The convening of the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly affords me the opportunity to share with the States Members of our Organization the vision and major concerns of my country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with respect to the current global challenges facing us.
Having said that. I wish to preface my remarks by congratulating His Excellency Mr. Dennis Francis on his election to the presidency of the Assembly and assuring all the members of his Bureau of the support of my country as they discharge the noble mission conferred on them by our institution.
I would be remiss if I did not also thank the outgoing President. Mr. Csaba Korosi. for his farsighted leadership and dedication, which contributed to moving forward our discussions and to finding concerted solutions. I wish also to extend my gratitude to Mr. Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General, for his active and ongoing commitment to international peace and security.
As our session unfolds here in New York, the people of Morocco are still mourning the victims and nursing their wounds following the powerful earthquakes that occurred during the night of Friday. 8 September, to Saturday. 9 September, causing the deaths of more than 3.000 Moroccans and wounding at least 5.000. and destroying several cities and areas of the Kingdom.
Furthermore, the Libyan people have not yet recovered from the trauma of the flooding that claimed the lives of more than 20.000 people and caused major damage on Sunday. 10 September. The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo welcomes the mobilization of the international community to provide assistance to the kindred peoples of the Kingdom of Morocco and of Libya. We convey to them our full compassion and solidarity and wish a speedy recovery to all those wounded in those two natural disasters.
But beyond deploring those natural disasters, the current session of the General Assembly is taking place at an exceptional period of our history in which the world faces serious situations that threaten the very existence of human beings.
The war in Ukraine has caused a food crisis marked by skyrocketing prices and shortages of basic goods; the exacerbation of the effects of climate change; and armed conflicts that continue to erupt in various places. Those mutually reinforcing crises pose a challenge to the multilateral system and to international cooperation.
And yet what all peoples of the world want and have always wanted is the maintenance of international peace and security, the guaranteeing of justice and human rights, the prioritization of social progress and the creation of the best possible living conditions. Those goals therefore need to remain at the centre of our collective action, in the context of a truly multilateral and inclusive approach.
We are called upon to work together with an eye to responding to those challenges, which are existential in scope. It is for that fundamental reason that I welcome the relevance of the theme of this year’s session, entitled “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all”. That theme places the values of solidarity and of trust at the forefront of the factors for recovery and for accelerating solutions to closely intertwined global challenges in order to move forward peace, security and sustainable development.
Those two values find their full expression in the context of the crises that we are facing today. In that regard, it is vital to recall that at the halfway point towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in 2023. given the combined effect of climate disasters, recurrent conflicts, the economic recession and the persistent after-effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic, inequality and poverty have worsened. Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise; humanitarian needs and the displacement of populations have reached record levels; and climate and environmental disasters have brought the world face to face with a very serious systemic existential threat.
It is clear that in order to tackle those scourges, which pose a genuine threat to international peace and security and represent a major obstacle to the prosperity and progress of nations, joining forces and taking a multilateral approach based on mutual trust and solidarity are major and indispensable steps.
The maintenance of international peace and security constitutes the foundation of and the main objective underpinning the creation of the United Nations. Its achievement requires greater determination and commitment on the part of all given the current threats to peace and security in the world. African peoples often do not understand the equivocal attitude, policy of double standards, ambiguities and procrastination we see on the part of our Organization, especially of its Security Council, in certain political and security crises that are raging in Africa and sometimes have been for decades.
That is the case, notably, of the forgotten crisis of Western Sahara, which has riven apart two kindred countries. Algeria and the Kingdom of Morocco, and which has dragged on for several decades. That is also the case of Mozambique, the victim of deadly terrorist attacks for roughly a decade now in the province of Cabo Delgado.
In West Africa, in the Sahelo-Saharan region. United Nations troops are withdrawing, leaving behind the memory of what they did not achieve, despite the fact that they had embodied all of the hopes of the peoples of the countries concerned for liberation from the yoke of jihadism.
The Republic of the Sudan is no exception. The Sudan is mired in a deadly civil war that since last year has pitted military personnel loyal to President Abdel- Fattah Al-Burhan against the Rapid Support Forces commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Although the war has already caused many deaths and much material damage, the international community is virtually indifferent to the Sudanese tragedy.
This is also the place to broach a question of paramount importance to the Democratic Republic of Congo and to building peace in our region. I refer here to the withdrawal of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). Following a United Nations presence of more than two decades, it is time for my country to fully take its destiny in hand and to become the main protagonist of its own stability. We are grateful to the international community and to the United Nations for their support and their partnership, but we are also aware that the phased withdrawal of MONUSCO is a necessary stage to consolidate the progress that we have already achieved.
Nonetheless, it should be deplored that the peacekeeping missions that have been deployed in various forms for 25 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not been able to stop the uprisings and armed conflicts that are tearing apart the country and the Great Lakes region or to protect civilian populations. So is the phased, responsible and sustainable withdrawal of MONUSCO. which was announced in 2018 and whose transition plan was adopted in 2021. now an anachronism given the changing political, security and social contingencies?
It is thus illusory and counterproductive to continue to cling to maintaining MONUSCO to re-establish peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to stabilize it. Furthermore, the accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO is absolutely necessary to ease the tensions between the Mission and our citizens. It is time for my country to explore fresh avenues for strategic cooperation with the United Nations that are more adapted to our current realities.
That is why. in my capacity as constitutional guarantor of my country’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence, and of the good conduct of our nation and the well-being of my compatriots. I have instructed the Government of the Republic to begin discussions with the United Nations authorities to
ensure an accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by moving up the deadline for the withdrawal from December 2024 to December 2023. That is the reasoning underpinning the current approach of our Government, which addressed a letter to the President of the Security Council dated 1 September 2023 asking for the accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO (see S/2023/648).
In addition to asking for the accelerated withdrawal of MONUSCO. the Democratic Republic of the Congo reiterates its request to the Security Council to sanction all physical and legal persons acknowledged to be perpetrators, co-perpetrators or accomplices, both material and intellectual, of war crimes and crimes against humanity and serious violations of human rights, international law and the Charter of the United Nations on Congolese territory.
It is unjust and unacceptable that persons deemed responsible for the serious crimes mentioned in various reports of United Nations experts on the security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should continue to enjoy impunity with complete silence on the part of our Organization and its Member States, even though the latter have cited the combat against impunity as one of their main priorities in the areas of internal and external governance.
In that regard, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo warmly welcomes the sanctions recently imposed by the Government of the United States on Rwanda for its support for the Mouvement du 23 mars terrorist group and on one of its senior officials involved in the criminal undertakings in the Congo. Members will recall that that terrorist group, which is a proxy for Rwanda, has not honoured any of the commitments entered into by the Heads of State of the region in the context of the Luanda and Nairobi processes. Indeed, not only have they not left the positions they had seized, but they also continue to massacre our civilian populations and to refuse cantonment and pre-cantonment, demanding a dialogue that will never be granted to them.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo hopes that other States will follow the praiseworthy example set by the United States of America in supporting the common struggle against impunity and ensuring the triumph of the ideals of justice and solidarity among peoples. The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo expects the Security Council to focus in particular on its request and to constructively manage the delicate and laborious process of crafting peace in our country.
Another challenge exists that is of the utmost concern to all the nations of the world: global warming. I need hardly recall that the rising temperature over several decades has affected all humankind and is of concern to us all. I am compelled to note here that despite the polluters’ good-faith proclamations in favour of stopping greenhouse-gas emissions; the many forums convened all over the world to stem that scourge, including the 27 Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COPs); and the many resolutions and recommendations adopted at the various meetings, the warming of our planet is far from being limited to the target of 1.5°C.
On the contrary, at COP 27. held in Sharm El- Sheikh. Egypt, this year, concerns were expressed about the trend of rising temperatures. That not very reassuring acknowledgment no doubt calls for us to revisit the approaches and policies that we have adopted.
In that context, the African Climate Summit, which was just held in Nairobi from 4 to 7 September under the joint leadership of the African Union and the Republic of Kenya, was a welcome and timely initiative that reflects Africa’s determination to participate actively in addressing that vital question and to be a key and influential player in the process of devising solutions to global warming and to ensuring greener and more responsible economies in future.
The Africans emerged from the Summit with a set of shared specifications contained in the Nairobi Declaration, which are aimed at ensuring a reform of the international financial architecture so as to ensure greater fairness; restructuring and debt alleviation for their countries; the local processing of their products; and the establishment of a carbon tax regime, including a tax on the trade in fossil fuels and on maritime and air transport.
They also reminded rich polluters of the commitment they undertook in 2009 but have yet to honour of providing $100 billion in climate financing. The Democratic Republic of the Congo calls on the United Nations and the international community as a whole to pay particular attention to the legitimate claims of Africa. In that context, my country calls for the creation of a fair carbon market and incentive
pricing while strengthening the effectiveness of climate financing.
We hope to see the rapid operationalization of article 6 of the Paris Agreement and support the idea of mutually beneficial partnerships between the State and the private sector.
In the same vein, the Democratic Republic of the Congo reiterates its full readiness to cooperate with all stakeholders, public and private alike, in order to make the most of its strategic minerals. It has undertaken bold commitments, including dedicating 30 per cent of its national territory to the preservation of biodiversity and submitting a nationally determined contribution that includes mitigation measures focused on four priority sectors: agriculture, forestry, energy and technology transfer, as well as adaptation measures. Multilateralism and respect for a global rules-based system has underpinned peace, security, health and prosperity in large parts of the world for the past 78 years. The United Nations embodies those principles and remains a key protagonist in addressing contemporary existential threats, be they the current food crisis, climate change, terrorism, pandemics or nuclear proliferation. None of those critical global threats can be resolved by nations acting alone, no matter how powerful they may be. All that requires multilateral cooperation.
To retain the trust of the international community, the United Nations must show that it is capable of adapting to the present and of effectively shouldering its responsibilities in tackling today’s challenges. In order to provide a new impetus to multilateralism, a reform of the Charter of the United Nations on key points, including the Security Council, the veto. Chapter VII and the use of force, is absolutely necessary but will not be sufficient.
We have a lot of work to do. Coordination and cooperation among the various institutions and agencies of the United Nations are imperfect. Global challenges are tackled several times over in various forums from different and contradictory perspectives, while other problems are not addressed at all. with each international bureaucracy aiming to preserve itself.
In that regard, the urgent and unremitting request of my country and of Africa as a whole is to expand the Security Council, as a guiding decision-making organ of the United Nations, in such a way as to include therein two representatives of the African continent as permanent members in order to ensure fair and representative geographical representation — hence the relevance and necessity of reforming our 78-year-old Organization, which is somewhat hobbled in the face of current changes and international trends, so as to make it more inclusive in its composition and in its decision-making process, which from now on will have to pay heed to Africa’s voice.
Before I conclude, from this rostrum let me to return to the issue of violence against women in the context of war and armed conflict. It is no secret that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the African States where sexual violence against women is the most disturbing, due in particular to decades of armed conflict. In order to alleviate the suffering of women who are victims of conflict-related violence and to compensate them in some small way for the harm caused to them, my country set up specific institutional mechanisms, including the National Fund for the Reparation of Victims of Conflict-related Sexual Violence and Victims of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Humankind, established in December 2022.
As an extension of such initiatives to protect and promote women, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is working tirelessly to change the way in which men see women, in particular by eliminating societal structures that create barriers to women’s advancement, as well as the power dynamics that underpin male-female relations. The skills and resources available to women are insufficient on their own to change their situation. It is also essential to change the social dynamics within couples, families and communities. That is the essence of the project to promote positive masculinity that I initiated at the beginning of my term at the head of the African Union.
In conclusion. I would like to once again affirm that, at the end of this year, general elections will be held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in elected institutions down to the local level. To ensure their success, all parties involved are actively mobilizing. The Independent National Electoral Commission has already convened the electorate and published the lists of candidates for the national and provincial legislative elections and the municipal elections. Measures have been taken to ensure the transparency, inclusiveness, equality of opportunity and credibility of the upcoming elections. Invitations have already been extended to international institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in that area to send their electoral observation missions to support the
process and help the Congolese State to consolidate its fledgling democracy. The United Nations is also invited to play an important role in that through its specialized agencies. The Congolese Government would like to thank the invited institutions and NGOs that are already hard at work.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo remains convinced that the United Nations continues to be the most appropriate forum for discussing the future of our planet and relations among peoples and States. Following the holding of peaceful democratic elections in Zimbabwe. I make an urgent appeal to the United Nations to do its utmost to ensure the immediate lifting of sanctions against the Republic of Zimbabwe and its people. However, in order to carry out its difficult and delicate tasks effectively and merit the trust of all. the United Nations must embody the values of justice, equity and solidarity and represent all in our cultural, political, economic and social diversity. That is the essence of its reform that Africans keep bringing up. and of the fight that we must all wage.