I warmly
congratulate Mr. Al-Nasser on his well-deserved
election as President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-sixth session. I am confident that under his able
and dynamic stewardship, we will achieve our goals. I
thank former President Joseph Deiss for the success of
the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly. I also
thank Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the wise
selection of the theme “The role of mediation in the
settlement of disputes by peaceful means” for this
year’s general debate.
I take this opportunity to welcome South Sudan
as the 193rd Member of the United Nations and
warmly congratulate the people of the newest State on
attaining their freedom and independence.
I believe that peace is the basis for development.
I also believe that peace prevails when justice prevails.
Therefore, justice at home and abroad is important for
ensuring the peaceful mediation and settlement of
disputes. My father and the father of my nation,
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who espoused
the principles of “friendship towards all, malice
towards none” and “peaceful settlement of disputes”,
also believed in this, and declared it from this rostrum
37 years ago.
Thus, justice for peace found its place in my
Government’s domestic and foreign policy and has
contributed to strengthening Bangladesh’s secular,
democratic and progressive ideals. A strong foundation
in the rule of law has also helped in the peaceful
settlement of disputes with our neighbours and formed
the basis of our participation in United Nations
peacekeeping operations. Emphasis on peaceful
negotiations has also enabled Bangladesh to maintain
an annual gross domestic product growth rate of 6 per
cent, create thousands of jobs, reduce poverty and
expand social safety net schemes to the poor,
disadvantaged, elderly and deprived women.
41 11-51360
The role of the United Nations has changed since
its establishment. The maintenance of international
peace and security now includes the new challenges of
intra-State ethnic strife, terrorism, transnational crimes,
climate change, poverty, energy and water security, as
well as the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
However, the successes of the United Nations have
reinforced the belief that, in the twenty-first century, it
remains the most legitimate and universally accepted
international body with the ability to harness the global
collective will necessary for the peaceful settlement of
disputes through mediation.
Bangladesh therefore commends the Secretary-
General’s report on enhancing mediation and its
support activities (S/2009/189) for promoting the better
use of the United Nations mediation mandate, and
co-sponsored resolution 65/283 on strengthening the
role of mediation in the peaceful settlement of
disputes, conflict prevention and resolution.
To demonstrate its strong commitment to conflict
resolution, Bangladesh has partnered in many United
Nations endeavours for peace, democracy and
development. Our contribution to United Nations
peacekeeping of 102,294 peacekeepers in 52 missions
and 36 countries has sadly led to the loss of the lives of
103 brave Bangladeshis. Our involvement also includes
the first all-women United Nations police unit in Haiti.
As Non-Aligned Movement Coordinator in the
Peacebuilding Commission, Bangladesh is always
advocating in favour of peacebuilding, development
and preventive diplomacy in post-conflict societies.
Unfortunately, we remain woefully underrepresented at
the planning and strategy-making levels of the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which should
be promptly redressed. As a member of the Human
Rights Council and the Economic and Social Council,
we conscientiously promote democracy, secularism,
justice and the rule of law, and equal rights for women,
children, minorities and other vulnerable groups. As a
member of the executive bodies of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations
Population Fund, UNICEF, UNESCO and the Food and
Agriculture Organization, we are committed to setting
global norms and standards in development practices.
Since I believe that justice brings peace, in 1997,
during my previous term as Prime Minister, I mediated
the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord for the
marginalized communities of the Hill Tracts region.
The Accord, which was signed after intense
discussions, ended a 20-year conflict that cost over
20,000 lives. During the same term, I mediated the
signing of the 30-year Ganges Water Sharing Treaty
with neighbouring India. During my current term, this
month we mediated and signed memoranda of
understanding with India on our border demarcation,
an issue that had been pending for the past 64 years,
causing obstructions in the everyday life of my people.
I am committed to settling all our problems with
neighbouring India through discussion.
During my current term and soon after forming
the Government, one of the most dangerous challenges
that I have faced was the mutiny of our border forces,
which took 72 lives. Yet, that time, too, I chose a
mediated settlement, thereby avoiding possible further
loss of life. As a result, I came to believe that there can
be no peace without justice. We have established an
independent International Crimes Tribunal to try those
responsible for war crimes committed during our
liberation war in 1971. Their eventual punishment will
strengthen our democracy and show that the State is
capable of just retribution.
As a State party to the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court, we believe in the
Statute’s mandate of bringing perpetrators to justice. I
am fully committed to battling terrorism in all its
forms, having personally suffered from acts of terror.
Here, I recall with profound sadness the brutal
assassination of my father, the first President of
Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
and 18 of my immediate family members, including
my mother and three brothers, on 15 August 1975. I
also recall the grenade attack on me and my followers
at a peace rally on 21 August 2004, which left 24 dead
and nearly 500 injured. I miraculously escaped but
with permanent loss of hearing.
I often think of all the victims of terrorism,
especially those of the 11 September 2001 attacks in
New York, as well as attacks that have taken place
elsewhere in the world. Indeed, if peace is to prevail,
these terrorists must be brought to justice.
Our Government has a zero-tolerance policy
towards terrorism. Our aim is to break the nexus
between terrorism, extremism and radicalization and
eliminate all of them from Bangladesh, a State party to
all United Nations counter-terrorism conventions. At
the same time, we are strengthening our democratic
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institutions, such as the commissions on elections,
anti-corruption, human rights, information, as well as
our judiciary, legislature and law enforcement
agencies, which are tools for eliminating terrorism and
extremism.
Since justice begets peace and peace is vital for
development, our policies are attuned to ensuring
peoples’ rights. In pursuing the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), we are also fulfilling our
people’s aspirations. The United Nations Award for
MDG 4 on reducing child mortality, which I received
last year, is a case in point. We are also on track to
achieve MDG 1 on poverty alleviation, MDG 2 on
universal primary education, MDG 3 on gender
equality and MDG 5 on reducing maternal mortality.
Our poverty reduction strategy is in tandem with the
Millennium Development Goals and intends to raise
12 million people out of poverty by 2015.
For development, we have integrated women’s
education into our State policy. There is a saying that
goes, “If you educate a boy, you educate a person; if
you educate a girl, you educate a family and a whole
nation”. Therefore, during our first term from 1996 to
2001, we adopted a national women’s development
policy that has been revised during our current term to
make it more relevant. The policy provides for the
empowerment of women, their participation in
decision-making, their protection, and gender equality.
Education for girls is free up to the twelfth grade, and
steps are on their way to ensure their free tuition until
graduation.
Following the 2008 general elections, women’s
participation in politics increased with their election to
12,828 reserved seats in local Government bodies and
64 members in the national Parliament. We also have
five women Cabinet ministers in charge of agriculture,
home, foreign affairs, women’s and children’s affairs,
and labour. The Opposition Leader, the Deputy Leader,
a Whip and, of course, the Prime Minister are all
women. For the first time in our history, two women
Members of Parliament have been made Chairs of
Parliamentary Standing Committees. Women now
occupy high positions in the Supreme Court, in civil,
police and armed services, and in United Nations
peacekeeping missions. Female business ventures also
receive support from the Small and Medium Enterprise
Foundation.
To achieve our election pledge of a digital
Bangladesh and to make Bangladesh a middle-income
country by 2021, the golden jubilee year of our
independence, we are expanding the reach of
information and communications technology
throughout the country. UNDP Administrator Helen
Clark was with us this year to witness the launching of
e-connectivity through our 4,500 information and
service centres, which provide Internet access to
millions of rural people. We have also set up an
e-centre for rural communities, which connects 8,500
post offices, a high-tech park, e-governance
capabilities and an e-infrastructure-building process.
I believe in that health for all is an essential
precondition for development. Primary health-care
services are delivered through 11,000 community
health centres in rural areas, with each providing
services to 6,000 people. My Government has also
recently started raising awareness about autism and
developmental disorders in children. Last July, we
launched the Global Autism Public Health Initiative in
Dhaka to help those disadvantaged with such disorders.
However, to pursue those efforts and to develop
socio-economic security, least developed countries
(LDCs), such as Bangladesh, need international
support. The support must come from granting us
market access, removing trade barriers, the fulfilment
of overseas development aid and combating climate
change. The commitments made in Istanbul this May
on agriculture, energy, infrastructure, water and
migration would also strengthen the economic stability
of LDCs. It is now time for development partners to
implement the commitments made in Monterrey, Paris
and Brussels before the conclusion of the Doha
Development Round. Support must continue to enable
LDCs to fulfil their Millennium Development Goals.
Such support is especially important for
Bangladesh under the extra tension of climate change.
A metre rise in the sea level due to global warming
would inundate a fifth of our landmass, displacing over
30 million people. That would be the largest
humanitarian crisis in history. In order not to lose time,
we have prepared a 134-point adaptation and
mitigation plan that includes river dredging,
afforestation of 20 per cent of the land, increasing food
production with crop varieties adapted to climate
change, et cetera. We also established the Climate
Change Trust Fund with $300 million from our own
43 11-51360
funds and the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience
Fund with $110 million from donors.
Bangla is spoken by over 300 million people
worldwide. I earnestly appeal to Member States to back
my proposal to declare Bangla one of the official
languages of the United Nations. I also seek their
support for Bangladesh’s annual flagship resolution on
a culture of peace, which I launched in 2000, when I
was Prime Minister for the first time.
Throughout my half-century in politics, I have
always been a crusader of peace. I believe that peace is
achievable by eliminating injustices, which includes
Repression, the absence of the rule of law, inequality,
economic disparity, deprivation, poverty, the
suppression of self-determination, the denial of
secularism and multi-ethnicity, the negligence of equal
rights for women and the marginalized, and the lack of
transparency and accountability of Governments.
Those types of injustices, according to the Uppsala
Conflict Data Programme, led to the loss of more than
5 million lives from 1964 to 2011. I believe that such
deaths could have been avoided by strengthening the
mediation instruments of the United Nations and by
placing people at the centre of peace and development.
In fact, my life experiences have inspired me to
come up with a new peace model, based on the
empowerment of people. It is a multidimensional plan
that champions democracy and places people’s
empowerment at the centre, with six mutually
reinforcing peace multipliers. They are: first, the
eradication of poverty and hunger; secondly, the
reduction of inequality; thirdly, the mitigation of
deprivation; fourthly, the inclusion of excluded
persons; fifthly, the acceleration of human
development; and sixthly, the elimination of terrorism.
I call it the people’s empowerment model. It
reaffirms that all people should be treated equally, and
emphasizes the empowerment of people and the
enhancement of human capabilities for the realization
of peace.
Prosperity is achievable with the removal of
injustice and disempowerment in an environment of
peace. That is possible by individual nations through
sincere implementation of what is right, sometimes
under the guidance of the United Nations. Let us all try
to test that model of people’s empowerment, which I
believe has the potential to transform our world of
7 billion people into one where our future generations
may prosper and live in happiness.
May Bangladesh live forever. Long live the
United Nations.