It gives me
great pleasure at the outset to extend warm
congratulations to you, Sir, on your election as
President of the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth
session. I am confident that your election was the right
choice.
I would also like to commend the outstanding
manner in which Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki conducted
the meetings of the previous session. His statesmanship
and experience reflected positively on the work of the
session.
We would also like to extend our thanks and
appreciation to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and
the Secretariat for their ongoing and appreciated
efforts.
We followed with keen interest and actively
participated in the preparations for the High-level
Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). We have reviewed our achievements
and identified obstacles and challenges in a way that
will enable us to meet our obligations. There is no
doubt that the success attained and the constructive
recommendations submitted will encourage Member
States to make further progress in this respect.
We would like to underscore the great importance
of development aid in achieving the MDGs and of the
need to maintain such assistance even in the current
situation of successive global crises and in the context
of the increasing burden of foreign debt on the
economies of the developing countries and their ability
to achieve the MDGs.
I would like to take this opportunity to give the
Assembly a brief review of the recent political
developments in my country, especially regarding the
implementation of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005, which was the
subject of a high-level meeting on the Sudan held three
days ago at the invitation of the Secretary-General and
attended by a number of leaders and Heads of State. I
note the concluding communiqué citing positive
developments in the implementation of the CPA and
the steps to establish peace in Darfur. It also
commended the holding of public elections in the
Sudan last April in an atmosphere of tranquillity and
peace. International observers were witness to the
credibility and integrity of the voting process.
Arrangements are now under way for the holding
of the referendum in Southern Sudan on schedule
concerning the options of unity or separation. For our
part, we are determined that our fellow citizens in the
South shall have their say without coercion and in an
atmosphere of freedom, integrity and transparency. We
also hope that unity will be the voluntary choice of the
citizens of Southern Sudan. We therefore call on all
people to support and consolidate the unity of the
Sudan and to participate in observing the referendum.
We also welcome the Secretary-General’s decision to
ask former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa to
chair the United Nations panel mandated to observe the
referendum.
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We also recall my Government’s efforts to
consolidate peace in Darfur, which has undergone
several positive changes that continue to promote the
normalization of the situation. Lasting peace would
restore to Darfur the vitality that has faltered in the
past years due to conflicts fuelled by the proliferation
of arms and by regional and international interventions.
The recent positive developments have enabled the
holding of elections throughout Darfur, helped to
consolidate democratic legitimacy and led to the
establishment of new elected institutions.
These positive transformations, which have
created new conditions on the ground, have encouraged
the Government to develop a new strategy for Darfur,
concerning which we have conducted broad
discussions with the people of Darfur at the individual,
collective and institutional levels, and with all the
national political forces. We have also conducted
consultations on Darfur with our partners in the peace
process, first and foremost the African Union-United
Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and
the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel
ably and skilfully led by President Thabo Mbeke.
Many of our partners in the peace process and the
international community have also supported and
encouraged this strategy. The new strategy is based on
five key components: the establishment of security; the
consolidation of development; the resettlement of
internally displaced persons and people affected by the
war so they can lead a life of dignity; the
encouragement of internal reconciliation that would
promote social peace; and the pursuit of negotiations
with a view to drafting a settlement document agreed
by the people of Darfur. The strategy envisages the
completion of the negotiations currently under way in
Doha through the sincere efforts and under the auspices
of the sister State of Qatar.
With a view to achieving the strategy’s
development goals, the Government has appropriated
from its own resources the sum of $1.9 billion over the
next four years to cover the costs of development
projects, in addition to what it hopes to raise from
partners and donors.
The strategy is designed to work closely with
UNAMID, the Joint African Union-United Nations
Chief Mediator for Darfur, and the African Union
Executive Council in order to facilitate and arrange
consultations with the people of Darfur so as to
universalize reconciliation and establish justice for all
through national mechanisms and in close consultation
with all sectors of Darfurian society.
It is worth noting that the strategy adopts a
practical approach to implementation based on two
pillars. The first is the adoption of the idea of
partnership. In that context, the Government has
endeavoured to establish partnerships with all States
and organizations that wish to engage with it on the
basis of the strategy. Foremost among those partners
are UNAMID, the United Nations and its agencies and
organizations, the African Union Executive Council,
the African Union itself and its institutions, the League
of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic
Conference.
The second pillar is the exertion of special efforts to
involve the citizens of Darfur — particularly at the grass-
roots level and including elected representatives, civil
society organizations and the internally displaced — so
that the centre of gravity of the peace process will not be
far removed from Darfurian society. Thus, the
prescriptions for peace will be entrenched in the
conscience of the people, which will facilitate their
acceptance of them. This vision of peace has gathered
powerful momentum from the positive changes in our
relationship with Chad, in addition to our vigorous efforts
to strengthen our regional relations in the interest of
promoting peace in the Sudan.
With a view to bolstering stability in the various
regions of the Sudan and eliminating the causes of
potential armed conflicts, in October 2006 the
Government concluded, in the Eritrean capital,
Asmara, an agreement with the Eastern Front. The
agreement provided for security arrangements that led
to peace and security throughout the territory. In order
to reinforce our efforts to implement the agreement, it
was agreed to convene an international conference on
the development and reconstruction of Eastern Sudan
on 1 December 2010, which the State of Kuwait has
graciously agreed to host. Preparations for the
conference have been jointly undertaken by the United
Nations Development Programme, the Islamic
Development Bank in Jeddah, the Kuwaiti Fund for
Arab Economic Development and the Arab
Development Bank, in addition to the Sudanese
Government. The conference will focus on three
topics: infrastructure, services and investment. From
this rostrum, I appeal to Member States to participate
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actively in that important forum in order to establish
stability in that part of the Sudan.
We are committed to combating impunity, which
is part and parcel of the principle of international
justice and does not admit politicization,
discrimination or selectivity. However, selectivity and
politicization are prevalent in what is known as the
International Criminal Court, which has become a tool
to break the will of the people of the third world and to
impose hegemony over them. We have all witnessed
the hasty steps taken to subject a State non-party to the
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to its
powers and jurisdiction, as a result of which the
established principles of international law fell victim to
crude and unjust political intervention.
Over the past six years, the Sudan has made
progress towards negotiated political settlements with
armed movements in the South, East and West. The
involvement of the International Criminal Court, in this
context, directly jeopardizes the peaceful settlement
process that the country seeks. Therefore, we
completely reject this intervention, which has no place
in international law, logic or policy, and is wholly
unjustified.
We appreciate and commend the position of the
African Union and other regional organizations to
which the Sudan belongs, and of countries committed
to the rule of international law that have condemned
and strongly rejected the claims of the Court.
Therefore, we call on the Security Council to
reconsider its decision and to withdraw the file
completely from the Court. In the light of the high-
level meeting attended by representatives of all
members of the Security Council and many other
countries, and of the Secretary-General’s communiqué
of 24 September commending the efforts of the
Sudanese Government to fight impunity (see SG/2165),
the Council should refer the entire file to the Sudanese
justice system so that it can deliver justice pursuant to
the established rules of international law and national
legislation.
After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement, we hoped that the international community
would show cooperation commensurate with the
Sudan’s many accomplishments. We hoped to be
included in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPC) Debt Initiative and to resume receiving much-
needed development aid, like other States emerging
from conflict, as reflected in relevant international
recommendations and resolutions. That should be in
addition to the special treatment that the Sudan should
enjoy as a least developed country.
Similarly, we believe that the announcement by
creditors of their intention to cancel the Sudan’s
foreign debts would dispel concerns about the
referendum on Southern Sudan and the negotiations
between the two parties regarding the post-referendum
arrangements. We therefore call for cancellation of the
Sudan’s debts, on the basis of the same standards
applied to other least developed African countries. That
would help fight trends that lead to confrontations and
instability and the deterioration of development in
developing countries.
The African continent has continued to suffer
from the repercussions of the global economic and
financial crisis, as well as from the adverse effects of
climate change, including their impact on the prices of
food and energy. That has widened the scope of
poverty and hunger and has increased social tensions,
migration, displacement, armed conflict and the
inability of African States, especially the developing
countries, to cope with the humanitarian consequences
of natural disasters.
In that regard, we would like to draw attention to
the need to accord priority, through the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development, to questions
pertaining to the continent on the United Nations
development agenda; to build the capacity of African
and African Union institutions to maintain peace; to
take affirmative action in financing the continent’s
plans for combating poverty, the AIDS pandemic and
malaria; and to provide humanitarian assistance and
upgrade the capacities of African States in order to
strengthen their efforts in realizing the Millennium
Development Goals.
The question of Palestine has been inscribed on
the United Nations agenda for many decades, while the
Palestinian people have continued to suffer. They are
deported, displaced, killed, and driven away from their
homeland, despite the fact that the United Nations has
adopted numerous resolutions that Israel has refused to
implement, in clear defiance of the will of the
international community. We call upon Israel to
implement all international resolutions and return all
occupied Arab lands in Palestine, the Golan Heights
and Lebanon. An independent Palestine is a noble
15 10-55122
demand and is the legitimate right of the people of
Palestine, supported by the calls of all peace-loving
peoples and countries.
We call for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons
and weapons of mass destruction. We underline the
right of States to acquire nuclear technology for
peaceful uses and to settle disputes through dialogue
and negotiation. We also stress the need to renounce
harmful propaganda and the sowing of fear, panic and
tension in the region.
We pinned great hopes on the success of an
international consensus on the issues of the
environment and climate, in view of the direct and
severe effect of climate change on the life of people in
my country and in many others, as confirmed by
studies prepared by experts in this Organization and its
specialized agencies. That has prompted the Secretary-
General to draw attention to the close link between
climate change and a number of armed conflicts on the
African continent and elsewhere, in particular over
Darfur.
We therefore hoped that the efforts to address
climate change would be crowned with success at the
Copenhagen Conference and that the developed
countries would pledge, on the basis of their historical
responsibilities, to adopt strategies and programmes
with clearly defined goals and principles aimed at
addressing the root causes of climate change. We
hoped they would pledge to provide the necessary
financial resources for sharing responsibility for the
preservation of this planet, while fully respecting the
principles agreed on in the 1992 Earth Summit
Declaration in Rio de Janeiro.
I am pleased to recall the laudable attention my
country has given to the problem of mitigating the
effects of climate change through numerous
programmes, plans and institutions, as well as by
promoting the necessary awareness of the gravity of
the problem among wide sectors of the population.
However, that remains a moral obligation and a
humanitarian mission and responsibility that demands
joint international efforts.