Indonesia

On behalf of the Indonesian delegation, I should first like to congratulate my colleague and good friend Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Foreign Minister of Namibia, on his election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session. We are confident that under his leadership we will achieve substantial progress in our work. To his predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti, I convey our sincere appreciation for his able guidance of our work during the last session. I join other members in paying a tribute to our Secretary-General for his untiring pursuit of the objectives of the United Nations Charter. On behalf of the Government and people of Indonesia, I extend a warm welcome to Kiribati, Nauru and Tonga on their accession to membership of the United Nations. My delegation looks forward to working closely with them. Every year at this time, for more than a decade now, I have tried from this rostrum to present Indonesia's views on the state of world affairs and international relations. Today, I could deliver last year's statement, or even that of three years ago, and it would not make much difference because there really has been no significant change. It is true that there are always a number of positive developments. This year they include the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum signed by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which raises our hopes for the resumption of the derailed Middle East peace process. They include also the Lomé Peace Agreement on Sierra Leone; the Framework Agreement on the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Ceasefire Agreement on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, some progress in the rehabilitation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the resolution of the stalemate over the Lockerbie incident. Closer to home, there have been the signing of the 5 May 1999 Agreements reached in New York and the implementation of the historic popular consultation in East Timor which — although, most unfortunately, its aftermath was marred by violence — remains an important, positive development. These are all encouraging steps in a long journey towards just and durable solutions. In the economic field, investor confidence is beginning to trickle back into the Asian economies severely hit by the financial and economic crisis. This return of confidence and the positive signs in the affected economies — such as stability of currencies and lower interest rates — could be the first firm indications of a recovery. Recently the G-8 decided to ease the debt burden of the poorest countries by expanding the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative. This will help the poorest countries get back on the road of development. But ours is still an essentially brutal world. In many places, wanton violence and armed conflicts persist, often bringing about humanitarian disaster. In spite of the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force, Serbs and Albanian Kosovars are still shooting each other in Kosovo. In Afghanistan, dialogue has been abandoned and once more the warring factions have taken to the battlefield. In South Asia, an uneasy ceasefire reigns over the line of control between two neighbouring States with nuclear-weapon capability. Meanwhile, in the backwaters and slums of the developing world, in the ghettos of the industrialized countries, hundreds of millions fight a desperate war against poverty, ignorance and disease. There has as yet been no fulfilment of a hope we all share, a hope to which we have clung for nigh on a century. A hundred years ago, electricity was just beginning to light up the cities of the world, the commercial manufacture of horseless carriages had just begun and the pioneers of air travel were taking off in crude flying machines. But it was beyond question even then that enormous power called science and technology had been placed in the hands of humankind. It was clear even then that the prudent use of such power could solve the problem of poverty that for millenniums people accepted and suffered as an inevitable part of the human condition. Since then, unfortunately, that power has been used instead to enlarge humankind's capacity to kill and destroy. That terrible capacity was amply demonstrated in two world wars that levelled cities and decimated populations in Europe and Asia. In time of peace, science 34 and technology have made it possible for one part of humanity to adopt an irresponsible lifestyle and patterns of production and consumption that ravage the fragile ecology of this planet while teeming millions, in the squalor of poverty, driven by the pangs of hunger, are tearing their environment apart in a desperate bid to survive. Five decades ago, the human race teetered on the brink of a nuclear holocaust, but we were able to postpone the effective end of history because between us and the precipice stood the one shining achievement of humanity in a violent century, the United Nations. Founded in the wake of the Second World War as a forum for maintaining security, resolving conflicts and serving development, the United Nations is, whatever its flaws, a masterpiece of human reason. It has not achieved its finest promise of global peace, nor has it significantly curbed poverty. Still, it has managed to save us from the horrors of yet another world war, one fought with nuclear weapons. And together with its specialized agencies and related institutions, it is carrying out an immense array of activities in support of economic development and social progress; these are touching every aspect of people's lives all over the world, and thus at least keep hopes alive. But even the very instrument of our salvation is not spared our recklessness: the United Nations has been allowed to go bankrupt at a time when so much more is demanded of it as the central mechanism and catalyst for multilateral cooperation. Its organs should be working in harmony and complementing one another: instead, we have the spectacle of a Security Council — when not paralysed by the veto of a permanent member — venturing to take over the work of other United Nations organs in such fields as human rights, democracy and humanitarian aid. The unhappy truth is that the inequities, imbalances and discrimination in international relations that the United Nations was supposed to cure have infected its own vital organs and processes. This is true not only of the United Nations itself but also of related multilateral institutions. This is why it has been so difficult to reform, democratize and empower the United Nations, and so difficult to make the membership of the Security Council truly reflect the political, economic and demographic realities of the world today. Although the work of the Council is focused on conflict situations that are mostly in the developing world, developing countries are woefully under-represented on the Council. For the same reason, nuclear disarmament has achieved no substantial progress in recent years. In fact, the nuclear arms race has surged along as countries seek to join and enjoy the dubious privileges of being nuclear- weapon States. The world thus remains in danger of nuclear self-destruction. The same situation obtains in multilateral economic forums. They, too, have become afflicted with the inequities and imbalances they are meant to rectify. The introduction of irrelevant social issues and undue emphasis on unfettered markets in these forums have brought about the neglect of core development issues, such as international cooperation for development, the need for non-commercial financial flows and the necessity of differential treatment for developing countries. Thus, the international agenda has been steered by the desire of developed countries to open doors for their foreign investments, private capital flows and exports. This has led to the eclipse of development as a common goal and a common responsibility of developed and developing nations. It has engendered a tendency to forget commitments reached at global conferences on environment and development, social development, population and development, women and development, habitat and food. Just over a decade ago, with the barriers of the cold war broken down, science and technology unlocked the awesome force of globalization. This blind force could have served as the chief instrument of a united humankind in a decisive assault against the global problems of poverty and underdevelopment. We could have enlisted it to empower people everywhere and thus broaden participation in governance and productive initiatives. We could have built a more equitable partnership between the developed and the developing world. But at best, the weaker economies were left to the tender mercies of the market. At worst, globalization has been used by the strong to press their advantage over the weak, widening the chasm between rich and poor. After all this, what can we say to sum up the passing of 100 years? If progress means going to the moon and exploring outer space; if it means the rapid movement of money, goods and people from one continent to another and the delegation of personal initiative to clever machines, then we have made some 35 progress. But if it means the conquest of poverty, the taming of the human penchant for conflict and violence, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of human life, I am afraid that we may be entering the new millennium not really much better off than we were a century ago. Our tragedy is not in our ignorance, but in the waste of our wisdom. The truth is that we know the solutions to our problems. We know what kind of global partnership it would take to tackle the problems of poverty and underdevelopment. We have spelled out the global measures to initiate in order to prevent the irreversible decay of our environment. And we are aware of what it would take to move the disarmament agenda forward; what kind of representation on the Security Council would make it a true instrument of the whole international community. But we do not make the necessary decisive moves because these require change — profound and radical change. There must be change not only in our methods, but in the way we look at the world, the way we regard one another and ourselves. That kind of change brings no comfort and poses the deepest challenge to our faith and our courage. Hence, we hesitate. The protracted debates in this Assembly, in the Economic and Social Council, in the Conference on Disarmament and in many other forums are in reality just one long hesitation. We in Indonesia know how difficult that kind of change can be. In response to the Asian financial and economic crisis, as well as to its social and political impact, we have begun to reform our social, economic and political institutions. New laws are being passed, new ways are being tried to give our people the widest opportunity to participate in the making of decisions that affect their lives, to level the economic playing fields and to earn the confidence of our foreign partners. The Government has taken a long, hard look at itself and its responsibilities today. In the case of East Timor, our responsibility has changed. Twenty-four years ago, it was our responsibility to accept the Territory as a province of our Republic in order to stop ongoing fratricidal carnage after a disastrously bungled decolonization process; to accommodate the desire of the majority of East Timorese at that time to seek freedom and sanctuary through integration with our Republic; and to contribute to the security and stability of the Asia-Pacific region. We accepted that responsibility and additional burden, although we had never laid claim to that half-island, as it was not a part of the Dutch East Indies out of which the Indonesian nation evolved. Today our responsibility and our commitment are to help make possible the fulfilment of the newly expressed will of the majority of East Timorese to seek a new destiny outside the Indonesian Republic. We will abide by that responsibility and commitment and at the same time ensure that the parting of ways will proceed honourably, peacefully and amicably. In this process of change, not only in East Timor but also throughout our national life and in our relations with our friends, we have not had an easy time. We have had more than our share of setbacks, frustrations and mistakes. In the depths of every disappointment, we have had to summon the courage to persevere, to start all over again whenever necessary, because there is no alternative acceptable to our people. We do pray for the courage to change, but not for ourselves alone. For the solutions to the global problems of our time demand a fortitude on the part of nations that is strong enough to break the doubts, the prejudices, the sophistry and the apathy that have hardened with the passing of decades. That means the courage to take action where we have only paid lip-service. It also means the courage to recognize that many of our problems are complex and demand more creativity from us than we have so far demonstrated. For instance, we fully agree that massive and systematic violations of human rights, wherever they take place, should not be tolerated or condoned. But we cannot agree that this problem can be solved only by sacrificing the principle of national sovereignty and sovereign equality among nations. There must be a solution that does not threaten to demolish a principle on which the United Nations itself was founded. Let us have the intellectual courage to look for that solution and be willing to make any sacrifice to attain it, except the sacrifice of our principles. If many of us have grown cynical, I believe that it is not out of arrogance, but out of fear of the consequences of change, the loss of some privilege or advantage over another, or out of fear of futility and failure. We can overcome these fears because they are but shadows on the wall; they have no substance. There will be failures and there will be setbacks, but if what we set out to do is worthwhile, and nothing is more worthwhile than the perpetuation of humankind, we will succeed. Let us now all act in consonance with our commitments to the United Nations Charter; to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT); to 36 Agenda 21; to the Uruguay Round and the World Trade Organization (WTO); to all agreements on international financial flows for development; on cooperation on human rights; on the eradication of all forms of discrimination. We cannot bring all of these to fruition in a single day, and some of them not even in a full decade, but if we all do that today, it will be enough to start with. If we keep building on that to achieve something significant, we engender encouragement. We add to the fund of courage that the world needs to become a better one. And that fund of courage is all it will take for humanity to make an auspicious entry into the next millennium.