In 1989, the year in which the Berlin Wall
fell and the cold war came to an end, there were 159 Member States represented
in this Hall. Today, three years later, there are 179, an increase of 20.
Will this trend continue? If so, there could be 200 Member States represented
in this Hall when we meet here again in 1995. Will these new countries come
from Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas? And will the birth pangs of these
new States be as traumatic as those of some our newer Members, like Croatia,
Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova and Georgia? Or will they emerge
peacefully?
I begin my statement with these questions because I believe that our
first task at this session is to rid ourselves of the euphoria that many of us
here experienced when the cold war ended. From the tragic experience of
Kuwait to the continuing anguish of the former Yugoslavs, we are seeing the
re-emergence of forces that we thought had been swept away by forces of
modernization. Ghosts which had been sleeping for decades have awakened to
haunt us. How many more will awaken in the years to come?
This session clearly needs to be one of sober reflection. In this regard
I am pleased that we have elected Ambassador Ganev of Bulgaria to guide our
deliberations. This reflects the confidence of Member States in his
leadership abilities. Bulgaria's geographical location gives it a unique
insight into the problems that we are facing.
I should also like to place on record our appreciation of the wise
leadership and guidance provided by our President's predecessor,
Ambassador Samir Shihabi. In addition, we wish to place on record our
appreciation to Mr. Perez de Cuellar for his 10 years of dedicated and
exemplary service as Secretary-General. Let me also congratulate
Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali on his wise and dynamic stewardship of the United
Nations in his first year in office.
There can no longer be any doubt that the cold war, even though it
terrified many of us in this Hall, effectively froze or suppressed many
tribal, religious, ethnic and cultural divisions. The thawing of the cold war
has led to their re-emergence. I need only to cite some obvious recent
examples. Even as we speak, conflicts are raging between Armenia and
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and there are conflicts in Moldova, Georgia
and Afghanistan. Somalia is splintering; the former Yugoslavia has descended
into tribal warfare. The world has still not recovered from the shock of the
atrocities and the blatant disregard of basic humanitarian principles in
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the name of "ethnic cleansing", which we condemn as
an abhorrent practice.
In this setting it is appropriate and timely that the Secretary-General
has produced his report "An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy,
peacemaking and peace-keeping" (A/47/277). Not every United Nations Member
will agree with its analysis. Nor will all the recommendations be universally
endorsed. But it is a far-reaching document with concrete proposals for the
maintenance of international peace and security.
It also contains the Secretary-General's recommendations on ways to strengthen
and make more efficient the capacity of the United Nations for preventive
diplomacy, peacemaking, peace-keeping and peace-building. We should
congratulate the Secretary-General and his staff on putting together a
comprehensive and thoughtful paper that raises the issues that Member States
need to address.
There is much in there for us to ruminate on but there is also room for
us to add ideas to it. For example, the report, for obvious reasons, refrains
from trying to apportion blame or investigate the causes of the recent
conflicts. This should be the job of Member States. We need to be clear in
our minds whether the explosion of new States in recent years is a natural and
welcome development, something akin to what we saw in the era of
decolonization, or whether it is a reflection of a state of disorder in the
structures of human society that we have created in the twentieth century. Or
is it the case, as the "Agenda for Peace" suggests, that the "deepest causes
of conflict" are: "economic despair, social injustice and political
oppression" (A/47/277, para. 15)? We need to be clear in our minds about what
is happening because this will in turn define the mission that we will entrust
to the United Nations: when a conflict breaks out within a State should the
mission of the United Nations be to resolve the conflict and peacefully
reunite the factions as in Angola and El Salvador or should the mission of
the United Nations be to facilitate a peaceful division of the country as in
Yugoslavia? These are not theoretical questions. These are practical
questions that United Nations peace-keepers confront on a day-to-day basis in
the former Yugoslavia and in Somalia.
Lest I be misunderstood, let me stress that I welcome the new Member
States that have joined the United Nations this year: Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic
of Moldova, San Marino, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. I
believe that they would agree with me that if more new Member States are going
to join us we should ensure that they emerge peacefully and not through war
and conflict.
The "Agenda for Peace" also makes it clear that the functions of United
Nations peace-keepers have gone far beyond their usual mandate. In the past
United Nations peace-keepers were traditionally sent in after a peace
agreement had been worked out between the warring parties. Today United
Nations forces are involved in a variety of tasks ranging from
election-monitoring to inspection of nuclear installations. The range of
functions is expected to increase. As the "Agenda for Peace" points out,
these will include preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peace-keeping and
peace-building.
Let me also state the points of agreement that I have with the report.
First, I agree that the United Nations should play a more proactive role in
preventive diplomacy. As the report states:
"... preventive diplomacy requires measures to create confidence; it
needs early warning based on information gathering and informal or formal
fact-finding; it may also involve preventive deployment and, in some
situations, demilitarized zones." (A/47/277, para. 23)
Secondly, I also agree that the Security Council can now play a more active
role because, as the report states:
"With greater unity has come leverage and persuasive power to lead
hostile parties towards negotiations." (A/47/277, para. 35)
Thirdly, I agree that the United Nations should work in concert with regional
groupings. I believe that the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
would be happy to do so. The endorsement by the United Nations of the Treaty
of Amity and Cooperation, signed in Bali, Indonesia, in 1976 and recently
acceded to by Laos and Viet Nam, could make it a model for other regions to
emulate.
Having imposed these significant new burdens on the United Nations it is
absurd that Member States, especially the permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council, are depriving the United Nations of the funds needed
to carry out these operations. Unpaid arrears for United Nations
peace-keeping operations now amount to $800 million. They are likely to rise
as the cost of peace-keeping operations for this year alone is likely to reach
$3 billion.
Some of the biggest debtors of the United Nations come from countries of
the North. It would be tragic for countries of the North to assume that they
are immune from the political and economic travails of the South. Yugoslavia
has demonstrated that these problems can explode at their doorsteps. The
modern technology spun by the developed countries has made our world into a
global village in the truest sense of the word. No villager can ignore a fire
in the home of his fellow villager, for if he does his own home could be burnt.
We saw this clearly at the Rio de Janeiro Summit earlier this year. The
countries of the North called upon the countries of the South to restrain
their deforestation, their production of chloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs) and their
pollutive development, for they were concerned that the effects of these
activities in the South would wander into their homes. Yet while they expect
the relatively impoverished countries of the South to make valiant sacrifices,
they are not prepared to make equal sacrifices in their relatively affluent
lifestyles. Given these difficulties, it is remarkable that the Rio Summit
reached a consensus on Agenda 21. We in the General Assembly should endorse
the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 and adopt a good decision to establish a
high-level commission on sustainable development. The momentum achieved in
Rio de Janeiro has to be maintained and followed up.
To address these environmental questions squarely, the world also needs
to reinvigorate the global economy. 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 as soon as possible. Instead of
doing this, the countries of the North are concentrating on regional
integration. Whatever the fate of the Maastricht Treaty, an integrated single
European market will be in place by January 1993, bolstered by an expanded
agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries that would
bring about greater European Community-EFTA economic co-operation known as the
European Economic Area (EEA). The North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) is
about to be formed. If these arrangements benefit only the countries of the
North, with no perceived benefits to the South, the South is unlikely to
cooperate with the North on environmental issues.
Fortunately, the South has not been standing still. A major economic
revolution is also taking place there, affecting the lives of billions of
people, especially in large nations such as China, India, Pakistan and
Indonesia. If present trends continue, by the year 2000 the ASEAN countries
and the Asian newly industrializing economies will have a gross domestic
product (GDP) of $3.3 trillion, two thirds of the United States 1990 GDP or
half of the European Community 1990 GDP. China could double its gross
national product (GNP) within this decade. Clearly, some parts of the South
are going to experience explosive economic growth.
Except for a few which still cling to the virtues of the command economy,
practically every country in the world now realizes that it has to introduce
economic reforms. The old economic systems with their manifest inefficiencies
and inadequacies that hindered economic growth had to be discarded. Except
for a few, all States are working to introduce the market-economy system. But
such adjustment to open economic competition is not without sacrifices and
great political costs. The transitional economies have experienced great
economic difficulties and dislocations 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.
If this massive economic revolution in the South succeeds, the world will
experience a rising tide that will lift all of humankind those in the South
and those in the North. It is also likely that this rising tide would help
extinguish the flames of tribal and ethnic discord that have erupted around
the globe.
South-East Asia has sometimes been called "the Balkans of Asia". Despite
this, the countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
have already experienced two decades of peace and economic development.
Through regional cooperation in ASEAN and the concentration of national
energies on economic development, the ASEAN region has become the most
peaceful and prosperous part of the third world. There is no reason why this
ASEAN experience cannot be duplicated in the rest of the world. I hope that
this session of the General Assembly will give some thought to this as it
searches for solutions to the ongoing tragedies we are now witnessing.