Allow me to extend our
congratulations to Mr. Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser on
his assumption of the Presidency of the General
Assembly at its sixty-sixth session. I am confident that
with his wide knowledge, experience and diplomatic
skills, we will be able to achieve fruitful results in our
deliberations in addressing important and critical issues
on the international agenda.
I would also like to convey our appreciation to
Mr. Joseph Deiss for his able leadership and
contributions to the sixty-fifth session of the General
Assembly. May I also take this opportunity to once
again extend our congratulations to the Secretary-
General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his reappointment, and
we wish to express our sincere appreciation to him for
his dedication and untiring efforts for the cause of the
United Nations.
Since I am addressing the General Assembly for
the first time after the emergence of the constitutional
Government and as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of
the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, I would like to
apprise the Assembly of recent developments and
significant changes taking place in my country. The
Republic of the Union of Myanmar has emerged as a
new democratic nation in accordance with the
Constitution approved by the overwhelming majority
of the people.
Multiparty democratic general elections were
held in Myanmar in November 2010 in line with the
seven-step roadmap. Thirty-seven political parties,
including 19 parties from different national ethnic
groups, contested in the elections. Today, elected
representatives are exercising their democratic rights in
the legislative bodies.
The President, in his inaugural speech to the first
regular session of the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw on 30 March
2011, stated that all elected Hluttaw members,
including the President, are duty-bound to honour and
safeguard the Constitution of the Republic of the
Union of Myanmar. The new Government pledged that
all citizens shall enjoy equal rights under the law and is
determined to strengthen the judiciary. The
Government also assured the nation that it will amend
and revoke existing laws and adopt new laws as may
be deemed necessary to implement the provisions of
the fundamental rights of the citizens.
With a view to maintaining and promoting
friendly relations with all countries in the world,
Myanmar is reaching out to the international
community. In the past five months, Myanmar has
received the visits of State leaders and high-level
delegations from our neighbouring countries, as well as
from other regions and international organizations. In
return, President Thein Sein paid official visits to the
Republic of Indonesia and the People’s Republic of
China. The President also attended the eighteenth
summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) in Jakarta.
The new Government has launched a series of
economic, social and policy reforms designed to
improve the socio-economic life of the people of
Myanmar. One of those measures is the stepping up of
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its efforts to reduce poverty. In Myanmar, about 70 per
cent of the population resides in rural areas and
engages in agricultural and livestock farming. In order
to boost production and enhance the economic
development of rural areas, the Government has
adopted forward-looking economic policies. Those
policies will lead to sustained, inclusive and equitable
economic growth, which will in turn increase
employment opportunities, promote agriculture
development and reduce poverty.
Towards that end, the new Government has
adopted the National Rural Development and Poverty
Reduction Plan to alleviate poverty and to improve the
livelihood of people residing in rural areas. A central
committee and various work committees have been
formed to supplement the eight tasks laid down under
the National Plan. Furthermore, the new Government
has increased pension allowances for retired service
personnel commensurate with the changing economic
and social conditions of the country. With a view to
encouraging foreign trade, the Government reduced the
export tax from 8 per cent to 2 per cent and granted
export tax exemptions for all agricultural and timber
products.
It is regrettable that the Government’s efforts to
improve the livelihood of the people of Myanmar are
being hampered by economic sanctions. I would
therefore like to call upon countries that have imposed
unilateral sanctions on my country to lift those
restrictions. It will also contribute to our efforts to
achieve our Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
targets.
Myanmar attaches great importance to the
promotion and protection of human rights. The
fundamental rights of the country’s citizens are
guaranteed by relevant provisions of the State
Constitution. With a view to promoting and
safeguarding the fundamental rights of its citizens as
set forth in the Constitution, the Myanmar National
Human Rights Commission was formed on
5 September 2011.
Myanmar’s cooperation with the United Nations
has been clearly demonstrated by the Government’s
acceptance of the fourth visit of Mr. Tomás Ojea
Quintana, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights in Myanmar in August 2011.
Mr. Quintana recognized and welcomed the steps taken
by the Government to improve the human rights
situation in the country. He also welcomed the
Government’s stated commitments to reform and the
priorities set forth by the President.
Myanmar has been cooperating closely with the
United Nations Human Rights Council. Myanmar’s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report was submitted
and reviewed by the UPR Working Group last January
and adopted at the seventeenth session of the Human
Rights Council last June. Myanmar has agreed to
accept 52.4 per cent of the total recommendations. We
strongly believe that the UPR process is the most
dependable and non-controversial monitoring
mechanism for addressing and rectifying the human
rights situations of all countries.
As for national reconciliation, the Government
offered an olive branch to all the ethnic armed groups
in the country through Announcement No. 1/2011 on
18 August, and some of those groups have accepted the
Government’s offer. The Government also granted an
amnesty on 16 May 2011, with 20,000 inmates having
been released by the end of July. I would like to take
this opportunity to inform the General Assembly that
the President, in exercising the mandate vested in him
by the Constitution, will grant a further amnesty at an
appropriate time in the near future.
The President invited people to work together for
the interest of the nation despite differences.
Accordingly, he received Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on
19 August 2011, and, putting aside differing views,
they had candid and cordial discussions with a view to
finding common ground and exploring a potential
cooperation in the interest of the nation and its people.
The foregoing are some of the significant items
of progress we have achieved in our democratization
process.
As an agro-based country, Myanmar is following
with keen interest the issues involving the effects of
climate change. Since agriculture is highly dependent
on the climate, the implications of the climatic
situation on agriculture cannot be ignored. Lately,
floods and droughts have devastated crops and
agricultural production in our region. It is evident that
developing countries are the most vulnerable and will
therefore be the first to suffer from global warming and
climate change.
We therefore look forward to reaching tangible
outcomes at the upcoming seventeenth Conference of
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the Parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and the seventh
Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the
meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Durban,
South Africa. Although the road to Durban will be a
difficult one, my delegation shares the view that our
discussions on the issue should be placed within the
context of promoting sustainable development. In that
regard, we would also like to stress that all three
pillars, namely, economic development, social
development and environmental protection, need to be
promoted in an integrated, coordinated and balanced
manner.
Myanmar strongly condemns terrorism in all its
forms and manifestations. In today’s world, terrorism
and transnational organized crime are increasingly
threatening human society. Myanmar is also among
those countries that have been victim of the scourge of
terrorism. In that regard, we would like to express our
deepest condolences to the bereaved families of
victims of terrorism around the world. We welcome the
Secretary-General’s commitment to conducting a
global threat review in order to re-assess security
threats in the wake of the deadly attack in Abuja,
Nigeria. Myanmar stands ready to cooperate at the
regional and international levels to prevent and combat
terrorism and transnational organized crimes. Without
a stable and peaceful environment, sustainable
development would not be possible for the people of a
country or in a region and beyond.
The Millennium Declaration set 2015 as the
target date for achieving the Millennium Development
Goals, which were formulated to address the welfare
and needs of people around the world. Despite some
progress, development efforts have been hindered by
various factors, such as slow economic growth,
diminishing resources, increasing food prices and
ongoing concern over food security, increasingly
frequent natural disasters and the challenges posed by
climate change. Each country has the primary
responsibility to generate its ways and means for
achieving social and economic development. However,
national efforts to that end need to be supported by the
international community.
For our part, Myanmar is determined to promote
better living standards and the equitable development
of its people. To generate income, microfinance
schemes have been introduced at the grassroots level.
According to the United Nations Development
Programme, the poverty rate in Myanmar has
decreased from 32 per cent to 26 per cent in recent
years. However, we have to redouble our efforts to
achieve MDG 1 by the year 2015.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons is the cornerstone of international efforts to
prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, promote
nuclear disarmament and cooperation, and ensure
access to nuclear energy. As a signatory to the Treaty,
Myanmar remains committed to the three pillars of the
treaty. As a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament,
Myanmar has been tabling a draft resolution on nuclear
disarmament every year since 1995, one which enjoys
wide support from Member States. Myanmar firmly
opposes the proliferation and production of nuclear
weapons and strongly supports any efforts leading to
the realization of a world free of the threat of nuclear
weapons and their by-products.
Recently, the world around us has changed. We
have seen changes in Governments and political
landscapes. Myanmar has transformed and is moving
towards becoming a democratic nation in a smooth and
peaceful manner. We have now embarked on a series of
reforms in various sectors to bring about
democratization and economic development and
improve the lives of our people.
The steps taken by the Government of Myanmar
are concrete, visible and irreversible. We will ensure
that the reform process is incremental, systematic and
dynamic. Myanmar is strongly determined to continue
implementing the democratization process despite all
of the current challenges. At this critical juncture, the
encouragement, understanding and support of the
international community are crucial to Myanmar’s
transition to democracy.