Benin

On behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Benin, allow me to express to Mr. Didier Opertti my warm congratulations upon his brilliant and unanimous election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-third session. His human skills and vast experience in international affairs, as well as his dedication to the main causes of our Organization, augur well for the success of the important deliberations of this session. My delegation would like to assure him of its full cooperation. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine, who so skilfully and devotedly presided over the last session of the General Assembly. Allow me to associate to this tribute Mr. Kofi Annan, our Secretary-General, whose dedication and great diplomatic skills have given greater nobility to our Organization and new reasons for hope to our world. I should like to welcome here the efforts of this great African for the international community. My country, the Republic of Benin, could be perceived as just a dot on the world map and perhaps just as a jot on the map of Africa. In fact, the Republic of Benin is not manufacturing any atomic bombs, nor has it any intention of building or possessing them. But it is without any hesitation that I am speaking before the representatives of the international community and all the major Powers gathered here to express the profound concerns we have over the state of the world today, and to voice our hopes. Benin may be only a small point on the world map, but it wants to be a point of convergence — not only in Africa, but also for the entire international community. We want to commit ourselves to building peace rather 17 than bombs, and to promote international cooperation — and to promote it first at home. The Government of Benin is committed to building peace by consistently cultivating tolerance and a spirit of sharing. There is no other explanation for the ever growing consolidation of democracy in Benin. Eschewing the words and customs of others, the people of Benin have boldly chosen a multi-party system after many years of curtailed political freedoms. In other words, they have chosen a politics of peace and tolerance. Today more than 100 political parties vie against each other, unite or clash, but they do so in peace and with respect for the Constitution and the law. My delegation believes that there is no more urgent task today than replacing the culture of violence and war which has marked humanity since the dawn of history and which has so overwhelmed and gravely afflicted Africa and other regions of the world. That culture must be replaced by the culture of peace. We believe that the foremost duty of our Organization continues to be the promotion of peace and all its values and the behaviour that underpins and strengthens it. We believe that the first of these values is the spirit of sharing. There can be no peace in the world if a small portion of humanity can surf the Internet and explore interstellar space while others flounder in quagmire, seeking a mere pittance or safe shelter in their flight from wars whose root cause is a desire to retain power — the power to control land, gold, oil, diamonds and other natural resources solely for the benefit of arms dealers. This apocalyptic picture is unfortunately typical of the sad situation in Africa. It is therefore important to unite all our efforts to halt all conflicts, not only in Africa, but also in Europe, the Balkans — indeed, wherever they arise. The spirit of tolerance and sharing has prompted my Government to develop the concept of a common social minimum. This means that all citizens of Benin, wherever they reside, must be able to feed, house, clothe, care for and educate themselves. It would be desirable for a common social minimum to be proclaimed as an essential objective on the global scale. I should like to pause here to commend the efforts and great sacrifices made by various Governments and international organizations — particularly the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), through its Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) and the United Nations itself — to restore peace to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Whether in Africa or the Balkans, what lasting solution can possibly be imposed by force of arms today? Why do Mr. Savimbi and those who support him, either covertly or overtly, refuse to see that the time for peace has come for the martyred people of Angola? With respect to all those conflicts in Africa, the Republic of Benin welcomes the report (A/52/871) presented by the Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council on the causes of conflict in Africa. The Secretary-General?s appeal deserves to be heard and supported, not only by Africans but also by all those whose political, economic or financial decisions will influence the future of the continent. If the spirit of peace, sharing and tolerance prevailed in the Middle East, the long-delayed peace would undoubtedly be established there. We have learned in recent days of the efforts which have been resumed so many times by the United States of America to end the stagnation of the peace process, for which Mr. Netanyahu?s Government is principally responsible. Let us hope that peace will have a better chance this time. One of the main items on our agenda is the strengthening of the non-proliferation regime and the banning of nuclear tests. In this connection, the Republic of Benin welcomes the decision by India and Pakistan to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). We have no particular lesson for those two great countries, which are our friends. But it is clear to us that the possession of atomic bombs cannot offer either of them a lasting victory; only a prosperous country and people can confer that. Humanity will continue to be under threat until the current stockpile of nuclear weapons is destroyed. The major nuclear Powers must today admit this self-evident truth. While nuclear weapons pose a permanent danger to us all, small arms in my country sow permanent insecurity and hamper our economic development efforts. Last May a group of heavily armed gangsters attacked a bank in broad daylight right in the middle of Cotonou, killing security guards and making off with tens of millions of francs. If small arms were not available, such incidents and armed conflicts would certainly be less 18 common, and outlaws would not be as terrifyingly effective as they are today in numerous countries where ill-equipped police and militias cannot resist them. The massacre must be stopped, first and foremost by dealing with those who are primarily responsible — the producers and exporters of small arms. That is why Benin supports the conclusions of the International Conference on the Proposed Moratorium for Small Arms Transfers in West Africa, which was held in Oslo, Norway, from 1 to 2 April 1998. It has been said that a hungry man is not a free man. I have spoken at length about arms, conflicts and wars because, basically, my delegation is hopeful that by banning the former we can more easily end or at least diminish the latter. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is important to emphasize that the affirmation of human rights must go hand in hand with the eradication of poverty. We cannot speak seriously about human rights, liberty or democracy in a country where the people have neither bread nor schools. My country hopes that bold and vigorous measures will be taken, particularly by the richest countries, so that those whom globalization leaves inexorably by the wayside can be given a chance to enter the twenty-first century with a little more hope. The bold measures must relate in particular to the issues of debt and the allocation of additional resources for development. Like many other countries in Africa, Asia and America, the Republic of Benin has taken control of its destiny by carrying out reforms that have often proved very difficult. Even if our development partners are standing beside us, these reforms and efforts express first and foremost the desire of our States and our peoples to take charge and to emerge from underdevelopment and poverty. And we have begun to obtain results. In my country, for example, economic growth has now surpassed demographic growth. We must carry our burden even if we have to do so on our knees; we must not let it fall. I therefore call upon all those responsible for making economic decisions at the global level to support more vigorously the efforts of countries whose burden has brought them to their knees. In this context, I should like to reaffirm the importance that the Government of Benin attaches to the operational development activities of the United Nations system, which, we are pleased to say, are aimed at enabling the recipient countries to take control of their own development. We believe that the decline in contributions to core resources for funds and programmes such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Children?s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is a dangerous handicap. The Government of Benin hopes that the donor countries will demonstrate greater solidarity by increasing the resources that they allocate to those institutions. Nevertheless, I should like to thank all of the funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the United Nations whose technical and financial support in the past five years has been decisive in enabling us to pursue programmes aimed at constructing a State based on the rule of law and building a prosperous nation in which all the citizens of Benin can have a minimum of their common social requirements met. I should also like to welcome all the initiatives of the United Nations system, which have long been working for the development of Africa, as well as the actions of all our development partners, in particular Japan, which have ranked the development and economic recovery of the continent among their priorities. Although they may be positive and praiseworthy, initiatives to benefit Africa must henceforth meet the fundamental needs and priorities of the African countries. It is in this spirit that in several days? time Benin will be participating in the second Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD II). Our hope, which many others share, is that that Conference will go beyond the declaration that will no doubt be adopted and lead to a programme of concrete action aimed at finding solutions to the problems of the continent at the close of the twentieth century. At the beginning of my statement I referred to the spirit of tolerance and sharing. I believe that our Organization is the pre-eminent forum in which we can learn and refine this spirit. Despite all the criticism, the United Nations has, to date, proved irreplaceable. We must continue to try to refine it and to carry out reforms. In conclusion, therefore, I would like to reaffirm that the reform of the United Nations, which was begun under the bold initiative of Mr. Kofi Annan, deserves to be 19 supported and developed so as to guarantee the necessary conditions for the harmonious pursuit of the process of democratizing international relations at the dawn of the next millennium. If we want to begin the twenty-first century with self-confidence, and if we want the efforts and sacrifices that have been made thus far on the tortuous and rugged path to development not to have been in vain, we must do our utmost to focus greater attention on the principle of world partnership and the duty of solidarity, which is what the new international order necessarily implies. The twenty-first century may become one in which a blind global economy using the most sophisticated science and technology at the same time enslaves three quarters of humanity. This must not happen. Let us act now so that the next century can become the century of civilization par excellence, the century of sharing and of solidarity, the century of culture and the century of peace. The Republic of Benin is ready to play its part in this necessary struggle.