Rwanda

Allow me at the outset, on behalf of my delegation and on my own behalf to congratulate you wholeheartedly on your election as President of this session of the General Assembly. As testimony to the esteem enjoyed by you and your country, Sir, you may rest assured of the support of the Rwanda delegation in carrying out your tasks. I should like to take this opportunity to pay a well-deserved tribute to your predecessor for the effective way in which he guided our work during the fifty-sixth session. I should also like, on behalf of my Government, to express my gratitude and appreciation to the Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, for his tireless efforts to ensure the effective and transparent functioning of the United Nations and to promote world peace. The Government of Rwanda warmly welcomes the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste and the Swiss Confederation to the United Nations. We are already familiar with their contribution to the enhancement of the role of our great United Nations family, especially their respect for the principles of equal rights and the right of peoples to self-determination. In this connection, the Government of Rwanda appeals for appropriate measures to be taken to ensure a fair and lasting settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara, in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Organization. Furthermore, the Government of Rwanda reiterates its hope that peace will be achieved in the Middle East — a peace that guarantees the creation of a secure Palestinian State with recognized boundaries, coexisting peacefully with the State of Israel, whose security should also be guaranteed. I should like to recall that, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the ideological war often referred to as the cold war, the world entered a new era, with a new economic order. Despite the existence of hotbeds of violence in a number of areas on all continents, we welcome and encourage initiatives designed to resolve the tensions created during the cold war. In that connection, the Rwandan Government encourages talks between North and South Korea. We hope that the two parties will move forward towards the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula. The Rwandan Government also supports the principle of one China. The question of Taiwan is an internal matter for China and can be effectively resolved out of the context of the ideological war that gave rise to it, in accordance with the principle, already accepted by the Chinese themselves, of one country and two systems. 19 This session of the General Assembly is being held one year after the terrible events of 11 September 2001. The terrorist attack perpetrated against the United States remains deeply etched in the memory of the people of Rwanda, and I would like to reiterate our solidarity with the American people. I do so with good reason: perhaps I should recall that, since 1994, Rwanda has been living under the perpetual threat of terrorist groups based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most active of which is known as the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR), an organization made up of elements of the former Rwandan Army (ex-FAR) forces and Interahamwe militias that were responsible for the 1994 genocide. The leaders of ALIR were among those who planned and carried out the genocide in Rwanda. Since 1994 such elements have attacked Rwanda on many occasions, carrying out the targeted killing of innocent people and destroying social and economic infrastructure of national and international significance. It was such elements that savagely massacred American, British and New Zealand tourists in the Bwindi park in March 1999. Now, in an attempt to mislead international public opinion and escape justice, the members of this terrorist group are endeavouring to organize themselves into political groups using a number of different labels. The Government of Rwanda therefore appeals to the United Nations and its Member States to take the necessary measures to track down and arrest all those responsible for the Rwanda genocide who are now members of ALIR and to bring them to international justice. We also appeal to the United Nations and its Member States to formally condemn those countries that finance, harbour or lend moral, material or logistical support to the ALIR terrorist organization. With regard to the prosecution of those accused of the Rwandan genocide, I reiterate the appeal of the Rwandan Government to the international community to ensure the effectiveness and credibility of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda so that it can truly fulfil the expectations of the people of Rwanda and all justice-loving people. In this connection, special attention should be paid to the recommendations on this subject submitted by my Government to the Security Council. Furthermore, the time has come for the international community to ensure the implementation of the relevant recommendations of the report on the Rwanda genocide that was drafted under United Nations auspices, known as the Carlsson report. With regard to the destabilizing effects of the terrorist activities of ALIR, I should like to advocate as a remedy that support be given to the Lusaka and Pretoria Agreements, which are designed to restore peace in the Great Lakes region. Those two Agreements provide for the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration and repatriation of what are known as the negative forces that are operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which include ex-FAR forces and Interahamwe. The Rwandan Government appeals as a matter of urgency to the United Nations and its Member States to spare no effort in strongly supporting the implementation of those Agreements. As for Rwanda, it has done its utmost to implement those Agreements and to work to re-establish a genuine and lasting peace in the Great Lakes region. In accordance with the statement made by Paul Kagame, President of the Rwandese Republic, on 13 September during a meeting of the Security Council on the question of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I would like to take this opportunity to announce that, on 17 September, my Government began to withdraw its troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in conformity with the provisions of the Pretoria Accord. My Government is convinced that the implementation of those Agreements will lead us not only to the restoration of security and stability in our subregion, but also to the establishment of a climate of confidence and good cooperative relations that will facilitate common actions in our struggle against the terrorist activities orchestrated by ALIR or by any other terrorist organization. In this connection, I would like reaffirm the commitment of the Government of Rwanda to cooperate fully to achieve the success of any initiative designed to prevent and repress terrorism in all its forms. In this connection, and in implementation of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), our Government has now ratified all the various international instruments to combat terrorism that we had not signed or ratified previously, in addition to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention on 20 the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism, which we had already ratified. Rwanda has just submitted its first report to the Security Council Committee established to follow up the implementation of that resolution. Rwanda is resolutely determined to combat terrorism, source of desolation and instability for the international community. We believe that the international community should mobilize all of its means to fight and to put an end to poverty, which affects so much of our population. It should do more for the eradication of injustice and inequality in order to ensure a better world for future generations. Thus, we call for the strengthening of the United Nations and the entire United Nations system to ensure the implementation of all of the international commitments to help poor countries. Commitments, such as those expressed in the Millennium Declaration, in the Monterrey Consensus and at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development, should be reflected in concrete actions without delay. Third-world countries, especially countries of Africa, set great store by this. In Africa, we would like to root out the causes of poverty. We have already grasped the different aspects of the situation and decided upon a framework to guide us in this long struggle against poverty, namely the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Within NEPAD, we have pledged to put an end to fratricidal wars that devastate our already moribund economies. We have pledged also to work towards democracy, good governance, and for letting the rule of law prevail. The international community is hereby called upon to assist us in this process. We ask each of the rich countries to reexamine its positions regarding the terms that are often linked to various interventions aimed at helping poor countries, particularly as regards the debt and official development assistance (ODA). This needs to be done in order to enable these countries to confront effectively the various scourges that threaten them, including famine, pandemic diseases, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and so forth, so that they can eventually catch up with the rich countries. Hence, globalization will become profitable for the whole of mankind.