“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war any more.” (The Holy Bible, Isaiah 2:4)
Far from achieving Isaiah’s prophecy, humankind
continues to face serious challenges at this time when
His Excellency Mr. Joseph Deiss has passed the baton
to the new President after presiding brilliantly over the
General Assembly at its previous session. I have no
doubt that on his election to the presidency of the
Assembly at its sixty-sixth session, the President brings
to it great strengths, bolstered in particular with the
understanding and mastery of international realities he
has acquired as, among other positions, Permanent
Representative of his country, and having sat on the
Security Council during Qatar’s non-permanent
membership.
The President did well in choosing as the theme
for his term “The role of mediation in the peaceful
settlement of disputes”. Under the guidance of
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, sustained efforts have
been made in this area. Here I would like to pay tribute
17 11-51191
to him for the work he has done during his first term
and to congratulate him on his re-election on 21 June
as head of the Organization. I would also like once
again to thank him for the Organization’s unfailing
support during the multiple crises that my country,
Niger, has undergone in recent years. More generally,
we have seen his commitment to the concerns of the
African continent and hope that his new term will
enable him to continue on the same path.
The choice of theme for the current session is
proof that the prophecy of Isaiah, whose verse is
rightly engraved in front of the United Nations
building, has been slow to become reality. Indeed, the
international situation has been and continues to be
characterized by serious tensions. We might have
thought that the end of the cold war would open the
way to an age of full and lasting peace around the
world. Unfortunately, owing to a lack of the ability or
perhaps even the will to attack the evil at the root, our
hope for a world free of conflict, like the line of the
horizon, recedes as we approach it.
The root of the evil is bad political and economic
governance. The promises of freedom, equality, justice,
the rule of law and solidarity that have been made to
the people of the world at the global and the national
levels have not always been kept. The absence of
global economic regulation, the domination of
financial capital over even the real economy, the
growth of inequalities between and within nations are
just so many factors in the chaos, crises and conflicts
that are disturbing peace around the world. Besides,
can a world where several billion people live in
poverty be peaceful? What do the billion human beings
who are hungry have to lose? Can the Somalis, who are
suffering the tortures of hunger right now, or the
inhabitants of the Sahel, who deal with hunger over
and over again, believe that they live in a just, humane
world? Can extreme poverty coexist peacefully with
extreme wealth?
Today, 1,210 people, that is, 17 per 100 million of
the world’s population, control revenues of
$4,500 billion — 8 per cent of the world’s aggregate
gross domestic product (GDP) — while the income of
20 per cent of the poorest represents only 1.5 per cent,
and that of the 2.5 billion people who live on less than
$2 a day — 40 per cent of the total population —
represents only 5 per cent. Thus a thousand or so
people have an income one and a half times larger than
all the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day.
Besides being morally shocking, this situation is
economically inefficient, since it strangles economic
growth. Furthermore, the implementation of structural
adjustment programmes that began in the 1980s is a
perfect illustration of bad global economic governance.
The liberalization and privatization touted by such
programmes were conducted anarchically; even today,
such liberalization has been applied only in sectors
where weak countries such as ours have no relative
advantages. As we know, such liberalization did not
affect the markets for labour or agricultural products.
My country, Niger, has suffered greatly from such
policies.
This is, finally, where we should recall that the
promise made by the world’s wealthy nations,
beginning in the 1970s, to increase their public
development aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP has still not
been kept. If you add to that the recent crises in
banking and sovereign debt, along with the shortfall in
direct investment in Africa, where there is nonetheless
great scope for economic growth, you can understand
the inadequacy of global economic growth, particularly
the collapse of economic growth in wealthy countries.
The economic elasticity and resilience we need to cope
with the crises will grow only with the development of
the countries of the South. The world’s equilibrium
depends on the balanced development of all its regions;
in particular, the creation of a powerful middle class in
every region of the world will strengthen economic
growth, stability and peace.
For more than 60 years, the Middle East has been
one of the most turbulent regions on the planet. We had
great hopes for the resumption on 9 May 2010 of
indirect negotiations between the Israelis and
Palestinians, mediated by the United Nations. The start
of direct bilateral negotiations represented real hope
for reaching a global peace agreement based on a two-
State solution, with an independent and viable
Palestinian State living side by side in peace and
security with Israel and its neighbours.
It is undoubtedly the failure of those talks that
has led the Palestinian Authority to take steps to
achieve recognition of the State of Palestine based, on
the one hand, on the 1967 borders, and on the other, on
its admission as a full Member of the United Nations.
This is the moment for our Organization to take a bold
decision designed to settle the Israel-Palestinian
problem definitively, a settlement without which the
Arab Spring will be unable to guarantee peace and
11-51191 18
security in the entire Middle East. Indeed, the failure of
democracies to resolve this long-standing crisis will
inevitably reinforce terrorism and will erase the
democratic achievements of the Spring.
My country, Niger, one of the 122 Member States
that have already recognized the State of Palestine, is
supporting its request for full membership in the
United Nations, as presented this morning at this sixty-
sixth session of the General Assembly.
The tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks
against the United States, commemorated last
11 September, and the recent suicide attack against the
United Nations headquarters in Abuja in Nigeria prove
that no region of the world is safe from terrorism. We
firmly condemn all acts of terrorism, wherever, for
whatever reason and by whomever they are committed,
as they present one of the most serious threats to peace
and security.
Terrorism, as the Assembly knows, attacks the
values that constitute the essence of the United Nations
Charter: respect for human rights, the rule of law, the
rules governing war and the protection of civilians,
tolerance among peoples and nations and the peaceful
resolution of disputes.
In Niger, we face this threat on our northern
border with Algeria, to the west with Mali and to the
south with Nigeria. I would like to pay a well-deserved
tribute to the Nigerian security and defence forces,
some of whom have given their lives in their
commitment to protecting our country from terrorism.
Along with that threat, of course, we also have to
face criminal organizations that traffic in weapons,
drugs and human beings. All of these threats have been
exacerbated by the Libyan crisis. Indeed, arms depots
have been pillaged in Libya. Those weapons are now
distributed throughout the Sahara and Sahel area and
risk ending up in the hands of terrorists. Given the
regional nature of the threats, Niger is determined to
work jointly with other countries, especially in our
subregion, to deal with the situation. The risk to the
stability of the entire subregion, where some countries
experience recurrent rebellions, should not be
underestimated.
We hope that there will be a rapid solution to the
crisis, which would not just have a security impact on
Niger, but also an economic and social impact, given
the work stoppage on the road construction that was
being financed by Libya, the return from Libya of over
210,000 migrant Niger nationals and the arrival of
increasing numbers of Libyan refugees fleeing the war.
Niger is a democratic country, governed by the rule of
law, and we will treat these refugees in compliance
with our laws and international law. Until now, our
country, with very limited means, has been bearing this
terrible burden alone. Our country therefore requires
support and help from the international community in
terms of both the security and the economic issues, as
we are on the frontlines of the war against terrorism.
Niger would also like to see a rapid return to
peace and stability in this brotherly country and
reconciliation among Libyans. We are concerned by the
situation, because the democratic institutions that our
countries are trying to build are still fragile. We are
concerned because the reality of widespread poverty
provides a breeding ground for terrorism.
My country, Niger, believes that, apart from
immediate security solutions, the strengthening of
democratic institutions and economic and social
development are the only ways to confine terrorism
and guarantee peace. Democratic values are universal.
It has been decisively proven: there is no such thing as
climate determinism, which would condemn hot
countries to despotism and temperate countries to
democracy. In understanding this, the world has made a
quantum leap, convincing even those who would
believe that the fight for democracy is simply a new
version of the mission to civilize, which was the
justification for the colonialism of the past century
brought about by the alliance of the sword and the
censer.
As a Muslim, I would like to say that terrorism
has nothing to do with Islam. Islam has always
emphasized fraternity and justice. It has always
emphasized the intrinsic unity of all human beings and
their equality, whatever their origins. Islam therefore
proclaims that all men are equal like the teeth of a
comb in the hands of a weaver. Islam is a religion of
tolerance.
“I do not serve that which you serve, nor do
you serve Him Whom I serve: nor am I going to
serve that which you serve, nor are you going to
serve Him Whom I serve: you shall have your
religion and I shall have my religion.” (The Holy
Koran, CIX: 2-6)
19 11-51191
Those are the divine words, full of tolerance,
from a sura of the Koran. Thus, terrorism has nothing
to do with Islam, with real Islam, which is a religion of
the happy medium, and the fight against terrorism
should not be considered a religious conflict, a clash
between two civilizations, a struggle between Judeo-
Christian civilization and Muslim civilization, or a
fight to the death between the Christian West and the
Muslim East. The world must not return to the
religious wars of the Middle Ages. Quite the opposite,
it should be able to integrate the values of two
civilizations that are, at their root, both from the same
area, the Middle East.
Climate change is another challenge that the
world is facing. Greenhouse gases are one of its causes.
The least developed poor countries, of which Niger is
unfortunately a member, only produce 1 per cent of
those gases. We in Niger suffer from the effects of
climate change on a recurring basis. Indeed, our people
live off of subsistence agriculture and livestock-
raising. Those two sectors, on which the poorest, in
particular women and children, rely, are very
vulnerable to climate change. The droughts and floods
in Niger over the past 10 years show, needless to say, a
trend towards a growing number of extreme weather
events.
In view of this, we decided to implement the
Three Ns initiative, that is, “the people of Niger
Nourishing the people of Niger”. As we believe that
drought does not need to necessarily bring about
famine, we have decided to increase the yields of rain-
fed agriculture, to promote irrigation, to modernize
livestock-raising methods and to implement a robust
policy of environmental protection. As we know that
the harvest this season will be poor, we have decided to
implement an emergency irrigation programme, to
rebuild our food stocks and to alert the international
community to the situation. From this rostrum I renew
my country’s appeal to the international community for
aid for Niger, which, in addition to threats from the
Libyan crisis, from terrorists and from criminal
organizations of every kind, is also facing severe food
insecurity.
The terrible recurrent drought that Niger lives
with spurred our decision to restructure our economy.
Our country has significant mineral resources —
uranium, gold, coal, cement, which are already being
mined, as well as oil, the first barrel of which will be
produced before the end of 2011. While the curse of
mineral resources has had unfortunate results in other
countries, we will exploit our resources to the sole
benefit of the people of Niger. In accordance with the
Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative, we mean
to invest the profits to the benefit of the people of
Niger, especially in agriculture, animal husbandry,
energy and transportation infrastructure, education,
health and access to water. The resulting boost to our
economy will allow us to create tens of thousands of
jobs, especially for young people. Niger encourages
private investment, especially foreign direct
investment. Besides the legal protection we offer by
promoting the rule of law, we have also just adopted a
law on public-private partnerships in order to expedite
funding.
We have the duty to create a fairer and more
humane world. To achieve that noble aim we need new
global governance. That will require a profound reform
of international organizations, in particular the United
Nations, the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The
democratization of those institutions is absolutely
necessary; it is a sine qua non condition for peace and
stability in the world. For decisions to be accepted and
implemented by everyone, they must be taken in a
collaborative, participatory way.
I would like to focus now on our great
Organization. The United Nations is at once a
permanent space for political dialogue among the
countries we represent and a forum for the expression
of the solidarity necessary among our peoples. It is also
where we turn for the realization of our hopes. For all
those reasons, reform of the United Nations must
proceed faster. Africa takes a common position on this
issue, which my country shares. We deeply believe
that, given its worldwide mandate to deal with major
issues like peace, security, development and human
rights, the United Nations must be fair, representative
and democratic. We believe in an ongoing
revitalization of the General Assembly, the common
forum that we all hold dear. We have no doubt that the
President of the Assembly will move forward the
process of democratizing the United Nations. The same
is true of reform of the Security Council, which we all
await and which Africa has always called for, through
its representatives, especially the Committee of Ten
African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank
Governors.
11-51191 20
Before concluding, I want to return to the theme
of mediation. Our countries and the United Nations
itself could increase their effectiveness in managing
issues of peace, security and development if they
sought resolution through mediation. The importance
of the role of mediation in the peaceful settlement of
disputes is incontestable. In fact, it is an essential tool
in the peaceful settlement of disputes, which the
Charter itself recommends to States in Article 33.
In Niger we have experienced the benefits of
mediation, through the United Nations, the African
Union and the Economic Community of West African
States, in our recent political and institutional crisis. It
is true that mediation can be tedious, but in the end it
bears fruit. We endorse every effort that aims to
promote peace through mediation, both in active and
potential conflicts. We also encourage the Department
of Political Affairs to keep the principle in mind in its
work.