Libya

It gives me great pleasure, Sir, to extend to you, on behalf of my country's delegation, our congratulations on your election as President of this session, and to wish you every success in the management of its affairs. I would also like to express our appreciation to your predecessor, Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, the Foreign Minister of Namibia, who administered the work of the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly most competently. I wish also to seize this opportunity to express our gratitude to Secretary General Kofi Annan for his initiatives, which have been instrumental in putting an end to tension in many parts of the world and for his endeavours aimed at reform of the United Nations and the enhancement 10 of its role, so that it may better fulfil its duties, according to the Charter. A word of welcome is also due to the Republic of Tuvalu, which joined us a few days ago as a new member of the United Nations. This session is convened in the aftermath of several developments. In the past few days, the Secretary-General submitted Comprehensive report on peacekeeping operations; it included a number of recommendations that would assist the United Nations in assuming its responsibilities in this field. Furthermore, over the last few months, the General Assembly convened two special sessions, the first conducted a review of the progress made in the implementation of the outcome of the World Conference on Women, and the second reviewed progress in the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and beyond. Last week, this hall witnessed the convening of the Millennium Assembly, at the conclusion of which the leaders of the world expressed their adherence to the United Nations and renewed their commitment to the purposes and principles of its Charter, as well as their intent to lend it their support and to enhance its role to enable it to cope with the new century, with all its changes and challenges. In our view, these developments will undoubtedly contribute to the efforts aimed at achieving the goals of this Organization. However, it must also be noted that we are still far from achieving the ultimate goal for which we strive namely, the establishment of a world that enjoys peace, security, freedom, equality, and justice, a world free from oppression, acts of aggression, and attempts to impose hegemony and domination. There are many regions in the world today that suffer from wars and conflicts. Famine and diseases such as cancer, malaria, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) still threaten the lives of millions. Resources provided by nature for the sustenance of life are being seriously endangered. Developing countries have not benefited from the advantages of globalization in a manner proportional to their suffering from its negative impact. In fact, international financial institutions have started to impose severe conditions on these countries to the extent that they find themselves at the mercy of a new form of colonialism. Attempts to intervene in the internal affairs of other States have threatened to eliminate sovereignty not only to violate it. There are also unilateral boycott policies and imposition of unjust sanctions, even aggression, under the pretext of so-called international legitimacy. Old ideological barriers have been replaced by new barriers that obstruct the States of the South from access to technology they desperately need for development, and that impose trade protection measures on their products by making other markets inaccessible to them. We are also witnessing selectivity in the sphere of disarmament and double standard policies in the treatment of international issues. Furthermore, criminal activities have increased, including illicit drug trafficking, the financing of organized crime and all kinds of transnational crimes. Such is the current state of the world, with its various variables and challenges, after the collapse of international equilibrium. Such a state of affairs necessitates the adoption of certain measures to combat and rectify the prevailing conditions. The United Nations, in its capacity as an instrument and reference authority for all, should perform a pivotal role in dealing with these variables. However, we believe that the Organization will not be capable of making an effective contribution in this respect unless radical reforms are introduced into the composition of its organs and the working mechanisms of its entities. In order to guarantee success for this process, we should make it a comprehensive one that takes into account the aspirations, ideas, and proposals of all Member States, big and small, strong and weak. The responsibility for success or failure of this process must ultimately be a joint responsibility. My country, wishing to contribute to the ongoing efforts aimed at reforming the United Nations, believes that the required reform should achieve the following objectives: first, strengthening the role of the General Assembly so that it becomes the authority responsible for determining and deciding the conditions that must be deemed truly threatening to international peace and security. A mechanism answerable to the General Assembly should be established to ensure the implementation of its resolutions and to enable it to control and hold accountable other United Nations organs, including the Security Council, which itself should be an executive entity for the implementation of General Assembly resolutions. Secondly, restructuring the Security Council so that it achieves fair geographical representation in its membership, with equity for African, Asian, and Latin American States that are not fairly represented in the membership of the Council. Thirdly, improving the ways and methods by which the Security Council conducts its work so that its activities are rendered more transparent. Its rules of procedures should also be reviewed. In fact, the General Assembly, which represents all the Member States of the Organization, should issue such rules; otherwise, it would be meaningless to say that the Council acts on behalf of the international community. Fourthly, we urge the abolition of the prerogatives that the victors of the Second World War granted to themselves, particularly the right of veto, which should be eliminated because it is non- democratic and undermines the principle of the full equality of Member States, as enshrined in the Charter. Fifthly, in order to enable the Organization to follow up on its plans and programmes, we propose the establishment of an international committee answerable to the United Nations, with subcommittees that cover most regions of the world, empowered with the necessary mandates and resources to undertake the tasks of inspecting and implementing United Nations programmes. Despite the problems suffered by many African countries, the current year has witnessed some encouraging developments. In Somalia, Parliament was able to choose a new President for the country and the disputing parties in Burundi signed a national reconciliation agreement. The fighting that broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been contained and both sides have signed a ceasefire agreement. These solutions were the fruits of efforts made by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and a number of African leaders who sincerely care for the security, stability and development of the continent. For its part, my country has contributed to all these efforts and will pursue, in cooperation with the OAU and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, our initiatives aimed at securing a just settlement acceptable to all parties to the conflict in Sierra Leone. We will also continue our good offices with the aim of finding a solution to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes region on the basis of the implementation of the Sirte agreement, which was completed in Lusaka, for the purpose of ending the dispute in that region. From the outset, we in Libya have realized that Africa's problems are partly due to its disunity and the fragmentation of its own peoples' efforts. Therefore, in order for the continent to be truly capable of facing the challenge of disputes, disease and backwardness, as well as others imposed by new international situations, Brother Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi, the leader of the revolution, has pursued his efforts to unify the continent so that it may be ushered into the new century strong and unified. It was in this spirit that a meeting of African foreign ministers was held in Tripoli last April, at which the founding law for the African Union was drafted. This law was approved in LomÈ last June at the Assembly of Heads of State and Government. At the invitation of the leader of the revolution, the African presidents will meet in Sirte early next year to declare the official establishment of the African Union. This bears witness to the fact that Africa has overcome the negative aspects of the past and realized the dream of unity, which has been the aspiration of African peoples for decades. All these initiatives and endeavours provide new evidence that Africa fully realizes that the solution to its problems and the advancement of its capacities reside basically in the efforts of its own sons and daughters. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that international peace is indivisible and that international stability cannot be achieved partially. This means that the international community has an obligation to assist Africa in its efforts to realize peace and stability on its soil. As we reiterate today our invitation to all States to help Africa in developing a programme to eliminate epidemics and diseases, provide a solution to the problem of its external debt and ensure that the continent is dealt with on new, just and equitable terms, rather than be considered merely as a consumer market for the products of the industrialized world, we wish to recall, as we have always done, that Africa's problems lie in the abuse of its resources, the plundering of its wealth and riches, intervention in its internal affairs and the imposition of foreign concepts alien to its traditions and culture. We demand that such practices be discontinued, as they constitute one of the main reasons for political instability in many parts of the continent and for economic backwardness in most. We also call upon the States that colonized Africa, drew its borders and scattered and enslaved its people to offer their apologies to the continent and to fully compensate it for all the damage inflicted by colonialism. 12 No solution has yet been found to the Palestinian question because the essence of this problem has been ignored. My country emphasizes once again that there is no solution to the Palestinian problem other than the return of the Palestinian people to their homeland and the establishment of their State on the land of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital. On this occasion, as we salute the people of Lebanon who, thanks to their steadfastness, were able to defeat the enemy and liberate their occupied land, we once again stress the need for an end to the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights. We also demand the immediate lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq and call upon the international community to put an end to the human tragedy endured by that country's people, to preserve the unity and integrity of its territories, to respect its sovereignty, to refrain from interfering in its internal affairs and to cease the military aggression waged daily against it. The international community has made continuous efforts in the field of disarmament. My country, which is a party to most international conventions in this area, is still fully convinced that some international conventions addressing certain aspects in this field should be reviewed. I would refer, as one example, to the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, which deals only with simple weapons of limited effect. We, as one of the third world peoples who are incapable of defending our borders and lands against the powerful who possess aircraft carriers and aircraft that refuel in flight, feel that humanity should be preoccupied with the destruction of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as with ballistic weapons, rather concern itself with mines, which are a simple form of weaponry. On the other hand, we have noticed that a number of obstacles still hinder the efforts to establish a world free of weapons of mass destruction. Those who possess nuclear arms have not yet undertaken actual measures to dispose of their nuclear arsenals. In fact, some of them have continued to develop these weapons vertically, instead of beginning to destroy them. The Israelis, who possess hundreds of nuclear warheads with which they threaten the Arab people from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf, still refuse to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to place their nuclear installations under the supervision and the safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In raising this most serious and momentous subject, we are fully convinced that, unless the international community adopts effective measures to force the Israelis to accept and implement the international conventions on nuclear disarmament, and unless the nuclear-weapon States take practical steps to prove the seriousness of their undertakings, efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arms will be utterly worthless and any claims concerning the destruction of nuclear arms will be a major act of deception that will not fool the peoples of the world. Terrorism still constitutes a source of grave danger to humanity, because no effective measures have been taken to trace the roots of this phenomenon in order to eradicate it. My country, which has been a direct victim of state terrorism, has relentlessly reiterated its strong condemnation of terrorist acts and its willingness to cooperate with all international efforts aimed at their elimination. My country's eagerness to put an end to terrorism was so strong that we called in 1992 for the convening of a special session of the General Assembly to consider methods to eradicate all forms of terrorism and violence. Today, in reiterating this request, it is most important that we clarify that the correct approach to eliminating terrorism must begin with providing a definition for terrorism that is universal, objective, democratic and scientific. It is genuinely unacceptable that some still classify the struggle of peoples for their freedom and the fight of persecuted groups against their persecutors as forms of terrorism, whereas they turn a blind eye to real terrorism, embodied in unjust sanctions, occupation, invasion, foreign military bases, naval fleets, weapons of mass destruction and the use and threat of use of force. Unless all such matters are dealt with, it is certain that any international efforts to eliminate terrorism will be of no avail. We believe that it has become necessary to take additional measures to reinforce international systems, such as the Statute of the International Criminal Court, concerned with the punishment of perpetrators of the most serious crimes against international security. In its present form, the Statute is designed to try only the weak. We ask that it be modified to guarantee the trial of all perpetrators of acts of aggression, drug smugglers and their trading partners, those responsible 13 for massacres of innocent people, and those who commit acts of aggression against United Nations troops. We look forward to the establishment of a world in which equality and justice prevail and which is free from discrimination, oppression and injustice. This will require the drafting of laws that preserve the rights of mother and child and guarantee that a person may own his own house and be a partner in his own productive work, that his basic needs will not be subject to commercialization and that his rights are not usurped as a source of income. We also look forward to taking practical measures that lead to the realization of a world free from motives of aggression, manifestations of violence, epidemics and diseases. We also hope that efforts will be joined to combat the phenomenon of the white poisons'. Moreover, in order to protect our planet from the dangers that threaten it, we should work to eradicate pests, strive to establish low-cost water desalination systems and seek to prevent the flow of waters of rivers, rain and snow to seas and oceans. Furthermore, all factors that hinder the prevention of desertification and the expansion of agricultural development should be removed. One of these factors is the problem of mines and other remnants of war from which many countries, including my own, still suffer. There are still millions of mines in our lands planted by the fighting forces during the Second World War. We hope that the States responsible for planting these mines will respond to the international decisions that call upon them to make available maps for their locations and to provide technical assistance for their removal. Allow me now to raise a subject that has preoccupied the attention of the international community for the last seven years, namely the dispute between my country and a number of Western States concerning the Lockerbie incident. I would like to focus on the manner in which the Security Council has dealt with this issue since the suspension of the sanctions in April of last year. As you are well aware, more than a year and a half have now elapsed since the two suspects appeared before the Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. Almost the same period has elapsed since the Secretary-General submitted his report to the Security Council pursuant to resolutions 883 (1993) and 1192 (1998), in which he confirmed that my country has fulfilled the demands stated in the relevant Security Council resolutions. Despite all these developments, however, the Council has been prevented from adopting the resolution that requires the lifting of the sanctions, because of the intransigence of one country, the United States. This intransigence has been such that a threat to use the right of veto was voiced. The United States gave a number of justifications to prevent the Security Council from lifting the unjust sanctions imposed upon the Libyan people. The first of these justifications is that Libya still supports terrorism. This is a groundless pretext. My country, which was itself a victim of terrorism in 1986 and before, has repeatedly declared its condemnation of international terrorism in all its aspects and forms, and stressed its support for all international efforts aimed at its eradication. Moreover, the Secretary-General's report has given irrefutable proof concerning the vacuity and lack of truth of all American claims that Libya supports terrorism. The second of these American justifications is that Libya should cooperate with the Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. This is a refutable justification, as my country has pledged from the beginning, that it will cooperate fully with the court. This pledge has, in fact, been proven since the court started reviewing the case. In fact, the United States is the one that has not fully cooperated with the court by hiding basic information requested by the court, which in itself violates Security Council resolutions that call upon all States, and in particular the concerned ones, to cooperate with the Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. The third, and the strangest of these justifications, is the demand that Libya pay compensation to the families of the victims of the Pan Am Flight 103. The question to be raised here is: How could the United States ask for compensation while the Scottish court has not yet reached a verdict? Does this not constitute a complete disregard for the legal principle that stipulates a presumption of innocence until the accused is proven guilty? Furthermore, why does the United States jump to conclusions and deliver a ready conviction, while acquittal or conviction is a matter for the court alone to decide? Libya's fulfilment of its obligations was confirmed by the Secretary- General's report a year and a half ago. It was also reaffirmed by the decisions of the Summit of the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab 14 League and lastly the Group of 77 and China, which called for a complete lifting of the unjust sanctions imposed on the Libyan people. In view of all of the above, my country demands the following: First, this issue should not politicize, as it has now become a legal matter that should be left to the discretion of the Scottish court convened in the Netherlands without interference from any parties. Secondly, the Security Council should, as early as possible, adopt a resolution under which the sanctions imposed on the Libyan people are fully and irrevocably lifted. This is the only procedure that reaffirms the commitment of the Council to paragraph (16) of its resolution 883 (1993), and the second paragraph of its resolution 1192 (1998). It would also reaffirm the Council's response to the wishes of the absolute majority of the international community, on whose behalf the Council is supposed to work. Should the Council be further hindered from adopting the required resolution, my country will have no choice but to resort to this august Assembly so it could take the necessary measures to vindicate us vis- ‡-vis one State that refuses to lift the sanctions, a State that was behind the imposition of these sanctions in the first place.