The
delegation of Senegal welcomes the election of
Mr. Joseph Deiss to lead the General Assembly at its
sixty-fifth session. We are aware of his personal
qualities and are confident that his presidency will bear
the hallmark of his country’s traditional neutrality. I
warmly congratulate him and wish him every success.
I would also like to pay homage to Mr. Ali
Abdussalam Treki for his outstanding work in guiding
the work of the Assembly’s sixty-fourth session. I also
express our great gratitude to our Secretary-General,
Ban Ki-moon, for his tireless devotion to his delicate
task in the service of our common ideals.
The state of the world has improved little since
the Assembly’s last session. We continue to face the
same urgent issues: the ongoing economic crisis and
continued environmental degradation. Unfortunately,
with regard to the latter, the Copenhagen Conference
was unable to provide a satisfactory response — not
because of a lack of will, but rather because the
question has been inappropriately framed, as I said at
that meeting. To that list we must add persistent issues
such as transnational organized crime, international
terrorism and illicit drug trafficking.
As we meet here to consider and act together on
those major challenges, we are giving hope to our
people with regard to finding concerted answers to
those many and complex problems, which no country
can face alone. It is therefore altogether fitting that we
turn to the world Organization to find a collective
response, or at least to exchange experiences.
The theme of the Assembly’s sixty-fifth
session — “Reaffirming the central role of the United
Nations in global governance” — is therefore quite
timely. Perhaps we ourselves have been tardy in
launching this debate. In my view, it is not a matter of
determining whether the Organization has contributed
to improving global governance, but rather a question
of how to make its efforts more useful and effective in
the face of the unprecedented upheavals that the world
has experienced in recent years.
International relations have accelerated
considerably in a very short time. Much of what was
taken as certain is no longer true and accepted notions
have been shaken. What we call the established order
has been turned on its head by the emergence of new
forces arising from globalization and economic
competition.
The changes that have taken place call for a new
state of mind and another way of perceiving and
managing world affairs by adapting the system to the
new realities of the twenty-first century. Are we
prepared to define a new world order in which Africa
and emerging Powers fully play the role that the
ongoing changes are conferring upon them? The
answers we provide on those issues will depend, at
least in part, on the role of the Organization in global
governance.
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After 65 years of existence, the United Nations
system continues to bear the legacy of a bygone
historical era, with the Charter of the United Nations
itself bearing post-war stigmas and colonial prejudices.
For instance, the Charter still refers to the idea of an
enemy State, in the sense of a Power defeated in war.
Also, Article 38 of the Statute of the International
Court of Justice refers to general principles of law
recognized by civilized nations — as if uncivilized
nations still existed. In themselves, such anachronisms
from another time demonstrate the need to reform the
system.
Moreover, the nature of the issues now addressed
by the Organization has become quite diverse, just as
its composition and the volume of is work have
increased considerably, while some of its mechanisms,
including that for collective security, have remained
nearly unchanged.
In 1945 the Organization had 51 Members; today
it has 192. The composition of the Security Council, a
body which is supposed to reflect the will of Member
States, has been altered only once, in 1965, when the
number of seats increased from 11 to 15 with the
inclusion of additional non-permanent seats. And
17 years since we began negotiations on the Council’s
reform, there are still no prospects for consensus.
Maintaining the status quo at all costs means
ignoring the radical changes that have taken place in
the world, thereby making the Council susceptible to
greater mistrust, defiance and criticism. That inertia
may prove to be dangerous owing to the lack of
representation, legitimacy and credibility that could
result. If today many of the Council’s decisions are
being called into question and not properly
implemented, it is because they are perceived by the
great majority of Member States as being more
expressions of national interest than the carrying out of
a mandate on behalf of the community of nations.
I am not personally in agreement with the
eminent observer of the United Nations who has
written that “the organization of the Security Council
belongs to the nineteenth century”. I believe that it
bears the hallmark of our times, but it needs to be
improved and delivered of its shortcomings.
How can we preserve a credible role in global
governance for the Organization if Africa — which
makes up more than a fourth of its Members and
accounts for more than 70 per cent of the issues on the
agenda — does not have a permanent seat on the
Security Council? Several years ago in this Hall, in
order to put an end to that anomaly and to right an
historic injustice, Senegal proposed that —
independent of the ongoing reform, which will take
time, given that it began 17 years ago — Africa be
given a permanent seat with veto power.
Meanwhile, the same grievances that have been
levelled against the Security Council have also been
raised with regard to international criminal justice.
Twelve years ago, the common need for international
criminal justice that was universal, permanent and
neutral led to the establishment of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) to complement national
jurisdictions in punishing and preventing the most
serious crimes.
Because Senegal has faith in the ideals of peace
and justice for all, it reiterates its commitment to the
Court. It was the first country to ratify its Statute, on
2 February 1999. Nevertheless, the Court will never be
credible if the President of the Sudan is the only one to
be pursued, with suspect eagerness.
While the setting up of the ICC represents a
significant advance in the fight against impunity, it is
in its practice that the Court itself will be judged. And
for that practice to be free of suspicion and
questioning, we must ensure that it reflects the
principles agreed by the United Nations with regard to
human rights: universality, objectivity, non-selectivity
and impartiality. On the basis of those principles, the
Court should deal with all situations within its
jurisdiction in the same way, whoever the perpetrators
and whatever their nationality.
Given the deep and multifaceted crisis, global
economic governance remains a pertinent issue.
Consultative frameworks such as the Group of Eight
(G-8) and the Group of Twenty (G-20) are trying to
address it in order to lay the foundations for a new
world order. Those efforts are praiseworthy.
Today, there are a number of us who would like
to establish an independent circle of very high-level
specialists so as to put ourselves upstream of the G-8
and the G-20 and to provide heads of State and
Government with our thinking on the topics that they
are considering. We would even like to go beyond the
technical nature and address more fundamental issues.
The job of setting all that up has been entrusted to me,
and I am dedicating myself to the task.
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With regard to the unchecked increase in the
price of oil, which penalizes non-producing countries, I
have already proposed a mechanism that would make it
possible to bring together the corporate superprofits,
the income of producing countries and the surcharges
on non-producing countries, to serve as the basis for a
policy which I call “oil against poverty”, using a fund
financed by the contributions of the first two
categories, which share the oil revenues.
In order to parry the fierce rise in agricultural
prices, I suggest that we consider that issue again at a
conference in Dakar — the second Dakar Agricultural
Fair. We propose a mechanism that fully integrates
producers in order to establish world governance of
agricultural prices, taking into account the interests of
producers and consumers. That will be the aim of the
conference, which will be held in our capital in January
and February 2011.
In the same spirit, we continue to contribute to
efforts to protect the environment, in particular in the
context of the project to build the Great Green Wall. It
is a barrier of trees the length of the Sahel-Saharan
region, from Dakar to Djibouti, 7,000 kilometres long
by 15 kilometres wide, and that project is already being
implemented. It has earned us the support of the Global
Environment Facility, which has granted the countries
involved the sum of $119 million.
With regard to the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), the assessment that the Assembly’s
High-level Plenary Meeting has just made clearly
shows that, despite our progress, we must remain
mobilized in order to meet the agreed commitments by
the 2015 deadline.
In Senegal, thanks to the national assessment that
we carried out last May, we have gauged the work to
be done by 2015. Our main conclusion is that a
quantitative approach that sees development only in
terms of money is insufficient. We must show more
creativity and more imagination in our own country.
For its part, Senegal has implemented the following
innovations.
First is the GOANA Strategy — the Great
Agricultural Offensive for Food and Abundance, which
enabled us to go from an importer of food products in
2008 to self-sufficiency and even net exporter in 2010.
We have introduced the Neighbourhood
Godmother initiative, which empowers women in the
fight against maternal and child mortality so as to
speed up implementation of the MDGs related to
health. It is based on the sociology of our African
societies. In every neighbourhood or village, there is
always a woman who is the focus of all the others, and,
by giving her a role, we empower her to watch over the
pregnant women and attend to them, even at the child’s
birth. That requires only very little equipment, such as
a mobile phone. That supervision, we believe, will
make it possible to reduce maternal and child mortality.
Next is the Modern Daras initiative — daras
means studying in Arabic — which introduces the
teaching of Arabic, French and English and vocational
training in madrasas in order to progress towards the
complete disappearance of those students who graduate
from madrasas very learned and able to recite the
Koran, but who are jobless. That initiative is supported
by Senegal’s religious leaders. And we simply think
that it is possible to provide children with spiritual
training and further education at the same time. We
have introduced Christian and Muslim religious
education into schools.
Another initiative is the scheme to allocate 40 per
cent of the national budget to education and training in
order to ensure sufficient quality human resources, able
to take up the challenge of development. If I am not
mistaken, Senegal is the only country to have agreed to
that sacrifice — to put 40 per cent of the budget into
education.
The Bac Minus One initiative means that we take
the young people who have failed the baccalaureate
examination and have them help school teachers
promote primary education, in order to address the
criterion of universal primary education.
Naturally, we have launched a policy to promote
rural women. Today there are facilities that enable
them to retain the added value that was previously in
the hands of factories and producers, that is to say,
those who control the money.
We have also proposed a new definition of
poverty, which is not the fact of having less than $1 a
day. Poverty is a combination of deficiencies, such as
in housing, decent food, access to school and health
care. We are dealing with that by creating villages in
which all those fundamental needs can be met.
The Assembly knows about the Digital Solidarity
Fund initiative, which we launched a few years ago to
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help bridge the digital divide between developed
countries and underdeveloped countries.
I would also like to report that we have launched
the Eco-villages Strategy, which involves converting
traditional villages to energy self-sufficiency by using
clean energy such as solar or wind in order to lessen
the degradation of our environment.
Lastly, the initiative for complete equality
between men and women in Senegal in all fully or
partially elected bodies is a way for us to marshal
women’s abilities, which are fully acknowledged. The
law of March 2010 fully assimilates women into the
nation’s decision-making circles. I think that we should
perhaps stop talking about the advancement of women.
We must raise women to the decision-making level,
which will happen at the same time and on the basis of
equality with men.
I could continue, but those examples are enough
to demonstrate the pressing need for innovation.
In my capacity as current Chair of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference I must once
again draw the attention of the international
community to the resurgence of Islamophobia in
certain sectors. In recent years outbursts of
Islamophobia, as if in a process of escalation and
provocation, have multiplied: profanations of tombs
and of the Holy Koran, hate speech and blasphemous
caricatures. All these incidents in fact give expansive
proof of the small-mindedness, ignorance and
intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their authors. On
behalf of the Islamic umma, I strongly denounce and
condemn these irresponsible and absurd acts. In any
case, with regard to the Holy Koran, God himself has
made himself infallible protector of his holy word, as it
is said, “Surely We have revealed the Reminder and We
will most surely be its guardian” (The Holy Koran,
XV:9).
I would like everyone to understand that Islam
and Muslims are no one’s enemy. Islam is a religion of
the golden mean, which teaches moderation, which
exhorts us to do good, which preaches respect for
diversity and peaceful coexistence among peoples,
whatever their religion. Still today it is in strict
observance of these rules that nearly 2.5 billion
Muslims throughout the world practice their faith. If
there is a tiny minority that descends to violence in the
name of the Koran, we say: No, that is in keeping
neither with the letter nor the spirit of the Koran.
I reaffirm the openness of the Islamic umma to
dialogue and joint effort. In the face of extremists of all
sides, who want to take religions and believers hostage,
I invite world leaders, opinion-makers, men, women
and young people to join us to converse, explain,
inform and educate, to promote the choice of wisdom,
knowledge, reason, logic and doing good against
obscurantism and confrontation. I hope that from that
choice will come mutual understanding and peaceful
coexistence between peoples, civilizations and
cultures, respecting each other’s beliefs and diversity.
At Dakar, we have organized the Conference of
African Ulema, a group of Islamic scholars who are
responding to those who want to use our religion for
political ends. That African conference will culminate
in a conference of all the countries of the umma, to be
held in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
Right now I direct my hope towards the
establishment of a Palestinian State with
internationally recognized borders. That is why I
support President Obama’s initiative on Palestinian-
Israeli dialogue and renew my long-standing support
for the legitimate demand of the Palestinian people for
a sovereign, independent and viable State. We support
the vision of a Palestinian State that will be a full
member of the United Nations, which has been
promised here by President Obama.
Faced with the tragedy that has struck the Haitian
people, Senegal has joined its efforts with those of the
international community to provide emergency
assistance. In October we will be receiving some
160 Haitian students who wish to study in Senegal, and
next year we expect to be hosting Haitian families.
From this rostrum I appeal to all, and in particular to
African heads of State, to help Haiti. Those who want
to host students should speak to us: I have sent
commission to Haiti, and I have tasked a minister to be
in charge of Haitian affairs. We have a roster of 3,000
young people who have been chosen by university
teachers, about whom we have all the necessary
information, including health information.
In Africa, Senegal notes with satisfaction the
progress of our brother people of Côte d’Ivoire towards
national reconciliation and the upcoming holding of
elections in peace and calm. In Guinea, another
neighbour of Senegal, where I have visited many times
to help normalize the situation, I salute the efforts of
the facilitator, President Blaise Compaoré. I invite once
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again all Guinean stakeholders, in particular the two
candidates in the second round, to complete the
electoral process, so that there can be a permanent
return to constitutional order, in national peace and
harmony — which are essential conditions for
development.
Senegal is also pleased with the progress made by
the Niger to re-establish the country’s political
institutions. Guinea-Bissau, another neighbour of ours,
has made significant progress since its election last
year of President Malam Bacai Sanhá. But its
democratic institutions remain fragile and therefore
need more resolute support from the international
community. In line with the conclusions of the
extraordinary summit of the Economic Community of
West African States held on 17 September, Senegal is
prepared to take part in the efforts of our regional
organization for the establishment of a programme for
security and defence sector reform in Guinea-Bissau.
In the Sudan, Senegal remains committed to the
African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in
Darfur. We hope that the referendum on self-
determination of the south will be held in the best
conditions possible in order to prevent a domino effect
that would be harmful to the whole of Africa. Perhaps a
group of heads of State could help to work towards that
goal.
I would like to conclude by recalling that Senegal
will host, from 10 to 31 December, the third World
Festival of Black Arts, after the first two, which were
held in Dakar in 1966 and Lagos in 1977. This
gathering is a reaffirmation of the artistic, cultural and
intellectual identity of the black world, and it carries a
message of openness, dialogue and fraternity from
Africa and its diaspora to the whole of humanity, for
the respect of all cultures and civilizations. All are
cordially invited.