Honduras

Once again the United Nations General Assembly is meeting to take stock of the global situation and of the role that the Organization plays in that context. I am confident that the experience, talent and diplomatic skills of our President, His Excellency Mr. Razali Ismail, will play a decisive role in this complex undertaking. I wish him every success in his sensitive work. I wish also to express my delegation’s gratitude for the excellent job done by Mr. Diogo Freitas do Amaral, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Portugal, in the course of 17 the last General Assembly session, which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this Organization. My country has been observing very closely the administrative activities of Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his capacity as Secretary-General, and we feel bound to express our recognition of the poise with which he has guided the United Nations during these difficult times for the Organization and for the whole world. His undeniable qualities of statesmanship have averted crises, and his strength of character has succeeded in upholding the ideals on which this Organization is founded. I wish to convey to him, on my own behalf and on behalf of my Government, my sincere respect and admiration. Honduras reiterates its conviction that international conflicts must be settled by peaceful and diplomatic means. For this reason, we recognize the importance and value of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement, the 1996 Paris agreements and the subsequent international agreements and commitments for which the international community prepared the way. These have led to a cessation of hostilities, the resumption of political talks, international recognition between Belgrade and Zagreb, and the establishment of relations between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In the Americas, Haiti is an example of the results that can be achieved through concerted action and political will on the part of the international community in establishing, through the United Nations, operations designed to achieve, maintain and consolidate peace. My country wishes to express its satisfaction at having taken part in those operations, as well as in those carried out in Western Sahara. In the same vein, we cannot overlook the problems of the subregion. Honduras has always viewed with concern the problems besetting its sister republics in Central America. For this reason, we acknowledge and support all efforts in this regard, in particular the agreements reached between the Government of Guatemala and the URNG. At the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly, my country secured unanimous support in this body to occupy a seat in the Security Council as a non-permanent member. We believe that we have fully lived up to the trust vested in us, since we have worked in the Council in strict adherence to the principles and norms of international law enshrined in the United Nations Charter and in keeping with the foreign policy pursued by the President of the Republic, Mr. Carlos Roberto Reina. Throughout our first term of presidency of the Council, in July last year, we succeeded in maintaining the necessary equanimity and balance to steer the work and the debates on the various issues brought before the presidency of the Council. These included humanitarian operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and Burundi, as well as peace operations in Haiti, Angola and Liberia. Tomorrow we will assume the presidency of the Security Council for the second time, and we shall work in the same spirit of cooperation and with genuine resolve to help bring about solutions to problems that arise in the area of international peace and security. Central America has now returned to the world scene with a new, integrational approach that promotes joint action and allows it to speed up its development process. Our approach, grounded in history, tradition, solidarity and, above all, our awareness of a shared destiny, has made it possible for us to pool our efforts in seeking to achieve a higher level of economic development in all areas. In the framework of the integration process in our subregion, since 1986 we have held a series of presidential summits, the first six of which were highly political in nature, fulfilling the purpose of securing peace and democratization in the region. The following ones, focusing on economic topics, led to the formation of the Central American Integration System (SICA) and defined our current agenda: alliance for sustainable development. I would like to take this opportunity to thank this Assembly for the support it gave our System last year by granting it the status of observer, which will make it possible to achieve greater cooperation between the United Nations System and the Central American Integration System. As we stand on the threshold of a new millennium, my Government is strongly committed to the responsibilities imposed by the world around us. In this respect, Honduras is in favour of greater democratization of the principal organs of the United Nations. We take the view that an increase in the number of permanent and non-permanent Members of the Security Council should be carried out in accordance with the principles of sovereign equality of States and equitable geographical 18 distribution, and that it should reflect the expansion in the membership of the United Nations in recent decades so as to transform the Security Council into a more democratic and representative organ, that would thus be a more credible and effective instrument in fulfilling its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security without affecting its efficiency or the speed of its decision-making processes. Genuine democratization and real representativity in the Security Council should be the principal basis for the expansion of twenty-first-century world government. We would all like to see a more competent, responsive and responsible United Nations. We should all like it to be better administered and more consolidated and to yield tangible results. To this end, it is essential to undertake meaningful reform in order to enhance its efficiency and to ensure that the United Nations can have a secure financial footing, robust administration and structural capacity, and a clear sense of purpose in tackling its tasks. The General Assembly should play the role now played by costly world conferences, and it should be the forum for sustained thematic debates on important and topical issues held at regular intervals. At the same time, the traditional agenda of the Assembly should be cut back radically. Recurring items should be considered less frequently. We should impose a time limit on our statements, and we need to reform the structure of the committees and auxiliary bodies so as to avoid overlapping and duplication. My country, Honduras, is continuing to work vigorously to strengthen, among other things, its democratic system of government, to bolster judicial power, to organize the national police under civilian rule, to modernize the State, in addition to striving to create a new frame of reference to promote development on the basis of full participation by all sectors of society. Honduras, like all other developing countries, is deeply committed to processes designed to combat poverty and underdevelopment and to mobilize the potential of its peoples and resources in order to attain speedy, fair and sustained growth, working jointly to enhance the effect of national efforts through solidarity, cooperation and mutual confidence. However, there are still many economic and financial obligations that need to be met in the short- and medium- term. International cooperation is steadily declining, and poverty indicators are becoming worse. We wish to see a world where countries, mindful of their diversity, act together to attain common goals, a world in which peace, security and dignity will be the common heritage of all peoples, a world in which the advances of science will serve to benefit humankind and, in short, a world in which existing resources are used rationally in order to meet everyone’s needs. This is our understanding of what, in essence, North-South cooperation should mean. As the United Nations enters its second half-century, we have an opportunity to work towards the objective of its Charter — world cooperation in deterring and halting aggression — and to foster peaceful, productive and sustainable human progress. In this respect, “An Agenda for Development” offers a unique opportunity to make the issue of economic and social development a central priority of the multilateral system. Promotion of sustained economic growth and eradication of poverty in the developing countries, as well as the legitimate leadership that the United Nations should show in this field, must also be key objectives of the Agenda. My country hopes that the negotiations on the Agenda for Development being held by the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group of the General Assembly on An Agenda for Development will conclude promptly and successfully in the course of the fifty-first session of the Assembly. The completion of this work will be a point of departure because it will give rise to firm commitments and mark the beginning of the task of putting the actions agreed upon into practice. Honduras, as a peace-loving country, reaffirms its total support for the principles and objectives seeking the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and to establish a universal, verifiable, multilateral and effective machinery that will help to promote nuclear disarmament and to prevent proliferation of such weapons in all its aspects. Consistent with these principles, I am pleased to announce that Honduras has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at this session of the General Assembly, and I would venture to appeal to all States Members of the United Nations to sign it as soon as possible. We would also urge all States possessing nuclear weapons to take resolute steps to reduce them with a view to their elimination. The existence of landmines and other undetonated explosive devices in various regions of the world is a 19 tremendous humanitarian problem and a grave threat to the security, health and survival of the local population where these deadly devices have been scattered. These devices prevent the return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes in the States affected by this ongoing menace and impede humanitarian operations and programmes, national reconstruction and economic development activities and peacekeeping operations. For this reason, we urge Member States, particularly those that have the capacity to do so, to lend their assistance to the affected countries, including those of the Central American region, with a view to establishing and refining national mine-clearance mechanisms. We also appeal to the international community finally to agree on the total prohibition of the production, exportation, sale and use of anti-personnel mines. My delegation wishes once again to place on record its interest in seeing the Republic of China in Taiwan admitted as a Member of the United Nations. At this moment in time, when democratic systems of government and the rule of law are gaining ground in most of the nations that make up this Organization, it seems contradictory to continue excluding the Republic of China in Taiwan from participation. This is a country which struggled determinedly for democracy and succeeded in establishing it this year with the election of a Government by the direct vote of the majority of its people. This is a nation that respects human rights, possesses one of the strongest economies on earth and has been constantly struggling to eradicate poverty, and whose population of 21 million people enjoys an enviable cultural level. In short, the Republic of China in Taiwan fully meets the requirements established in the Charter for membership of the United Nations. For the developing countries, its participation in the various international forums would be extremely beneficial, since we would be able to draw on its valuable experience in cooperation programmes, as demonstrated when it occupied a seat in this General Assembly from the day it signed the Charter until 1971. In this respect, my Government supports the resolution adopted on 19 July 1996 by the European Parliament entitled the “Role of Taiwan in International Organizations”, which explicitly states its support for the idea that the Republic of China in Taiwan should have a greater level of recognition and representation in international agencies. It also urges the United Nations to establish a working group to study the possibility of its participation in the activities of the United Nations and its international agencies. The problem of drug production is not as severe in the Central American region as it is elsewhere, although our countries are not unaffected by drug use. For this reason, on 21 June, the Ministers of the Interior of our region agreed to develop a plan of cooperation to fight this evil. In this regard, we support the initiative of convening a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1998 in order to strengthen the international strategy to combat narcotic drugs. With a view to beginning to address the problem of the efficiency and effectiveness of the United Nations system, 1996 could be a year of meditation and reflection. Calls have been made for a redefinition of the purposes of the Organization and, in particular, of the tasks of the Security Council. In order to achieve this important task, we must work on the basis of a shared and balanced vision of the future of the Organization. The construction of a culture of international peace, security and prosperity should be the ultimate goal in this redefinition of tasks. This is something that the United Nations must accomplish in response to the needs of our peoples. As we approach the end of the century and the millennium, the globality of economies and the grouping of countries into systems of integration are becoming irreversible facts. One consequence of this will be the resurgence of mega-States in which smaller States will remain submerged. We are concerned for the future of weaker and less developed nations which, like ours, require great external and internal efforts to retain the identity that distinguishes them from the rest of the world. The right of peoples to decide their own destiny on the basis of sovereignty is enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. This right must be observed in the new world order if we wish to preserve, as is our duty, peace and cultural plurality among nations.