Cambodia

It is an honour for me to address this Assembly. I bring to all greetings and good wishes from His Majesty Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia, and from the people and 19 the Royal Government of Cambodia. I should like to inform the Assembly about the recent strides Cambodia has made and about how it stands ready to fulfil its role in the community of nations. I wish also to share with the Assembly some humble thoughts on global events of the past and responsibilities for the future. First of all, on behalf of the delegation of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and on my own behalf, I would like to extend heartfelt congratulations to Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab on his election as the President of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session. We wish him success in his important work and pledge him our full support and cooperation. Allow me also to express my sincere thanks and admiration to Mr. Didier Opertti, President of the General Assembly at its fifty-third session, for his benevolent leadership and guidance. I also wish to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and the people of Cambodia, to warmly welcome the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga to the United Nations. Just in the past year, Cambodia has finally turned a corner of history, putting firmly behind it the darkness of its recent past and emerging into the new dawn of its future. For the first time in many decades, Cambodia is now a fully integrated country, without rebels or separatists and without internal strife or conflict. The black chapter of strife, violence, turbulence and turmoil is finally closed. Last year we held open and free general elections on our own, assisted and witnessed closely by the international community, which pronounced them fully free and fair. After considerable discussions among the main elected parties concerning a common platform to serve the cause of the country and its people, a new coalition Government is now in place. The last remnants of the genocidal Khmer Rouge have either surrendered or been captured, and are in custody awaiting trial for their crimes of genocide. We are firmly resolved to do whatever is needed to ensure an open trial for those responsible for genocidal crimes perpetrated in the country in the past. In holding this trial, we will carefully balance the need to provide our people, who were the victims of this genocidal regime, with justice in order finally to put behind us that dark chapter in our national history, and the paramount need for continued national reconciliation and the preservation of the hard-earned peace, national independence and sovereignty which we value most highly. Peace, which was so elusive for many decades past, now finally prevails throughout the country. Cambodia has joined that important regional group, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and is determined to play its responsible role in regional and international affairs. Cambodia and its people are committed to pluralist democracy and to upholding and protecting human dignity and human rights. We will be guided and governed to in all our efforts by the pursuit of the rule of law, which provides equality for all before the law and ensures that legal procedures and practices are the same for all and that the law is enforced through a competent and impartial judiciary system with built-in procedures for appeal and for rendering judgment. On the economic front, we have pursued and will continue to pursue market-oriented policies, with safety nets for the vulnerable sectors of society until they are able to compete on an equal footing with others. Our principal goal is poverty alleviation. Our economic policies and practices, with generous external assistance — for which we are grateful — have resulted in steady growth over the past few years. Even during the financial melt-down in the region two years ago the Cambodian economy maintained a fairly even keel. Moreover, with strong political will, the Royal Government is implementing its policy platform and reform programmes with a view to establishing a viable foundation for long-term economic growth and sustainable development. The key areas of the reform programmes include military and police demobilization; public sector reform aimed at strengthening democracy; improving public services and increasing their efficiency; enhancing the rule of law and respect for human rights; and economic reforms focused on maintaining macroeconomic stability: strengthening banking and financial institutions, fiscal reform, sound management of public property and increased public investment in physical and social infrastructure and human resource development. So now, as the century ends, we can say with confidence that we are firmly back on track as one unified nation — unified in our desire not to be drawn into the divisive factions of the past, but rather to play our part in the comity of nations for a better future for all mankind. We look to the future with great optimism born 20 out of our own achievements in political reconciliation, compromise and adaptation placing the people’s longer-term interests above narrow and short-term partisan gains, and out of our sound economic and social policies. We are both determined and confident that Cambodia will march ahead into the next century, and millennium, with renewed confidence and vigour, and that it will contribute to human progress. This is a historic session which affords us all an opportunity — indeed compels us — to reflect on the past and plan our planet’s future together. Looking at a wider perspective, we can see that humanity has witnessed unimaginable and immeasurably great change and progress over the last millennium. Progress in science and technology has helped us conquer deadly diseases, extend and enhance human life and improve the human condition. We have vastly increased our understanding of our planet and our universe. We have annihilated distance and improved communications to make our Earth a global village indeed. Much of our technological progress and many notable achievements have indeed occurred in the last mere hundred years, and the more we advance, the more possibilities for achievement arise. Yet our achievements also mask many continued failings and appear to give rise to potential dangers. On a planetary level, we have vastly depleted our natural resources, mining and using non-renewable resources at a rapid rate; destroying our forests; depleting our oceans; polluting resources that are essential to our very survival, such as air and water; and driving to extinction rare species of fauna and flora, the value of whose contributions to balance and harmony in nature we have yet to understand. We have acquired weapons of awesome power that can destroy all that we have accomplished and built. The technological revolution that we have witnessed in this century has gone so far that human morals have yet to catch up with it. We have deployed vast efforts and resources — intellectual, physical and financial — to achieve this tremendous progress in science and technology, but we must be sure that these accomplishments can be harnessed and will serve only to increase the well-being of humankind instead of destroying it. The greatest concern of the coming century is that the revolutionary progress in science and technology achieved over the past 100 years has resulted in, among other things, the production of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction. As a result, there are now countless arms factories and a huge stock of modern weapons in many countries worldwide. Meanwhile, the modernization of armed forces — which is actually an arms race — continues unabated, in parallel with the many conflicts that are spreading throughout the world. Where will this situation lead us? This century has witnessed two great wars, unleashed by intolerance and bigotry, which caused more division in their wake. More and more lives are being lost. Social tensions and hatred abound, caused by religious and other differences. The world has reached a stage of complete disorder, where the rich and mighty impose their agenda on the poor and force the weak to follow them. We must also stress that scientific and technological research, which has been conducted in a morally irresponsible manner, has turned our world into one of drug production, where most of the discoveries have been made by the developed countries but have had a destructive impact on poor developing countries. The world is facing many fundamental challenges, such as organized crime, drug and human trafficking, and so on, that jeopardize the future of coming generations. In addition, the gap between the rich and the poor, the mighty and the meek, and the haves and have-nots have widened. We have lost the art of sharing and caring. Our numbers have multiplied many times, but science has yet to find ways to feed future billions and to stretch mother earth’s capacity to sustain us. The aging of our people will pose immense challenges for future generations, when fewer productive people will have to meet the needs of larger numbers of dependents, young and old alike. Half a billion people live in abject poverty, while a few enjoy conspicuous comfort. The poor, vulnerable and oppressed suffer everywhere because of exploitation and neglect. In our rapid progress and our daily race to achieve more and temporarily resolve problems as they arise, we seem not to pay attention to the longer-term future. The dawn of the next millennium is forcing us to pause and reflect. In the past, human destiny has from time to time been guided by far-seeing messiahs and visionaries. But we cannot afford to wait for another messiah to appear. Since all our religions teach us that there is a messiah deep down in each one of us, that is where we must search for answers. Let not the arrogance of our justified achievements lull us into inaction for the future. 21 World leaders have a rare and grave responsibility to carry out this soul-searching. It is given to few of us to undertake the task of charting the future as the next millennium dawns. We have to set aside our daily chores and power games and devote our attention to long-term problems. A few hours or days of reflection in 2000 will determine the destiny of the next thousand years and more for humankind and for mother earth. Let us for a time forget all our differences; imagine that there are no national boundaries or religious, racial or regional differences; and devote our attention to the most important and essential areas we must address in the next four to five years in order to set our planet on the correct course for the future. We do not need long, drawn-out academic conferences of every kind and on every subject to do this. We do not need volumes of position papers. We need only to trust our collective knowledge; the lessons of the past, which are immense; and our innate basic good instincts. In this spirit, I would like to express Cambodia’s strong support for the 2000 millennium summit of the leaders of all countries, where — without having to watch our sound-bites, pose for the cameras or please domestic audiences — we can talk of our planet and humankind and of what needs to be done. The overarching need is to ensure that the Cambodian Buddhist concept of “Dharma”, or its equivalent in every religion, be respected, and that we do what past messiahs have enjoined us to do. In essence, we must lead a balanced and tolerant life, in harmony with oneself, with one’s neighbours, with other beings, with nature and with the cosmos. Perhaps we have to visualize and devise new institutions and agendas, or significantly reshape and redirect existing ones, to guide us through the beginning of the next millennium. We also have to set short- to medium-term agendas of a more practical nature. Of topmost priority is the need to eradicate poverty, a continuing scourge and stigma for humanity. We should devise steps to achieve this in the first 10 years of the next century. With sharing from the rich to the poor, internationally and within countries, this is not an impossible task. Already the G-8 nations have agreed to forgo past debts of poorer nations. This trend needs to continue, and future assistance should largely be through well-monitored grants rather than loans. Secondly, we must preserve and enhance our environment and ecology. We have already seen how some areas try to dispose of their contaminated wastes in other places. It is necessary to stop the generation of wastes or to contain their levels at the source. In some cases we have to slow, or sacrifice current consumption, but this takes vision and determination. Last but not least, we need to re-evaluate the roles of common institutions and focus on their positive aspects. The United Nations has served us well for more than half a century. It has done commendable work beyond its original mandate and has adapted to changing needs. It has been a platform for defining common goals. But we need to show more dedicated determination to rid it of functions, committees and forums which have lost relevance or usefulness. Within the United Nations much has been accomplished under the bold and visionary leadership of the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and we all pay tribute to his wisdom and managerial abilities. Yet some challenges remain including further efforts to curtail the burgeoning budget levels. Cambodia supports the need to reform the United Nations. The Organization and its specialized organs need to become more unified at the country level under the mechanism of the United Nations resident coordinator. In other words, there should be a single United Nations presence in each country, with specialized organs serving under one leadership, much like an ambassador providing an overall umbrella for all the activities of his country in a host country. With this reform, our world body will be required to improve the criteria for recruiting staff and officials for posting in various United Nations agencies, especially for posting in member countries. Otherwise, they will consider themselves almighty gods, without any virtue, ready to violate the sovereignty of a member country, which has paid considerable membership dues to pay their high salaries. In this regard, Cambodia has had some experience in the history of its cooperation with some United Nations officials. The Kingdom of Cambodia deems it necessary, on the other hand, to abide strictly by the United Nations Charter and to reinforce the role of the Security Council in the process of maintaining peace in the world. We appeal to the international community to make further contributions to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), so that it can continue to provide development aid to the least developed countries. We also think that punishing poor people of the least developed countries, by imposing sanctions and economic blockade to achieve one’s political agenda, goes against the principle of humanity and respect for human rights 22 and for the right to self-determination of the people living in the affected country. Therefore, Cambodia fully supports the demand of many countries for the immediate removal of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba. Cambodia fully welcomes the decision of the Government of Indonesia to accept the multinational peacekeeping forces of the United Nations so as to restore and strengthen order and stability in East Timor. We cherish the strong hope that the multinational peacekeeping forces of the United Nations will effectively cooperate with the Indonesian Government to quickly and successfully create a peaceful situation for the people of East Timor. In closing, let me once again appeal to world leaders to use the opportunity of the dawn of the new millennium to carefully evaluate our achievements and their costs, as well as the future perils that confront us, and to consider important steps to establish a new world order that will take this planet safely through the next thousand years. The lessons of the past should steer us towards ensuring lasting legacies for generations yet to be born. Cambodia stands ready to join in this global effort.