In
addressing this Assembly for the first time, I should like, first, on behalf
of my delegation and on my own behalf, to carry out the pleasant duty of
conveying to Mr. Ganev of Bulgaria our most earnest and warmest
congratulations on his election to the presidency of the General Assembly at
its forty-seventh session, and to assure him of our cooperation with a view to
achieving a successful outcome.
We should like also to take this opportunity to pay a well-deserved
tribute to Mr. Samir Shihabi of Saudi Arabia for the deft and skilful manner
in which he led the work of the last session.
To the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, we reiterate our
most earnest congratulations on the outstanding manner in which he has been
discharging his difficult responsibilities since he was elected head of our
Organization.
We also take this opportunity to welcome the positive and beneficial
influence of the activities of our former Secretary-General,
Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, who was able to give our Organization a new
dynamism and brought it closer to the goals assigned to it by its founding
fathers.
On behalf of Zaire, I welcome the new Member States that have joined the
Organization, thereby bringing us closer to its much-desired goal of
universality.
But we are bound to note that the purposes of our Organization laid down
in its Charter are far from being achieved, because in many places throughout
the world the universal peace that we so earnestly seek is still just an
ambition. Indeed, hotbeds of tension have been rekindled, thereby
jeopardizing international peace and security, which our Organization has a
duty to guarantee. We earnestly appeal to all parties in conflict, wherever
they may be, to lay down their arms and exclude the word "force" from their
vocabulary.
In this vein, we find a great deal of merit in the Secretary-General's
report, "An Agenda for Peace" (A/47/277), to the international community, in
which we find valuable recommendations on preventive diplomacy, peacemaking
and peace-keeping.
We believe that the Assembly should give the greatest attention to this
analysis. Zaire pledges its help in studying these ideas, so useful to our
Organization.
The Secretary-General's recommendations lead us to focus on a few of the
many areas of tension.
The Security Council meeting on violence in South Africa made it possible
to avoid a break in the dialogue established within the Convention for a
Democratic South Africa (CODESA). We reiterate our appeal to all political
forces to put an end to their antagonism so that negotiations for the
establishment of a representative government may resume. To this end, we
strongly urge the South African Government to use all necessary ways and means
to put an end to extremist acts of all kinds that lead to violence.
In the Middle East, since the establishment of the Government resulting
from the latest elections in Israel and the resumption of negotiations between
the parties concerned, we have reason for some hope. We Therefore urge all
parties committed to the quest for an overall political solution that would
lead to lasting peace in that region to continue along the path of dialogue.
For some years now we have witnessed considerable efforts by the United
States of America and the Russian Federation the Powers with the most
sophisticated and most destructive weapons, whether nuclear, conventional,
biological or chemical drastically to reduce the number of such weapons,
thereby helping to establish a new era in international politics and in peace
and security for States and peoples. Zaire welcomes this most sincerely, and
we hope that other military Powers will follow their example. If they do, the
second millennium, for which we are preparing so busily, will open up new
prospects for humankind as a whole.
Today, in a surge of world-wide solidarity, the developed countries
living in prosperity should help, in a spirit of true partnership, the
countries of the South to solve the problems related to underdevelopment,
which have many complex causes. It is true that underdevelopment will not go
away overnight simply because the prosperous countries of the North decide to
make available to third world countries financial resources resulting from
cutbacks they may make in their military budgets; rather it will be ended by
strategies to do away with the dire poverty of the nations of Africa and other
underdeveloped countries.
That is why Zaire is convinced that a harmonious future for our planet
depends on peace, security and prosperity shared by all nations, both of the
North and of the South. And that is why Zaire also believes that the Final
Document of the International Conference on the Relationship between
Disarmament and Development should now be implemented in order to find the
necessary resources to solve the daunting problems our peoples face.
It is clear that the collective security aspects likely to create tension
and conflict in the world are not only military, but also spring from the
extreme impoverishment of our peoples, linked to high population growth rates
and the debt burden.
Looking at our ravaged economies, we believe that debt servicing must in
no way hamstring our development efforts. Our countries' total external debt
is constantly increasing, and has now reached more than $1.5 billion. Without
any real readiness to cooperate on the part of the industrialized countries,
and without considerable efforts devoted to the planning and establishment of
appropriate ad hoc structures, there will be no hope of recovery for our
economies.
We strongly hope that those devising strategic development policies for
the fourth decade will take into account the recommendations of the Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA) resulting from the Conference of Ministers
responsible for economic development and planning, held in Addis Ababa from
20 to 24 April of this year, which drew up guidelines for the years ahead.
We also hope that, in accordance with the New International Development
Strategy for the 1990s, the United Nations and the international community
will support efforts aimed at the economic recovery of Africa, for the common
good of all humankind.
Zaire hails the effective measures to protect and improve the environment
envisaged in the Rio Conventions. Indeed, as we have vast areas of protected
forests, we 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.
Zaire, whose vast expanses of tropical rainforest have given it the
status of the planet's "second lung", after Amazonia, has for long been in the
vanguard of environmental conservation. Our country has a major network of
linked national parks and reserves covering 8 per cent of our national
territory. Some of these nature reserves the oldest of which were
established more than 75 years ago - protect the rarest of species, including
the okapi, the white rhinoceros and the gorilla. In the context of the
Conventions adopted in Rio de Janeiro, Zaire offers all these natural
resources to the international community as a contribution to the common
heritage of humankind.
Therefore, my country calls upon the international community,
particularly the developed countries, to ensure that additional resources are
made available for the effective implementation of Agenda 21 and the new
Conventions dealing with biodiversity and climate change. My delegation
appeals to all countries to give massive support to Agenda 21 and its
accompanying Conventions; it asks that they sign them and take all the
necessary steps to ratify them. We invite countries of the North that might
still be hesitant about adapting their future behaviour to the requirements of
environmental conservation and protection to respond positively.
It is no secret to anyone that Zaire is today experiencing a deep
multisectoral crisis essentially attributable to the disastrous management of
its human, financial and material resources. The readiness for change
expressed by our people as a whole triumphed on 24 April 1990 with the
statement delivered by the President of the Republic, which finally recognized
the need for democratic political reform.
Following the example of other African countries, Zairians claimed and
obtained the holding of a national sovereign conference. Opened in
August 1991, that conference is taking place in an atmosphere whose tone was
set, on the one hand, by the troubles of September 1991, which ruined the
country's already reeling economy, and, on the other, by a succession of
political crises spawned in the climate of distrust that existed between the
established powers and the opposition. Suspended a number of times, the work
of the national sovereign conference none the less has managed to continue to
this day because our people has spared no sacrifice to lend its full support
to this forum. Because of this, the date of 16 February will live in our
memory. Thus, as I speak, the meetings of the national sovereign conference
are about to culminate, more than a year after its opening, in the adoption of
committee reports following the election of a Prime Minister and the
establishment of a transition Government.
The transition period will be managed by three institutions: the
Presidency of the Republic, the Supreme Council of the Republic, and the
transition Government. As regards the transition Government, the national
sovereign conference elected Mr. Etienne Tshisekedi Wa Mulumba as Prime
Minister in the vote held last August. The transition Government pledges
before international opinion to guide this period of transition in the calmest
and most peaceful manner possible.
The essential, indeed overriding, goal of the transition remains the
establishment of a state based upon the rule of law. Welcoming the role
played by the free press in the evolution of democracy in our country, the
Government is determined to encourage and support the media so that they can
play their full role in all freedom. Moreover, the transition Government and
the Supreme Council of the Republic will establish the High Council for
Audio-Visual Media, which will manage the official press agencies in the same
spirit. The Government is also committed to fighting censorship and to
promoting freedom of the press in all its forms.
The establishment of a State based on the rule of law necessarily entails
respect for the rights of the individual. That is why the Government will
work in concert with the associations responsible for human rights issues. To
that end, they will be granted the civil status that has been hitherto denied
them, as well as being guaranteed access to the media and freedom of action
throughout our national territory.
A top priority for the transition Government is laying the best possible
groundwork for the advent of a State based on the rule of law. To this end,
Zaire intends to hold free and democratic elections shortly. We therefore
urgently appeal to the international community to help us organize these
elections in the greatest possible transparency.
In conclusion, I should like to draw attention once again to the most
alarming situation of our planet, a situation on which the entire
international community is focused. My delegation is convinced that the
United Nations is and will remain the ideal framework for the quest for
peaceful solutions likely to defuse the hotbeds of tension that have developed
in Africa, Asia and Europe.
As for Zaire, I have just recalled the great choices made by the national
sovereign conference to provide the Zairian people with a new era of peace,
democracy and economic development. In accordance with the United Nations
Charter, Zaire announces its faith in the basic rights of the individual. To
that end, my country will spare no effort to ensure the victory of legality,
justice, equity and equality.
I wish the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly the fullest
measure of success.