May I, on behalf of
the Myanmar delegation and on my own behalf, begin
by extending to the President our warm congratulations
on his well-deserved election to the presidency of the
General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session. We are
confident that under his wise and able leadership our
deliberations will produce fruitful results. Allow me
also to express my delegation’s appreciation to his
predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki
of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
There is no doubt that the United Nations is the
best forum for practising multilateralism to address the
challenges facing the world today. The near-universal
participation of the world’s nations in this global body
is a living testimony to that. At the heart of its Charter
lies the maintenance of international peace and security
as the main noble purpose of the United Nations, which
all Member States are committed to strive for.
While the United Nations has been devoting the
larger portion of its attention to maintaining
international peace and security, new forms of global
challenges such as climate change, poverty, hunger,
water and energy insecurity have emerged and demand
the international community’s urgent and careful
attention. At the same time, humankind’s shared dream
of making the world a prosperous, peaceful, just and
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secure place remains elusive. The world today remains
full of inequality, injustice, conflict, instances of the
use of force, interference in the internal affairs of
States and attempts to impose domination on
developing nations.
Against that backdrop, the pre-eminent role of the
United Nations in advancing peace, security and
development must be asserted and enhanced in order to
effectively address those daunting challenges. We
therefore wish to stress the pressing need for
strengthening the United Nations with speedy reform
measures, adapting it to present-day realities in order
to make it more democratic and effective in meeting
growing challenges.
Myanmar firmly believes that any reform effort
must be aimed at strengthening the central role of the
United Nations in global governance. We share the
widespread view that the United Nations must be
reformed to reflect its increasing membership and to
push for internal reform measures, including
revitalization of the General Assembly and reform of
the Security Council. We share the view that the reform
of the Council must be designed to make it more
transparent, more efficient and more accountable. We
also support the idea of expanding both categories of
Council membership.
With only five years remaining before the target
deadline, the international community must step up its
efforts to realize the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) by 2015. We therefore welcome the successful
convening of the High-level Plenary Meeting on the
MDGs and its sideline activities last week here in New
York. While important improvements have been made
globally, progress towards achieving our MDG targets
is not sufficient as yet.
Progress remains uneven and varies from region
to region. While national Governments have the
primary responsibility to ensure progress, the
international community must help by creating an
environment that would enable developing countries to
make greater strides on their road to development.
International assistance plays an important catalytic
role in the developing countries’ efforts to attain their
development goals.
We therefore wish to emphasize here that
fulfilment by developed countries of their official
development assistance commitments, increased
investment flows, market access and resolution of debt
problems are essential to enabling the developing
countries to realize their MDG targets. It is high time
that the unjust and coercive economic measures and
trade embargoes that are hampering the attainment of
the MDGs and the development of the developing
countries, and thus hurting the people, be removed.
We are pleased to report that despite challenges,
Myanmar has made certain progress towards achieving
most of the eight MDGs in varying degrees, especially
in areas such as poverty alleviation, food security and
the promotion of education and health.
As a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons and to the Treaty on the South-
East Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, Myanmar has all
along recognized the legitimate right of every State to
the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
However, we firmly oppose the proliferation or
production of nuclear weapons and strongly support
any efforts leading to realization of the vision of a
nuclear-weapon-free world.
Therefore we heartily welcomed the signing of
the New START treaty by the leaders of the United
States and the Russian Federation with a view to
reducing their respective nuclear arsenals. It gave us
hope and expectation with respect to the elimination of
nuclear weapons and further reduction and limitation
of strategic offensive arms. We also join others in
calling for the early entry into force and full
implementation of the New START treaty.
In our noble fight against growing transnational
crime and terrorism, no single country can act alone, as
it requires a global solution and concerted action by the
world’s nations. Myanmar unequivocally condemns all
forms and manifestation of terrorism. We are working
closely with the international community to strengthen
our efforts and cooperation in regional and multilateral
frameworks in order to prevent and combat terrorism
and transnational crime, such as illicit drug trafficking,
trafficking in persons and cybercrime. We are also
working together with fellow members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations to step up
efforts to deal with prevention, control, preparedness
and response to pandemic diseases in our region.
The issue of climate change has become a
pressing global challenge that threatens humankind.
The environmental problem knows no national
boundaries; no country can be insulated from the
consequences of climate change. The unprecedented
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frequency and severity of recent natural disasters, such
as the earthquake in Haiti, floods in China and Pakistan
and heat waves around the world, clearly testify to the
consequences of global climate change.
Myanmar was also a victim of climate change in
May 2008, when it was hit by the devastating Cyclone
Nargis, the strongest ever in our history. After more
than two years we are pleased to say that we have now
passed the emergency relief stage and successfully
rebuilt better in the affected areas through our massive
reconstruction efforts, together with the United
Nations, ASEAN and the international community. I
wish to take this opportunity to express our
appreciation to the international community for all the
humanitarian assistance to Myanmar in response to that
natural disaster.
In addressing the pressing global issue of climate
change we must redouble our efforts not only to reduce
harmful greenhouse gas emissions but also to provide
financial resources and technology to developing
countries so that they might take effective mitigation
and adaptation measures. Although industrialized
countries are mainly responsible for climate change,
the developing countries are the most severely affected
by its consequences. Myanmar therefore believes that
any approach to address climate change must be based
on the principle of common but differentiated
responsibilities and respective capabilities.
We therefore look forward to the United Nations
Climate Change Conference in Cancún, Mexico, later
this year. We hope the negotiations in that Conference
will result in fruitful outcomes that will translate into
concrete action on commitments made by the
developed countries to reduce substantive emissions
and to assist developing countries in their mitigation
and adaptation efforts.
May I take this opportunity to briefly apprise this
Assembly of ongoing political developments in my
country, Myanmar.
Today, Myanmar is at a critical phase of its
political transformation. The multiparty-democracy
general elections are set to be held on 7 November
2010, as the fifth step of our charted political road
map. A total of 37 political parties, including those
representing various ethnic nationalities and groups,
will take part. Over 3,000 candidates will contest for a
total of 1,171 seats in the Peoples’ Parliament, the
National Parliament and state/regional parliaments.
Such a large participation has made it crystal clear that
the elections have become virtually inclusive. Political
parties have already started their campaign activities.
The people will exercise their democratic right to elect
the representatives of their choice who can best serve
their interests.
Based upon its ample experience and lessons
learned in holding multiparty general elections,
Myanmar is confident of its ability to conduct the
elections in an orderly manner. Whatever challenges
may face us, we are committed to do our best to hold
successful, free and fair general elections in the best
interest of the country and its people.
As our new State Constitution subscribes to the
present foreign policy, we believe that the new
Government to emerge after the elections will continue
to embrace the policy of maintaining and strengthening
friendly relations with all nations and will work closely
with the United Nations. Myanmar looks forward to
strengthening closer engagements with the
international community in the post election era.