It is my very great pleasure to
address the General Assembly. I join other speakers in
congratulating you, Sir, on your election to the
presidency of the General Assembly. My delegation
has every confidence in your ability to discharge this
challenge. I assure you of our support.
I commend your predecessor, Sheikha Haya
Rashed Al-Khalifa, for ably steering the sixty-first
session of the General Assembly. I would also like to
take this opportunity to once again congratulate the
Secretary-General on his appointment. My delegation
welcomes his commitment to strengthen the pillars of
the United Nations: security, development and human
rights.
Last year, when I had the privilege of addressing
the Assembly, I dwelt on the issue of Somalia and how
the dynamic in that country had an impact in our
capitals and cities around the world, such as Toronto,
Stockholm, Rome, Nairobi and Mogadishu. Even
countries that are thousands of miles away and whose
interaction with Somalia has been minimal have been
forced to awaken to the reality that we have become a
global village when their citizens plying international
waters have been hijacked or robbed by pirates in the
Indian Ocean along the coast of Somalia.
Let me thank the General Assembly and the
Security Council for listening to our pleas from the
region. I appeal for closer collaboration by the
international community in addressing the complex and
difficult problems of Somalia. Yet, within all these
challenges, there are several windows of opportunity
that we must take advantage of to prevent extreme
human suffering, especially of women and children, in
that sister country.
My delegation commends the African Union for
its support for the African Union Mission in Somalia
(AMISOM). We pay special tribute to the Ugandan
troops for the important role they are playing in
Somalia under very trying circumstances. We appeal
for the deployment of the remaining peacekeeping
troops to strengthen AMISOM. Kenya also urges the
United Nations to assume greater responsibility in
Somalia in line with Security Council resolution 1772
(2007). A United Nations presence on the ground in
Somalia would complement regional and international
efforts to promote peace, stability and reconciliation in
that country.
Kenya unequivocally supports national
reconciliation in Somalia. We see it as a process, not a
single event. We urge all the political actors that
hitherto boycotted the talks to embrace the process,
because, no matter how long it takes, the final
resolution of the Somalia crisis will only come about
when all Somalis agree to sit down and talk. The
region and the international community can only
provide support. Ultimately, it is the people of Somalia
who can resolve their difference through a spirit of
give and take. For our part, as the international
community, we must honour our pledges to provide the
necessary resources to Somalia. The problem with
Somalia may be less visible today, probably because it
has been overshadowed by the conflict in Darfur, but
the Somalia crisis is far from over.
According to the Human Security Report 2005,
the number of armed conflicts in the world has fallen
by over 40 per cent during the past 13 years. The
report’s overall conclusion that conflict is becoming
less common in the world in general as well as in
Africa is very encouraging. Conflict is a major
disincentive to investment and poses an intolerable
burden in terms of human suffering. The end of wars in
Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Burundi, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and Southern Sudan
is a welcome development in Africa.
While we may celebrate the end of those wars, it
is imperative that the international community make
the urgent and essential investments that will
contribute to the prevention of recurrence of such
conflicts. The local populations should experience
peace dividends so as to sustain peace.
Kenya urges a strengthening of partnerships
between the African Union and the United Nations
Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the area of
political and technical cooperation, as well as
partnerships with the continent’s subregional
organizations. The African Union’s peacekeeping
capabilities and capacity must be strengthened through
provision of financial, technical and logistical support.
The recent deaths of many African Union soldiers in
Darfur underline the urgency of the need for logistical
support by the United Nations to African Union
missions within the agreed-upon frameworks. In this
regard, my delegation welcomes the Secretary-
General’s initiative to provide assistance to the African
Union to enhance its military capabilities and
mediation role in conflict resolution.
The United Nations has deployed a lot of time
and resources in the area of disarmament and
development. The proliferation of illicit small arms and
light weapons in the Horn of Africa continues to
undermine our security and development. It has
contributed to making our neighbourhood a very tough
one.
In order to address this challenge, the States of
the region rallied together in 2000 to sign the Nairobi
Declaration on the Problem of the Proliferation of
Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great
Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa. The Declaration
was upgraded in 2004 to a legally binding Protocol, the
first intergovernmental instrument of its kind to
address the proliferation of small arms. In 2005, the
Protocol established the Regional Centre on Small
Arms and Light Weapons (RECSA), with the main
objective of providing a comprehensive framework to
combat the availability of illicit small arms and light
weapons in the region. In view of the importance of the
Centre, Kenya has requested the inclusion of an item in
the agenda of this session of the General Assembly to
invite RECSA to participate in the work of the
Assembly as an observer. Addressing the problem of
the proliferation of small arms is important; we are up
against the very powerful international vested interests
of small arms manufacturers and traders.
Kenya was among the six sponsors of the draft
resolution on the arms trade treaty that was
overwhelmingly adopted during the last session of the
General Assembly as resolution 61/89. In that
resolution, the General Assembly requested that the
Secretary-General, among other things, seek the views
of Member States on the feasibility, scope and draft
parameters for a legally binding arms trade treaty. We
commend the Secretary-General for the progress made
so far in the implementation of that resolution. We look
forward to the establishment of a group of
Governmental experts to begin work next year and to
the group’s report to the General Assembly at its next
session.
I recently had occasion to address a group of my
fellow Foreign Ministers from our close neighbour,
Europe, on a couple of subjects that increasingly define
our relationship with the rest of the world, among them
illegal immigration. It is one of the ironies of history
that there was a time when my brothers and sisters who
were unlucky and could not run fast enough were
caught as slaves and shipped across the oceans in very
inhuman conditions. A large number died during the
journey as they were sent to different parts of the world
to provide slave labour.
Today, many of my brothers and sisters are often
voluntarily offering themselves and handing over their
life savings to be shipped across oceans in almost
similar inhuman conditions. Many of them have lost
their lives during the journey. They play cat and
mouse, attempting to avoid border patrols equipped
with tracer dogs and electronic monitoring, so as to get
a chance to slave most of their lives in the minimum-
wage bracket.
The clock has ticked full circle. But a lot has
changed as well. And I come back to my assertion that
distances between us have shrunk and we must now
recognize that, in this global village, a phenomenon
such as economic refugees is going to be a cause of
trauma in our communities. You can build great walls,
introduce and increase more menacing border patrols
and make your immigration meaner, but the respite can
only be temporary. You can whip up xenophobic
sentiment, especially around national election times.
But that amounts to an ineffectual Band-Aid and does
not address the fundamentals of the crisis we are facing
today.
Even in the most developed countries, unless a
society addresses the problems and stress in the poor
neighbourhoods and inner cities, any solution like
migration into the suburbs and the construction of
gated communities will only provide some temporary
relief. Crime will continue unabated. Muggings,
carjackings, kidnappings and other violent crime will
continue to prevail. We have to address the
fundamental problems in our poor neighbourhoods not
just for the sake of those living in those
neighbourhoods but also for the sake of those who live
in relatively affluent areas.
What I am talking about is not really rocket
science or some very complex social engineering
concept. It should be clear to all of us that, in the
global village that we have come to be, it is in the
interest of all of us to work together to address the
conspiracy of factors that create so much stress and
tension within and among our countries. We must be
level-headed enough to recognize that angry
unemployed young men in one country will spill over
sooner or later into other countries’ capitals and create
problems.
If nothing else, the phenomenon of global climate
change should teach us the lesson that our destinies as
human beings are inextricably intertwined. Vehicular
emissions in New York do the same thing to our village
Earth as our cutting of equatorial forests in Africa to
make charcoal. Both actions may introduce incidents of
floods due climate change all the way over in distant
China.
As neighbours in the global village, it is certainly
a good thing if we both come to recognize that if
wealthy countries’ policies and actions confine us to
abject poverty, then it is only a matter of time before
the stress in my country will spill over into their
neighbourhood maybe in the form of illegal
immigration, terrorism or whatever. However, sooner
or later we all have to pay for the consequences of
selfish and short-sighted policies of the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank.
It is therefore important that as we talk about
reform and paradigm shifts in any of these
international institutions we should adopt the right
attitude: that nobody is doing the other a favour. We
are in this small boat called Earth together. When the
powerful think that they are playing their advantage in
the global scene and winning the battles, such victory
can only be temporary. The only real victory is when it
is a win-win outcome. The other outcome, when a large
part of the world emerges as losers, is unsustainable. It
breeds anger and vengeance.
Most of the resources and capacity to change our
world for the better are domiciled in the developed
world. The resources needed are more than enough in
the more endowed countries. The knowledge of what
we must do to make a positive difference is simple and
evident. Yet as world leaders we must bear the
collective guilt of failing to focus on providing the
solutions.
I come from a country in a region, for example,
where factors such as poverty and lack of education
conspire to stress and destabilize our communities and
countries. There is an autocatalytic relationship
between poverty and low education. Those who have
low education tend to become poorer. And those who
are poorer tend to have low education. There is also a
correlation between poverty and low formal education,
on one side, and inter-ethnic, clan, religious and even
racial tension, on the other side. This invariably leads
to unstable societies.
When people are poor and less educated, their
reference point tends to become only their ethnic, clan,
religious or racial identity. With a few exceptions, the
educated and affluent are at least able to operate at a
higher level. A doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or an
engineer is usually less xenophobic.
In Kenya, we understand this, and therefore we
understand the importance of education. We have
invested up to 30 per cent of our annual budget to
provide free primary education. Next year, we will
have free secondary education. That is the type of
social and economic investment we all must make now
if we expect to have a better, more prosperous and
more stable world 10 years from now. We may make
fine speeches and express a commitment to creating a
safer, friendlier and more prosperous world. But as
long as we fail to make the right investment in
education and poverty alleviation, we are only engaged
in empty talk.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are
important medium- and long-term goals 10 years in
scope, usually. However, our democracies operate on a
shorter calendar of four or five years. In both the
developed and the less developed countries, many of
the leaders tend to do what they must to survive and
succeed in the next elections. Even with best of
intentions, the nature and scope of the challenges of
development that we must address cannot be
adequately solved with official development assistance
(ODA) programmes that are implemented and
completed within the political calendar of changing
regimes. We need more paradigm shifts and a longer-
term vision in that regard.
In conclusion, many of our countries are now
crashing under the weight of international debt. Those
who have actually crashed are the ones that have been
extended a parachute after they have crashed. I am
amazed by this undertaker mentality.
I do not wish to blame the current generation of
leaders in the developed countries for the status quo. I
know that there is some financial and economic
principle here. Most of the current leaders in these
countries are innocent. The deals that were cut in the
past, which put us in the kind of debt we are in today,
are no longer in place. But I feel I must say that the
load and the burden of our international debt is heavy
and debilitating. A lot of it should not have been
undertaken on in the first place; there is some
complicity in the dishonesty on both sides that
prevailed before we, today’s leaders, came onto the
scene.
It is important that today we secure the future of
all our children, who must share this increasingly
intertwined world. We must put behind us those
negative things, such as the unjustified debts of the
past, that can only breed anger and bitterness and affect
future generations. We must make the sacrifices and
the investment today for the future of humanity. That
would be a favour to all of us, and not just to one
group.