I would like first to
congratulate Mr. Sam Kahamba Kutesa on his election
as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth
session. I also wish to express my appreciation for the
able manner in which the outgoing President presided
over the Assembly.
Allow me also to pay tribute to Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon for his tireless commitment in the service
of peace. I also thank the men and women serving the
United Nations in the field. They do so often at great
personal risk, and their courage and determination is a
source of inspiration for the Organization.
It was 50 years ago that Malta became an
independent State. That was the year when Nelson
Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in South
Africa, and when Martin Luther King received the
Nobel Peace Prize. For a small, nascent State such as
Malta, it was a year of promise and new beginnings
as it took its place among the Members of the United
Nations. It is with a deep sense of pride that I stand
before members here today to note the role our country
has played over the past 50 years to uphold the purposes
and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
Time and again, this family of nations has found
a trusted and reliable partner in my country, willing
to contribute, in ways large and small, to the cause of
international peace and security. I shall mention just
two. The first is Malta’s association with the Law of
the Sea — a widely acknowledged role, as we were
instrumental in the launching of the international
process that would eventually lead to the 1982 United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The second
example, which came shortly after that, in 1988, is
our being among the first Member States to highlight
the risks of climate change to the global community
within the forum of the United Nations. An almost alien
concept at the time, today climate change is one of the
main items on the global agenda. I pay tribute to Arvid
Pardo and former President .ensu Tabone, who piloted
those events. Evidently, our size did not determine our
ambitions then. Neither will it determine them now.
We live in an increasingly uncertain world — a
world where the power balances that we have known in
recent decades have started to shift. What made sense
in the past may not make sense in the future — not
too distant a future, but the future that we can already
see forming before our own eyes. If the Assembly will
allow me, I wish to share some thoughts by presenting
five challenges — five of the many that I feel we, the
United Nations, need to face up to now.
Undoubtedly, the first challenge is the conflict
in the Middle East. We need a return to meaningful
negotiations, and I stress the word meaningful.
The ongoing tit-for-tat, the culture of hatred and
intolerance, the self-righteous proclamations and
the recriminations are leaving nothing but death and
destruction. If we build walls around people, it is no
wonder that they will dig tunnels to escape. The current
frame of mind will lead nowhere. Too many innocent
civilians have died, too many children have been
buried. We need statesmanship from the politicians
on both sides to resolve the conflict. Risk-takers and
courageous negotiators must be willing to make the
right choices — not the most convenient choices, and
not the most popular, perhaps, but the most enduring
ones — that will bring about change leading to peace.
Our second challenge must be putting an end to
the ghastly war in Syria, which is fast becoming a
forgotten conflict of major proportions. Like many
other countries here, last year my country called for a
stop to the atrocities (see A/68/PV.12). Are we simply
going to repeat that call this year as well? Let us stop
this humanitarian disaster, which, as we know, is now
morphing into the new threats we have heard so much
about. The adoption of Security Council resolution
2165 (2014) demonstrated that we can act together, so
let us act. We call on the Security Council to assume its
responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations
and to act urgently and decisively to bring about an end
to the bloodshed.
That brings me to the third challenge. As if we
have not yet learned the lessons from Syria, or realized
what sectarian divisions can lead to, we are allowing
the problems in Libya to continue almost unabated.
We are fast witnessing a descent into another forgotten
conflict. We need to help the Libyan people take their
country forward. There is a bright future for Liby, but
Libyans themselves need to find the hope necessary to
realize it. They can begin to do so only with the help
of the international community. The United Nations
can and must provide capacity-building and security to
bring about stability and prosperity.
Of course, we are heartened to see the constructive
role already being played by the United Nations Support
Mission in Libya. Yet immense challenges remain, in
particular in restoring the country’s security and law
and order. The divisions are rooted in many causes, but
they can be overcome. This situation cannot be allowed
to continue further. Its repercussions are severe not
just for the Libyans themselves or for the country’s
immediate neighbours, such as ourselves, but further
afield. The international community cannot risk a
takeover by extremists of that crucial country.
Together with our international partners, especially
our colleagues in the European Union, Malta continues
to actively support the efforts of the Libyan people
to move forward. We are providing all the assistance
within our means to aid the wounded. We will stand
for dialogue and reconciliation in Libya. We will stand
for peace and resolution. We will continue to draw
attention to this festering wound. Our Libyan friends
deserve that. Disarmament and national reconciliation
are the prerequisites for Libya to move forward. The
United Nations must be ready to answer the calls for
action from the Libyan people themselves.
If the Assembly will allow, I will directly address
our friends in Libya in their own language, which is so
similar to my own.
(spoke in Arabic)
The families and the children of Libya deserve a
true future. Freedom and justice for all Libyans can
be achieved only if differences are resolved through
dialogue and compromise.
(spoke in English)
Please allow me now to move to the fourth challenge
facing the world today, namely, the spread of extremism
and intolerance.
We are living through a period of transnational
allegiances in which we are seeing the globalization of
hatred — one during which extremists are increasingly
interconnected through networks and inventions whose
main purpose should be progress and education. This is
a time when disenchanted youths are radicalized into
movements that know no limits. We need to look beyond
the borders of our nation States and work together, if we
are to face up to the threats posed by extremists.
Nobody is immune from what is undoubtedly the
biggest threat to world stability and peace. Just as the
horrendous carnage of two world wars led to a shift in
our thinking, the reality we are living in now needs
to force another shift. We have to spread a culture of
mutual understanding and humanity — not because it
serves us, but because it serves our peoples and will
serve our future as a global community.
Clearly, the area of the world from the Mediterranean
to the Middle East, and beyond, demands our utmost
attention. People are being pushed to the brink. They
are resorting to increasingly desperate measures.
Men, women and children are risking their lives to
cross conflict-ridden zones and hostile deserts. They
are taking to the seas without realizing the dangers
that await them. As I also did last year, I reiterate that
more attention must be focused on the plight of illegal
immigrants in the Mediterranean, which I believe is the
fifth challenge we face.
With all our limitations, Malta is doing its utmost
to daily save lives — as our neighbour and friend
Italy is also doing. Again I call on the Assembly and
the international community to help to stop the great
human tragedies that come with risky crossings across
the Mediterranean. The States receiving the waves of
migrants cannot stand up to the challenge alone: no
country in the world can solve the problem of illegal
immigration alone. Just last week we witnessed in
our own seas yet another tragedy, which the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
described as mass murder.
Closer cooperation among the countries of origin,
transit and destination is needed. The United Nations
and its agencies are already helping, but they must
continue to help in addressing the causes. Better
governance, better resources and better development
policies are needed. We need better enforcement
mechanisms and stronger penalties to stop and punish
the criminals — the human traffickers. We need better
implementation of internationally agreed commitments.
We need all of that and more, and we need to remember
to keep in mind the well-being of the human beings,
the families and children who are the victims of all that
tragedy.
As a Mediterranean country, Malta cannot but call
for the world’s attention to those challenges, which
are threatening not only the security of the region
but also its development and growth. Such threats are
preventing the Mediterranean Sea Basin from reaching
its full potential, which is just waiting to be unleashed
if only weapons were traded for books and hatred for
education. I reiterate my strong conviction that the
Mediterranean Basin needs to be given our immediate
attention in order to once again become the home of
great civilizations that it is and a cross-cultural haven
where women and men of different beliefs and traditions
work, trade and mingle in tolerance and tranquillity.
It has always been our belief that there cannot be
peace in Europe without peace in the Mediterranean.
Today’s unprecedented levels of interconnectivity
lead us to believe that peace in the Mediterranean is
a prerequisite for global stability. Malta will continue
to serve as a voice of reason, while striving to unite
the Mediterranean. Our only weapon is our historical
and natural vocation for peace. Our resolve grows only
stronger in such testing times.
The challenges that we face cannot stop us in our
tracks. We can address them if we truly believe in
acting as the United Nations. A year from now, we will
analyse the Millennium Development Goals and will,
hopefully, agree on sustainable development goals for
the twenty-first century. With an effective development
agenda, we can address the causes of conflict in a
sustainable manner and can overcome the poverty that
contributes to illegal migration. But we need to be
ambitious.
Over the past 50 years, my country has shown that
it has been and can be ambitious in favour of peace,
progress and prosperity. It has promoted and will
continue to promote the broadest possible dialogue
among the countries of our region. I take pride in
noting that only a few months ago, Malta, together
with Algeria, France, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, the
Netherlands, Nigeria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United
Kingdom and the United States, jointly launched the
International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law,
hosted by my country. The Institute will collaborate
with the United Nations and other international and
non-governmental organizations to provide training
to lawmakers, police, prosecutors, judges and prison
officials to deal with terrorism and transnational crime,
with a general emphasis on the rule of law. We hope
that such work will eventually serve as a best practice
for the benefit of the wider global community.
We are also fully engaged within the
Commonwealth, which brings together a third of the
world population, in order to help achieve convergence
on some of the challenges that lie ahead, including the
sustainable development goals and climate change. The
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that
will take place in Malta next year will serve as an ideal
platform for the discussion of such issues, especially
ahead of the Paris summit on climate change. Those are
some of the ways in which a small country in Europe
at the centre of the Mediterranean, such as Malta, will
continue to contribute to the fostering of peace and
security in our region and in the world.
Fifty years may seem like a long time, but I can
affirm that 50 years from now my country will remain
steadfast in its ambitions and in our determination in
favour of peace and prosperity. Malta will remain a
proud Member of the United Nations and a beacon of
stability in the Mediterranean.