First I congratulate
you, Sir, on your assuming the presidency of the
General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session. I am sure
that under your able leadership our deliberations will
be fruitful. Let me also commend your predecessor,
Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, for the wisdom with which
he guided the Assembly at its previous session.
The theme of our session, “Reaffirming the
central role of the United Nations in global
governance”, is both timely and well chosen. As we
enter the second decade of the twenty-first century,
humankind faces a multitude of challenges, challenges
that are complex, multifaceted and transnational;
challenges that defy national solutions alone; indeed,
challenges that demand international cooperation.
Those are precisely challenges of the type that the
United Nations is potentially best equipped to meet.
Such a central role for the United Nations derives,
above all, from its near universal membership — a
representative United Nations. It derives also from its
effectiveness, its capacity to deliver results: an
effective United Nations that is capable of delivering
peace and security worldwide; a United Nations that
equally serves the interest of all nations, developed and
developing, large and small; a United Nations that
provides a robust institutional support for efforts to
achieve prosperity and equitable development for all; a
United Nations that advocates not only political and
civil rights, but also economic and social rights, to all
people around the world; a United Nations that promotes
democracy and justice; in short, a United Nations that
can play a central role in global governance.
A United Nations that is at the forefront in
addressing global challenges requires that we, its
Members, must move together in cooperative action:
countries of the North and South, East and West,
developed and developing. We must each contribute to
the resolution of problems and not simply accentuate
divisions, for there is no monopoly of wisdom amongst
any one of us.
Each Member State can contribute to meeting the
challenges to the international community. Therefore,
our Organization, the United Nations, must have the
wherewithal, the means, to ensure that the full problem-
solving potential of every nation is unleashed. Therein
rests the importance of reform of the United Nations.
The Security Council must better reflect the
contemporary world, not that of 1945. A more
representative Council would be a more effective
Council.
The General Assembly must be revitalized. A
more efficient Assembly is a more effective Assembly.
The Economic and Social Council must be made
more relevant, in accordance with its Charter-mandated
responsibilities.
Not least, the full potential of the Secretariat must
be harvested. Its structure and organization must be
effective and efficient and made more cohesive.
The central role of the United Nations in global
governance is due not only to its capacity to reform, to
enhance its representative character, but also to its
ability to deliver in overcoming contemporary global
challenges, to deliver on its Charter-provided purposes,
or, as the Charter eloquently puts it in paragraph 4 of
Article 1, “To be a centre for harmonizing the actions
of nations”.
As a Member State, Indonesia will do its part. We
shall continue to contribute to United Nations
peacekeeping efforts. We shall also strive to ensure that
the recent positive momentum on the issue of
disarmament is maintained. Therefore, Indonesia is on
11 10-55276
track to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban
Treaty.
Indonesia will also work tirelessly to ensure that
the United Nations continues to discharge its historic
responsibilities on the question of Palestine. Thus we
welcome and support the resumption of direct
negotiations between Israel and Palestine. This is a
precious opportunity for Palestine and Israel to find
solutions on all final status issues.
We therefore strongly deplore the decision by the
Israeli Government not to extend the moratorium on
the building of settlements in the occupied territory.
Such a decision does not in any way contribute to a
climate conducive for the direct negotiations.
We will continue to contribute to the capacity-
building of Palestine, to support the Palestinian people
in preparing for the day when they finally exercise
their right of sovereignty.
Today’s global threat to security demands more
effective global action. The United Nations must do its
part to promote global cooperation to address
non-traditional security threats: terrorism, people
smuggling, drug trafficking, piracy and money
laundering, to cite just a few.
The United Nations must also contribute to
achieving common prosperity, to make a better world
for all. We support the strengthening of the United
Nations frameworks for the attainment of equitable and
sustainable development. The Rio Declaration, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation have been the
multilateral linchpin of this.
We welcome the renewed commitment of all
Member States to meet the MDGs by 2015. We need to
strengthen genuine partnership to deliver on these
promises and to turn hope into reality.
The challenges we face in attaining equitable and
sustainable development are compounded by the real
and imminent threat of climate change. Addressing
climate change is therefore essential. Accordingly, the
United Nations should ensure that the sixteenth
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held
in Mexico, results in a consensus agreement that
effectively addresses climate change. It should build on
the Copenhagen Accord and the progress made in the
two Working Groups in the fifteenth Conference.
We also look forward to the 2012 United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development as an
opportunity to enhance coordination, synergy and
coherence in efforts, including within the United Nations
system, to address challenges to sustainable development.
We need to strengthen the capacity of the United
Nations to deal with a complex array of natural
disasters, including the delivery of international
humanitarian assistance.
We attach great importance to the review process
of the Human Rights Council in 2011. We need to
ensure that the Council can truly support all countries,
developed and developing, to promote cooperation in
the field of human rights.
And, not least, we need to see the United Nations
contribute effectively to the promotion of tolerance and
mutual respect among cultures, religions, faiths and
civilizations.
We, the Members of the United Nations, must
promote better synergy between the United Nations
and regional organizations and initiatives. Many global
problems become more manageable if there are
simultaneous efforts to address them at the regional
level. That is why Indonesia continues to promote the
strengthening of cooperation between the United
Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).
Before the end of this year an ASEAN-United
Nations summit will be held in Viet Nam. Meanwhile,
the countries of ASEAN and other countries in the
larger Asia-Pacific region are building a regional
architecture that will bring about and sustain dynamic
equilibrium in the region. ASEAN will, of course, be
the driving force in the building of this architecture.
While the promotion of democracy is a global
concern, we are also vigorously promoting democratic
values in our own region, through ASEAN and beyond.
In 2008, Indonesia launched the Bali Democracy Forum,
the only intergovernmental forum on political
development in Asia. In doing so, we created an inclusive
platform for sharing experiences and best practices and
giving mutual support in the development of democracy
in the region. This December, we will hold the third Bali
Democracy Forum, this time on the theme of “Democracy
and the promotion of peace and stability”.
We in Indonesia cherish our democratic
transformation. As the world’s third largest democracy,
10-55276 12
Indonesia is proof that Islam, democracy and
modernization can go hand in hand. But democracy is
not something that can be achieved once and for all
time. It is an endless journey, an unremitting process. It
must keep evolving to remain capable of addressing
new challenges. That is why we keep fine-tuning our
political institutions, so that they become more
effective in serving the people.
The same is true of the United Nations. It needs
continuous reform, so that it serves all nations,
developed and developing; so that it will be a more
effective instrument of humankind; so that it will
deliver peace and the dividends of peace. It is now time
to make the United Nations deliver.