On behalf of the Republic of Equatorial
Guinea, I should like to join previous speakers in
expressing our support and congratulations to His
Excellency Mr. Srgjan Kerim of the Republic of
Macedonia on his election to preside over the debates
of the sixty-second session of the General Assembly.
We congratulate him because his country is an example
of freedom and democracy and because, for the United
Nations, the sovereign equality of States whether
large or small is a principle of respect for dignity,
justice, equality and peace throughout the world. We
are convinced that under his far-sighted leadership the
Assembly will ensure that those principles are
observed and respected by all.
We also congratulate his predecessor, Her
Excellency Ms. Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain,
President of the General Assembly at its sixty-first
session, on her great political skill in serving the
interests of the international community at a time
dominated by wars, conflicts of interest and natural
disasters.
In addition, we commend the laudable work of
the Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-
moon, who deserves our full support so that United
Nations intervention can be effective in conflicts and
situations threatening peace, stability and the well-
being of nations.
Equatorial Guinea is participating in the present
session of the General Assembly with uncertainty
regarding United Nations efforts, which are drowning
in a vicious circle of good declarations of principle and
technical and scientific definitions, which are ethically
motivated but which ultimately fail to attain the
objectives of the peace, security, development and
well-being of humanity, which inspired the
establishment of this world Organization.
Indeed, the fact that, despite so many preventive
resolutions, we are focusing this year’s deliberations
on atmospheric degradation, which currently poses a
threat to humanity because of nuclear tests; the
proliferation of chemical industries with military
purposes, which are destroying vital elements of the
environment; the use of chemical weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction in armed conflicts; and
the irrational use of non-renewable natural resources,
which is destroying ecosystems activities that do
not seek the common good of humanity, but that have
caused the destruction of the ozone layer and the
breakdown of the components of the planet’s
atmospheric equilibrium. This is an obvious sign that
our resolutions are being ignored. The tsunami, if it
was not the result of a nuclear test, must be the
consequence of this atmospheric deterioration, which
has now increased the number of floods, hurricanes,
fires, cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
throughout the world.
Nevertheless, for more than 20 years the United
Nations has undertaken praiseworthy initiatives to
reduce spending on these activities and to use the
surplus on development in the poorest countries.
Despite that, no favourable response has been made by
the countries owning these industries. Nor has the
Kyoto Protocol itself which obliges States to reduce
their emissions of harmful gases been ratified by all
the States Members of the Organization.
Equatorial Guinea believes that the phenomenon
of climate change must be addressed by the United
Nations with the same intensity with which it is
currently addressing issues that include, among others,
democracy, human rights and the threat of terrorism.
It is correct to say that climate change is a
challenge for all States, because its effects are truly
harmful to everyone. But we cannot ignore the fact that
the primary responsibility lies with those who
developed, for their own interests, the technologies that
are destroying the ozone layer. The countries of the
tropical forests of the Congo Basin in Africa and the
Amazon Basin in South Africa cannot make use of
their own forest resources, because they must
contribute to the maintenance of the ecosystems that
help to maintain the ozone layer. However, there are no
compensatory policies to avert the economic resource
crisis occurring among the affected peoples.
My Government is now committed, in the spirit
of the Kyoto Protocol, to processing the gas produced
by the oilfields of my country and its neighbours into
liquefied gas for the benefit of humanity. Nevertheless,
Equatorial Guinea cannot manage to benefit from the
credits offered by the international financial
institutions and bodies, because we qualify as a
middle-income country, whereas it is known that we
have produced oil for only 10 years and have never had
any development infrastructure.
Our uncertainty is even greater when we consider
the problem of development financing for the least
developed countries. In our view, no bilateral or
multilateral cooperation policy has shown itself to be
capable of meeting the basic development financing
needs of poor countries. Because of a lack of political
will, everything is reduced to political conditioning
factors and requirements that cannot be met by
countries seeking to develop. In that regard, Equatorial
Guinea has not been informed of the fate of the 0.7 per
cent an insignificant amount that developed
countries were to give from their gross domestic
product for the financing of the least developed
countries.
Nor has the question of the cancellation of the
external debt of least developed countries and their
interest been welcomed by creditors, despite their
historic obligations. Our experience over many years
has shown us that Equatorial Guinea cannot develop if
it does not have its own means and if it does not take
principal responsibility for it.
Thus, once oil resources were discovered, the
Government organized, in 1997, the first national
economic conference in order to plan better use of
these resources for the short, medium and long term.
The programme adopted has been implemented in a
manner satisfactory to the people and Government.
Now we can organize the second such national
economic conference, in order to plan the development
of the country for a sustainable economy. From this
rostrum, we would like to invite bodies of the United
Nations system and friendly Governments and
international economic institutions to participate in this
conference in Equatorial Guinea in the first two weeks
of November this year, in order to help us by sharing
their experiences.
Humanity has never been threatened and
frightened as much by terrorism as over this last
decade. Terrorism used to be known as a process for
the settlement of accounts through violent means by
those who felt powerless to see their claims met
through legal and democratic processes. It has now
reached different dimensions, which do not uphold
legitimate claims, nor are their effects directed only
against persons or institutions from which rights are
being demanded. Any third-party country can be a
victim of terrorism today, as if it were a country
against which the demand may be lodged.
The result is that today terrorism is a threat
against humanity. It violates individual and collective
freedoms, impedes the exercise of democracy, violates
the peace and security of nations and stands in the way
of the development of peoples. All countries of the
world that love peace, justice and freedom have the
duty and the obligation to combat this phenomenon,
which is a form of regression of the human species.
However, there seems to be a tendency to ignore
another, similar phenomenon, namely, the use of
mercenaries, that practice of resorting to force to
destabilize legitimate political regimes for whatever
reason. In the case of Republic of Equatorial Guinea, it
has been clearly shown that the invasion operation
against our country by mercenary groups in 2004 was
organized to gain access to oil. The masterminds
behind that operation, clearly identified, were leaders
of Governments of States Members of the United
Nations. Since these facts came to light and were
denounced by my Government, we have not had any
condemning reaction from specific Member States or
friendly countries in criticism of the barriers to
bringing to justice the perpetrators of that operation,
which means that they would probably be happier had
the invasion of my country been successful, with the
inherent dramatic consequences.
If we want to combat terrorism and the use of
mercenaries, we need to rely on well-developed
internal security systems and to exchange information
among States. We have to be faithful and show
solidarity with the principles of the equal sovereignty
of States, non-interference in internal politics of other
States and the resolution of controversies by peaceful
means, giving priority to dialogue, consultation and
tolerance. We should adamantly condemn any terrorist
act of intimidation and destabilization of States and
take actions of solidarity against such acts, because
they threaten State sovereignty and the free will of
people.
Finally, if we are looking at reform of the United
Nations today, it is because the objectives that support
this world Organization, their very principles, have
been and are being systematically violated. The United
Nations has gone through many changes: from an
organization aspiring to a universal consensus to one
comprised of interest blocs; from an organization with
universal goals for the well-being of humanity to an
organization of the stronger against the weaker. Today,
the reason for a veto in the Security Council is not so
much the necessity of preventing abuses of power by
some against humanity as it is an eagerness to defend
the partisan interests of groups or individuals. Thus,
although a veto in the Security Council does not mean
anything today because resolutions are not much
observed, Africa also has its own interests to defend.
Thus we want the right of a veto to be conferred on the
continent and not a State, because that continent
represents a third of humanity.
The future of humanity is in our hands. Each one
of us must feel committed to meeting the challenges of
our time so that new challenges can become new hopes
for people. May God guide us in our deliberations.