It is a great honour for me to avail myself of this opportunity to
address the Assembly in the name of the people of the Republic of
Equatorial Guinea and their President, Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo,
whom I represent here, and to express to the vast family of the
international community the brotherly greetings and solidarity of my
country.
4. I am particularly pleased to pause here to express, on my own
behalf and on that of the delegation over which I have the honour of
presiding, our most sincere congratulations to you, Mr. President on
your well-deserved election as President of the Assembly to direct
and preside efficiently over the debates that will be held throughout
these days during which we shall be trying to find viable solutions
to the innumerable problems which affect our world of today and
constantly threaten peace and the civic and harmonious coexistence of
peoples. It is our profound hope that your presidency will be carried
out with the equanimity, foresight, wisdom and high diplomatic skills
which have always characterized you and won for you the respect and
esteem of us all. I should also like to transmit to your illustrious
predecessor, Mr. Kittani, our appreciation for the effective manner
in which he discharged his functions during the last session. We
particularly wish to congratulate Mr. Javier Perez de Cuellar, the
Secretary-General, on his election to the lofty responsibility of
ensuring the administrative and political functioning of the Head
quarters of our great community. We are certain that his stature as
an accredited diplomat and his vast knowledge of the machinery of the
United Nations system will ensure that the difficult tasks entrusted
to him will be carried out with guarantees of certainty and
effectiveness.
3. On my delegation's behalf, it is my pleasant duty to express our
sincere gratitude to the Government of the United States of America,
and in particular to the authorities of the State of New York, for
the hospitality that has always been lavished upon us and for making
available to us the material and spiritual conditions necessary for
the success of sessions of the General Assembly.
6. Three years ago a representative of the people of Equatorial
Guinea came before the Assembly at this podium to announce to the
international community the action taken by the Equatorial Armed
Forces which, on the dawn of 3 August 1979, decided to do away with
the blood-stained regime of the wretched tyrant Macias Nguema.
7. Three years ago, in the same statement, the Government of the
Supreme Military Council, established by that liberating action of
the people of Equatorial Guinea undertook freely and resolutely,
before the world and history, the sacred obligation of making every
necessary effort to remove my people from the abandonment and
destruction in which it had been plunged by the former regime.
8. Of course, the Government of the Supreme Military Council had
no idea of the enormous difficulties that would later arise in the
country's reconstruction. Indeed, the difficulties were and are
enormous and multiple, since our task consists in eliminating the
trauma from the minds of the citizens of Equatorial Guinea and
building a new and different society. To this end, we have the urgent
need to give priority to rehabilitating those fields of activity most
important to the normalization of life in Equatorial Guinea, namely,
health, education, agriculture and, above all, the economy-the
decisive factor in the entire process of our reconstruction and
development.
9. Today we can be proud of having worked honestly and
resolutely, facing every difficulty and overcoming all kinds of
obstacles to achieve some positive goals along the Ions and difficult
road of reconstruction. Our achievements can be seen by all in
Equatorial Guinea, and it would be too much for me to try to list
them here, achievements which, I must add, would not have been
possible without the decisive support of the international community.
10. When, in order to bring about the economic relaunching of
Equatorial Guinea and in response to the pathetic appeal made by my
country, the United Nations approved the holding of an international
pledging conference at Geneva, we could not have guessed the
significance it would have for our country. That Conference, held at
Geneva in the month of April last-and attended personally by Colonel
Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the Republic-represented for my
country a propitious opportunity for us to present in a clear,
concise and detailed manner to the international community an
inventory of our most urgent needs and the projects we have for
solving them gradually, and at the same time to request assistance
from international financial circles in obtaining contributions for
the financing of those projects.
11. Through not only the assistance but also the interest and
understanding of the international community, we were able to revise
our forecasts, which were a source of great satisfaction to us, and
we are very grateful to the countries which attended the Pledging
Conference and showed interest in several of the projects we
submitted there. We are also grateful to the governmental and
non-governmental organizations which also showed an interest in our
projects and to the United Nations system which, with special zeal
and sincerity, worked ceaselessly to ensure the smooth running and
success of the Conference, whose results are already being made
visible in Equatorial Guinea through the large number of
representatives of countries and international organizations who have
come to maintain the first contacts and evaluate on the spot the
possibilities of carrying out the proposed projects within the
context of that Conference.
12. I have been specially asked by the President of the Republic
to avail myself of this opportunity to express, on behalf of the
Government and people of Equatorial Guinea, our sincere gratitude to
all those who participated in or contributed in any way to that
Conference, and our thanks for the fruitful results it achieved. It
is an obvious proof of solidarity which the people of Equatorial
Guinea will never forget, and we are confident that the spirit of
that Conference will be kept alive and fervent, and that there will
be increasing interest in assisting our country both on the part of
the countries which attended the Conference, and on the part of those
which, while not having been able to attend, feel a sense of
solidarity with the cause of my country's reconstruction.
13. One of the most serious injuries suffered by the people of
Equatorial Guinea during the dictatorship was the undisguised and
unprecedented suppression of our fundamental rights, leaving the
citizen of Equatorial Guinea deprived of his minimum rights. There
are numerous examples that bear eloquent testimony to the acts of the
past regime which with impunity cruelly jeopardized those rights.
Therefore, one of the main goals of the Supreme Military Council,
when it took power on 3 August 1979, was to restore those fundamental
rights to the people of Equatorial Guinea; and from that very year a
gradual but firm process of democratization of the country was
initiated and measures adopted for the scrupulous and strict respect
of the human person. On past occasions we listed in various
statements the measures we have taken, from the liberation of all
political prisoners to the drafting and presentation to the people of
a Constitution, which our Government has been implementing
faithfully, to comply with the promise and commitment entered into
before our people and history.
14. Indeed, the Government of the Supreme Military Council,
faithfully following the line of conduct it established when it first
came to power, and in compliance with General Assembly resolution
34/123 which established the programme for the gradual
democratization of our country, has lived up to its promise made to
the people on the occasion of the second anniversary of the freedom
cooup , and has drafted the text of a constitution which, in order to
comply with the requirements of our time regarding guarantees of
human freedoms and the principles of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, it submitted for revision to United Nations experts
appointed for that purpose by the Division on Human Rights.
15. On 2 August 1982 that Constitution was officially and
solemnly presented by Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of the
Republic, to the people of Equatorial Guinea. On 15 August the people
was consulted in a popular referendum about whether or not it
accepted the text of the Constitution. On 21 August, the National
Referendum Committee announced the official results of that
referendum.
16. It is my pleasure here to announce with pride to the
international community that the people of the Republic of Equatorial
Guinea, in a referendum conducted through a direct, free and secret
ballot, has provided itself with a new democratic constitution,
supported by an overwhelming majority of 95 per cent of the votes
cast, or the basis of a 96 per cent voter turnout.
17. On the same occasion, and in accordance with another
provision of the Constitution, Colonel Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, by the
acclamation of the people and in expression of its free will, was
charged with guiding the sacred destiny of Equatorial Guinea for the
seven years following the adoption of the Constitution.
18. That massive, unanimous election of Colonel Obiang Nguema
Mbasogo to the nation's highest office was free from any trickery and
resulted from the desire of the people of Equatorial Guinea to
maintain continuity in the process of democratization it has
undertaken, and that the same guiding hand should complete it, before
proceeding to the general elections to take place at the end of the
seven-year term of the presidential mandate.
19. Our Constitution, the basic code which now rules and guides
the sacred destiny of my people, provides for a Council of State, a
People's House of Representatives, a Court of Justice, a National
Council for Economic development and Community Councils. The latter
are adapted to our national situation for democratization by giving
the power structure its roots in the communities, in the countryside.
20. We think we have kept our word to the international
community, given in the Assembly, and are pleased to have done so
before the time set in a programme drawn up in collaboration with the
United Nations. Our devotion to the people, and our historic
commitment to it, have enabled us to provide that people, only three
years after taking power, with a democratic constitution, with all
the organs and conditions required to ensure scrupulous respect of
its basic rights and the enjoyment of a state of law, in keeping with
the standards of the second half of the twentieth century.
21. We are fully convinced that, just as it responded massively
and affirmatively in favour of the Constitution, our people will also
be able to live up to it by safeguarding and respecting it, so that,
with the Constitution as our cornerstone and beacon, we shall go
forward together in peace and national harmony to accomplish the very
difficult task of reconstructing the country.
22. Basic difficulties-such as those we face in the area of food
and, above all, in restoring the country to economic health-have
shown us that our strength is limited, although our efforts are
enormous. We are therefore certain that we cannot travel this hard
road on our own, without the steadfast assistance of the
international community, whether bilateral or multilateral.
23. Regarding bilateral relations, we have sought to break with
the isolation which the past regime imposed on our people for more
than a decade, and we have not only succeeded in re-establishing
international credibility and trust, but have greatly strengthened
the links that unite us with neighbouring countries, with the African
continent, and the world in general, without ideological or bloc
discrimination.
24. in this connection it is my honour to mention the excellent
relations of co-operation between the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
with Spain, whose assistance has always been decisive for our
country, as well as the relations we maintain with France, the United
States of America, the People's Republic of China, Morocco, the
Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland and Egypt, to name but a
few. These are countries whose co-operation has already taken
positive form in Equatorial Guinea.
25. Our relations of co-operation with the neighbouring brother
countries of the United Republic of Cameroon, the Republic of Gabon
and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are excellent, for those
countries have spared neither effort nor moral and material means to
encourage us and spur us on to continue resolutely the great task of
reconstruction express, before the Assembly, our deepest gratitude to
them. We have signed agreements on bilateral co-operation with Sao
Tome and Principe.
26. As to the community of Hispanic nations, we are aware of the
affinities and identity which unite us to it, and we are making every
effort to achieve greater integration and to establish solid links
with our brothers in Latin America and the Caribbean region. There
are already joint projects with the Argentine Republic, and our ties
with other countries such as Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico, are
strengthening and are becoming increasingly positive.
27. In a world like ours in the second half of the twentieth
century, our concerns can only grow. We believe that this rostrum-the
Assembly-is the most appropriate place to denounce the alarming and
growing abandonment by nations of the principle of dialogue in favour
of the spirit of war and confrontation. The cold war, which, during
the post-war years, had itself been a threat hovering over the
peoples, has dangerously given way to the proliferation of armed
confrontations.
28. National leaders are growing more intransigent, and the
results of this are there to be seen: self-destruction and the tens
of thousands of human beings who are paying with their lives for wars
waged for sterile claims. Such problems are of profound concern to my
Government; they are to be seen far beyond the walls of this Hall,
and it is imperative that practical solutions be found. I refer
especially-but only by way of example-to the conflict between Iraq
and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the question of the Malvinas, the
occupation of Cyprus, the situation on the Korean peninsula, a
practical satisfactory solution for which has been sought since 1966
without success, the untenable status of Namibia.
29.All these problems have a significant effect on the noble
principles of the self-determination of peoples, respect for human
rights and non-interference in the internal affairs of States,
principles to which my Government adheres and abides by. Along with
this, there is the constant tension in the Middle East, which has
become more acute with the invasion of Lebanon and the killing of
Palestinians by Israel forces, which constitute flagrant flouting of
the inalienable rights of an entire people. Further, terrorism runs
rampant in Europe.
30. The African continent continues to be the theatre for
military operations and adventures by non-African Powers. Those
Powers are fomenting discord and confrontation among our States, in
order to weaken us and freely to exploit our resources, imposing on
us truly humiliating trading conditions.
31. The tensions which exist are well known and do not need a
special review at this time, for they are always a part of the daily
life of our continent and pose a grave threat to the Organization of
African Unity [OAU]- This is not the time for a detailed analysis of
this tragic problem, for we believe that that analysis and a solution
to the problem are an inter-African responsibility.
32. Nevertheless we appeal to African States to show maturity and
find a single firm and decisive solution to the crisis, one
respecting the integrity and inviolability of the fundamental
principles of the charter of the OAU. We cannot permit the
disintegration of the OAU because our solidarity would thereby be
profoundly affected, as it is our best weapon in our struggle against
the political, economic and social injustices from which the African
continent suffers.
33. We are pleased at the return to order in Chad and we wish
that brother people peace and prosperity.
34. In accordance with this line of thinking, the people of
Equatorial Guinea, in the person of its President, Colonel Obiang
Nguema Mbasogo, whom I have the honour to represent in the Assembly,
is in favour of finding immediate and positive solutions to these
disputes by way of dialogue and mutual understanding, involving the
consistent, clear, and literal implementation of the relevant
resolutions on these disputes adopted by this great Organization.
35. As Vice-President of the Supreme Military Council, and having
the honour of representing the President of the Republic, it remains
only for me to reiterate to the Assembly that my Government is
resolutely determined to promote the social and economic development
of our country, strictly and faithfully to comply with the process of
democratization which we have started, to respect the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and to make every effort to help
establish solid foundations for peace in the world.