I am honoured to address the
Assembly once again. Let me, first of all, congratulate
the President on his election to his duties of directing
the affairs of the Assembly at its sixty-sixth session. I
would like to assure him of our full support and
cooperation throughout his tenure. And I commend his
predecessor, Mr. Joseph Deiss, for a job well done. We
appreciate the Secretary-General’s important
contribution to the work of the Organization and
congratulate him on his recent appointment to a second
term.
On behalf of the Government and people of
Sierra Leone, let me take this opportunity to welcome
the Republic of South Sudan, the newest Member of
the United Nations family and our continental
organization, the African Union. We congratulate them
on this achievement and wish them well.
Sierra Leone is a nation with a relatively small
territory and population, but our aspirations to
democracy, prosperity and international peace are as
big as any nation’s, and our commitment to those
ideals has been visibly demonstrated in the course of
our 50 years as an independent nation. We are proud of
the distinctive contributions we have made to the
United Nations over the past half-century in areas such
as decolonization; training and research; the
international civil service; disarmament and
non-proliferation, including small arms and light
weapons; peacemaking and peacekeeping; the
development of international law; and, currently,
reform of the Security Council.
It is worth mentioning that, soon after our
admission to the United Nations, we contributed a
small peacekeeping contingent to the United Nations
Operation in the Congo. Our commitment to
international peace is evidenced by our transformation
from a nation that received one of the largest ever
United Nations peacekeeping missions in the late
1990s to a country that today contributes troops and
police officers to peacekeeping missions in Darfur. We
have also developed a proposal to participate in the
African Union Mission in Somalia. At the same time,
we acknowledge with gratitude the enormous impact
that the United Nations family has had on the
maintenance of peace, governance and economic and
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social development in my country since our admission
to the Organization, 50 years ago.
In my capacity as Chair of the African Union
Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government on
the Reform of the United Nations Security Council, I
must emphasize that reform of the Council is urgently
required for the wider United Nations membership to
fully benefit from the Council’s purposes and primary
objective of maintaining international peace and
security. There is an increasing need for the Security
Council to be more representative, inclusive and
democratic, as well as for an improvement in its
working methods and its relations with the General
Assembly. The status quo is increasingly unacceptable
and has the potential to undermine the legitimacy,
effectiveness and efficiency of the Council’s work in
maintaining international peace and security.
It is therefore imperative that we reaffirm our
commitment to the standards and principles of this
noble Organization by generating the political will for
a reformed Security Council that would pave the way
for correcting the historical injustice done to Africa,
through the allocation during this session of two
permanent and five non-permanent seats to Africa, in
accordance with the United Nations Charter.
Since I addressed the Assembly last year, Sierra
Leone has continued to make steady progress,
particularly in the priority sectors outlined in my
Government’s agenda for change, namely, agriculture,
energy, infrastructure, health and education. Those five
sectors were purposely selected from many others
requiring transformation because we believe they can
have the greatest positive impact on the lives of our
people. We have done so against the background of the
unprecedented challenges facing our world today, such
as the rise in fuel and food prices, the global financial
crisis, and the chain of unending conflicts around the
world.
Inspired by the conviction that no goals, however
comprehensive or meaningful, can be achieved without
the sustained determination to implement them, I have
declared 2011 the year of implementation for Sierra
Leone. Accordingly, my Government has demonstrated
its commitment to that declaration. We are going to
ensure that every single Sierra Leonean benefits from
the dividends of our well-earned peace and democracy.
In spite of the many challenges that have impeded our
capacity to complete our projects, we are determined,
with the cooperation and support of our development
partners, to accelerate our country’s positive
transformation. It is my sincere hope that successful
implementation of the projects and programmes in the
Joint Vision of the United Nations Family for Sierra
Leone, which has been aligned with our agenda for
change, will enhance Sierra Leone’s efforts to attain
the Millennium Development Goals.
The economy of Sierra Leone, like many around
the world, is currently encountering budgetary
difficulties that can be traced to the global economic
meltdown. We are, however, optimistic about future
growth levels. We expect export levels to increase,
given our substantial investment in developing our
infrastructure and ongoing revamping of our mining,
agriculture and tourism sectors. We have also put in
place strong corrective measures to stabilize the fiscal
situation.
We have continued to build on progress achieved
in the area of peace consolidation. Our democratic
institutions, such as the National Electoral
Commission, the Political Parties Registration
Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission,
have continued to make progress in carrying out their
respective mandates. We have also continued to build
on gains achieved in the areas of human rights, gender
equality and women’s empowerment.
The establishment of a Human Rights
Commission of Sierra Leone and the presentation of
our national report to the Universal Periodic Review
Working Group of the United Nations Human Rights
Council in May this year are clear manifestations of
our commitment to build a human rights regime that
respects international norms and practices. In June this
year, the International Coordinating Committee of
National Human Rights Institutions awarded an “A”
status accreditation to the Human Rights Commission
of Siena Leone in recognition of its achievements and
independence.
I have pledged my support and initiated processes
that will make women constitute at least 30 per cent of
elective offices in our country. As a State party to many
international human rights instruments we are
committed to their implementation and respect our
reporting obligations under the relevant conventions.
We have, for instance, just completed our sixth
periodic report to the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women. We have ratified the
5 11-51191
United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities and have commissioned a National
Action Plan for the implementation of Security Council
resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008).
As we prepare for our 2012 presidential,
parliamentary and local council elections, we are
cognizant of the fact that it is our primary
responsibility to organize and provide the necessary
logistical requirements for this democratic process.
However, we need all necessary international
assistance in support of our commitment to ensure free,
fair and peaceful elections. In that regard, we have
continued to dialogue with all stakeholders including
the National Electoral Commission, the Political
Parties Registration Commission and political parties.
We remain committed to peace, security and
development, but the need to continue with national
capacity-building programmes in priority peacebuilding
thematic areas beyond the 2012 elections remains
critical.
Recently, peace and stability were not only
threatened but painfully disturbed by pockets of armed
conflict in the subregion of the Economic Community
of West African States, particularly in the Mano River
Union basin. However, we are encouraged by the
unfolding developments and prospects of relative peace
in our sister republics. At the same time, we are
concerned about the continued threats posed to peace
and stability by the illicit flow of small arms and light
weapons across our subregion. International
cooperation and assistance are necessary in order to
eradicate this menace. Sierra Leone, for its part,
recently launched a five-year action plan to expand the
scope of its activities concerning small arms and light
weapons.
Considering the prevailing incidence of violence
and armed conflict in various regions of the world, the
choice of the theme, “The role of mediation in the
settlement of disputes”, for this year’s general debate is
relevant and appropriate.
Of course, we are quite conscious of the
inevitability of disputes in the conduct of inter-State as
well as intra-State relations. But it is imperative to
respect the set of principles enshrined in Article 2 of
the Charter of the United Nations in our interactions
with each other. They include the sovereign equality of
all United Nations Members, the peaceful settlement of
disputes and the prohibition of the threat or use of
force.
Obviously, mediation remains the best
mechanism for the prevention and settlement of armed
conflicts. It should be utilized to the fullest extent
possible. Sierra Leone firmly believes that the United
Nations should make better use of Chapter VI of the
Charter, namely, measures for the peaceful settlement
of disputes.
We must also allow our discussion of the
mediation of disputes through peaceful means to move
towards the resolution of threats to the international
economic and financial systems. The greatest threat
today to the security of most individuals in most
societies stems from the non-resolution of issues
relating to excessive speculation in the most important
food crops of the world, the rising food and fuel prices
and the fact that the burden of sacrifice for our
recovery is increasingly placed on the shoulders of the
weak and the poor.
In most places in the world we are seeing the
rallying of the strong and powerful to protect their
indulgence and the rallying of young people, the weak
and the dispossessed to secure their very lives, their
dignity and humanity. The alternatives to the non-resolution
of those disputes are dire. We must act now to save the
world from the anger of the weak and the excessive
indulgence and repression perpetrated by the strong.
I would like to emphasize that international
cooperation in the peaceful settlement of disputes is the
life blood of our Organization. In all our deliberations,
from global warming to human trafficking, from the
threats of nuclear weapons to the scourge of abject
poverty, from communicable and non-communicable
diseases to ruthless natural disasters, and from the flow
of illicit drugs to the seemingly unending upheavals in
the financial markets, we should always remember that
we need each other. The world is too connected for the
consequences of failure to be localized.
The effects of poverty, disease, hunger and
desperation can no longer be boxed in and contained in
a corner of a city, or a country, region or continent. We
are on each other’s doorsteps, and we must continue to
build the structures for the peaceful resolution of our
conflicts.