Gambia

We praise Almighty God for making another gathering of world leaders possible. Allow me to warmly congratulate Mr. Al-Nasser on his election as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session. His proven leadership and competence will certainly be in great demand as we collectively confront some of the daunting challenges of our time. My delegation also views his election as a demonstration of the strong commitment of the brotherly State of Qatar to the fashioning of a stable and just world order. He will have our full support in the discharge of his mandate. His predecessor, Mr. Joseph Deiss of Switzerland, also deserves our praise for the sterling work he did as President of the General Assembly. We wish him well in his future pursuits. We also congratulate Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon on his reappointment and wish him a fruitful second term. My delegation will render him all the support he will need as he helps to tackle the issues that are dear to us, especially the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the resolution of conflicts in Africa, among others. The United Nations was founded as a world body primarily to maintain international peace and security. For this reason, the theme chosen for this General Assembly — “The role of mediation in the settlement of disputes by peaceful means” — is particularly apt. My delegation is a strong believer in the role of mediation as a conflict resolution mechanism at both the national and international levels. We can all agree that mediation produces results. That is what our experience in West Africa, my own part of the world, tells us. At the national level, for example, in the Gambia we have instituted the alternative dispute resolution mechanism, among other mechanisms we have in place, with a view to settling disputes between and among our peoples and institutions. For us in Africa, the mediation of conflicts, particularly with a view to amicably resolving them, has always been part and parcel of our rich cultural heritage and customary law. We must revive those time-honoured dispute-resolution traditions of our forebears. Experience has also shown that with strong regional and subregional leadership many of the intractable civil, political and electoral conflicts that beset and plague Africa could certainly be resolved through mediation. Regional ownership of mediation processes is also essential. For example, recent conflicts in Guinea and Guinea-Bissau were all resolved through a combination of interventions by the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations. We must therefore always give mediation a chance before resorting to the use or threat of the use of force. The international community must give priority to mediation in any conflict before it threatens military invasion or outright military intervention without giving mediation a chance. It costs less to mediate — we all agree — than to launch a full-scale military intervention, only to have to come back again and rebuild and reconstruct. Over the past decade, the leadership of West Africa, in close collaboration with the international community, has invested great material and human resources to bring the conflicts that affected that region to peaceful ends. Today, the region enjoys relative peace, but that does not mean that spoilers have given up attempts to derail the peace. We must be vigilant at all times. For example, the evils of drug trafficking, piracy, and the trafficking of illicit goods and arms have reared their ugly heads across our subregion of West Africa. The nature and extent of those crimes call for swift international action to nip them in the bud before it is too late. All these crimes feed on each other and sow the seeds of terror, economic sabotage and indeed the collapse of social order. We must therefore pool our resources in the areas of detection, surveillance, law enforcement and prosecution in order to deny the culprits safe havens. In order to do that, we must come together and agree on a framework for cooperation, of 15 11-51384 course with the support of the international community. We look forward to greater United Nations engagement with regional and subregional leaders and organizations in stamping out those menaces. The Gambia will always be an agent of peace through mediation and shuttle diplomacy in West Africa and beyond. As we have done in the past, we will support all efforts aimed at the peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes within our subregion. We will also continue to contribute to United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world, as we have already done. With strong African leadership, we continue to witness the amicable resolution of many civil conflicts that plague the continent. The key lesson in most of those situations is early intervention by leaders who mediate between stakeholders. Regional leaders should always be put at the forefront of mediation efforts. For that reason, we salute the untiring leadership of the African Union in bringing about peace in the Sudan. We equally salute the leadership of the Sudan for its magnanimity in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Accord, which led to the independence of South Sudan. My delegation encourages both sides to invest in their shared future through a negotiated settlement of the pending issues. Let me also take this opportunity to encourage our brothers in Guinea and Niger, after successful democratic transitions, to bury the hatchet and move forward as united peoples. National reconciliation efforts should be diligently pursued by all stakeholders. We therefore call on the international community to render them all the support they need as they try to bring peace and development to their countries. As a developing country, like all others we have our eyes set on the countdown to 2015, a landmark year for all of us. The Gambia and the entire international community have only a few more years before we can tell how many of the MDGs we have met. What is evident from all the reviews, however, is that we are surely on track to meet some of the MDGs but still struggling to meet others. We know for certain, for example, that the critical element for achieving all MDGs on the target date will remain international donor support and collaboration. We have just embarked upon our new programme for accelerated growth and employment, which is our blueprint for development in the Gambia for 2012-2015, which we earnestly believe will be generously supported by all our development partners and friends. It is no secret that the ongoing financial and economic crisis, worsened by market volatility, is taking a huge toll on the meagre economic gains of our fragile economies. In view of our situation as least developed countries and of the vulnerabilities that we continue to encounter, it is urgent that we all support the implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action. We must not allow it to suffer the fate of its predecessor, which suffered from weak implementation. It is our hope that our partners from the North will do all in their power to support the enhancement of our productive capacities. We also call on the emerging economies of the South to enhance their cooperation with us in ways that will render true meaning to South-South cooperation. My delegation is ready at all times to forge meaningful partnerships across the North and South in order to bring food security to our people, tackle youth unemployment through education and skill development, and enhance the quality and coverage of our health-care delivery systems. In addition, we have to revisit the various programmes and strategies adopted by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and other global forums in order to comprehensively address the food security needs of developing countries. The small-scale farmer — including the female farmer — must be placed at the centre of the new Green Revolution. The impact of climate change continues to pose a formidable challenge to all of us. The solutions to reversing the negative impacts of climate change through adaptation and mitigation initiatives are well known. Our problem today is the refusal of the biggest polluters to assume their responsibilities in reversing the negative trends of climate change occasioned by human activity. We cannot afford to be in denial for long. The science is solid and there for all to see, and the solutions are very clear, so let us embrace them by fulfilling our international obligations. The 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) should be about the implementation of commitments and not about reneging on them. It should also be about the announcement of workable initiatives and not about the 11-51384 16 repackaging of previous unfulfilled commitments. Rio+20 should ultimately be about binding commitments. Let us bequeath to our children, and their children an Earth that is resilient and a better world for them. My delegation would like to congratulate the delegation of Libya, especially the leadership of the National Transitional Council, on being steadfast in their drive to rescue Libya from the brink of the abyss. We have faith in that leadership and are convinced that it will institute the necessary reforms that the Libyan people have so valiantly fought for. As Libya embarks on the crucial task of reconciliation, reconstruction and nation building, we — as the first African country to have officially announced its recognition of and support for the National Transitional Council — would like to assure the Libyan leadership of our full collaboration and solidarity at all times. The conflicts in the Middle East, both recent and long-standing, require fresh and honest mediation efforts with a view to stabilizing the region once and for all. The disorderly change that is sweeping across the region is a cause for concern as livelihoods are shattered and industries like tourism are destroyed, thereby creating more unemployment and entrenching endemic poverty. With regard to the Arab Spring, my delegation fully supports and hereby salutes the leadership role of the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council in finding peaceful resolution to those conflicts through mediation, diplomacy and brotherhood. In the same vein, we salute the role the AU has been playing in bringing to an end some of the most violent conflicts in human history on the African continent through mediation and in some cases through military intervention as a last resort. We have used former Heads of State as mediators in Africa and in councils of the wise, and some of those efforts have proven to be very successful. One of the most intractable conflicts of our time is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The sad reality is that numerous United Nations resolutions continue to be flouted. The daily killing, collective punishment and humiliation of Palestinians are going on unabated. Denial of humanitarian assistance, essential medical supplies and construction materials to Palestinians has become the norm. For that reason, my delegation not only supports but recognizes an independent and sovereign Palestinian State within the confines of the 1967 borders. An independent Palestinian State with full rights and privileges like any other is long overdue. That is the only guarantor of lasting peace in that region. The Islamic religion, which is synonymous with peace, is misunderstood and misrepresented in some quarters. We condemn those who turn themselves into suicide bombers to kill innocent people or conduct inhuman behaviour in the name of Islam, as such acts are contrary to Islamic values and teachings. Muslims, Christians, Jews and peoples of other faiths must all join hands, for once, in fighting terrorism of all shades. We must also be tolerant and indeed respectful of each other, no matter our beliefs, and live side by side in peace and harmony as one human race and one human family. In the case of Syria, we call on the international community to encourage and support the Syrian Government and people to resolve their internal problems through diplomacy and peaceful means. Poverty should not be a pretext for violent and disorderly change of Government in developing countries. The need for constructive dialogue in finding lasting and timely solutions to transboundary problems, wherever they exist, is more urgent today than ever before. Let us avoid postponing the search for a permanent solution to the decades-old conflict in the Nagorno Karabakh region. It is the responsibility of the international community to work with a greater sense of urgency to address the Nagorno Karabakh conflict without further delay. The developments in Cuba continue to demonstrate to the world the inhumanity of maintaining the decades-old embargo imposed on that friendly country. The embargo is a manifestation of intolerance of other people’s right to a political system of their choice. There is universal agreement that the embargo needs to come to an end without precondition and be replaced with good-neighbourliness, tolerance and respect for the legitimate right of Cubans to have a political system of their choice. We therefore once again call on the United States of America to lift the sanctions and embargo on Cuba now. The case of Taiwan deserves better scrutiny by the international community. Taiwan, with a population 17 11-51384 of 23 million people, continues to play an active and positive role on the international stage. In a highly integrated and interconnected world, almost all issues demand the full participation of and cooperation among all nations. Taiwan’s efforts in promoting peace, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, deserve commendation and further encouragement by the General Assembly. For example, over the past three years, Taiwan has engaged mainland China in dialogue on a wide range of issues ranging from agriculture and health to intellectual property rights and economic and commercial cooperation, among others. Furthermore, since 2009 Taiwan has been invited by the World Health Organization to attend the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer. That practice and the related arrangements have established what has been termed the WHA model, which sets a useful precedent for Taiwan’s greater participation in the United Nations system generally. Given that Taiwan is today one of the leading technological and economic powerhouses of the world, its participation in global affairs is quite relevant, bearing in mind the numerous issues that we collectively confront. We must give it the prominence that it deserves. Issues such as natural disasters, terrorism, climate change, epidemics, financial meltdowns and many others require the engagement of every member of the international community, including Taiwan. We therefore urge the United Nations to find a suitable way to allow for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the specialized agencies and mechanisms of the United Nations system, including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the United Nations Climate Change Conferences immediately. Reform should be a permanent feature on the agenda of all international organizations. Cosmetic reforms or the deliberate stalling of overdue reforms seriously undermine the effective responsiveness of organizations. In 2005, as we all remember, a draft of reform measures was introduced by the General Assembly, which led to reforms in management of the Secretariat, human resources administration, the creation of the Human Rights Council, the Peacebuilding Commission and the elaboration of new norms. The then Secretary-General remarked that no reform of the United Nations is complete without reform of the Security Council. Let us not delude ourselves. The Security Council urgently needs comprehensive reforms. A major element in the reform of the Council is the glaring underrepresentation of Africa, for example, in all its categories of membership. Africa certainly needs to be adequately and properly represented, and we will not give up on what is a legitimate demand. What is even more appalling is that negotiations are progressing at a snail’s pace. Although we are mindful of other positions, we are convinced that negotiations must lead to a just outcome. Security Council reform is long overdue, and the lack of it is undermining the credibility of our Organization and the legitimacy of the Council’s decisions. In conclusion, my delegation would like to repeat what we said before. Reform of the United Nations must recognize the geopolitical realities of the African continent and its peoples. Africa is no longer the colony of any country and must be respected and treated as such. The system of veto power and flawed representation in the Security Council is not acceptable, can no longer be tolerated and in fact runs counter to the spirit and letter of the basic principles of equality and fair play as enshrined in the United Nations Charter.