Lebanon

It gives me pleasure to begin by congratulating Mr. Kavan on his election as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session. I wish him every success as he embarks on this task. I would also like to thank his predecessor, Mr. Han Seung-soo, who so ably steered the work of the General Assembly at its fifty- sixth session, which was convened amidst acute and grave circumstances. I would be remiss if I failed to express my appreciation to Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his tireless work to enhance the role of our international Organization. It is also my pleasure to congratulate the Swiss Federation on its admission to membership of our international Organization. Lebanon considers the United Nations to be the main body entrusted with the realization of international peace and security and with upholding respect for the rules of international law. The United Nations is a safe haven for States, particularly small ones, which find in its Charter the reassurances they need in a turbulent world. Therefore, any departure from the Charter, circumventing, disregarding, or overstepping its authority; any selective handling of its resolutions; or any attempt to impose settlements on and solutions to conflicts and disputes outside its framework flagrantly undermines the credibility of the Organization and its organs, particularly the Security Council. Such acts are a devastating blow to the pillars of international order. Lebanon believes that there is a causal relationship between security and sustainable 27 development and calls for a renewed effort, under United Nations auspices, to eliminate poverty and disease, bridge the gap between the North and the South, and reduce social disparities. These are the scourges that are often manipulated by those who harbour ill intentions towards humanity. In this context, Lebanon welcomes the establishment of the African Union and supports the principles on which the New Partnership for Africa's Development was built. The work of this session coincides with the first anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks and the terrible tragedy that struck the United States of America. The world is still suffering from their terrible repercussions. On behalf of Lebanon, I avail myself of this opportunity to reiterate our sympathy with the bereaved families. Like us, they are heartbroken over the loss of their sons, relatives and loved ones. We also renew our commitment to cooperating with the international community to combat international terrorism in accordance with the provisions of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) of 28 September 2001 and other relevant United Nations resolutions. The events of 11 September 2001 impeded the convening of the ninth summit of the Francophonie, scheduled to be held last year under the theme of “Dialogue among civilizations”. My country is proud to be hosting the conference in mid-October. There is no doubt that the choice of theme for the conference before these dramatic events arose from the foresight of its members and participants and from their conviction of the need to interact and to engage in dialogue, far removed from the logic of confrontation and hostility. Lebanon itself was the target of terrorist acts prior to 11 September 2001 and its army stood up to the perpetrators and overcame them. Lebanon and its Arab brothers have been suffering from the State terrorism continuously practised by Israel without international deterrence since the Deir Yassin massacre and the massacres in the Qana and Jenin camps. Israel has recently begun to manipulate the tragic events of September 2001 and the international campaign to combat terrorism, using them shamelessly as a pretext for persecuting the Palestinian people and depriving them of their right to self-determination. Israel has launched a slanderous campaign of threats against Lebanon and its legitimate resistance, as well as against Syria, while the origin of the conflict in the region is the Israeli occupation of Arab territories. The reality is that Israel has continuously defied resolutions of international legitimacy. Israel has disregarded Security Council resolution 425 (1978) for more than 22 years and has refused to implement the Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a fact-finding mission to investigate the Jenin camp massacre. It has resorted to terror and violence to implement expansionist and settlement policies. It has accumulated weapons of mass destruction in an arsenal primarily stacked with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. It continues to oppose all attempts to reach a just and comprehensive peaceful solution to the Middle East issue, and remains, nonetheless, in total impunity, never held accountable or punished for its actions. That situation can only strengthen the impression among Arab Governments and peoples that there is a double standard at play in international affairs, and that, regrettably, Israel is allowed to remain outside and above the law. Shimon Peres today accused Hezbollah of terrorism because it has effectively contributed to the legitimate resistance against Israeli occupation and to forcing Israeli forces to withdraw from most occupied Lebanese territory. Hezbollah is represented in Lebanese parliament and participates in the political, economic and social life of Lebanon. Mr. Peres is in fact the last person who should have the right to talk about terrorism. He is the one responsible directly for the killing of 102 women, children and elderly at Qana when Israel bombed the UNIFIL tent where they had sought safety and shelter. Israel should be held accountable for such crimes. Israel was founded on terrorism and has used it to occupy land and establish faits accomplis. If Israel's perpetration of the massacres of Dair Yasin, Qana and Jenin is not terrorism, then what is terrorism? Is not Israel's daily breaking of the sound barrier over Lebanese cities and villages a form of terrorism and intimidation? 28 Is not Israel's kidnapping of Lebanese citizens from their homes and detaining them in Israeli prisons as hostages another form of terrorism? Is not leaving hundreds of thousands of landmines in south Lebanon to kill civilians a form of terrorism that should be strongly condemned? Is not Israel's constant threat of invading Lebanon and destroying its civil institutions, infrastructure and development projects a terrible form of terrorism, devastating to our hopes in reconstruction and rehabilitation? As if occupying Arab lands and terrorizing their civilian populations were not enough, Israeli greed prompts Israel to usurp our natural wealth and water resources, contravening international laws and instruments. The Israeli Prime Minister directly threatened to attack Lebanon, using the pretext that we are diverting the course of the Hasbani and Wazzani rivers. However, the fact is that Lebanon is trying to draw limited amounts of water for some poor southern villages that have suffered from the Israeli occupation for many years, which will lead us to pump a total of approximately 9 million cubic metres annually. By all standards, that amount is far below our legitimate rights, it represents only one tenth of our right. Lebanon again rejects those Israeli threats and draws the attention of the Assembly and the Security Council to the danger those threats represent and to their direct negative impact on international peace and security. It is difficult for any human society to strive for security in the absence of political, economic and social justice. We, therefore, believe that security approaches and partial interim solutions alone cannot possibly succeed in resolving the Middle East conflict. Therefore, we call for the adoption of an approach that takes into account the priority of the political dimension of the conflict and the need to arrive at a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict in the region in all its aspects. In that context, Arab leaders unanimously adopted an integral, indivisible peace initiative at the Arab Summit, held in Beirut on 28 and 29 March 2002, based on the following conditions. First, Israel must withdraw completely from the occupied Arab territories, including the occupied Syrian Golan, to the border of 4 June 1967, and from the territories it still occupies in southern Lebanon; secondly, it must reach a just solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees, to be agreed upon in accordance with General Assembly resolution 194 (III); thirdly, it must agree to the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State in the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Subsequently, the Arab States will consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, will enter into a peace agreement with Israel, will ensure security for all the countries of the region and will establish normal relations with Israel in the context of that just peace. A central element of the Arab peace initiative is securing an agreement not to allow any type of resettlement of Palestinian refugees that is incompatible with the particularities of the host Arab countries. It is unfortunate that Israel has responded to that initiative by increasing its aggression and reoccupying the West Bank, relentlessly targeting human lives and property in the occupied Palestinian territory. Simultaneously, others have chosen to ignore or override the initiative, despite its comprehensiveness, unanimous acceptance by Arabs and broad international support. The Beirut Summit established a special committee to implement the Arab peace initiative. Once formed, the committee requested a meeting with the Quartet to present the initiative and confirm its status as a point of reference for the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The initiative contains all previous references dating back to the Madrid Peace Conference, held in 1991, and is based on resolutions of international legitimacy. We seek to submit it to the Security Council for adoption and for the subsequent establishment of an international mechanism to implement it. A meeting was held yesterday between the Quartet and a delegation of the committee at United Nations Headquarters. We hope that this will pave the way for a mechanism of prior consultations and joint effort based on resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab peace initiative. The Arab peace initiative, which we uphold and which was adopted unanimously by the Arab countries, represents a historic opportunity that may not present itself again. It cannot be replaced by partial or interim approaches, the futility of which has been proven 29 throughout decades. Instead of leading to the long- awaited peace, they have led to renewed violence. We, therefore, call upon the international community to adopt this initiative and to support it, as it represents an opportunity for achieving our aspirations — a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Submitting disputes before the United Nations and implementing United Nations resolutions, particularly those of the Security Council, can guarantee the peaceful settlement of any given conflict. By following that course, the parties could be spared the need to settle their dispute by military means. It may not be easy to contain the tragic ramifications of military action in a given region. That is particularly true of Iraq, which also was the subject of deliberations at the Beirut Arab Summit. It was also decided there that the solution to the Iraqi problem must be achieved through dialogue between Iraq and the United Nations. Iraq should not once again be a theatre of war, which would increase the suffering of its people. The Arab leaders consider an attack against any Arab State a threat to the national security of all Arab countries. As president of the Arab Summit, Lebanon hopes that Iraq's compliance with the will of the international community and allowing the return of the international weapons inspectors will lead to the end of the suffering of its people and to a comprehensive solution that will lead to the implementation of Security Council resolutions and to the lifting of sanctions. We also hope that that will enable the Middle East to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and will avert the threat or use of force against Iraq, thus preserving and respecting its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. Lebanon takes pride in its strong and positive relationship with the United Nations, being one of its co-founders and having contributed to the drafting of its Charter as well as to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As members may be aware, since 1978, the Organization has deployed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the aftermath of the Israeli occupation. In May 2000, UNIFIL had the opportunity to begin fulfilling its mandate after Israel had been forced to withdraw from most of the territories in the south. That withdrawal was possible thanks to our people's solidarity, their legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation and the fact that our Government embraced their heroic efforts for liberation, and the international support for their just cause. The Lebanese Shebaa Farms, at the foot of Mount Hermon, and other points along the withdrawal line remained under occupation. Another important aspect of UNIFIL's mandate that has yet to be fulfilled is the restoration of international peace and security. That task remains hampered by Israel's continued occupation, threats against Lebanon and provocations, as seen daily in the repeated violation of Lebanon's sovereignty over its land, airspace and territorial waters. Israel continues to occupy the Syrian Golan and to ignore the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. It has rejected every initiative to find a just and comprehensive solution to the Middle East problem. I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to commend the efforts of the United Nations and UNIFIL's important role as it fulfils its mandate. The liberation of Lebanese territories from Israeli occupation will remain incomplete unless we address the heinous legacy of occupation and succeed in finding a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees, in particular those who live in Lebanon. Such a solution should be based on their right to return and on a rejection of their settlement in Lebanon. Failure to factor the refugees into the equation of a solution based on the right to return and on the rejection of resettlement in host countries would create a time bomb. It would undermine the security that we are all striving to attain in the Middle East on the basis of a peaceful, comprehensive and just settlement of the conflict. We should like to stress here that a solution to the question of Palestinian refugees cannot be found through exclusive bilateral Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Guaranteed respect for the rules of international law and the permanence of any solution require that host and other concerned countries, including Lebanon, be involved in the negotiating process. With regard to mine clearance, Lebanon is stepping up its cooperation with the United Nations to assist in clearing the mines that the Israeli occupying forces are responsible for laying in our territories. I will note that Israel failed to hand over complete maps and records indicating the specific locations of those mines. We in Lebanon attach the highest importance to the release of Lebanese citizens who are unduly 30 detained in Israeli prisons. They were kidnapped by Israel and incarcerated as hostages, in flagrant defiance of the rules and instruments of international law. It is no secret that the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon has taxed our endurance. Our citizens' lives have been tragically shattered, their properties have been destroyed, their infrastructures have been decimated and our development has been hampered. Increased international assistance is required to revitalize our economy and to increase our opportunities for growth. Lebanon reserves the right to demand compensation for the damage caused by Israeli occupation and acts of aggression, in accordance with established procedures in international political and judicial forums. The reconstruction and rehabilitation of the liberated Lebanese territories and the revitalization of Lebanon's economy are among our Government's highest priorities. Lebanon continues to work for the recovery of its economy and for the reform of its taxation system through the adoption of carefully developed measures and legislation, including the value-added tax on goods and services and the gradual reduction of tariffs, in addition to the direct tax levy and the rationalization of spending. Lebanon's parliament recently adopted the Privatization Act, which regulates that aspect of economic activity and defines its conditions and field of application. Such legislation, including the two recently adopted acts, joins a series of laws developed to enhance investors' confidence in the free-market system, which we are keen to preserve. Along the same lines, those in positions of responsibility in the Lebanese Administration are subject to strict accountability and liability rules, including money-laundering and the prohibition of illegitimate gain. It is worth mentioning here that, over the years, the Lebanese internal security forces have destroyed all illegitimate crops, including hashish. But Lebanon did not receive the assistance, provided to others, that would have enabled our farmers to live in dignity. Lebanon signed a partnership agreement with the European Union last June after acceding to the Greater Arab Free Trade Zone, to which most Arab States currently belong. Preparations are under way for us to join the World Trade Organization, in which we currently enjoy observer status. We gather here under the roof of the United Nations, our common home, to engage in dialogue on the best ways to translate into reality the great values of the Charter. Lebanon takes pride in its firm belief in those values and in the fact that, in its national unity, it embodies the plurality of its society. It stands for a rich human experience, both civilized and pioneering, of which we are proud and which the international community is surely keen to preserve. Lebanon looks forward to cooperating with other Members to contribute to this session's success and to finding constructive solutions to the problems and challenges that we face, while upholding the principles of liberty, justice and peace around the world, particularly in the Middle East region. Finding a just and comprehensive solution to the Middle East conflict in all its aspects will surely liberate our States and peoples from the grip of a protracted problem that has depleted their resources and hampered their development.