Nepal

I have the honour to convey to the General Assembly greetings from the people and Government of Nepal and the best wishes of His Majesty King Birenda Bir Bikram Shah Dev for the success of its forty-eighth session. As I stand before members today, my thoughts go back to 1960, when the first elected Prime Minister of Nepal, the late B.P. Koirala, addressed the Assembly and declared that the foreign policy of Nepal was inspired by the purposes and Forty-eighth session - 13 October l993 11 principles of the United Nations. He said then that Nepal looked upon the Organization as an instrument for promoting peace and justice among nations. The late Prime Minister’s visit to the United Nations was an event of historic significance for Nepal. A revolutionary transformation had then taken place in my country. As a result, a conscious and coherent foreign policy, with centrality given to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, had started to take shape. Similar revolutionary changes again took place in my country in 1990, after a gap of more than three decades. In accordance with the wishes of our people, multiparty democracy has been restored in Nepal. Now there is a constitutional guarantee of human rights and fundamental freedoms. As the second elected Prime Minister to address this body, after 33 years, I must say that this moment has a deep personal overtone for me. Restoration of multiparty democracy and respect for fundamental human rights does not necessarily mean that we have solved all our problems. The expectations of the people are naturally high, but the means at our disposal are extremely limited. Faced with such problems, my Government has been making every effort to ensure a better standard of living for our people in larger freedom. Our development plans are based on the premise that it is the individual citizen and not the State which has the right to development. Along with economic liberalization, we are pursuing a people-oriented development policy focused on poverty alleviation. To achieve our goals we have increased investments in human- priority areas. Given the enormous constraints upon us, ranging from lack of resources to the high cost of infrastructure, a shortage of skilled personnel and institutional deficiencies, our problems are daunting. We look forward to greater understanding from donor countries and multilateral agencies in helping us to implement our people-oriented development programmes, in upgrading local skills and in building the capacity to accelerate human development. The foreign policy of Nepal is guided by the objective of ensuring its sovereignty, political independence and national security while promoting international peace and cooperation. Inspired by the purposes and principles of the United Nations, the policy of non-alignment, and respect for human rights, we seek friendship and cooperation with all countries of the world, and in particular with our neighbours. We have reason to be satisfied with the excellent relations we enjoy with the countries in our immediate neighbourhood. We are partners with our friends in South Asia in an effort to forge a mutually beneficial scheme of cooperation for the welfare of our people under the aegis of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. With the sudden end of the cold war the world is at the threshold of a new era of shared responsibility for global peace and development. The post-cold-war world is very much in need of order, but it is a world that cannot be ordered by military and economic Powers alone. At this time of historic transition, political leadership in all countries must show a higher order of statesmanship. It is time to shed old prejudices and parochialism. We should be able to pool the best of every civilization and culture for the greater good of mankind. Changes in international relations have also created opportunities to devise new partnership in global responsibility. The world today is poised to consider new approaches to international law based not on unilateralism but on multilateralism. The United Nations is an organization of the powerful and the weak, the large and the small, the wealthy and the poor, each contributing its share to the common interest. It is in the interest of all to make the United Nations an effective and influential agent of constructive change in a turbulent world. If the United Nations is to fulfil its Charter obligations it must deal with the root causes of conflicts and instability. The mechanisms and processes at its disposal for achieving that goal must be strengthened and refined. In this context, there are four areas which demand immediate attention: first, international cooperation to combat poverty; secondly, strengthening of the role of the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security; thirdly, progressive reduction and finally elimination of weapons of mass destruction and, fourthly, universalization of human rights. Democracy and human rights are easily eroded when widespread poverty prevails. Poverty undermines human dignity, contributes to environmental degradation and undermines the cohesion of a society. It also poses a lasting threat to peace and stability. The search for collective security cannot, therefore, be separated from the sustained efforts to improve the economic and social conditions of peoples everywhere. Agenda 21, adopted at the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, is a comprehensive blueprint for sustainable development. To turn that vision into reality there is an urgent need for 12 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session resumption of the North-South dialogue and for economic cooperation between developing nations. The President returned to the Chair. In this context, I look forward to the Secretary-General’s agenda for development. We sincerely hope that an agenda for development will form the basis of accelerating international cooperation to the mutual benefit of developed and developing countries alike. The upcoming International Conference on Population and Development, the World Summit for Social Development and the Fourth World Conference on Women should also be occasions to focus on the human dimensions of socio-economic problems. In speaking of social and economic issues, I recall the initiative taken by countries of South Asia under the aegis of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to work together for the cause of children. That initiative provided the major motivation for the holding of the World Summit for Children. The mid-decade review in 1995 must be an occasion to evaluate the implementation of the promises the international community made to children at the World Summit. Despite conflicting demands on our limited resources, we in Nepal are allocating an increasing portion of our national budget to child and maternal health and welfare and on other basic human-services areas. We are in favour of the proposal for matching resource allocations by donor countries for such national initiatives. The dramatic increase in the demands on and heightened expectations of the United Nations is nowhere more compelling than in the area of peace and security. With experience spanning over 35 years in United Nations missions, Nepal welcomes the expansion in the mandates of peace-keeping operations. The recent successes of the missions in El Salvador and Cambodia are testimony to the potential of a United Nations operation with a clearly defined and practicable mandate. The joint venture of the United Nations and the Organization of American States in Haiti is breaking newer ground in international cooperation to restore a democratically elected Government and to protect and promote human rights. Without minimizing the enormity of the problems the United Nations has to take into account in Somalia, I feel that the emphasis on military action will overshadow the larger goal of the mission in that country. I urge the redoubling of efforts to seek lasting political solutions to the problems in Somalia. I appeal to the parties concerned in Bosnia and Herzegovina to respond immediately to the successive resolutions of the Security Council and halt the senseless carnage of innocent people. The continuing tragedy in the territory of the former Yugoslavia presents a test-case for viable cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations in the maintenance of peace and security. Nepal will continue to support the further development of preventive diplomacy by the Secretary-General and the Security Council. In the maintenance of peace and security, the implementation of enforcement measures under the Charter should be the step of last resort. It should be the exception to rather than the rule of the game. The real strength of collective security lies in the ability to implement the provisions of the Charter relating to peaceful settlement of disputes. The grounds for the intervention of the Security Council have also raised questions of consistency. As the principal organ entrusted with the maintenance of international peace and security, the Council must act in an even-handed and impartial manner and must be perceived as doing so. The recent comments of the Secretary-General on the financial situation of the Organization should be a cause of concern to all. Investments in peace-keeping, peacemaking and preventive diplomacy are investments in collective stability. It is not possible for the United Nations to play its role without adequate resources. Along with other non-aligned countries, Nepal has always subscribed to the call for a more active United Nations role in arms control and disarmament. Since mutual fear is the source of any arms race, confidence-building measures must be seriously pursued in order to achieve the goals of disarmament. Nations should pursue a culture of ensuring security at the lowest possible level of armaments. Successes in bilateral negotiations on nuclear weapons, conventional forces in Europe and chemical weapons prove that it is a feasible goal. Nepal deems it extremely significant that all five nuclear-weapon States are now parties to the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty. We have long advocated an early conclusion of a comprehensive test-ban treaty. Meaningful progress in this area will have important implications for the review and extension Conference on the non-proliferation Treaty. Forty-eighth session - 13 October l993 13 Protection of human rights has emerged as an important factor in the development of friendly relations among States. The United Nations must spare no effort in establishing an international norm of human rights. The World Conference on Human Rights was a major step in this direction. Human rights cannot be secure without a universal conscience on the part of all peoples to uphold each other’s rights in full understanding of the just demands of the individual, the community, the State and the international order. Human rights cannot be secured unless there is an absolute freedom from fear from any source. There is a direct correlation between the status of human rights, the democratic process and an evolution of a culture of peaceful settlement of disputes. The threat to peace is the greatest when human rights are denied. The world is at a vital turning-point. The old order has come to an end while the new has yet to take shape. While some old contradictions persist and new ones appear, some unexpected bright areas have also dawned. Nepal welcomes the agreement reached by the negotiating parties in South Africa to hold an election in April 1994. We share the deep concern of the international community over the continued violence which threatens the peaceful transition of South Africa to a non-racial democratic society. Nepal has long enjoyed friendship with both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples. We welcome the Declaration of Principles as well as the exchange of letters of mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The statesmanship shown by the leaders of Israel and the PLO promises a new beginning for the Middle East and, indeed, the world. We earnestly hope that this historic breakthrough will facilitate the search for a comprehensive and lasting solution of the Middle East problem. As I come towards the end of my statement, I wish to extend to you, Sir, my hearty congratulations on your election to the high office of President of the General Assembly at a time when the United Nations is passing through a very important phase in its history. I also take this opportunity to express our sincere appreciation to Mr. Stoyan Ganev for his stewardship of the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly. I must also take this opportunity to pay our warmest tribute to the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. His efforts to reform and strengthen the United Nations with the courage of conviction have been universally appreciated. We are impressed by his vision and dynamism, which are necessary for the United Nations to cope with the new realities and challenges of our time. Mr. Boutros-Ghali was a well-known figure in my country even before he became the Secretary-General of the United Nations. We consider him to be a sincere friend of Nepal. Although small in military and economic strength, Nepal is fully alive to its responsibilities as a Member of this world Organization. Nepal will not hesitate to take an independent and objective stand in favour of larger good and justice. For us, the Charter of the United Nations captures the highest ideals of mankind. I take this opportunity to rededicate the commitment of the people and the Government of Nepal to the United Nations.