At the
outset, I would like to extend my warm congratulations
to Mr. Sam Kahamba Kutesa, representative of the
friendly nation of Uganda, on his election to the
presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth
session. I would also like to express my thanks and
appreciation to Mr. John Ashe and his team, as well as
to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In this world, where a surfeit of bad news
overshadows the good work of creativity, reform
and recovery, we continue our peaceful transition to
democracy. We have managed to eliminate a dictatorial
regime at the least possible human cost. We have begun
a difficult transitional stage with a comprehensive
national dialogue, and we have written a consensual
constitution and built democratic State institutions.
We are now preparing for legislative and presidential
elections to be held before the end of the year in order
to transform Tunisia into a stable, democratic, forward-
looking State. Internal and external forces continue to
undermine our democratic, peaceful transition through
terrorist acts and political assassinations. However, our
people are resolved to pursue their efforts to achieve
success, despite the aggression of diabolical forces.
Tunisia today is a test for a peaceful democratic
transition in an Arab country that lived for too long under
despotism. We are attempting to reconcile democracy
and political Islam. We are pursuing an ongoing national
dialogue. We are distributing authority between secular
modernists and Islamists. We are using moderation to
grapple with the counter-revolution and to eliminate
the residues of despotism through a just transition. We
are also testing new socioeconomic approaches. We are
promoting comprehensive development initiatives that
will combat poverty and that will be in harmony with
the environment. We have a broader social vision in line
with the policies and vision of the United Nations with
regard to addressing global warming, climate change
and the post-2015 sustainable development agenda, as
well as the Secretary-General’s Global Education First
Initiative. We are also committed to our own policies
that aim to achieve world peace, especially within the
Arab world to which we belong, and on the African
continent, where we seek to definitively overcome the
past and look to the future.
Tunisia’s development process is unfolding in the
heart of a region that is currently witnessing political
upheavals that, in some cases, have had painful
consequences for us too. Transnational radical armed
groups have since the beginning of the revolution been
targeting us and have killed many of our soldiers and
security personnel, hindering our security apparatus
in an attempt to abort the drive for democracy and
to impose alternatives rejected by the majority of our
people.
The volatile situation in Libya is cause for concern
because the stability of that sister neighbouring
country affects our own stability. We hope that the
Libyans will, through national dialogue, achieve an
advanced, democratic stable State without outside
military intervention, which would only add insult
to injury. We encourage the wise men of Libya, both
within and outside that country, to preserve broad
national consensus and the security, unity, stability and
prosperity of their country through a peaceful, political
solution. We hope from the bottom of our hearts that
our brothers will manage to achieve that.
We are concerned by the spread of violence
on the eastern front of the Arab world, which has
reached unprecedented levels of brutality, including
decapitation, the chopping off of hands and the
execution of prisoners. We are appalled by such
violence and attacks on our Christian brothers and
other religious minorities, who form an integral part
of our Arab and Islamic heritage and culture. We are
ashamed of such practices in the name of our Allah,
who defines himself as the compassionate and the
merciful. According to the Koran, whoever kills an
innocent soul kills all humankind, and whoever gives a
new life to such a person saves all humankind. That has
happened all too frequently of late. Nothing can justify
the indiscriminate violence at such unprecedented and
horrific levels. We condemn the execution of prisoners,
be they Arab, Muslim, French, American or British. We
are all human beings and belong to one human family.
We seek to understand this phenomenon so as to be able
to address its root causes.
The violence and counter-violence we are
witnessing today are the cumulative result of five
decades of misguided policies of despotism that denied
people their rights and basic freedoms, distributed
wealth to some and consigned others to poverty. Such
policies, which have exploited religion in the service
of politics, are like magic that has now turned against
the magician. They run counter to Arab and Islamic
civilization. The problem cannot be solved by entrusting
it to the police and army. The situation demands bold
policies that take into account all those levels and that
establishes regimes that are in harmony with their
people. All political prisoners should be released and
there should be an ongoing national dialogue with the
participation of all moderate political sectors that are
committed to peace. The economy needs to serve the
interests of the majority, with an emphasis on advanced
education under the banner of freedom and respect for
the values of the Arab and Muslim countries. Only such
policies will lead to united, peace-abiding societies.
Our people yearn to improve their standard of living
and to broaden the vistas for future generations.
For many decades, some of the major Powers
supported despotic regimes in our country on the
pretext of maintaining stability. If the same problems
are not to be repeated, they must help to achieve internal
reconciliation. Resorting to military solutions may lead
to meaningless wars that could endanger the whole
world. We therefore strongly call for the blockade of
Gaza to be lifted in order to enable it to build a port and
airport, and not just to open the border crossings but also
to fulfil the political right of the Palestinian people to a
geographically contiguous, secure, independent State,
with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Gazans who are
living without shelter are pleading to our consciences
for the reconstruction of Gaza and return children to
their destroyed schools’ classrooms and playgrounds.
We pray to God to end the nightmare engulfing the
people of Syria through the banishment of its dictator
and the formation of a Government of national unity.
Tunisia, as a Member of the United Nations,
understands how important it is that the Organization
be capable of dealing with such huge global changes.
We support the granting of permanent membership in
the Security Council to Brazil, Germany, Japan and
India, to be followed by permanent-member status for
an African country, to enable it to deal with the world
of today, which is no longer that which existed at the
end of the Second World War. That war ended with
the defeat of fascism, dictatorship and Nazism and,
eventually, Communist totalitarianism. While so much
of today’s world has been democratizing so rapidly, it
is now threatened with climate, economic and political
problems. To deal with them, every country must
preserve its gains and create the machinery needed for
prevention, protection and commitment.
It is good that we have the International Criminal
Court (ICC) for punishing despots who abuse their
peoples’ rights; we should also have a tool that prevents
them from surviving and staying in power. Tunisia
has therefore proposed establishing an international
constitutional court that could advise all liberated
peoples and hand down decisions on illegitimate,
bogus elections that lead to Government by force,
which clearly runs contrary to international legitimacy
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This
idea has been well received in academic circles and
international symposiums. We reiterate our call for
support for such democratic institutions so that this
proposal can be presented to the Legal Committee.
We hope that an international court such as this can
be realized and could enable us to deter despots, support
freedom and democracy and eradicate the sources
of violence and conflicts among peoples. I hope that
establishing such a court will not require the decades
that it took to bring about the birth of the ICC, and we
hope that Tunis, our capital, can have the honour of
hosting one of the United Nations institutions that have
so far been the preserve of the advanced countries of
the northern hemisphere. It is high time to give some
thought to allowing the liberated cities of the South to
host such institutions.