Solomon Islands,
with much pride, wishes to thank our Secretary-
General, His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for
honouring my country with a historic visit earlier this
month. He is the first Secretary-General to have set
foot on a Pacific small island developing State with
least developed country (LDC) status. His re-election
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to a second five-year term speaks to his strong
conviction in advancing multilateralism and his
attentiveness to the challenges facing all members,
including the vulnerable countries. We once again
pledge our support to the Secretary-General during his
second term in office.
Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the
leadership and tireless work of Mr. Joseph Deiss as
President of the General Assembly during the past
session, and to congratulate the President of the current
session on his election. I am confident that, under his
leadership, the responsibilities of the United Nations
will be strengthened, especially at a time when there is
nervousness in world markets, with the threat of a
possible double-dip recession becoming more real
every day; a time when the world is witnessing unrest
in Asia, riots in Europe and famine in the Horn of
Africa; a time when the narrow interests and ambitions
of some are being cycled through the United Nations
system, thereby harming the principles for which this
Organization stands.
In this respect, the theme for the sixty-sixth
session, “The role of mediation in the settlement of
disputes by peaceful means”, is fitting and timely. The
Organization was set up to preserve peace for all, not
conditional peace for some. It is about honest
international cooperation built on a spirit of optimism
and positivism. It is about interaction between States
with a sense of duty and an awakened conscience to
effect change. Multilateral diplomatic and political
initiatives need to take centre stage instead of military
solutions, which may lead to lengthy and protracted
conflicts.
The role of mediation in Solomon Islands is about
creating a common voice among the 87 different
languages spoken in the country. The Government
remains committed to building a cohesive multicultural
society with equal opportunities for all. The Solomon
Islands Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation and
Peace, along with the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, is in its third year of continuing to build
bridges between formerly conflicting parties by
conveying a message of tolerance, respect, dialogue
and understanding among Solomon Islanders.
I am pleased to say that my Government is
reforming and improving our democratic system by
setting the goal of continuing national consultations on
the Political Parties’ Integrity Bill, introduced in 2009
by the previous Government. We are developing a
comprehensive policy to identify legislation that needs
to be reviewed or enacted.
Solomon Islands has set itself progressively
ambitious goals within the various international
frameworks. We can achieve all of those goals only by
having focused a relationship with the United Nations.
We feel that the United Nations needs to engage in
special outreach to countries with special needs,
especially those lagging furthest behind, so as to assist
them in implementing the outcomes of global
agreements. To make a difference, the international
community must honour its commitments, and do so by
giving sufficiently to ensure that the required economic
transformation occurs in LDCs and small island
developing States (SIDS).
Multilateralism has provided the basis for our
foreign policy. We opened a second Permanent Mission
to the United Nations, in Geneva, in June this year, and
would like to see our action reciprocated with an
enhanced United Nations country presence in Solomon
Islands. We have an over-regionalized United Nations
system that has seen problems grow in the Pacific.
Small as we are, three of our Pacific countries have
experienced conflict over the past two decades, and
five of the 12 are listed as least developed countries.
Today, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) claim
six in every 10 lives in the Pacific. Non-communicable
diseases are pandemic in the region. In that regard,
Solomon Islands has put in place a non-communicable
diseases strategic plan for the period 2011-2015.
Prevention remains the cornerstone of our NCD policy,
as does the development of our primary health
coverage across the country. We will continue to need
sustained external support in the short to medium term
so that we can implement our NCD programmes.
Solomon Islands, as a least developed country,
applauds the adoption in May of the 10-year Istanbul
Programme of Action for the least developed countries.
The Programme provides an opportunity to lift
880 million people within the international community
out of poverty. The 48 LDCs have developed a
programme with the ambitious target of seeing half of
the LDCs graduate by 2020. The programme focuses
on investing in the productive sectors of LDCs in order
to tackle our development challenges by triggering
stable, sustained and inclusive economic growth.
Partnership is critical to support investment in income-
11-51372 14
generating activities, employment creation, infrastructure
development, rural agricultural development and
investment in smallholder farmers. Solomon Islands, in
reaching out to the 85 per cent of its population living
in rural areas, is currently implementing parallel
sectoral and constitutional reforms and land reform
programmes.
Solomon Islands supports the call for the
Secretary-General to conduct structured discussions on
a post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
agenda. As we all must realize and admit, we will fall
short of achieving the Millennium Development Goals
come 2015. The review must examine the means of
achieving the social and development goals. That
means looking at the MDGs from a sustainable
development perspective. Solomon Islands looks
forward to that discussion.
On climate change, we call on the Secretary-
General to garner the necessary political will from our
developed partners to adopt a second commitment
period in Durban under the Kyoto Protocol. This would
avoid a gap between the first and second commitment
periods and would be sufficient to ensure the survival
of all vulnerable people and prevent climate change
impacts from reaching irreversible levels.
Problems associated with climate change are
growing challenges for our country. We are taking
several practical measures. The Government is
planning the relocation of our national referral hospital
to higher ground. Efforts to build a resilience policy on
food and water security are progressing under the
adaptation programme. Our climate change challenges
are growing, and fast-track funds promised two years
ago must be made available to vulnerable countries as
a matter of real urgency. Solomon Islands is in the
process of establishing economic growth centres
throughout the country, and we are looking at powering
these centres with renewable energy, which we view as
a necessity and a condition for growth.
Solomon Islands is grateful for the growth of
South-South cooperation and its policy engagement
within the international community, especially support
from such countries as Cuba, India and Papua New
Guinea. We also welcome new non-traditional partners
with our region, including Luxembourg, Georgia and
Italy, who have rendered support and are instrumental
in complementing the support from our traditional
partners the European Union, Australia, New Zealand,
the Republic of China and Japan.
Solomon Islands, as a post-conflict country,
remains engaged with the Australia-led Regional
Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI),
with support from New Zealand and other Pacific
Islands Forum member countries. The Secretary-
General, during his recent trip to my country, had a
bird’s eye view of the achievements of RAMSI in the
restoration of law and order and the reform of our
economic and governance systems. My country
remains grateful to all our Pacific neighbours for their
support and reiterates that any winding down of
RAMSI activities should be done in a calculated and
responsible manner.
We continue to seek homegrown solutions within
the region. The Melanesian Spearhead Group has
agreed to establish a Melanesian regional police
academy, bringing together Fiji, Papua New Guinea,
Vanuatu and Solomon Islands discipline forces to
respond to emerging needs, from disasters to conflicts.
Solomon Islands hopes to join Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua
New Guinea in having its police force participate in
United Nations missions. Work is still in progress, and
we hope to conclude it soon.
Within my region, Solomon Islands continues to
support the inscription of the French territory of New
Caledonia on the United Nations decolonization list
and will extend similar support to French Polynesia,
working with all stakeholders, including the
Administrator. In particular, the Melanesian Spearhead
Group countries strongly support the inscription of
New Caledonia and French Polynesia for
decolonization.
The current international system has pushed us to
the edge of our finite natural resources. The United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in
Rio next year will be another global opportunity to
identify gaps within existing sustainable development
frameworks, from the Barbados Programme of Action
and the Mauritius Strategy, which recognize the special
situation of small island developing States, to the
Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs. We strongly
urge signatory countries to honour their commitments.
Solomon Islands looks forward to the
negotiations scheduled for late this year. Already, we
are in the midst of preserving the last global stock of
tuna by creating the world’s first sustainable industrial
15 11-51372
fishing industry through a subregional intergovernmental
mechanism. Fisheries remain our source of food and
income, and we will need to maximize returns from
these resources in a sustainable manner by bringing
together three pillars of sustainable development on
equal footing and in a balanced and sustainable
manner.
Solomon Islands is host to the regional Pacific
Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, and we continue to
register our interest in hosting the regional marine
scientific and technological centre of the United
Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea to advance
marine scientific research in the Pacific region and to
foster the transfer of marine technology for the
development of our ocean and marine resources.
Solomon Islands believes in dialogue and
engagement with all countries of the world, including
Fiji. We do so within the framework of the United
Nations Charter and the Melanesian Spearhead Group
principles, with mutual respect for each other’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression,
non-interference in each other’s internal affairs,
equality, mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence with
each other. We would like to encourage all States to do
likewise.
I am equally pleased to say that, since my
Government came into office some 14 months ago, we
have established relations with more than 27 countries
and will continue to reach out to all countries to ensure
that Solomon Islands remains connected in our
interlinked world. On this note, I welcome a new
member to our family of nations, South Sudan. We
offer South Sudan our friendship and look forward to
working with it on all issues of common concern to our
countries.
The 51-year-old economic blockade of Cuba
remains an issue stuck in time. Solomon Islands, in a
spirit of friendship and in observation of the principle
of good neighbourliness, makes a humble call on our
partner and friend, the United States, for the
unconditional lifting of the economic blockade against
the people of Cuba. We request that the two States
renew, restore, revive, redeem and reclaim their
friendship and respect for each other’s sovereignty
within the letter and spirit of the United Nations
Charter.
Solomon Islands will host the eleventh Festival of
Pacific Arts next year to celebrate and promote the
unique and diverse indigenous cultures of the Pacific.
The Festival will give us an opportunity to express our
sense of pride, awareness and recognition of the
“Pacificness” of the isolated communities within the
Pacific and to develop and preserve a deep sense of
solidarity and unity through our ancient music, body
art, dances and languages. We look forward to
receiving our guests in 2012.
On the long-standing conflict in the holy land,
Solomon Islands supports the work of the Quartet. We
note that more than two-thirds of United Nations
Member States recognize Palestine as a State. Solomon
Islands, in the name of peace, believes that the
international community must have the strength and
stamina to act decisively, build on the two-State
solution and overcome the distrust that exists in the
region multilaterally.
On Security Council reform, Solomon Islands
continues to support the intergovernmental
negotiations on expansion in the number of permanent
and non-permanent seats of the Council. My delegation
is mindful of the fact that the most recent Security
Council reform occurred in 1965. The world has
changed since then. We need to streamline the current
negotiating text within our informal intergovernmental
negotiation process and join other small island
developing States in calling for a non-permanent seat
in the Security Council explicitly for small island
developing States.
On the issue of human rights, I am pleased to say
that Solomon Islands has submitted its national human
rights report to the Human Rights Council. For a
developing country, the right to development is the
core of the country’s policy. Putting people at the
centre of development, their meaningful participation
and the fair distribution of national wealth and benefits
will bring peace to an angry man, feed a hungry child
and empower our womenfolk.
My delegation would like to acknowledge the
change in nomenclature within the 53-member Group
of Asian States to the Asia and the Pacific Small
Islands Developing States Group. This is an important
development and truly represents the diversity of
membership that exists within the Asia Group. We
applaud our Asian colleagues for taking such a
decision.
On the issue of gender, Solomon Islands has huge
challenges, to the extent that it will seek a regional seat
11-51372 16
within the Executive Board of United Nations Entity
for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.
Solomon Islands is presenting its candidate as a Pacific
SIDs-endorsed candidate, and with the support of the
Assembly it hopes to give an LDC and SIDS flavour to
the Board.
On Taiwan cross-strait relations, my delegation
continues to commend the ongoing dialogue between
the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People’s
Republic of China. We note Taiwan’s continuous
contributions to the global health system in terms of a
wide range of international development programmes,
and welcome its participation as an observer to the
World Health Assembly. We continue to call for such
arrangements to be extended to other United Nations
treaty bodies, including the United Nations Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to ensure the
meaningful participation of Taiwan and its people in
the affairs of the international community. Solomon
Islands also acknowledges Taiwan’s climate change
mitigation and renewable energy programmes with
developing countries, and would like to see the
application of similar observer arrangements extended
to Taiwan within the UNFCCC.
Let me conclude by expressing once again my
delegation’s confidence in translating our global
agenda into action within the next 12 months. Many
lives depend on that. On behalf of the Government and
people of Solomon Islands, I assure the Assembly of
our support and cooperation.