At the outset, allow
me to congratulate you, Madam President, and the
Kingdom of Bahrain on your assumption of the
presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-first
session. As a woman, I welcome your election with
great pride and wish to assure you of my delegation’s
full support in every possible way.
I also wish to express my delegation’s profound
appreciation to President Jan Eliasson, your
predecessor, for his hard work and dedication in
advancing the United Nations reform agenda over the
past year.
Also, I take this opportunity to welcome the
Republic of Montenegro as a new member of the
United Nations.
As I speak, Thailand is going through a critical
period — a transition, following the military
intervention, to a needed reform process that will
strengthen our democracy in both its form and content.
As a peace-loving country, we are grateful that the
political change in Thailand has taken place peacefully.
The situation in the country returned to normal within
hours. On behalf of the Thai people, I wish to thank
our friends for their understanding and support.
25 06-53952
With the resilience of Thai society, the General
Assembly can be assured that Thailand will emerge as
a stronger and more vibrant democracy. We will ensure
a swift return to democracy within a definite timeline.
An interim constitution will be promulgated in the
coming days, with the military once again being placed
under the constitution. This interim constitution will
provide full guarantees for civil liberties and rights
under the supervision of our National Human Rights
Commission. Under the interim constitution, a new
civilian Government will again be put in place within
the coming days, and we can well expect that one of
the first tasks of the new Government will be to abolish
martial law.
Constitutional reform will lead to a new
constitution and general elections within one year, if
not sooner. It is the hope of the Thai people that, as a
result of this reform, independent organizations to be
re-established under the new constitution will become
more effective in carrying out their tasks to check and
monitor the work of the executive branch of
Government. This is the challenge and the promise.
I wish to assure the General Assembly that
Thailand’s foreign policy will remain unchanged. The
conduct of our foreign policy will continue to be
guided by the spirit and principles enshrined in the
United Nations Charter, and we remain firm in our
commitment to our obligations under international
treaties and agreements to which we are party.
Our thriving partnership with other countries
shall continue to be fostered and enhanced. Thailand’s
international economic policy, including multilateral
trade negotiations and free trade agreements, will be
continued. We will monitor our active role in the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
in the Asia Cooperation Dialogue. We will also
continue to promote the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-
Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy, a subregional
and self-reliant collective effort aimed at speeding up
regional integration, and BIMSTEC (Bangladesh-India-
Myanmar-Sri Lanka-Thailand Economic Cooperation), an
organization devoted to economic and social cooperation,
bridging the two sub-continents of South Asia and
South-East Asia. Members of the General Assembly
can, therefore, be assured of continuity in our foreign
policy at all levels — bilateral, regional and
multilateral.
The world today is weakened by
misunderstanding and fear. We judge one another based
on our perceptions, which often times are not accurate.
Out of fear, we go to war to seek peace.
Instead of waging war, we should cultivate peace.
We should learn to respect one another, starting from
within one’s own family, community and workplace,
and extending it to other societies, peoples of different
races, religions and beliefs. Starting with ourselves, we
should expand our circle of friendship and peace and
do everything possible to spread the message of peace
within our nations and around the world.
In this regard, Thailand commends various
initiatives to bridge differences among peoples across
cultures and civilizations. We welcome and support the
Alliance of Civilizations and the Interfaith Dialogue
and Cooperation towards Peace in the Twenty-First
Century. We encourage the strengthening and
promotion of such initiatives in order to foster peace
and lessen the possibility of armed conflict.
Each year, the United Nations spends more than
70 per cent of its $10 billion annual budget on
peacekeeping and other field operations. This trend can
be reversed only if the United Nations works harder to
create a culture of prevention. Prevention is, in the
long run, less costly than peacekeeping operations. In
this regard, it is particularly encouraging that two
important new bodies have been established to
contribute to strengthening the United Nations role in
conflict prevention.
The Peacebuilding Commission is expected to
enable countries to recover after emerging from
conflict and to sustain durable peace. The Human
Rights Council holds out the hope of promoting a
culture of human rights for all. It should play a role in
helping to prevent situations of human rights violations
from deteriorating and developing into armed conflicts.
The Council’s success will be measured not by the
number of resolutions it adopts, but by its real impact
on the ground.
One of the most effective measures for
prevention of armed conflict is development. Thailand
is encouraged that the theme of the general debate this
year, “Implementing a global partnership for
development”, responds to the immediate need to
ensure that development goals are achieved on the firm
basis of a global partnership. Developed countries need
to honour their commitments, particularly in their
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official development assistance to developing countries
and least developed countries.
Sustainable development is, however, not about
aid, it is about trade and opportunity. Developing
countries must not be denied the opportunity to trade
themselves out of poverty. The suspension of the Doha
Round dealt a serious setback to hopes for a true
partnership between the developed and developing
worlds. A global partnership for development must
ensure win-win conditions for rich and poor alike. We
must redouble our efforts to ensure that development
does not become a casualty of domestic interests.
Global partnership is also not limited to
relationships among States. The work of the United
Nations can never be at its best if it does not reflect the
voices of peoples at the grass-roots level. The
Organization must ensure a global partnership for
development and engage partners at all levels. In this
regard, Thailand commends the work of the United
Nations Fund for International Partnerships and
encourages it to carry out additional good work to
assist developing countries, especially those in Africa,
in attaining sustainable development. We also thank
Secretary-General Kofi Annan for having explored the
possibility of engaging civil society and the private
sector in the work of the United Nations. My
delegation looks forward to more work being
undertaken in this regard during the current session of
the General Assembly.
As the Secretary-General pointed out in his report
to the General Assembly this year, the United Nations
is a network of capacities and a source of operational
capacity. In order to maximize this potential, there is
an urgent need to reform the United Nations
Secretariat. Discussion on Secretariat and management
reform has been occupying a large part of our time
since the World Summit. I encourage Member States to
cooperate closely to achieve the common goal of
ensuring that this Organization works to serve peoples
in all corners of the world, in a transparent and most
effective manner.
To enable the United Nations to deliver its best
potential as a network of capacities, we also need to
ensure that the work of the United Nations at
Headquarters and in the field is coherent and well
coordinated. In this regard, Thailand looks forward
enthusiastically to studying the report and
recommendations of the High-Level Panel on UN
System-wide Coherence. We need to ensure that efforts
at the national, regional and international levels are
coordinated and that they respond to needs on the
ground. The work of regional commissions and
organizations should feed into the work of the United
Nations at Headquarters in such a way as to maximize
their synergies.
The year 2005 was one of vision and
commitments. Our leaders met at the World Summit
and laid out their visions for a better world,
underpinned by effective multilateralism and a more
effective United Nations. We have spent most of 2006
mapping out details of the commitments laid out by our
leaders. In addition to the Peacebuilding Commission
and the Human Rights Council, another welcome effort
undertaken by the General Assembly this year was the
recent adoption of the United Nations Global Counter-
Terrorism Strategy (resolution 60/288), which provides
a good example of political will at work. Thailand
wishes to encourage Member States to exert even
greater political will in order to permit the speedy
conclusion of a comprehensive anti-terrorism
convention.
Moreover, the importance of prevention in the
fight against terrorism can never be overstressed. The
causes of marginalization and extremism — including,
in particular, a lack of development — definitely
require the world’s priority attention and must be
properly addressed.
In June, the General Assembly adopted a strong
Political Declaration (resolution 60/262) — as a
follow-up to the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on
HIV/AIDS — aimed at significantly scaling up our
efforts to achieve universal access to comprehensive
prevention programmes, care, treatment and support
for all those who need them by the year 2010. Because
AIDS has killed more than 25 million people and
orphaned 15 million children since the first cases of
AIDS were reported 25 years ago, and because close to
40 million people worldwide are living with
HIV/AIDS, Member States must take those
commitments seriously and translate them into
concrete actions at the national level.
Although much has been accomplished since the
World Summit, that is only the beginning; much more
needs to be done. The year 2007 must be a year for
action and implementation. When the United Nations
was founded 60 years ago, it was our forefathers’
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aspiration that the peoples of the world would live free
from want and fear and in dignity. Today, the United
Nations continues to strive to achieve that noble goal.
Maintaining peace and security, promoting
development and promoting and protecting the human
rights of peoples throughout the world are not the
responsibility of any single nation; they are our shared
responsibility. Each and every one of us must serve as
an agent for change. We must serve as instruments for
peace.
Finally, I would be remiss to end this statement
without paying tribute to Secretary-General Kofi
Annan for his decade of hard work and dedication
serving in the most impossible job in the world, and for
his entire career in the service of humanity. The
Secretary-General’s shoes will be extremely hard to
fill. Anyone who is elected to serve in that post will
have a full agenda on his hands: ensuring that
multilateralism works effectively and that the United
Nations remains relevant.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations,
comprising Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia,
the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Viet Nam, has endorsed and supported the candidature
of Mr. Surakiart Sathirathai of Thailand to carry on the
work of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Mr. Surakiart’s
vast background in Government, business and the
academic world would enrich the work of the
Organization. As someone from a developing country,
Mr. Surakiart could serve as a bridge-builder, linking
the North with the South, and could be a voice of
moderation for the world community. In addition to the
fact that he is an Asian candidate, Mr. Surakiart
possesses outstanding personal qualifications. If he is
elected, his experiences could be of great use to the
work of the United Nations in the challenging times
ahead.