As he had to leave New York earlier than scheduled owing to
pressing engagements, President Denis Sassou
Nguesso has asked me to address the Assembly on his
behalf in order to share with other Member States the
perspectives of the Congolese Government on items on
the General Assembly’s agenda at this session.
On behalf of my delegation, I wish first to thank
Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa of Bahrain for her
excellent work. I also thank the President on his
election as President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-second session. The five priorities that he has
articulated and the road map for climate change, the
drafting of which he announced at his election,
represent an agenda that is in line with the objectives
that have been pursued by the United Nations since the
Millennium Summit of September 2000. He can rely
on my delegation’s cooperation when we consider
those issues.
To Mr. Ban Ki-moon, in his first experience of
the General Assembly’s general debate as Secretary-
General, I reaffirm my Government’s commitment to
assisting him in the direction he seeks to set for our
Organization. My country is sensitive to the many
displays of interest in us that he has demonstrated time
and time again since his election last year. Proof of
that, inter alia, are the visit he made to Brazzaville in
January 2007 and his choice of a son of our country,
Mr. Rodolphe Adada, former Foreign Minister of the
Congo, to direct the African Union-United Nations
Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). We are very
grateful to him for that.
Following the violent crises that shook our nation
in the late 1990s, the Congo has gradually found peace
and stability through political dialogue and national
reconciliation, which remain our ongoing objectives.
The return of a number of Congolese who left the
country during the civil wars is part of that positive
trend. The legislative elections that have just been held
peacefully are indeed the sign of a democracy at peace.
That favourable dynamic needs, of course, to be
encouraged, assisted and supported by the international
community.
Despite enormous losses in human life and
considerable material damage, at the end of the civil
war the Congo was not considered to be a country in a
post-conflict situation. We had to undertake at our own
expense the vast task of restoration and reconstruction.
We therefore plunged resolutely into difficult
negotiations with the Bretton Woods institutions to
elaborate a programme of debt relief, implementation
of the Millennium Development Goals including the
fight against poverty and economic recovery. In that
context, in order not to exacerbate further the daily
existence of the majority of our people already living
without the basic necessities, we are trying to prevent
the negotiations from being an intolerable burden on
them. We therefore hope to bring the negotiations to a
conclusion as soon as possible so as not to delay the
implementation of the necessary reforms.
The return to peace and stability has allowed my
country to resume its place on the international stage.
In less than three months, the Congo will end its term
as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.
For the past 20 months, we have participated in the
Council’s deliberations in a constructive spirit. We
have always favoured the resolution of disputes
through peaceful means and dialogue, seeking
compromise and enhanced multilateralism. Our
participation has strengthened our belief in the need
and urgency of reform of that main organ of the United
Nations, entrusted with the maintenance of
international peace and security. Our position and that
of Africa is well known on that question. We have also
focused on improving the Council’s working methods
in order to ensure greater transparency and
inclusiveness in its decision-making process.
During the presidency of the African Union
assumed by Congolese President Denis Sassou
Nguesso in 2006, the Congo had occasion to speak on
behalf of a continent whose issues occupy the lion’s
share of the Council’s agenda. We made the case for
strengthening the partnership between the United
Nations and the African Union in order to ensure that
the Council’s decisions take the concerns of African
countries into consideration and are thereby legitimate
and viable. We called for ongoing dialogue between the
Council, on the one hand, and the African Union,
through its Peace and Security Council, and African
States as a whole, on the other, as well as parties to
conflicts.
We encouraged the international community to
remain involved in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo through the United Nations Organization
Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
including after the elections, which clearly represented
a great step forward but left unresolved the questions
of peace in the East, the disarmament of armed groups,
the repatriation of foreign combatants and economic
reconstruction. Such developments could be facilitated
in the context of the pact signed at the conclusion of
the second summit of the International Conference on
the Great Lakes Region, which is an appropriate
regional framework.
In the Côte d’Ivoire, after much uncertainty, it is
comforting to note that the process engaged by the
Ouagadougou agreement has opened prospects for a
resolution of the crisis, which we need to encourage
and assist.
The same prospects for encouraging
developments are now open to Darfur following the
adoption of Security Council resolution 1769 (2007).
In his statement to the Council summit of
25 September, the Congolese Head of State called on
the international community to seize this opportunity to
act with a sense of urgency.
We must accelerate the pace of work in the
following three areas, as emerged from the high-level
meeting on Darfur held here in New York on
21 September. First, political dialogue is to resume on
27 October in Tripoli, where all parties must
participate, bearing in mind the exceptional open-
mindedness of the Sudanese Government, which has
decided to observe a ceasefire once the Tripoli talks
begin. Sanctions should be considered for all reticent
parties. To encourage the initiative of political
dialogue, which will determine any possible success
for the international community’s involvement in
Darfur, my Government has decided to contribute to
the special Trust Fund created by the Secretary-General
to that end.
Secondly, peace must be maintained via the
deployment of UNAMID. The creation of the force was
a most significant decision that must be implemented
without delay in order to avoid any political setback
and any deterioration of the situation on the ground. In
that area, too, my Government has demonstrated its
solidarity by deciding to dispatch a contingent, along
with the military observers it sent earlier as part of the
African Union Mission in Sudan. In that regard, my
delegation vigorously condemns the recent attack on
the African Union peacekeepers in Haskanita in
southern Darfur. We ask that the perpetrators be
actively sought and punished.
Thirdly, humanitarian assistance and economic
recovery are more than indispensable to stabilization
and a return to normalcy in Darfur. With respect to
African crises, we cannot ignore the tragedy of
Somalia. As we all know, Africa has committed to
deploying the Africa Union Military Observer Mission
in Somalia, which should be vigorously supported and
ultimately relieved by a United Nations force. Somalia
must not become a forgotten crisis. The Somalis
themselves, however, must assume their
responsibilities and make a serious commitment to an
inclusive political dialogue that will lead to genuine
national reconciliation.
Until the end of this month, the Congo is the
President of the Economic Community of Central
African States. Our subregion has always been
involved in international initiatives concerning the
situations in its various constituent countries. A
contingent put together by some of those countries is
therefore contributing to the stability of the situation in
the Central African Republic. The twenty-sixth meeting
of the United Nations Standing Advisory Committee on
Security Questions in Central Africa, held in Yaoundé
on 7 September 2007, resulted in a series of
conclusions including, in particular, an appeal to the
international community and the donors to help the
Governments of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Chad secure their borders and improve
general security conditions; support for the
multidisciplinary operation to be deployed to secure
the situation in the areas of Chad and the Central
African Republic bordering the
Sudan the subject of Security Council resolution
1778 (2007), adopted on 25 September and pursuing
subregional cooperation on questions of security,
including the announcement of the military exercise of
a simulated peacekeeping operation, scheduled for
Chad in November.
And finally, still in Yaoundé, on the margins of
the meeting of the Advisory Committee, a ministerial
conference on cross-border security questions in
Central Africa resulted in the adoption of a statement,
which amounts to a political commitment, by the States
in the subregion to implement organizational,
administrative, legal and technical mechanisms of
cooperation in border areas. This will allow us to
tackle such phenomena as uncontrolled or forced
movement of populations, criminal activities of armed
groups, illicit flows of small arms and light weapons
and the illegal exploitation of natural resources.
My country also remains vigilant to the threats
that weigh on other parts of the world and crises that
shake several regions around the globe. In this spirit,
we have always supported a peaceful settlement to the
Middle East conflict that takes into account the
Quartet’s Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative. We
have also called for an international conference on the
Middle East, with the participation of all countries in
the region that can make a useful contribution. We
therefore welcome with interest and hope the
announcement of the November conference on the
Middle East.
In terms of nuclear non-proliferation, we have
always called for compliance with the
Non-Proliferation Treaty in all its aspects, including
the right of all countries to develop nuclear technology
for civil purposes. We have always insisted on the
crucial role of the International Atomic Energy Agency
and on the need for a political dialogue with the
countries whose nuclear programs raise questions. In
this respect, we are pleased with the evolution of
negotiations with North Korea, and we encourage
pursuing dialogue with Iran to make sure that there is
no slippage in the programme that country is
developing.
My delegation is also pleased with the
mobilization of the international community around a
question crucial for the future of mankind: the real
threat of climate change. Now, thanks to science, it has
been clearly established that it is human activity that is
at the origin of this scourge. We agree with the
Secretary-General and the President of the General
Assembly that the time has come to act. Therefore, we
welcomed the high-level meeting held here on
24 September on this theme. The President of the
Congo personally participated in that meeting to show
the commitment of the countries of the Congo Basin
the world’s second ecological lung, after the Amazon
Basin in the struggle for survival of our species and
safeguarding the planet overall. On the basis of a
strategic plan called the convergence plan, a ten-year
plan, these countries have made a commitment to
national and subregional actions having to do with
sustainable management of forest ecosystems in the
Basin.
The awareness that we have a responsibility in
this common fight has led us to cooperate with the two
other great forest areas the Amazon and in
Borneo to promote better forestry and commercial
practices. The talks that these three areas held on
24 September, on the margins of the high-level
meeting, have permitted our delegations to prepare for
a common approach to be presented at the conference
of the States parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change in Bali this December.
Our constant commitment to peace and
international security today includes many aspects.
Climate change merits this special attention that this
Assembly, as the world’s conscience, must give to
these great challenges confronting humanity.