My
delegation welcomes your inspired election, Sir, to the
presidency of the General Assembly at this session,
which is being held at a particularly important moment
in the life of our Organization, given the numerous
challenges that we have to face. The robust messages
that you yourself have issued here clearly indicate that
you are fully aware of the magnitude of what is at
stake. As is so well suggested by the Secretary-General
in his report on the activities of the Organization
(A/63/1), more than ever before the world’s problems
require concerted and coordinated actions.
We commend the Secretary-General on the
resolute action that he has undertaken since the
beginning of his mandate. We highly appreciate his
dynamism, his realism and the increasing interest that
he brings to matters of peace, security and sustainable
development.
His Excellency Mr. Denis Sassou Nguesso,
President of the Republic of the Congo, who was
unable personally to attend this general debate, has
instructed me to share with the members of the
Assembly a few thoughts on developments in our
world.
The challenges that we have to tackle
immediately are numerous. They are related to peace,
security, and threats to people’s lives and to nations,
heightened by the food, energy and financial crises, as
well as natural disasters and climate change.
By placing emphasis on the notion of solidarity,
which we fully support, you have certainly illustrated,
Mr. President, the risk we run of losing our identity, an
option that can only offer partial, even uncertain,
solutions to the challenges that confront us. Here, we
reaffirm that the United Nations offers us the ideal
framework to work together in search of lasting
solutions. That is the meaning underlying our ongoing
attachment to multilateralism.
Recent events in different parts of the world,
particularly in Europe, remind us that peace and
security rest on a fragile foundation, even where such
matters seem to have been solved definitively. Africa,
still at the heart of the concerns of the international
community and top of the agenda of the Security
Council because of the conflicts that continue to
jeopardize progress and to hinder implementation of
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will not
solve its problems with declarations of good intentions.
The high-level meeting on Africa’s needs that
was held on 22 September revealed that it is time to
move from promises to sustainable action. That is why
we welcome the adoption of the declaration that
marked that important event. Similarly, we salute the
high-level meeting for the MDGs that concluded here
on 25 September.
As we all know, the stabilization of the situation
in countries in conflict and the building of peace in
others would not have been possible without the
sustained efforts of the United Nations and other
bilateral and multilateral partners. The African Union
and subregional African organizations continue to act
resolutely and often with limited resources to meet
those challenges. Thanks to all such efforts, the Central
African Republic, to cite the example of our
neighbouring country, is working to restore peace and
security through dialogue among the Government, the
opposition and rebel movements.
Still with respect to our subregion of Central
Africa, we call on the international community to step
up its efforts to help stabilize the situation in the
eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, particularly
by supporting the Government of that country in its
fight against rebel movements and other negative
forces. In that context, the entry into force in June of
the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the
Great Lakes Region will usher in a new climate of
confidence in that nerve centre of our continent. My
Government is committed to fully playing its role in
that process, which will greatly contribute to
stabilizing to the situation.
With regard to the crisis between Chad and the
Sudan, we encourage those two countries to pursue
every effort to normalize their relations and consolidate
peace in the region. In that regard, we welcome the
resumption of diplomatic relations between the two
countries — an initiative that must be consolidated
through the establishment of military monitoring units
along the common border. Those units need to be
adequately equipped, in implementation of the Dakar
Agreement signed in March 2008.
As African Union co-mediator with Libya in that
crisis, Congo will spare no effort in helping to bring
those two brotherly countries to respect the
engagements undertaken and to act always in good
faith in order to establish a definitive peace between
and around them.
27 08-53135
Solving the conflict in Darfur would contribute
largely to that end. That is why we make an urgent
appeal for the effective deployment of the troops of the
African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in
Darfur (UNAMID), which should be supplied with all
necessary equipment to become operational and
efficient.
For its part, my country recently completed the
preparatory phase for a police unit composed of 140
personnel that is now at the disposal of UNAMID.
However, the international community should also
work tirelessly to implement of the Abuja Agreement
on Darfur. Non-signatories who are violating that
Agreement must be strongly pressured to return to the
negotiating table. In that context, we believe that it is
counterproductive to carry out the indictment against
the Head of State of the Sudan.
With respect to Africa yet again, we welcome the
settlement of the crisis in Kenya and the process of
reconciliation in Zimbabwe, and call on African
political actors in power and in opposition to respect
the verdict of the ballot box.
In its desire to participate in the collective effort
in the area of peace and security, my country reaffirms
its full commitment to the fight against terrorism, the
proliferation of small arms and light weapons, drug
trafficking and human trafficking. Congo remains fully
committed to strict compliance with the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in all its facets.
Congo calls on the international community to
consider as a matter of urgency the resolution of the
Middle East conflict on the basis of commitments
already undertaken, particularly the road map of the
Quartet and the Arab peace initiative.
Our commitment to multilateralism leads us to
believe that there is a pressing need to pursue the work
of United Nations reform, and particularly that of the
Security Council. In keeping with the African position
on that issue, my country welcomes the decision to
launch, before 31 January 2009, intergovernmental
negotiations that should finally enable that matter to
genuinely move forward.
It is right that our present agenda includes the
matter of the effects of climate change on the
environment, which is one of the major challenges of
our times. My country is particularly sensitive to that
issue since it has within its borders a part of the
enormous Congo basin, the world’s second ecological
lung after Amazonia. The countries bordering the basin
have a great responsibility to humanity in the
management and sustainable exploitation of these
ecosystems, which they are shouldering in a
determined and encouraging manner.
While endorsing the conclusions of last year’s
Bali Conference, which laid the groundwork for the
post-Kyoto period, the States of the Congo basin
believe that global policies on the preservation of
forest equilibriums should establish compensation
mechanisms. Those would include the creation of
substitute economies to benefit the populations in the
areas involved.
In expressing those concerns, I take the
opportunity to announce that Congo will host in
Brazzaville, from 27 to 30 October 2008, the sixth
World Forum on Sustainable Development, devoted to
assessing the progress achieved in the implementation
of Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation, particularly concerning strategic,
credible and pertinent partnerships towards achieving
the Millennium Development Goals.
On the economic and social front, we welcome
the focus at this session on sustainable development
and implementation of the Millennium Development
Goals. The analyses carried out here last week indicate
that African States have made significant progress,
with a rate of growth of approximately 6 per cent per
annum, and that, as emphasized in the Secretary-
General’s report, Africa is resolutely on the right path
and should continue to pursue those commendable
efforts, particularly since it varies between countries
and regions.
Nevertheless, such efforts and the promising
outcomes they may yield require genuine, continuous
and tangible international support. That is why our
partners must keep their promises.
The current Chair of the African Union, President
Kikwete of the United Republic of Tanzania, brilliantly
described to the Assembly the situation in our
continent and indicated the way forward. We fully
endorse the presentation he made here and on other
occasions. We welcome the different partnerships that
Africa has established with its traditional friends and
with new ones. Here once again, the commitments need
to be brought to fruition.
08-53135 28
Our continent is resolutely committed to the
battle for progress, which has several facets. That is
why we attach great importance to matters of
democracy, good governance and respect for human
rights in the framework of the African Peer Review
Mechanism, a pillar of the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development. Several African countries have
agreed to submit to periodic evaluations that represent
a sort of right to positive interference in the affairs of
other member States in matters that normally fall under
national jurisdiction. Congo has voluntarily subscribed
to the process, illustrating Africa’s devotion to the fight
against bad governance, corruption, human rights
violations and impunity.
It is therefore inconceivable that certain foreign
judges should confer upon themselves the right to drag
African leaders to their national courts in the name of
the principle of universal jurisdiction — a rule that
seems to be applied exclusively to Africa since, as we
have already seen, the same principle was soon
dropped when it targeted leaders of powerful States. It
is regrettable that international jurisdiction, while
remaining respectable, seems to be following a path of
judiciary spite against African leaders.
In that regard, Africa has become an
experimentation ground for dangerous and even hateful
practices. The sad memories of such other negative
experiences as slavery, the slave trade and colonization
are enough for us. President Kikwete was right to raise
this issue here, in application of a decision taken
during the summit of the African Union held in Sharma
el-Sheikh in Egypt.
The Republic of the Congo had a particularly
rough patch in the 1990s and managed, thanks to the
political will of the Government, all political actors
and the civil society, to achieve national reconciliation.
That climate of peace made possible the organization
of legislative elections in 2007 and municipal and local
elections in 2008 in an atmosphere of calm and
serenity, despite irregularities identified during the
voting process. Nevertheless, the transparency and
credibility of the process were not disputed by the
international observers.
With the irregularities corrected, it is in the same
climate of calm and serenity that we are organizing the
2009 presidential election, in accordance with our
Constitution. The climate of restored peace has led to
an increasingly reassuring economic situation that is
supported by improved budgetary planning and better
debt management within the framework of the Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative and the
rigorous measures that today have enabled Congo to
focus more ambitiously on its development and on the
progressive achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals. Within that framework and in a
participatory manner, with the assistance of the United
Nations Development Programme, we drafted a
poverty reduction strategy paper that was approved by
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
By way of illustration, the principle measures
taken towards the attainment of the Millennium
Development Goals in the sensitive areas of education
and health care focus on from free access to education
and textbooks, the establishment of a drug purchase
centre, the distribution of treated mosquito nets to the
population, and free access to HIV/AIDS testing,
checkups and anti-retroviral medication.
Such efforts, however encouraging they may be,
can bear fruit in the long run only with the support of
external partners and in a favourable international
context as regards such thorny issues as debt, trade,
official development assistance, financing for
development and, above all, international peace and
security.
Members may now easily understand why a
modest member of the international community such as
Congo is so deeply invested in the existence and the
work of our collective home, the United Nations.