the South, "which gets poorer all the time, plagued by contradiction and seeking, sometimes clumsily, fresh sources of relief".

SIERRA LEONE

Captain Valentine E.M. Strasser, Chairman of the National Provisional Ruling Council said: "Each year it has been reported that the countries of sub-Saharan Africa struggle to pay about one third of the interest due on their debt of $150 billion; the rest is added to the rising mountain of debt under which the hope of the continent lies buried." Effective measures should be taken to address the unbearable burden of the African debt problem. For many developing countries, negative growth had become an all-too-familiar feature of economic performance, with three-digit inflation among its worst features. That was not a situation that could be sustained indefinitely. "The greater the stresses many of our countries are called upon to bear, the less likely it becomes for the world economy to assume its own steady growth." The New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s should "arrest and reverse the downward trend" in Africa.

SUDAN

Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Sahloul said his country expected to reach a final solution with the rebel movement to the problem of the south by the end of 1992. He warned: "Unipolarity has led the world into a new security system controlled by a handful of major Powers in the complete absence of active participation on the part of the rest of the international community." Developing countries were "being subjected . . . to the practices of the so-called new international legality, which means, inter alia, interference and intervention in the internal affairs of those States and pursuance of the policies of diktat which deprive them of the right of making their own decisions". Developing countries should have "an effective role in the formulation and setting up of a new world order". The new world order "should not violate the sovereignty, territorial integrity or independence of States, nor deprive them of their right to make their own decisions". The type of preventive diplomacy that is accompanied by use of military force "must not be used against the smaller States alone".

SWAZILAND

Prime Minister Obed Mfanyana Dlamini said: "The United Nations remains the only truly global forum in which the world's problems can be discussed and from which the collective experience and expertise of all our Member nations can be pooled to find solutions." Swaziland welcomed the UN's initiative in dispatching a team of observers to South Africa to assess the violence in the townships. He urged all political leaders in South Africa to return to the negotiating table in a spirit of compromise and conciliation. Africa was "disturbed to see much-needed developmental funds being diverted to other targets". Swaziland and others in the subregion were still in desperate need of continuing assistance in many areas in order "to be self-sufficient in the future".

TOGO

Ouattara Fambare Natchaba, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Transitional Government, said: "In order to safeguard peace in the world we must commit ourselves fully to the idea of a fairer division of the riches of the earth. But we must note, with regret, that the international situation has not changed in this respect:" The gap between rich and poor was growing ever wider. The economies of developing countries were "in a state of chronic recession, the most serious in several decades". That situation would continue unless efforts were made to establish a new world economic order based on fairness and "a more gene humanistic vision of international cooperation".

TUNISIA

Foreign Minister Habib Ben Yahia hoped that a peaceful solution would be found to the crisis between Libya and certain Western countries within the framework of international legality, particularly since Libya had accepted Security Council resolution 731 (1992). "The desired new world order must be forged . . . through a process of peaceful and lasting settling of conflicts and resolving disputes by dialogue and negotiation with a view to establishing peace and security in the world." He called on Israel to end its policy of settlement as it posed "a major obstacle to the achievement of peace in the region". In Somalia, he urged the parties to the conflict to end the bloodshed and hoped that they would try to find "an appropriate solution to the crisis, through a balanced approach of dialogue and negotiation". He hoped negotiations would resume in South Africa.

UGANDA

Paul Kawaga Ssemogerere, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said: "We stand at a historic watershed, especially given the fact that the global transition period we are entering is marked by contradictory trends. At this crossroads, however, a unique opportunity exists for the United Nations to achieve the objectives envisaged in the Charter." Underdevelopment and poverty were prime sources of conflict. He said necessary pressure should be maintained to keep Pretoria negotiating in good faith. it was critical to agree on a constitution for South Africa that enjoyed the widest consensus. He called for national reconciliation in Somalia and supported the ECOWAS initiative for a peaceful settlement in Liberia. As for the conflict in southern Sudan, "the path towards a long-term solution lies in dialogue and reconciliation among the parties".

UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

Ahmed Hassan Diria, Minister for Foreign Affairs and international Cooperation, said: "The United Nations, and especially the Security Council, must be reformed because it is based on an outmoded concept of international peace and security. The maintenance of peace and security cannot be exclusively focused on traditional peace-keeping or peacemaking, nor can it be left the exclusive domain of the Security Council." He called for the "refashioning of the basic structure underlying the international system so that the emerging new order may be based on right rather than might, on justice rather than expediency". While encouraging Africa to transform its political and economic systems, developed nations had a moral and historical duty to assist the continent in pursuing a sustainable development strategy that was people-oriented.

ZAIRE

Foreign Minister Pierre Lumbi Okongo said developed countries should help countries of the South to solve problems related to underdevelopment. The Final Document of the International Conference on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development should be implemented in order to find the necessary resources to solve "the daunting problems our peoples face". He hoped the international community would support efforts aimed at Africa's economic recovery. As Zaire had vast areas of protected forests, his country would appreciate acceptance by the international community of the idea of "recompensing countries that set aside major forested areas with a view to protecting them from the ravages of humankind". The international community, particularly developed countries, had to make additional resources available for the effective implementation of Agenda 2 1.

ZIMBABWE

Foreign Minister Nathan M. Shamuyarira stressed the need to "democratize the international system and the empowerment of the voice of third world countries within that system". The economic gap between developed and third world countries had widened. The UN should have "its own dedicated and committed armed units on a permanent basis". The power of veto in the Security Council was an issue which needed rational discussion "in which all States would participate equally and all views would be given a fair hearing". The "much-heralded new world order" should be "a just, humane and enlightened one that will bring an improvement to the quality of life of all of humanity".

Asia and the Pacific

Concrete steps towards new world order

The worsening economic plight of developing countries dominated the agenda of speakers from Asia and the Pacific, while drugs, disarmament, the environment and the situations in the Middle East, Cambodia, Korea and Cyprus were other major concerns.

Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Com of Viet Nam said the rate of economic growth had fallen to its lowest level in many years and warned that "the symptoms of a new financial crisis, which could shake the international monetary system, can be perceived". Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Badawi of Malaysia declared: "Nothing short of a major reform and restructuring of the world economy, including the financial system, is required in order to bring about a strong revival and ensure its long-term stability."

According to Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf of Iraq: "All indications point to an exacerbation of the division of the world into North and South, a world without equality, justice or equity between the rich and strong countries of the North and the poor and weak countries of the South."

Widening gap

Drawing attention to the ever-widening gap between developed and developing countries, speakers asked for the establishment of a new, equitable international economic order in place of the present iniquitous one. It was stated that developing countries generally suffered from inadequate access to technology, large-scale unemployment, abject poverty, severe environmental degradation, stagnation or vastly inadequate growth rates, low prices for commodities and raw materials, and severely contracted financial flows.

Economic progress in developing countries would enrich the prosperity of the developed world, speakers said. Non-economic conditionalities, it was emphasized, should not be made in international development assistance. The importance of intensifying South-South cooperation on the basis of collective self-reliance was also stressed.

Secretary of Foreign Affairs Roberto R. Romulo of the Philippines said the time had come to convene a general conference to review the UN Charter. Calls were made for a review of the functions, composition and veto privileges of the Security Council, whose membership, many felt, should be expanded.

Importance was attached to making the General Assembly more effective. Its actions must be governed by a sense of justice, guided by Charter principles, and must reflect the collective will and "not the narrow interests or predilections of a nation or a group of nations". All Assembly resolutions, speakers said, must be implemented.

Agreement was widespread for the creation of a new international order which, according to State Councellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs Qian Qichin of China, should be based on the "universal observance of the five principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence".

A new world order could come about only through concrete steps agreed by the vast majority of the international community, said Foreign Minister Muhammad Siddique Khan Kanju of Pakistan. The UN was the only forum "where we can concert our actions to construct new arrangements for global peace and prosperity".

In conclusion, Eduardo Faleiro, Minister of State for External Affairs of India, pointed out that "what we need to work for is a new international order free from war, poverty, illiteracy and injustice. In this great endeavour, the United Nations has a central role to play".

AFGHANISTAN

Deputy Foreign Minister Hamed Karzai said the Islamic Government of Afghanistan, established on 28 April 1992, was preparing the ground for holding free and fair elections as a viable procedure of guaranteeing democracy and social justice. The Islamic State had inherited a country that was "physically devastated, psychologically battered, economically depleted, and politically and socially tormented". The population was in "dire need of moral and material support". The Russian Federation should compensate for the "destruction caused by armed aggression of the former Soviet Union against Afghanistan".

BAHRAIN

Foreign Minister Shaikh Mohamed Bin Mubarak Al-Khalifa described today's world as in a state of flux, emerging from a past that was collapsing under our eyes and "moving towards a future that has not taken shape yet". Rich industrial countries ought to respond to the developing countries' need for development assistance "so that the cold war between the East and West may not be replaced by another cold war between the North and South". Bahrain reiterated the demand for compliance with UN resolutions relating to the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, and was concerned at "recent unfortunate developments in the Gulf area" due to actions by Iran on the island of Abu Mousa. He emphasized the sovereignty and territorial rights of the United Arab Emirates over that island. Israel must forswear its policies of expansion and settlement-building in the occupied territories, and withdraw from the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon.

BANGLADESH

Foreign Minister Mostafizur Rahman said: "The pre-eminent task before us is to forge a new, more focused and action-oriented world agenda to promote peace, tolerance, justice and development. It is of crucial import that this should be time-targeted, prioritized, fully funded and cost-efficient." Human rights, he stated, "become meaningless in the face of the dire constraints of poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy". Peace and stability could not be achieved unless conditions were created to remove the root causes of war and conflict--economic and social deprivation. Sustainable development, he said, "calls for a new global partnership, including the provision of new and additional financial resources to developing countries and adequate access for them to environmentally sound technology". The earth could no longer sustain a high level of exploitation, so those placing a high demand on natural resources must reduce consumption.

BHUTAN

Ugyen Tshering, Permanent Representative to the UN, said there was need for "a new enlightened balance" among the principal organs of the UN. For example, the General Assembly must be provided with more responsibility and the International Court of Justice with more authority. In many ways, he stated, the UN had been the greatest beneficiary of the changes in international affairs. After many years of "blatant disregard and even disrespect by many, and a lack of confidence in its abilities by others", UN was now increasingly being turned to by the international community. There was greater willingness to work through the Organization. Developing countries must take all measures to ensure that "population and development are balanced in a sustainable manner".

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said his country believed that UN Members were now in a better position than ever before to build a just and lasting peace in the world. The grave social and economic problems faced by numerous developing nations posed a considerable threat to their internal security and, therefore, to international stability. Hence, it was vital that developing and developed countries engage in peace-building together. There was an urgent need to provide the building blocks of international peace today, taking the form of "cooperative international trading relations". Overall, the UN's primary role was not only to solve political crises "but also to help individual nations and regions build their own peace in their own way."

CHINA

Qian Qichen, State Councillor and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said: "The tortuous course that mankind has traversed in this century, particularly since the end of the Second World War, has revealed a historical truth: any Power, however strong it may be, is bound to decline if it goes against the people's will for peace and development." Despite an end to the cold war, the world remained uneasy, with new problems added to the old ones and armed conflicts erupting one after another "as a result of disrupted equilibrium". Hegemonism and power politics continued to exist, he said. "The attempt of some big Powers to control developing countries politically and economically has become more and more obvious." Long-hidden ethnic conflicts had surfaced with a vengeance and the North-South contradictions had further intensified. "The road to peace and development before the people of the world is covered with thorns."

CYPRUS

President George Vassiliou said the Cyprus example was sufficient evidence that an intense peacemaking effort must be pursued in paralLel with every peace-keeping operation. "The first victims of galloping nationalism and micronationalism everywhere ... are the human rights of citizens. We in Cyprus, unfortunately, have bitter experience of this fact." It would be "tragic further to delay, or even frustrate, the effort for a solution in Cyprus". Turkish and Greek Cypriots wanted "to put the past behind them and advance towards a better future". Calling the 1990s "a decade of dramatic changes", he said "contradictory forces and undercurrents" must be "shaped and guided towards the creation of a peaceful and democratic world order. The United Nations is the soul itself, the consciousness of humanity as a collective entity."

DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Kim Yong Nam, Vice Premier of the Administrative Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that today's era "can brook no further delay in establishing a new, just international order to replace the old international order under which a few countries go unchallenged and freely dominate the destiny of humankind. There are big and small countries in the world, but there cannot be senior or junior countries: there are developed and less developed nations, but there cannot be dominating nations and nations destined to be dominated." Optimistic about the prospect of dialogue and reunification between the two Koreas, he believed that "Blood is thicker than water and ... the homogeneous nationhood of the Korean people" surpassed the differences of the systems and ideas of the North and South.

FIJI

Major-General Sitiveni L. Rabuka, Prime Minister, said Fiji opposed nuclear testing and the dumping of nuclear and other toxic wastes in the South Pacific region. The cessation of those activities was "vital for our very survival and the preservation of our fragile eco-system". He welcomed France's decision to suspend nuclear testing in the region, the United States' decision to cease operation of its chemical-weapons incineration facility at Johnston Atoll and Japan's decision to cease large-scale driftnet fishing, often described as the "Wall of Death", in South Pacific waters. The Climate Convention should be put into effect as early as possible.

INDIA

Eduardo Faleiro, Minister of State for External Affairs, said "self-determination can apply only to peoples under colonial or alien domination or foreign occupation, and not to integral parts of sovereign nations". A most vicious form of human-rights violation was that "unleashed by terrorists", he said, adding that "terrorism assumes a particularly pernicious character when it is aided, abetted and sponsored from abroad". The expansion of the Security Council was essential if it "is to ensure its moral sanction and political effectiveness". The General Assembly also had to be made more effective "to represent not only the changes in its membership, but also the significant character of its universal composition". The efforts of developing countries to improve their socio-economic conditions "remain hamstrung by the inequities of the present international economic order."

INDONESIA

President Soeharto, speaking also on behalf of the 108-member Non-Aligned Movement, said the Security Council should be expanded "to accommodate new members who, if they are not to be given veto powers, should at least serve as permanent members". The manner in which veto powers were exercised should also be subjected to a constructive review. There should be "greater accountability" of the Security Council to the General Assembly on decisions and actions affecting the interests of the entire international community. The role of the Assembly as a forum for deliberation, negotiation and decision-making must be "enhanced". No country "should use its power to dictate its concept of democracy and of human rights or to impose conditions on others". While it might be true that colonialism in its classical form had virtually ended, the process of decolonization would not be finished until economic independence was achieved.

IRAN

Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati said the Security Council must "fine-tune" its decisions and actions with the principles of the Charter and international law "Discriminatory treatment of issues pertaining to international peace and security, the overstepping of mandated authority and misuse of the privileges" accorded to Council members--the permanent members in particular--were among practices that "tarnish the Council's image and undermine its stature and credibility". The UN should contribute to the solution of major global problems "without resort to short-sighted political expediency". It was "highly desirable that the new millenium be nuclear-free", but that required the destruction of all nuclear weapons, a new pledge by all states not to acquire nuclear weapons and a "genuine commitment to enhance cooperation in technology for the peaceful use of nuclear energy".

IRAQ

Foreign Minister Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf said that as a result of the "hegemony" being "spearheaded and intensified" by the United States, Security Council resolutions and measures had become "conspicuous for their double standard and selectivity" in applying the Charter's text. The Council's "silence with regard to the criminal acts and operations of military aggression perpetrated in Palestine, Lebanon and other occupied Arab territories by the pampered and American-veto-protected Zionist entity are the most damning proof" that its practices were "devoid of justice and international legality because of the total domination by the United States over the Council and its procedures". The parties that "waged a destructive war on Iraq in the name of international legality" would like to forget that the suffering of the people of Iraq resulted from their own actions "which constitute the most flagrant violation of human rights witnessed by humanity in all its history".

ISRAEL

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel sought to end its conflict with the Palestinians. "We are looking for a bridge to cross the gulf of bitter memories, painful hatreds and emotion-laden suspicions." The suggested path was an interim government arrangement, as conceived at Camp David. Self-government offered the flexibility of an arrangement that would last no more than five years. Instead of drawing a map of a self-governing territory, he said, "we have suggested a definite timetable", which may lack "the clarity of a map" but it provides "the commitment of a calendar". This proposal, he said, "has the dynamics of a voyage to a new destiny, a bridge that begins at one shore and reaches another". He stated: "I hope that the Palestinians will also perceive the spirit of our intent, which is to extricate ourselves from the position of domination over another people. We have never in our history as a people sought domination over others. We wholeheartedly seek a future where the children of both peoples will escape the agonies of a distorted past and under a clear sky of security and hope."

JAPAN

Michio Watanabe, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said building a peaceful world would require a five-pronged approach. Efforts must be made to ease international tensions and to forestall the outbreak of conflicts. He proposed a "conflict-information clearing-house" within the UN to collate information on conflicts and present it in an objective manner to the Security Council and to Member States to help them formulate their judgements on the situation. Stronger diplomatic efforts should be made by UN Members to resolve conflicts peacefully. Peace-keeping operations, dialogue and cooperation should be strengthened. The post-cold-war world faced problems "arising from the changing power relationship between the nations that dominated the old international order, the resurgence of regionalism and the destabilization of regions by ethnic, religious and other strife".

JORDAN

Foreign Minister Kamel Abu Jaber said: "Justice, comprehensiveness and durability are the bases on which peace in the Middle East should be established." Israel must apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the occupied territories, halt completely the building of all settlements and withdraw unconditionally from Lebanon. Jordan wanted action to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people and preserve Iraq's territorial integrity as an integral Gulf entity. Iran--which was denying the UAE its sovereign rights over the islands of Abu Mousa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb--should respect the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force. Jordan called on States, including Israel, to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and place all their nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

KAZAKHSTAN

President Nursultan Nazarbaev suggested convening a special Assembly session or UN conference to discuss problems of "the post-confrontation era" and proposed setting up a regional centre, or a UN commission, on preventive diplomacy in Central Asia. Work needed to be speeded up on special UN projects to provide a "gradual and effective solution to the problem of furnishing water resources" to Central Asia. He proposed that all countries should set up a fund for UN peacemaking efforts on the basis of a "one plus one" formula, meaning that each State would begin to transfer 1 per cent of its defence budget to the fund and would increase its transfers by the same 1 per cent each year.

KUWAIT

Sheikh Salem Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said Security Council resolutions must be implemented, noting that there were still Kuwaiti and third-country prisoners "held hostage" in Iraqi jails despite "intensive efforts and international pressures deployed to secure their release". Iraqi "falsehoods also jeopardize" the main objective of the UN's input in providing the technical framework for the Iraq-Kuwait boundary demarcation process. Iraq continued to refuse to accept legal responsibility for plundering private Kuwaiti property and to recognize the need to return all stolen property. It also refused to implement Security Council resolutions on providing essential humanitarian needs for Iraq's civilian population, to pay its dues to the UN compensation fund and to cooperate in fulfilling its obligation to disclose all its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and in their elimination.

KYRGYZSTAN

Askar Aitmatov, Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. said that preventive diplomacy and timely reaction should be given top priority in all peace-keeping efforts. Noting his country had become a UN Member "at a time of renewal and reforms". he called for "practical steps aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of this Organization as the key factor in establishing a new world order". He attached great importance to maintaining cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States. "Distortions caused by totalitarianism in the sphere of inter-State and interethnic relations have led to emergence of crisis zones in the vast area stretching from the former Yugoslavia to Central Asia". To prevent and settle conflicts, it was necessary to apply all existing mechanisms of the UN and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

LAO PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Phoun Sipaseuth. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said "numerous civil conflicts, ethnic struggles, religious clashes and border conflicts" continued to disturb many countries, thus seriously threatening international peace, stability and security. In the "changing world in which the new international order is beginning to take shape", that new order should respond equitably to the rights and interests of all countries and peoples without discrimination. It must be based on the principles of peaceful coexistence and those of the Charter. The South-East Asian region was moving towards peace, stability, cooperation and development. Complete compliance with, and implementation of, the Paris Agreements on Cambodia was required to meet the aspirations and interests of the Cambodian people.

LEBANON

Souheil Chammas, Secretary General of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. stressed the importance of implementing Security Council resolution 425 (1978), which calls for Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon. The Lebanese army, which had been "reorganized and regrouped on a sound and effective basis", had regained its ability to extend State authority over its entire territory. Lebanese authorities were prepared to shoulder their full responsibility with regard to maintaining law and order. With the end of the cold war, dialogue, cooperation and realism had taken the place of confrontation and mutual mistrust. Humanity had an opportunity to build "a better world, based on a collective commitment to peace, interdependence in the face of crises and partnership in working for development and progress".

MALAYSIA

Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Badawi said: "The world today has reached a defining moment in history." Since communism's collapse, there had been "an increasing tendency on the part of the victors of the ideological rivalry to dictate their values relating to human rights and democracy to others". A comprehensive and constructive treatment of human rights issues must take into consideration cultural and religious values that influence the national outlook and development of Member States. UN Members had the right to expect "transparency and accountability" in the Security Council's work and actions. A major reform of the Council was overdue: its permanent membership largely had become "untenable and anachronistic" and there was growing concern that the Council had a tendency to select when and where to apply collective measures. "Selectivity or double standards in dealing with potential conflicts would ... only make a mockery" of the UN.

MALDIVES

Foreign Minister Fathulla Jameel said: "Never has the need for a strong and vibrant United Nations been greater, when we are on the threshold of a new century, a new awakening." A portion of the "so-called peace dividend" could be directed towards UN peace-keeping and peacemaking efforts. "Experience has proven that peace can never be achieved through force or a balance of military strength." Continuing economic deprivation in developing countries posed a greater threat in many ways to mankind's security than did the cold war. Developed countries should direct their attention and resources to the assistance of developing countries in their efforts to become more self-reliant. "It is futile to believe that the world may enjoy peace and progress while two thirds of humanity lives in utter deprivation."

MARSHALL ISLANDS

Foreign Minister Tom D. Kijiner said: A "central feature of the international political landscape of the past several years has been the emergence or the re-emergence of the nationalities. . . The sovereignty and dignity of indigenous peoples are coming to be recognized as the basis for effective government." He was grateful to the UN for its "steadfast commitment to fostering the self-government and self-determination of peoples". UN agencies had helped provide citizens of the Marshall Islands with security and basic public services. Increasingly, the human spirit "has been able to soar unfettered by restraints and regulations imposed by authorities too distant from individuals' circumstances". The heart of the UN, he said, lay in the rich mix of nationalities. "Our challenge is to find collective benefit in this diversity."

MICRONESIA

Resio S. Moses, Secretary for External Affairs, said: "Since we are a country whose land is comprised of low-lying, small islands, our entire nation finds itself in the front line along with others similarly situated ... to suffer the devastating consequences of unchecked global warming. Rising sea levels would ultimately cover our islands, but long before that our protective coral reefs would bleach and fall victim to increasing storm surges, our agricultural crops would be ruined and our freshwater sources rendered unfit for human consumption. We are facing nothing less than the end of island civilizations that have endured for thousands of years." Stringent emissions cuts must be "set by the dictates of science rather than of politics" and the Climate Change Convention must be promptly implemented.

MONGOLIA

President Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat said: "As the wheel of history turns, mankind finds itself on the threshold of the third millenium. The century that started with a fierce struggle waged by the workers movement and saw two brutal world wars, a powerful movement for independence and dramatic scientific and technological breakthroughs is culminating now with a new wave of human rights, freedom and democracy." Mongolia emphasized the need to develop a dialogue on a regular basis among the States of North-East Asia, an area that was home to more than one third of the world's population and which had military and political, trade and economic, ecological and other pressing problems to deal with.

MYANMAR

Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw said his country had been subjected to "undue and unwarranted criticism from some quarters" in the realm of human rights. To be truly effective, the UN, he said, must inspire and command the confidence of all Member countries. Its decisions "must reflect that collective will and not the narrow interests or predilections of a nation or a group of nations". It was the time for the global community to make an all-out effort for the revitalization of growth. Developing countries, as commodity-dependent economies, were adversely affected by failing demand for their exports and declining world commodity prices, which were at record low levels and not expected to recover substantially. Those difficulties were "compounded by continuing protectionist trends, moves towards unilateralism, and managed trade".

NEPAL

Mahesh Acharya, Minister of State for Finance, said: "The old global order has passed, but the new order is still very fluid." in an interdependent world, the UN was indispensable for international cooperation. In one year, there had been "upheavals of epic proportion": the break-up of political entities of long standing and brutal ethnic and religious wars. "Narrow nationalism" was threatening the norms of a stable international order. The living conditions of the poor must improve so that they are "not forced to destroy the ecological basis of their children's future to meet the immediate challenges of sheer survival". Global economic and social development constituted the lasting foundation of international peace and security. The UN must create a world "where all people are entitled to political freedom, economic and social justice, a clean environment and full human rights".

OMAN

Yousef Al-Alawi Bin Abdullah, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said it was high time that efforts of all States in the Gulf region were "devoted to prepare for a new phase of understanding and fraternity". All parties in the Middle East should "exert more efforts and show more patience and flexibility in order to achieve the permanent and lasting peace to which the peoples of the region have long aspired". He urged the international community to support implementation of the Conventions and decisions of the Earth Summit, and said: "The eradication of poverty, the resolution of problems that stand in the way of progress, such as indebtedness and the deterioration of commodity prices, the reversing of the net flow of resources from the South to the North, and the transfer of technology, should all become part and parcel of the policies aimed at the maintenance of peace assigned to the United Nations."

PAKISTAN

Foreign Minister Muhammad Siddique Khan Kanju urged the Secretary-General to persuade India to "desist from the path of violence and suppression" against Kashmiris and to allow them to exercise their right to self-determination as envisaged in Security Council resolutions. He called on the international community to persuade India to enter into a serious dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Pakistan would continue to extend full moral, diplomatic and political support to that struggle for self-determination. The international community should contribute to Afghanistan's reconstruction and the maintenance of the remaining millions of refugees in Pakistan and Iran. The Security Council's response to aggression had not been uniform. Its decisions would be credible "only if they are perceived to be fair and non-discriminatory".

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Foreign Minister John R. Kaputin continued to support UN involvement in the decolonization of New Caledonia and trusted that the outcome of the forthcoming mid-term review of the implementation of the Matignon Accords would lead to further progress towards safeguarding the legitimate rights of the Kanaks. Papua New Guinea welcomed France's decision to suspend its nuclear-weapon-testing programme. "We seek assurances that the Pacific Ocean will not be used to transport plutonium or other hazardous nuclear, chemical or biological materials which might pollute the seas on which we rely. Promises that every precaution will be taken are simply not enough:" Opportunity and participation are the keys to both political and economic development and justice, "including equity between, and within, the northern and southern parts of the globe".

PHILIPPINES

Roberto R. Romulo, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, stated that the Assembly was being held "at a moment in history that has seen the wave of democracy and national freedom sweep the world with astounding and unprecedented rapidity". The end of super-Power confrontation and the dissolution of empires and blocs had "freed nations and dismantled tyrannies", but "also unleashed age-old hostilities between antagonistic groups and released them to erupt in tragic violence. These conflicts, new and old, have taken various forms and dimensions." Conflicting claims in the South China Sea had given rise to acute concern among countries involved and other States with interests in the area. The world's peoples called on the international community, in particular developed countries, "to lay aside narrow self-interest".

QATAR

Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al-Thani said a new world order "should not inherit the negative attributes of the old order that led to the creation of blocs, conflicts and polarization with all the attendant evils of underdevelopment, poverty, backwardness, hunger, ignorance and disease". All States must share, on an equal footing, in the formulation of a new order "so that it may become an equitable world order that truly represents the joint will of the international community". Israel and all other Middle Eastern States should comply with the new convention prohibiting chemical weapons, with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and with the regime of international inspection. Failure by any State in the region to comply with those agreements "would render the whole endeavour void of seriousness and effectiveness".

REPUBLIC OF KOREA

President Roh Tae Woo said diplomatic relations between his country and China were expected to contribute to reduced tensions on the Korean peninsula and to peacemaking efforts in North-East Asia. The region had "thus begun the march towards a new era of lasting peace and common prosperity". A unified Korea would serve as "a fountainhead of peace and prosperity" for the region. Mutual nuclear inspections were the most serious obstacle on the path towards further progress in inter-Korean relations. North Korea's suspected nuclear development "is casting dark clouds" over the Korean peninsula's future and was becoming "a new factor threatening peace in North-East Asia and the world at large", he stated.

SAUDI ARABIA

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said no genuine peace could be achieved in the Middle East unless a permanent, just solution to the Palestinian question was reached and unless Israel withdrew from all the occupied territories and southern Lebanon. The Iraqi regime had "given itself the right, on the basis of sovereignty, to starve and humiliate the Iraqi people and subject Iraq to dangers that threaten its unity and security while it goes on claiming, falsely and slanderously, that it is the international community that is responsible for the dangers that beset Iraq and the miseries of its people". The only means of averting instability in the region and dealing with the suffering of Iraqis lay in ensuring the complete and comprehensive implementation of Security Council resolutions.

SINGAPORE

Foreign Minister Wong Kan Seng said: "We must convince the countries of the North that if they want the South to pay greater heed to their concerns on the global environment, they must in turn push the global economy forward by successfully completing the Uruguay Round [of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ] as soon as possible." The transitional economies had experienced great economic difficulties in their initial periods of adjustment. "The North should see that it is in its interest to help these countries by fighting protectionism. With such support, the developing countries should be able to pull off this economic transition successfully." While the cold war "effectively froze or suppressed many tribal, religious, ethnic and cultural divisions", its thawing had led to their re-emergence. It would be tragic for countries of the North to assume that they were "immune from the political and economic travails of the South".

SOLOMON ISLANDS

Sir Baddeley Devesi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health and Medical Services, speaking also as the Chairman of the South Pacific Forum, was concerned that the UN climate change convention had "not sufficiently addressed the issue of global warming" and urged early negotiations on protocols to elaborate upon the convention. France's decision to suspend nuclear testing in the area was welcomed, as were positive measures by French authorities in New Caledonia to implement the Matignon Accord. On economic and trade matters, Solomon islands recognized "the adverse impact which the global macroeconomic trends have on its economy, which is both open to, and susceptible to, external change. We realize that while the initiative to begin economic reforms must come from the country itself, regional and international cooperation in such efforts is also very vital."

SRI LANKA

Stanely Kalpage, Permanent Representative to the UN, said that for the first time since the Charter was signed 47 years ago, the peoples of the world through their representatives in the Assembly had it in their power to provide new directions for ensuring peace, security, prosperity and social justice in keeping with today's realities. "The challenges are many: equally, the opportunities are great. We owe it to the millions who crave equity and justice and a better life in larger freedom that we shoulder our responsibilities with courage and perseverance. We cannot afford to falter or fail. We must succeed." The Secretary-General's report, An Agenda for Peace", was "innovative and challenging" and its proposals must be considered "with the care and seriousness they deserve".

SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC

Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara said: "Those in Israel who believe that total peace can be achieved without a complete Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied ... territories are gravely mistaken. Those who also believe that the Israeli arsenal of mass destruction and its qualitative military edge can make it immune to the repercussions of the end of the cold war are equally mistaken." Syria was ready for a complete peace in return for a complete withdrawal from all the occupied territories, "and we reaffirm that now". Syria's challenge to Israel, however, "has found no response to this day". It would be paradoxical, he said, if the twentieth century were to end "with the whimper of small wars that are waged by people with small, primitive minds the international community cannot curb".

TAJIKISTAN

Foreign Minister Khudoberdy Kholiknazarzoda said his country supported the development of "large-scale relations" with all members of the Commonwealth of independent States (CIS). It respected the inviolability of existing borders between CIS members and recognized that political borders in Central Asian republics were not based on ethnic origin. That reality demanded the exercise of much responsibility on all sides. Situated in a region where Islamic culture and spirituality were deeply rooted, he said his country established relations "with countries and Islamic organizations according to our spiritual and cultural requirements. islam is a holy and divine religion and, in our view, certain Western media have created an inaccurate picture of it."

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Foreign Minister Rashid Abdullah Al-Nuaimi said that his country had been trying to initiate dialogue with Iran to settle outstanding issues between the two countries, "especially the Iranian military occupation of the three Arab islands that belong to the United Arab Emirates, namely Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Mousa". However, Iran had adopted "unlawful measures" aimed at controlling and annexing Abu Mousa island, "thus following in the footsteps of the previous Iranian Government which, in 1971 militarily occupied the two islands belonging to the United Arab Emirates, namely, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb". The recent Iranian measures would increase tension and threaten stability and security in the region.

UZBEKISTAN

Foreign Minister Ubaidulla A. Abdurazzakov said the "predominant idea of the new international order should be the prevention of aggression and conflicts and the establishment of democratic machinery for making such an order a reality". In that respect, he stressed the need to create a UN Eastern Centre to extend "the principles of the world community and international norms to the central part of the Eurasian continent". Tashkent, he believed, would be worthy of serving as the seat of the Centre, which would "provide the world community with reliable information on the processes of social development in the region, expedite the solution of its problems and make it a zone free of conflicts". Uzbekistan was deeply concerned about the course of events in Tajikistan, which was "on the brink of civil war".

VANUATU

Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman said: "There has been no period in our lifetime when the world has enjoyed greater hope for a lasting international peace than it does now." But "democracy, so cherished and championed within certain national borders, is often less cherished, if not disregarded, when it comes to the interests of the large and powerful countries, on the one hand, and those of the smaller and economically weaker States, on the other". He favoured measures to correct trade imbalances, to reduce the debt burden and to establish fair prices for commodities. People in many places around the world were "suffering--some for a long time now--because of the difficulties of all kinds that they face". In these situations, the international community must "shoulder the major responsibility".

VIET NAM

Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam denounced "the acts of ostracism and persecution against Vietnamese residents in Cambodia" and categorically rejected "the slanderous allegations against Viet Nam by those whose only aim is to cover up their activities which undermine the Paris Agreements [on Cambodia]". Relations of good neighbourliness, mutual trust and understanding were gradually being established in South-East Asia, although latent factors of destabilization remained. "Security can be achieved in South-East Asia only when security is assured for each country in the region, it being understood that such security is multifaceted: military, political and economic." States must cooperate to build "a new, sounder and better world order".

YEMEN

Abdul Aziz Al-Dali, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, urged that "the foundations of democratic dealings in international relations be deepened and that balance and interaction" between the main organs of the UN--the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat--be ensured. The international community seemed to have forgotten the Iraqi people "after having imposed on them one of the most cruel and intensive forms of comprehensive economic embargo ever--an embargo that has deprived them of all the requirements of civilian life, including those of children and medical care". He called for the lifting of that embargo. Also, the "segmentation" of Iraq's sovereignty over its territories in the north and the south was "not consonant" with the principle of respect for the sovereignty of State could lead to the "fragmentation" of Iraq's territorial integrity.

Europe: East and West

Despite instability, future will be more secure, more prosperous

The spread of violent ethnic wars in eastern Europe, such as that in the former Yugoslavia, challenges of the global environment and serious economic crises were concerns that somewhat dimmed last year's hopes for a brighter future as representatives of both eastern and western European nations addressed the forty-seventh General Assembly.

Most speakers linked these unwelcome trends to the collapse of communism and to a world caught unprepared to meet the "offshoots" of violence and catastrophe "sprouting from the exposed rootstock", in the words of Eduard Shevardnadze, Chairman of the Council of State of Georgia, who saw shockwaves "within the main stream of contemporary geo-politic trends: the displacement confrontation onto regional levels".

Since the demise of bipolarism, international society had become "subject to processes of reaggregation" made more laborious and arduous by an array of historical, cultural, ethnic, religious and nationalistic factors, said Italian Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo. "In the East what was once a model of structure has been falling apart, and, in some cases, is being fragmented into a multiplicity of separate entities, each demanding to translate its own history, culture and natural identity into an international personality. In the process, they are resorting to all available means, including conflict and violence"

Douglas Hurd, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, speaking also on behalf of the European Community, said that the world was a "better place" after the cold war, but it was also "less stable". It had seen "both a democratic spring and a demagogic spring, an outpouring of hope but also, in places, an outpouring of hate". The countries of the European community intended to work together for a better world order with "greater impetus and greater effectiveness".

The need for interaction between the UN and the European Community was also stressed. Their co-chairmanship of the London Conference on Yugoslavia, said Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek of the Netherlands, had underlined the potential for coordination between the UN and regional organizations in the field of preventive diplomacy, peace-keeping and peacemaking.

New |Berlin walls'

President Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina strongly condemned the "ethnic cleansing" policies of the "Belgrade Government". He likened the conflict in his country to "Berlin Walls sprouting in every American neighbourhood, separating the French, Russian, African-American, Italian, Jewish, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Korean, Irish and other groups until all had been moved to ethnically pure neighbourhoods and separated by barbed wire, armed guards and checkpoints".

Action on economic and development problems was also urged. Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski of Poland said the social implications of economic reform and structural adjustment had to be "carefully monitored, both in the developing countries and in those in transition".

Echoing the hopes and aspirations of many, President George Bush of the United States believed that a "more secure, more prosperous future" lay ahead. However, he warned, there was a "great temptation for people everywhere to turn inward and to build walls around themselves"--walls against trade, people, ideas and investment, and against "anything at all" hat appeared "new and different". But nations could not separate their fate from that of others. "Our peace is so interconnected, our security so intertwined, our prosperity so interdependent, that to turn inward and retreat from the world is to invite disaster and defeat."

ALBANIA

Aleksander Meksi, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, announced the "remarkable victory scored by the democratic anti-communist forces" in his country in the parliamentary elections of May 1992, which had marked "the beginning of our first epoch of non-communist, democratic governments." Albania had to be integrated into the world economy, thus eradicating the "disastrous consequences of isolation" and overcoming the economic collapser "inherited from many years of totalitarianism". Alabania was living under the constant threat and real danger of a spillover of the Yugoslav conflict.

ARMENIA

President Levon Ter-Petrossian said his country was pursuing the policy of "democratization, economic liberalization and the creation of a state of law." Its foreign policy was based on "normalized relations" with all of its neighbours, a negotiated solution to conflicts and the establishment of a "system of regional collective security". His country supported development of international economic and political cooperation and wished to "play a role" in economic cooperation and a "system of collective security" in the Middle east. Armenia had signed bilateral agreements with Georgia and Iran, and begun "serious negotiations with Turkey on normalized relations". With "equal persistence", it was pursuing that policy with respect to Azerbaijan, to which it harboured no territorial claims. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh must, however, "not be relegated to the status of ethnic minority", or be denied self-determination.

AZERBAIJAN

Foreign Minister Tofik Gassymov said that arms shipments were becoming a "real factor capable of producing destructive effects on the situation in the so-called hot spots". Limits could be placed on "exports of arms to a particular country or region" and the establishment of "subregional restraint regimes" could lay the groundwork for the demilitarization of whole regions. With regard to the Armenian national minority in Nagorno-Karabakh, his country had repeatedly stated its "readiness to guarantee that minority's rights in accordance with international norms". There was no alternative to a peaceful settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Decisive steps had to be taken to "clear the obstacles from the road to peace", he stated. One necessary condition for that was the "withdrawal of Armenian armed formations from Azerbaijan".

BELARUS

Foreign Minister Pyotr K. Kravchanka said his country's "point of reference" in the economic sphere was the Commonwealth of Independent States, which would endure, because under present conditions it was a "form of mutual economic survival". For 10 to 15 years, its members, including his country, would "continue to stumble along a bumpy road", but gradually they would move towards a "state of market civilization" which would ultimately enable them to "raise seriously the question of integration into the European Community". Belarus would continue to act in strict conformity with the constitutional principles of a "neutral and non-nuclear State", but it could become "truly neutral" only when Europe was "free of blocs" and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ceased to exist, as the Warsaw Pact had done in the recent past.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

President Alija Izetbegovic said his people were deeply grateful to the UN for its efforts to achieve peace and provide humanitarian assistance. He came from a country "besieged by barbaric aggression". In his "nation--born of ethnic coexistence rather than ethnic cleansing"--muslims, Croats, Serbs, Jews and others had lived together for centuries and virtually all towns and cities were mixed in population. it was, therefore, not possible to "draw lines through" his Republic to "designate ethnically pure regions". A constitutional commission with inter-ethnic and inter-religious representation should be established to work with a group of international experts to "develop a constitutional settlement to the conflict". Existing UN resolutions should be enforced and the Assembly should "set in motion an international war-crimes tribunal" to investigate, prosecute and punish war criminals.

BULGARIA

Slavi Pashovski, Permanent Representative to the UN, said the "aggressive communist system that had set itself the goal of spreading its colour over the entire planet" no longer existed, but the peoples under its domination had "paid dearly for that experiment". State, economic and social structures were in ruins and the environment had been "degraded". The common denominator of communism's deeds was the "wasting of millions of human lives". Their suffering had demonstrated that "although violence may well create empires, it cannot preserve them". With regard to the former Yugoslavia, his country had adopted a position "aimed at preventing the conflict from spreading and at cooperating with the international community in efforts to find a political solution". A special programme for the economic recovery of the Balkan States--a kind of "Marshall Plan"--was of prime importance.

CROATIA

President Franjo Tudjman said the creation of the Croatian independent State had been the "outcome of the indestructible moral strength" of his people, based on a firm national awareness that had "burned for centuries as an eternal fire in our hearts". His country had already enacted a constitutional law on the protection of minorities that was "more liberal than many similar pieces of legislation anywhere in the world" and was prepared to contribute actively to the development of an international code for the protection of the rights of ethnic and national minorities. Unless the "sustained aggression" of Serbia and Montenegro was stopped, it might "mushroom into a conflict on a much broader scale which could spread the disaster of war to the entire European continent, maybe even to the rest of the world". The mission of the UN Protection Force in Yugoslavia had to be "seriously speeded up and fully implemented within the mandate of the peace-keeping force".

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Foreign Minister Josef Moravcik said Czechoslovakia was currently preparing to establish "two closely connected sovereign States by creating a common economy space and retaining intact the close contacts between the peoples of the two republics". What was taking place in his country was a "process aimed at the creation of a solid basis for a model of integration" such as had been "developing democratically" in western Europe and had led to the "creation and development of the European Communities". His present statement, he said, was a "farewell speech of the Czechoslovak federation". It was "highly probable" that by january 1993, "one of the founding members" of the UN would "give its place in international politics to the two new independent States". He hoped the community of nations would admit them to UN membership "as soon as possible".

ESTONIA

Foreign Minister Jaan Manitski, referring to Russia's allegations of human rights abuses in his country, said it was "incomprehensible" why "foreign citizens should be allowed to vote in Estonian parliamentary elections" or that "minorities in some countries" should be placed under UN trusteeship. According to UN documents, the term "minority" did not apply to "foreign nationals, migrant workers and colonists". Those people who had settled in his country "as a result of Soviet occupation", however, could apply for Estonian citizenship, if they so desired. The need for withdrawal of Russian armed forces from Estonia was the "primary stumbling block" in their bilateral relations. His country was restoring the "historical, cultural and linguistic ties" to the Nordic countries and had embarked on the "path of economic reform towards a market economy".

GEORGIA

Eduard A. Shevardnadze, Chairman of the Council of State, recalled that in 1990 he had addressed the Assembly as the Soviet Foreign Minister, but now he was representing a country that was "microscopic in comparison" and which had found itself in "deep socioeconomic crisis". In Georgia, the "fall of the empire" had been attended by the rise of a dictatorial regime. Several internal conflicts had been provoked and there great danger that those conflicts would "merge with the ones in neighbouring States and grow into regional or even continental wars fought along national and religious lines". Of particular importance to Georgia were its relations with Russia, which had assisted in setting up the machinery to settle the Georgian-Ossetian conflict and had "joined in the process of achieving a peaceful settlement" in the conflict in Abkhazia. He proposed the launching of a system of collective security in the Black Sea-Caucasus region.

HUNGARY

Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky noted that in large areas of the globe, which had been shown on the map "hitherto only by single-coloured expanses representing federations held together by totalitarian power", he could see a "colourful collection of independent States". His country's neighbours had grown from five to seven. The key issue of stability and security in central and eastern Europe was the recognition of the "endeavours of national minorities to secure adequate forms of self-government". Attempts to create so-called ethnically pure States had "more than once in history degenerated into massive tragedy, naked aggression and crimes against humanity and against minorities".

LATVIA

Anatolijs Gorbunovs, Chairman of the Supreme Council, said his country wanted to become a "democratic free-market State" and simultaneously find an "optimal solution to two acute and unavoidable problems: the correction of the injustices fostered by the illegal occupation and the protection of the rights of all residents". Foreign troops were still stationed in Latvia and his Government had been "denied the right to monitor these forces". His Government did not imply that "all immigrants must or will leave Latvia", he said. However, there must be "clarity on the very important question of who must leave Latvia": first, former Soviet military forces; second, "all those foreign citizens" to whom the existence of an independent Latvia was "unacceptable": and third, those who wished to "live among members of a single ethnic group, in Russia or elsewhere". Latvia rejected Russia's accusations that the rights of minorities were being violated.

LITHUANIA

Vytautas Landsbergis, President of the Supreme Council, said the three Baltic States had a "big neighbour", where a variety of political forces were vying for power. Some elements in Russia had "inherited the characteristic mind-set of the old empire" and were promoting "aggressive anti-baltic sentiments". politicians like President Yeltsin, "who think democratically and have a broader perspective", were called "traitors" who did not defend the "State's imperial interests". The world community should assist Russia economically and "in its search for democracy and justice". The "dead hand of communism should not drag down into its marble mausoleum the entire nation and possibly all mankind".

MOLDOVA

Foreign Minister Nicolae Anton Tiu said the conflict in the eastern parts of Moldova was a "major obstacle" to his country's economic reforms. The "pro-communist imperialistic forces"--the military-industrial complex and the "higher echelons of the former Soviet army"--had unleashed a "full-fledged war" against Moldova's territorial integrity in order to "separate its districts situated on the left bank of the Dniester". The conflict could be resolved at the regional level, with active UN participation. Despite a July 1992 agreement signed by Moldova and Russia, the situation was "still tense", as the "imperialistic separatist and procommunist" forces were continuing to consolidate their positions so that the "dismemberment of the trans-Dniester territories" of Moldova had "now become a fait accompli".

POLAND

Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski said Poland stood ready to "contribute to the development of international centres for preparing peace-keeping forces" and proposed to make available to the UN a military base in Poland vacated by the Russian armed forces. Global inequality--the widening gap between North and South, as well as the disparity in access to markets--had to be alleviated "not only for economic, but also for security, humanitarian and ethical reasons". Ecologically sustainable development, with democracy and the market economy "at its core", should be the "focal point and the principal goal" of the UN system. In the case of countries in transition, their long-awaited prosperity was "lagging behind, not coming hand in hand with freedom". The West needed a "coherent approach" to the emerging problems of countries in central and eastern Europe.

ROMANIA

Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase said that his country was undergoing a test that had "no historical precedent": simultaneously to "Create new political structures and new, workable economic mechanisms". It had already set up a new legislative and institutional framework able to guarantee the rule of law, political pluralism, free and fair elections, transition to a market economy and full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. In order to establish "irreversible anchorage within the Euro-Atlantic space", Romania was negotiating an "association agreement" with the European Community, a "cooperation agreement" with the European Free Trade Association and a "special relationship" with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. His country's "interest in the independence and democratic development" of Moldova, where 65 per cent of the population was Romanian, was "natural".

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev said the "post-confrontational and post-communist" world was not a pax Sovietica, a pax Americana, a pax Islamica or a pax Christiana, but rather the "multipolar unity in diversity" that the UN had symbolized from the very outset. Realism left "no room for euphoria"; a "difficult period of transition" was ahead. Totalitarianism had "robbed Russia both of its unique identity and of self-fulfilment in its relations with other nations". Through its self-isolation, the richest country of Eurasia had become the "sick man of Europe and Asia". Today, Russia's policy embraced the following: an "alliance for democracy and a dynamic market economy"; good relations with all neighbouring States; "comprehensive strengthening" of the Commonwealth of Independent States; and "strategic partnership" with Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and all other countries of the former Soviet Union.

SLOVENIA

Milan Kucan, President of the Presidency, wanted creation of UN machinery to "intervene speedily" to help the democratization of international and internal relations and implementation of self-determination, and "thus prevent lapsing into the kind of violence that is now tragically escalating in the Balkans". The growth in UN membership was not the result of "some incomprehensible process of fragmentation"; it was the expression of "democratization of relations within those non-traditional States, which were built not on the principle of national equality and the real common interest of their nations, but on ideologies, on fear of bloc threats".

UKRAINE

Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko said the disintegration of the "bankrupt totalitarian system" had opened the way for the "triumph of genuine freedom and democracy in vast areas of Europe and Asia". With independence, Ukraine had opted to become a State possessing no nuclear weapons, thus voluntarily taking on the burden of eliminating hundreds of warheads inherited from the former Soviet Union, a choice with "huge financial implications". It intended to accede soon to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and would place "all its nuclear power plants and fissionable materials" under the international Atomic Energy Agency's supervision. His country actively supported the idea of "making the Black Sea a nuclear-free zone and a zone of peace and cooperation". The imperial system had "completely exhausted" Ukraine's economy.

AUSTRALIA

Gareth Evans, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the "total collapse of the bipolar global structure which had underpinned international relations since 1945" had brought about unprecedented opportunities for cooperation. But the challenges posed by regional conflicts, humanitarian crises and unresolved transnational problems had also "never been greater". Threats to security arose got only from military ambition and the race to acquire armaments, but also from economic and social deprivation, from ignorance of countries about each other, from a failure to address problems that by their nature cross international boundaries. There was an emerging willingness to "accommodate collective intervention in extreme, conscience-shocking cases". A "body of customary precedent" might emerge over time to constitute "its own source of authority for such intervention in the future".

AUSTRIA

Alois Mock, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, said the Secretary-General's proposals contained in his report "An Agenda for Peace" reflected the need for more effective conflict prevention. Be it in Somalia, the Balkans or elsewhere, "time-lags between the appearance of the first signs of a crisis and resolute decisions for preventive action prove to be costly--in human lives. in destruction of property and in the loss of credibility of the international community". Peace-keeping operations had to "go beyond the mere observation of a cease-fire" and play a major role in conflict prevention. In that regard, he supported the Secretary-General's proposal "envisaging the deployment of observers at the request of only one party to a conflict". His country. one of the "largest troop-contributors over the years", was willing to increase further its contribution to UN peace-keeping and had initiated a training for peace-keeping, peacemaking and conflict-prevention.

BELGIUM

Willy Claes, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that in today's world, two factors had become of key importance: the concept of global interdependence and the "growing emphasis on the close links between population, environment and development". However, a real economic takeoff would be possible only if investments followed government efforts. Social aspects of development were of concern "now more than ever", and the 1995 World Conference on Social Development would be an opportunity to give them the high priority they deserved. He welcomed the fact that the link between democracy, human rights and development was "now widely recognized and applied". Despite the gravity of Africa's problems, his country refused to "give in to visions of catastrophe or what a fashionable phrase defines as |Afro-pessimism'".

CANADA

Barbara McDougall, Secretary of State for External Affairs, believed there were "three fundamental weaknesses" within States that could cause disputes that went "beyond their borders". Primary among those was the absence or abuse of fundamental human rights. "If people had no rights, they had no hope; if they had no hope, eventually they would have no fear", which would lead them to "seek any possible means to restore their rights, even killing and dying in the trying". The second weakness was the absence of a developed system of democratic values and institutions, while the third involved the "inability to make responsible choices in the management of public policy". Canada had served in virtually every UN peace-keeping mission, and for many years it had "maintained a battalion on stand-by" for the UN. Of the 4 5,000 peace-keeping forces currently serving under the UN flag, "almost 10 per cent" were Canadian.

DENMARK

Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen said that UN peacekeeping operations had to be seen as an "interim offer" to the parties in conflict and should not "be an excuse" for parties not to seek a negotiated settlement of their dispute. The improved international political climate, the breakup of old power blocs and the reductions in military expenditures offered a "unique opportunity to promote social development". The world community had to face its "responsibility to improve" living conditions for "more than 1 billion people living in absolute poverty" and for the "even larger number of people suffering under unemployment and social insecurity". Solutions should be based on "respect for human rights, the rule of law and political institutions that are effective, accountable and enjoy democratic legitimacy". His country will propose Denmark as the venue for a 1995 world summit for social development.

FINLAND

Foreign Minister Paavo Vayrynen said the Secretary-General's repeated calls for closer cooperation and coordination between the UN and regional organizations were well-founded. At its Helsinki Summit in July 1992, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe had responded constructively--by strengthening its capacity for conflict management and peacekeeping. The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was "only the beginning of a long process towards sustainable development", which required a fundamental change in attitudes--a "change in our own life-styles". The future of mankind required sustainable development, management and conservation of "all types of forests everywhere". Finland was ready to negotiate a global forest convention on the basis of the "forest principles" agreed upon at Rio.

FRANCE

Roland Dumas, Minister of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that "in spite of freedom's victories" which the world had recently witnessed, peace had not always been the "child of liberation". Rivalries between neighbours, ethnic tensions and border disputes fanned discord and fomented insecurity to the point of "provoking the return of war in all its cruelty and savagery". Yugoslavia, Liberia, Somalia--the examples were legion, he said. Universal peace, our absolute principle, was still only an ambition, but it must become our primary mission. To ensure that the paths of freedom become paths to peace everywhere, France proposed three lines of action: the organization of security-peace-keeping operations, collective security and disarmament measures; the affirmation of justice--economic and social development to bring about "greater fairness and equality" among nations and peoples; and solidarity among States.

GERMANY

Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said that by establishing the European union, the European Community was trying to "seize the chance of the century for the entire continent". Europe's path towards integration had inspired many regional initiatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But that process was currently overshadowed by the "return of barbarity to the European house"--something that had been inconceivable only a few years ago. If a change in the Security Council's composition was actually considered, Germany would seek a permanent seat. It favoured the appointment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights and creation of an international crimes tribunal. The pacification of the North "must not lead to the South being armed to the hilt". Developing countries did not need "more tanks and guns but more schools and hospitals". The North and the South had to develop a global partnership to ensure their "mutual survival".

GREECE

Foreign Minister Michael Papaconstantinou said his nation was "now completing a year-long celebration marking 2,500 years since our ancestors first invented a form of government called in Greek demokratia"--democracy--destined to become "one of the most outstanding contributions of Greece to the collective heritage of mankind and a cornerstone of world civilization". He hoped that the "current turbulent situation" in some parts of the world would be "only a brief transition", soon replaced by a spirit of international cooperation and solidarity. Greece and Turkey must display the "necessary will and imagination to create a climate of mutual confidence, security and stability" in the Eastern Mediterranean. His country looked forward to "a just, a viable and a functional solution to the Cyprus problem".

ICELAND

Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade, said that while the "ice cap of the cold war" had melted, national and ethnic rivalries were creating new dangers of regional instability. Iceland was also concerned that the state of the global environment was not improving. Recent disclosures of "massive discharges of radioactive waste and other hazardous materials" into the Barents and Kara Seas from the former Soviet Union could indicate "an ecological time bomb". Those and other dangers had made the Earth appear smaller than ever before and demonstrated the need for stronger commitment to environmental protection, especially prevention of marine pollution and the sustainable use of marine living resources. Therefore, iceland welcomed the Earth Summit decision to convene an international conference to address the prevention of marine pollution from land-based sources.

IRELAND

Foreign Minister David Andrews said that over the past year, his Government had worked tirelessly for resumption of political dialogue over Northern Ireland. Participants in the present talks "involving the Irish and the British Governments and the constitutional political parties in Northern Ireland" were committed to a "forward-looking and constructive approach". The nationalist and unionist traditions were "equally valid", and each had to be accorded "equal respect and give meaningful political expression in new political arrangements". There was an "insistent desire for peace on the part of the vast majority of the Irish people, in both north and south". Ireland had the highest rate of private development assistance, as a proportion of gross national product, of all countries in the world. It had also long supported UN peace-keeping activities, participating in 10 of the 12 current peace-keeping missions.

ITALY

Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo said that while the spectre of a nuclear holocaust had been banished, the world was "still seeing a proliferation of local wars", and the "most complex, dangerous and tragic of all" was the war raging in the "very heart of Europe", in the former Yugoslavia. With the downfall of communism--the "largest ideological system in our history"--other problems had become more evident, such as hunger, disease, environmental degradation and political instability. Somalia tragically illustrated the "total detachment and lack of concern shown by the affluent societies towards countries plagued by poverty and disease" and it exemplified the "harm caused to people by prolonged power struggles" that were "never resolved". In his view, one of the "most delicate and problematical but also most promising points of contact between North and South" was the Mediterranean.

LIECHTENSTEIN

Hans Brunhart, Head of Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that all States, whether "small or large, whether powerful or powerless", needed the UN. Although not capable of resolving all conflicts, the UN could establish "standards of conduct for the civilized behaviour of nations towards one another". The international community should take steps to make the right to self-determination "more effective" and by doing so contribute to the "avoidance of some future conflicts". It should offer a "realistic way forward", by establishing a "practical framework" through which communities could "give expression to their distinctive qualities". However, indiscriminate independence would lead to the fragmentation of the international community and would insufficiently respect the territorial integrity of States.

LUXEMBOURGE

Jacques F. Poos, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, External Trade and Cooperation, said that the solution to the problem of minorities could be based only on the rejection of the idea that frontiers could be changed by force; granting national minorities special status ensuring respect for their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identities; and adopting arrangements for cross-border cooperation to enable minorities to maintain dose contact with their compatriots in neighbouring countries. Poor countries had to accept the fact that environmental protection was "not a luxury", and rich countries had to "ask themselves if and to what extent" their means of production and consumption were "compatible with the demands of sustainable development".

MALTA

Prime Minister Edward Fenech Adami stressed that regional cooperation was increasingly seen as a necessary complement to multilateral action at the global level. Malta had proposed that the CSCE be designated as a "regional arrangement under Chapter VIII" of the UN Charter. Malta supported the creation of technology development centres, as envisaged in the Law of the Sea Convention, in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and South Pacific, to encourage transfer of technology and promote co-development of new, locally adapted technology. It took "particular pride in identifying its commitment to multilateralism", especially through its many initiatives on issues related to the environment. Malta's latest initiative--on the protection of climate--resulted in the signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change by over 150 nations.

NETHERLANDS

Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek said that with the end of the cold war, no change had occurred in the "underlying problems of a long-term nature". The threat to the "very survival of the human race" posed by environmental deterioration, overpopulation and poverty had been "there already", even though awareness of the threat had increased "quite dramatically" in recent years. Establishment of "solid machinery, including a high-level commission on sustainable development", would be a major Assembly achievement. A possible solution to the question of the Security Council's effectiveness might be found in "severing the automatic link between permanent membership of the Council and the right of veto". The draft convention on chemical weapons was a "magnificent achievement". The Netherlands, as host country for the future Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, had a special role to play.

NEW ZEALAND

Prime Minister James Brendan Bolger said today's world was "free from crippling ideological competition". No longer should the people of the world "despair about impotence and inaction" on the part of the UN, which must respond to situations which "threaten the peace or cry out for global action". Certain parts of the world should not be "marginalized or thought less important than others". The tragedy in Somalia was different from, "but equal of horror to", that in the former Yugoslavia. There was an "inextricable link" between security and economic development: a nation felt more secure when its economy was "performing strongly". Sustainable and equitable economic growth and development would be possible only if there was an "open and fair international trading system".

NORWAY

Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland said underlying ethnic, religious, social and economic problems had been "frozen" during the cold war, "suppressed rather than dealt with in a constructive way". Democratic traditions had not been allowed to develop and some leaders had exploited their absence, appealing to narrow ethnic and even clan interests. The end of the cold war had opened a "window of opportunity" for the UN to "live up to the great objectives of its Charter", she said. The world community must "seize that opportunity". There could be no lasting peace in the world as long as a large part of humanity lived in misery and despair. A world order of "burden-sharing, common perceptions and common responsibility" should be established.

PORTUGAL

Foreign Minister Joao de Deus Pinheiro said his country had presided over the European Community Council of Ministers "during a period of turmoil in recent history" and had sought to promote a "greater opening of the Community to the outside". He appealed to the world body to give the attention, the means and the resources needed so that Mozambique--former colony of Portugal--might in the near future reach "peace, democracy and long-sought economic progress". His Government had also sought to encourage the dialogue between Europe and Latin America during a "period of noteworthy development and regional integration initiatives". On East Timor, his country's objective was a "just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution, with full respect for the legitimate interests of the East Timorese people, including the right to self-determination".

SAN MARINO

Gabriele Gatti, Secretary of State for Foreign and Political Affairs, said that peace was not a condition that could be imposed; it was a "more complex reality, a permanent state" that had to be felt. On the other hand, the most praiseworthy and indisputable peace initiatives would be useless "until men are educated to a deep-rooted sense of peace". That, in his view, was the future role of the UN, which it should play with determination and authority. The world community had a "common duty to contribute to the removal of war-clouds and bilateral tensions". It had to defend the "right to peace", the main feature of which was "freedom and respect for minorities".

SPAIN

Foreign Minister Javier Solana Madriaga said that recent tremendous changes in the world had brought about a new pattern of international relations. However, after the "initial moments of surprise and euphoria, of perplexity and optimism", there was a need to incorporate those changes to build jointly a "more just and secure international society". The world gap between rich and poor had been "widening in an alarming way". New ways of attaining sustainable development should be found and greater financial resources provided, especially by those countries that were "in a position to do so". Decolonization of Gibraltar was an issue particularly important to Spain, which was determined to continue negotiations with the United Kingdom, bearing in mind that that was "not a case of self-determination", but a situation that affected Spain's territorial integrity

SWEDEN

Foreign Minister Margaretha af Ugglas said that the removal of the risk of a nuclear holocaust made other threats to peace and security "stand out all the more clearly", particularly problems of economic development, the environment and ethnic and religious conflicts which had become "severely aggravated in certain areas". The West had to do more than merely open its markets. Industrial democracies had a "responsibility to support economic and social progress in the developing countries by giving generous assistance", which should account for 0.7 per cent of their gross national income. Concerned about "unregulated stationing of former Soviet troops" in the Baltic States, Sweden welcomed the recent agreement between Russia and Lithuania on troop withdrawal and expected that similar agreements would be concluded with Estonia and Latvia as well.

TURKEY

Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin said the "most severe challenge to the new order" had been posed by the Yugoslav crisis. His country shared "historical and cultural bonds" with the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the presence in Turkey of a large number of citizens of Bosnian descent placed it in a special relationship to the fate of that country. Turkey had put forward a set of "concrete and effective measures designed to stop the fighting"; and it would assist in bringing about an end to the "Bosnian tragedy". While Iraq should comply fully with the relevant Security Council resolutions, Turkey would be the "first to welcome a return to normality and the restoration of normal relations between Iraq and its neighbours". The search continued for a "negotiated settlement" of the Cyprus question.

UNITED KINGDOM

Douglas Hurd, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, speaking on behalf of the European Community, said that the legacy of the cold war was a "mixed one", and in facing it the world community had to "be realistic". Solving problems which were rooted "deep in the centuries" was a "slow, frustrating business". International order was threatened in the short term by the "unleashing of extreme nationalism, of challenges to the rule of law". Yugoslavia was the "worst example of the bitterness of nationalism producing intolerable results". Preventive deployment of troops might take place to "deter aggression or conflict between States. But the UN role did not stop "once the conflict is over". Peace-building must also take place.

UNITED STATES

President George Bush said the UN and the world community faced three "critical, interrelated challenges": peace-keeping, weapons proliferation and economic prosperity. The "bloody battles raging in places such as the former Yugoslavia"--where people were pursuing "historical identities" through ethnic violence rather than "democratic nationalism"--highlighted the need for a more preventive multinational response. Shared economic growth was the "long-term foundation for a brighter future well into the next century", and fair and open competition should be the "fuel for the global economic engine". It added up to an ambitious agenda, he acknowledged. "But we live in remarkable times: times when empires collapse, ideologies dissolve and walls crumble; times when change comes so fast that we sometimes forget how far and how fast we have progressed in achieving our hopes for a global community of democratic nations."

Great and unshirkable tasks lie ahead

The nations of Latin America and the Caribbean bid a glad farewell to super-Power confrontation, as well as to many of their own local conflicts, but bemoaned the spectrum of economic and social woes that continued to girdle the globe. "Famine, disease, ecological degradation, the desperate migration of people in search of survival, the inhumanity of poverty, cannot indefinitely be ignored by any creature on planet Earth", said Prime Minister Percival J. Patterson of Jamaica.

The onset of peace in El Salvador, the strengthening of the peace process in Nicaragua, and great efforts towards conciliation in other Central American countries, such as Guatemala, had contributed to eliminating a zone of armed conflict in the region that for long had affected international security.

New fears, however, precluded tranquillity. "Today no one is immune to the conflicts that used to be called peripheral", said El Salvador's President Alfredo Felix Cristiani-Burkard. "No longer is it the power of the super-Powers that is such a threat to mankind's survival; it is the ancient scourge of poverty that continues to erode the foundations of our civilization, whose great and unshirkable task is now to protect the dignity of all human beings without distinction as to race, culture or geographic location."

In the new world order, the UN must earn new credibility, said Bolivian President Jaime Paz Zamora. "The citizens and nations of global democracy are placing unavoidable challenges before our Organization, challenges that require us to adapt its structures, modernize its machinery and identify new priorities."

Many supported convening a World Summit on Social Development in 1995, while virtually all applauded the June 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The spirit of Rio, said Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Lafer, was that "all countries--large and small, rich and poor--gave proof that they were and are capable of linking their own specific interests with larger, more general interests."

Latin America itself was striving for greater regional cooperation in order "to bequeath to future generations of our countries better conditions for improving democratic institutions, promoting integration and fostering economic and social development", said President Guillermo Endara Galimany of Panama.

Democracy tenuous

However, democracy was still tenuous in many developing countries. "We have the impression that the international community has not yet fully realized what is at stake in some of these countries", said Nicaraguan President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. "Freedom is still extremely fragile there, and economic and social democracy is a distant dream."

A case in point was Haiti, where a coup detat in September 1991 ended a brief experiment in democracy. Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide called for the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS) to transform "fine-sounding resolutions" into "visible and fruitful action" to restore democracy in his country.

Consolidating democracy and ensuring stability throughout the region required an open and united approach to economic relations. In particular, some Latin American and Caribbean nations worried that trade in commodities, such as bananas, was being unfairly restricted by industrialized nations.

Drug control was another high-ranking concern. Calling for an international criminal jurisdiction against drug trafficking, money laundering and the illegal export of precursor chemicals, President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo of Colombia warned that the drug traffickers in his country today would be in sister nations tomorrow. "Today their enterprise is cocaine; tomorrow they will be looking for other new, lucrative products . . . "Today they are making millions from the demand in the United States; tomorrow they will be getting even richer with money from Europe and Japan."

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

Lionel Alexander Hurst, Permanent Representative to the UN, said that "for 500 years, from Columbus to Rio, our forests and our oceans, our air and our lands--the earth's gifts to humanity--have been wrongly regarded as inexhaustible and unchanging. If Columbus uncovered our earth's expanse, Rio revealed its limits." His Government was pressing for expanded sanctions to isolate Haiti's military regime and return that country to democracy. If we do not succeed quickly in Haiti, the UN "will risk tarnishing well-earned reputation for being able to tackle exceedingly complex problems in extremely violent situations in other corners of the globe".

ARGENTINA

Guido Di Tella, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Worship, said that the UN could not "on its own guarantee the climate of detente" and called for each region to create mechanisms of its own. Therefore, Argentina with other American countries supported reforms to the charter of the OAS "with a view to giving it the power to respond politically to breakdowns in democracy in our hemisphere". Domestically, Argentina had also issued regulations on sensitive nuclear, chemical, bacteriological and missile exports. Besides contributing effectively to non-proliferation, the new policy should open Argentina's access to high technology. Another important contribution to stability in the region was the normalization of diplomatic relations between Argentina and the United Kingdom. But "the dispute concerning sovereignty over the Malvinas, Georgia and South Sandwich islands still persists".

BAHAMAS

Orville Alton Turnquest, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, said natural disasters worldwide had exacted high, tolls of human life, property and natural resources in 1992, but "natural hazards, no matter how great, need not result in natural disasters. We often spend too much time and money recovering from disasters and too little on prevention." Also, "widespread upheavals and conflicts, within States and between States, have been responsible for the mass movement of persons from one country to the other". That phenomenon "not only threatens the security and stability of the affected countries, but also creates competing demands for attention and vital resources". He also decried the problems of drug abuse, production and trafficking, "which continue to haunt the international community with their catastrophic effects".

BARBADOS

Foreign Minister Maurice King, commending the Secretary-General's "An Agenda for Peace" report, suggested that a number of small countries had been "unable to play a part in traditional United Nations peace-keeping simply because they have lacked the logistical military capability for so doing". However, small States could participate in other fields in which they have expertise, such as electoral supervision, human rights monitoring and the supply of police and civilian personnel. He supported establishment of a special UN institute for education and training in peace-keeping activities. "Never before has the power of the few over the destinies of the many been so apparent, and never before has it been so vital to the survival of the majority of small and powerless States that make up the United Nations for that power to be used responsibly."

BELIZE

Said Musa, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Economic Development and Education, said that 500 years ago the "Columbus enterprise" had resulted in "the creation of many dual worlds. And on our planet this tragic dichotomy is writ large in the great divide between North and South." For example, during years of ecological destruction, "countless numbers of plants and animal species have been permanently lost to humanity". He went on: "The double tragedy for us in the South is that even when these acts take place within our jurisdictions we are rarely the authors and hardly ever the beneficiaries of their short-term gains. While we accept the responsibility for conserving our common environment we cannot unilaterally close off options for development to our people when their need is so great." Moreover, "the world community will never succeed in respecting and preserving biodiversity if we do not respect and preserve homodiversity".

BOLIVA

President Jaime Paz Zamora saw five developments deserving the "keenest attention" of the UN. First, an apparent dichotomy had developed among nations "striving for complementarity through processes of integration" and a paradoxical reaffirmation by the same peoples of "their identity and their essence". Second, there was an urgent need for "an appropriate relationship between the market economy, democracy, and human development". Third, "we live in a single global eco-system and we are all jointly responsible for its conservation and clean-up". Next, it was "necessary to share technological power more democratically". Finally, information had become the "crossroads of human rights".

BRAZIL

Foreign Minister Celso Lafer said: "The unprecedented historical crossroads at which we find ourselves calls for a new agenda, an agenda embodying an awareness of the present and a vision of the future." Commending the holding in 1993 of a World Conference on Human Rights, he continued: "One of the most urgent tasks of the United Nations will be to promote in all countries a strong campaign against all forms of discrimination. It is high time we reaffirmed the classic concept of tolerance as an essential constituent element of life in an enlightened society. Equality can be genuine only when there is respect for diversity, where there is respect for heterogeneity." The Earth Summit set new patterns for international cooperation by "reshaping the very notion of development, to conceive it on a more rational, more just and more generous foundation--that of sustainable development".

CHILE

Foreign Minister Enrique Silva Cimma said there was a "moral, political and social imperative of placing the needs of people at the heart of United Nations activities". The international community "must search together for new political directions" and strengthen the role of the Organization to maintain peace and security, defend human rights, protect the environment, combat drug trafficking and terrorism and close the gap between North and South. "We cannot enter a new era of world peace--although it is potentially within our grasp--if we forget the human being", he stated. Chile had proposed the convening of a world summit for social development. "In the final analysis our capacity to lead and the raison detre of the United Nations will be measured by the success we achieve in the field of social development."

COLOMBIA

President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo said his country was "a victim of the uncontrollable appetite for drugs throughout the world". Drugtrafficking was "a hydra-headed monster. It is not enough to cut off just one head or only a few heads. To eradicate this scourge once and for all we need to take decisive, collective action, international and multilateral action, against this evil on all fronts." Colombia would establish an international centre for the fight against drug trafficking and also proposed that the UN define global, regional and country targets for controlling the supply and demand of drugs, including a commitment to at least a 50 per cent reduction by the year 2000 and freeing "humanity forever from the scourge of drugs" by 2010.

COSTA RICA

Bernd Niehaus-Quesada, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Worship, said the end of the cold war had not "decreased the depth of the abyss between North and South". Oddly, increased protective measures by industrialized nations were "occurring at a time when Latin America has become a continent of democracies and when many African and Asian countries have again taken the road to civil and political liberty". However, "the third world countries must do their part too", he stated. "International cooperation, regardless of its magnitude, will not change the situation of the receiving country if it does not exert a disciplined and determined effort to make progress." Developing countries "must fight harder against bureaucracy and administrative corruption, and must redouble their efforts to ensure that international aid truly fills its objectives".

CUBA

Foreign Minister Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada stated that the "deepest root" of the Caribbean peoples was their "rebelliousness". For centuries "the Caribbean was the victim of the brutal greed of all sorts of intruders, the cross-roads of slave-traders and pirates, of traffickers and invaders; violence and cruelty were its constant scourges". Today, as in the past, "the idea is to determine whether the future will allow human solidarity to flourish or whether it will still be weighed down by selfishness; whether it will one day lead to the emancipation of the dispossessed, or whether it will forever perpetuate their tragedy; whether we are on the verge of a new colonizing adventure, or whether, at long last, hope will begin to emerge for the poor of this Earth."

DOMINICA

Brian Alleyne, Minister for External Affairs, warned that the collapse of the banana industry in the Windward islands, which could be the consequence of imposing a tariff on bananas under the General Agreement on Thriffs and Trade (GATT), "would immediately and dramatically adversely affect the economic and social conditions of those small island developing States". While UNCED was proof that nations understood the importance of saving the planet, solutions for environmental degradation must protect the interests of both developing and industrialized countries. He charged: "The industrialized countries have gained economic prosperity in disregard of the resultant destruction of the environment." On streamlining UN operations, "we must strengthen, not weaken" their ability to provide assistance to developing countries. "The important thing is that whatever is done must render the Organization more effective in promoting peace and development throughout the world. Anything less would merely perpetuate the waste of limited resources."

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Foreign Minister Juan Aristides Taveras Guzman stated that, despite the end to cold-war tensions, "the international community should remain vigilant because, though it is true that the danger of nuclear war has disappeared, it is no less true that another menace is still with us, that of the continued quest on the part of some countries for technology for the production of nuclear weaponry, behind the back of the international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)". The IAEA should be revitalized to enable it to prevent "the proliferation of those terrible weapons". Furthermore, he said "mankind is still burdened with problems arising out of the so-called conventional weapons, which are becoming more and more destructive". Haiti's "chronic situation of economic penury" had forced Haitians "to emigrate in waves across our borders and by sea in search of a better life", he said.

ECUADOR

President Sixto Duran Ballen said "the old problems of disparity between an economically powerful world, embracing a limited number of countries, and the developing world, comprising the bulk of mankind, continue to worsen". Without help, "poor States cannot free themselves from their condition of impoverishment, and they cannot partake in the enjoyment of a life of dignity, free from the fear of insecurity and poverty." He expressed support for international conferences on the financing of development, on social development and on illicit drugs. "Unresolved economic and social, as well as humanitarian and ecological, problems of overriding importance continue to be a source of instability, and they carry the seeds of damage to international relations and even of conflict."

EL SALVADOR

President Alfredo Felix Cristiani-Burkard stated that peace in El Salvador was "not just a matter of restoring normal conditions --those that prevailed before the conflict--but of establishing peace of a new kind, unprecedented in our country". That peace process stood as "one of the clearest and most persuasive examples" that the UN was fulfilling its responsibilities and "doing so efficiently and opportunely within this new, increasingly interlinked world where there is a growing sense of globalism". Therefore the "triumph is not ours; it belongs to the peoples of the world who have already suffered too much not to see, and soon, the fruits of progress, which are the only guarantees of internal stability and peace among nations".

GRENADA

Eugene Pursoo, Permanent Representative to the UN, declared that small countries, in particular small developing island countries, "can hardly compete in the world arena with developed countries" and he appealed to donor countries for renewed consideration and to the international community in general for the needed concessions "to attain our development goals". A number of small island States in the Caribbean, highly dependent on the banana industry, "are faced with an uncaring call by certain countries" to have bananas placed within the framework of GATT, which could "wipe out the banana industry in our islands". At the end of the International Decade of Disabled Persons, we had to acknowledge that "too little has been done to enable disabled persons to see themselves as equal citizens".

GUATEMALA

Foreign Minister Gonzalo Menendez Park said that his country was "involved in a far-reaching and ambitious process of transformation, which we trust will positively change the course of our history". As Central Americans, "Guatemalans are aware that the challenge of our future is entirely in our own hands. The process of democratization, begun some years ago, is the start of a much broader process" aimed at transforming social, economic and cultural structures. "The effort that is needed to generate a process of overall improvement in the standards of living of our people requires that the funds used for armed confrontation be reallocated for social investment." Significant efforts were also being made to create conditions that would permit the return of refugees who had fled the "violence that affected their population groups in the past".

HAITI

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide offered eight "democratic beatitudes for a civilization of peace". First: "Blessed are those who defend democracy", he said, thanking the UN for its condemnation of the coup in his country, where "blood is flowing, corpses are piling up and repression is intensifying". Second: "Blessed are those who promote economic growth, because peace and economic poverty are incompatible". Third: "Blessed are those who heroically say no to getting off scot-free; no to vengeance; yes, to justice"; Fourth: "Blessed are those who reduce arms expenditures and increase expenditures for human development"; Fifth: "Blessed are those who resist political pollution, for they will make the sun of peace shine". Sixth: "Blessed are those who defend the truth". Seventh: "Blessed are they who, regardless of class and race, love one another". The eighth and final beatitude: "Blessed are they who ... discover the true face of the Haitian people".

HONDURAS

Foreign Minister Mario Carias Zapata said: "With peace in El Salvador, Central America, under the sign of democracy, is returning to the path of integration and development. Our countries are aware of the countless challenges posed by the insufficiency of our productive infrastructure, poverty and inequalities. But we also know that with dedication and vision, and especially with unity, we shall be able to overcome them." The Tegucigalpa Protocol of 1991 had established a system which would "impart force and impetus" to Central American integration. Honduras hoped that the region's "ever-stronger voice" would be heard and that the region would "participate actively in the new forms of global interdependence that are taking shape on the eve of a new millenium". He urged the use of the international Court of justice, as Honduras and El Salvador had done in their border dispute.

JAMAICA

Prime Minister Percival J. Patterson said that while the world economy was experiencing a "revolutionary alteration", the gap between the industrialized North and the developing South continued to widen. He called upon the Assembly "to issue a summons to all Member States for a new agenda which provides the basic conditions for human survival everywhere". The trends witnessed over the last decade--a severe fall in commodity prices, reduction of private- and public-sector flows, and mounting debt burden--must be "halted and reversed. In the search for lasting peace we must prevent increasing poverty for a substantial portion of the human race." The Earth Summit had underscored the "interlinkages between security, disarmament, debt, trade, technology, the environment and development". States "were forced to admit that these issues could not be treated in splendid isolation. but required concerted action".

MEXICO

Foreign Secretary Fernando Solana Morales stressed that with the cold war over, there was "no argument strong enough" to justify the persistence of structural imbalances in the world. "Plenty and overabundance for a few cannot coexist with poverty and deprivation for the majorities. We can already see the global impact of these inequalities: The increase in migrations to the more prosperous countries is unprecedented." It would be a "dangerous", he stated, "for the rich societies to believe that their security is not in jeopardy from the intensification of these imbalances". He stated: "We pay too much attention to the so-called new global issues at the expense of development problems, combating extreme poverty and strengthening international cooperation." The best preventive diplomacy was support for development, which was an essential element of stable and lasting peace.

NICARAGUA

President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro saw "an urgent need to forge a consensus on a worldwide commitment to strengthen international cooperation and reactivate economic growth and development". Efforts towards this "continue to be hindered by restricted access to new markets, scarce financial resources, lack of foreign investment, the debt burden, limitations on the transfer of technology and the ongoing inequality in the financial systems and international trade". In addition, "an alarming number of people are still suffering the tragic consequences of armed conflict, and poverty continues to stifle hopes for a better future. Millions of children do not have access to health care or education. Millions of women, who constitute the majority of the world's population, remain oppressed."

PANAMA

President Guillermo Endara Galimany drew attention to the experience of the people of El Salvador, which constituted for the rest of mankind "an example of how to settle disputes by peaceful means". With the signing of the peace agreements in 1992, "an end was put to 12 long, grim years of struggle, bloodshed, grief and suffering for thousands of Salvadorian homes", he said, reiterating Panama's commitment to help the Salvadorians "consolidate peace". His Government also welcomed "the recent conclusion of the century-old border conflict between Honduras and El Salvador". However, in those areas where "wars are unfolding, action must be taken not only to combat the scourge of war but also to fight its causes". Panama supported preventive action by UN peace-keeping forces, in particular preventive diplomacy and other proposals by the Secretary-General. "Our wars must be wars against poverty and illiteracy", he said.

PARAGUAY

Foreign Minister Alexis Frutos Vaesken saw a new order emerging in our universe. "On the one hand, we see the rebirth of old nationalisms. On the other, we see plans for the integration of countries which are seeking, by this means, the right direction for achieving better economic development." The Southern Cone Common Market was a commitment "to share the common destiny of nations". Now that the arms race is over, "it would seem that the most powerful countries are preparing for another war, the economic war". Calling for solutions that would "alleviate the tragedy of the countries suffering the scourge of poverty", he said a summit on social development would be "a suitable opportunity for achieving world planning to promote the development of the poorest countries". International peace and security would be "truly guaranteed only in so far as the underlying causes of conflicts are eliminated". The gap between North and South must be narrowed "to avoid a chain reaction of unsatisfied needs leading to profound crises in developing countries".

PERU

Ricardo Luna, Permanent Representative to the UN, said the internal crisis in his country had "reached an extreme", resulting from terrorist group activities and a "dire" economic situation. "The Shining Path obsession has not only divided the country, but created antagonisms between the State and society, destroying both, and created instead a totalitarian response to the national crisis", he stated. Recently the movement had established an alliance with Peru's "most powerful and illegitimate transnational force"--drug trafficking. But Peruvian society had reacted. "From apprehension to despair, we move silently to indignation and took the offensive. While it would be overly optimistic to say that we are approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, we can indeed perceive the fresh air of a new era of hope."

ST. KITTS AND NEVIS

Kennedy Simmonds, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, recalled that the 1991 Assembly had met "in an atmosphere of great optimism", at a time when "the world waited with anticipation to reap the benefits of the all-embracing peace dividend". it was "too soon to say that we have failed, but we have certainly not succeeded. Once again, the attention of the international community has been distracted by fierce and despicable atrocities in far-flung theatres of regional conflict." Although aware of the "outstanding efforts" of the Secretary-General to ensure that the UN responded urgently to those crises, he said more had to be done. "We must mobilize the resources, diplomatic and other, of the Member States to bring an end to the fighting and, secondly, we must continue to intensify the relief effort for those in need of the basic necessities of food, shelter and medicines."

ST VINCENT & THE GRENADINES

Herbert George Young, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, stated that the situation in Haiti remained one of "extreme concern" to his country. The UN, "because of its critical involvement in the Haitian elections and its generic role of guarantor of international human rights", had a "special responsibility to the people of Haiti, who have never had the good fortune to enjoy the basic human rights and freedoms that the international community has agreed are fundamental to human dignity". Expressions of concern should be matched by concrete action. His country was concerned "that the vital economic interests of small States like ours are very marginal as the powerful developed countries of the world move to consolidate their markets in extensive trading blocs". In that regard, the four Windward islands "will redouble their efforts to ensure that powerful forces working in their own interests do not destroy our economies".

SURINAME

Vice-President Jules Rattankoemar Ajodhia announced that patient negotiations had recently resulted in a signed agreement for national reconciliation and development, bringing an end to a domestic armed struggle that for many years "brought sorrow and mourning to our people". In the 1990s, the economic and social problems of developing countries continue to be manifold", he said. The elimination of hunger and malnutrition, the improvement of health standards and the eradication of illiteracy "should be issues of paramount concern in the coming decades". These aims "can best be achieved by putting into motion a people-centred development process". He supported the convening of a social development summit to deal with those issues.

URAGUAY

Foreign Minister Hector Gros Espiell said that in this day and age, we had to rethink the question of sovereignty: not so as to weaken its essence, which continued to represent the underpinning of our international Organization, but rather to adapt it to current requirements. Expressing fundamental agreement with the Secretary-General's "An Agenda for Peace", including the need to strengthen peace-keeping operations, he said Uruguay intended "to preach by example". It had increased to "unprecedented levels" its contribution to UN peace-keeping operations, including more than 900 troops in the Cambodian operation and a General commanding the UN contingent in Kashmir. Latin America had become "a continent of peace", resolving territorial disputes by peaceful means, where there were "no morbid outbreaks of xenophobia and racial hatred" and which was "fighting, as never before in its history, to solve the problems of its indigenous peoples and of human rights".

VENEZUELA

Foreign Minister Fernando Ochoa Antich said that, while "the end of communism is already a thing of the past", the "absolute triumph of the West is beginning to be questioned, given the financial and exchange rate problems which the industrialized countries are experiencing, together with their profound social crisis". He suggested that "we might be talking about a post-capitalist era in which the quest for supposedly free competition has turned into a total dehumanization of the economic model, producing a yawning gap between rich and poor in world society. We are facing not the end of history, but rather a great lack of leadership, of confidence and of enthusiasm for the future." Industrialized countries, "deprived of the enemy which used to make them act together", were now experiencing "a substantial weakening of the bonds that used to unite them". The only way to preserve peace was "to find balanced links between the hemispheres".