The delegation of
the Republic of Sierra Leone would like to
congratulate the President on her assumption of the
responsibility for directing the work of the sixty-first
session of the General Assembly. It is our pleasure to
reaffirm our confidence in her ability to run the
Assembly, as well as to pledge our unflinching support
and cooperation during her tenure.
Let me also take this opportunity to pay special
tribute to her predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, for his
commitment and diplomatic skill, which enabled him
effectively to manage the Assembly and help the
reform process to achieve some major successes during
his presidency.
A year ago, the heads of Member States of the
United Nations declared their commitment to the
reform of the Organization, in order to reflect its
experience in the course of 60 years of existence and
its ever-expanding role within the context of the
realities of the current world order. The process has,
understandably, been painfully slow, because of the
multiplicity of competing national interests. While my
delegation appreciates the progress made so far,
particularly in the form of the establishment of the
Human Rights Council and the Peacebuilding
Commission, we are unhappy about the sluggish pace
of Security Council reform, a matter that is close to the
heart of Africa.
As a Member State deeply committed to the
African position on United Nations reform, my
delegation would like to urge the reform of the
Security Council to move faster so that our continent
can take its rightful place in the United Nations organ
that is responsible for the maintenance of international
peace and security. Obviously, the Security Council
can never be the just, democratic and representative
body that it should be if Africa, with 53 Member States
in the United Nations, does not have permanent
representation proportional to its size.
As a least developed country (LDC) emerging
from a devastating conflict, we are also concerned that
development has not been treated with the prominence
and urgency it deserves in the reform process,
considering its cause-and-effect relationship with
conflict and human rights. That relationship was
succinctly recognized in one of the outcomes of last
year’s High-level Plenary Meeting of the General
Assembly, which stated that our nations and peoples
could not enjoy development without security, nor
would they enjoy security in the absence of
development, and they would not enjoy either without
respect for human rights. The need, therefore, to
support development programmes — including the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development — as the
foundation for peace and security cannot be
overemphasized.
We are particularly happy about the establishment
of the Human Rights Council, whose operation, we
hope, will be above the weaknesses that demoralized
the former Human Rights Commission. We call on all
Member States, in particular the Council’s founding
members, to set and maintain standards that will justify
the optimism that the new Council will refrain from
practices that discredited the Human Rights
Commission.
Of particular interest to us as a post-conflict
country, however, is the Peacebuilding Commission,
whose mandate is to support the recovery of societies
emerging from conflict. We thank the Commission for
choosing Sierra Leone as one of two countries where it
will begin operation. We assure the Commission of our
fullest support and cooperation. As it will soon
discover, if it has not yet done so, we have already
embarked on the path of peacebuilding and
consolidation, having carefully formulated policies and
activities aimed at achieving lasting peace, security and
stability, which are the critical requirements for
meaningful development.
We have developed a poverty reduction strategy
paper that has attracted support from a number of
donor agencies and friendly countries. We have
produced a peace-consolidation strategy paper, which
is to be presented to the Peacebuilding Commission for
support in addressing some of the challenges facing
our country in the areas of governance and security
prior to the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary
elections in 2007.
For the Peacebuilding Commission to be able to
work in Sierra Leone on the basis of concrete, first-
hand information, we have extended an invitation to
the Commission to visit Sierra Leone. We are looking
forward to receiving the Commission in Sierra Leone.
The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
completed its peacekeeping mandate and closed down
at the end of 2005. But the United Nations did not
06-53005 24
leave behind a complete vacuum, it left the United
Nations Integrated Office for Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL)
to support our post-conflict recovery programme. We
thank the United Nations for its continued support and
assure the Organization that its contribution will not be
in vain. We have no doubt that the combined efforts of
the Peacebuilding Commission, UNIOSIL and the
Government will achieve the desired objective of
peace, security and development in the country.
The people of Sierra Leone are proud of their role
in resolving their own conflict, as well as of their
successes in the democratic process. We had a highly
successful democratic election in 2002, barely five
months after the end of the conflict. That was followed
by local government elections as part of a governance
decentralization process. Our second post-conflict
presidential and parliamentary elections, which will
mark a transition in leadership, are scheduled to be
held around this time next year. Sierra Leone cannot
afford having that watershed election go wrong, but we
need assistance to carry it out properly. I therefore
appeal to the United Nations, the European Union,
other members of the international community and our
bilateral friends to continue to help us, both financially
and technically, to make the elections another
milestone achievement in Sierra Leone’s peace and
democracy processes.
The people of Sierra Leone are conscious of the
fact that the peace they now enjoy is a product of the
support of, and cooperation with, the United Nations
and the international community. At this stage in our
history, the country is faced with three sets of
challenges as a nation: we must rectify the
accumulated errors of past policies; we must repair the
damage and heal the scars left by the conflict; and we
must chart an appropriate path for the development of
our small country in the twenty-first century. We have
the natural resources to be able to do that. With time,
our human resources will also measure up. Above all,
at this time we need the sustained engagement of
international partners. That is why we are seeking to
expand and reinforce our partnerships with the external
world — partnerships that can support us now, and
remain with us as we pursue a longer-term agenda for
sustainable development.
Finally, we are in a conflict-ridden region and the
peace in Sierra Leone cannot be sustained in isolation.
We therefore urge the United Nations to continue its
efforts to pursue durable peace in the West African
subregion.