May I first
congratulate Mr. D’Escoto Brockmann on his
assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly
at its sixty-third session. I am sure that he will lead our
deliberations with great wisdom and skill. I also wish
to congratulate his predecessor, Mr. Srgjan Kerim, for
ably guiding our sixty-second session.
It is timely and wise that we focus our
deliberations on the global food crisis and on the
democratization of the United Nations. While those
two issues appear to be vastly different, they have
more to do with each other than meets the eye. For
democracy means nothing if a part of humankind is
well fed while a larger part of it goes to bed hungry
every night. Human equality is a mirage in any country
where a part of the population struggles against obesity
while a larger part of it wonders where the next meal is
coming from.
I do not exaggerate. According to the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food
prices will remain high for the next three to five years.
Rice stocks are falling to their lowest level since the
mid-1970s. Wheat stocks are sinking to their lowest
since 1948. Compounding the situation is the explosive
growth of the world population.
There is a huge unfilled demand for food. Food
riots have already erupted in parts of the Middle East,
Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. In 33 countries,
especially those with fragile States, there is a real and
present danger of social and political unrest because
people are hungry. We must vigorously address the
problem of global food insecurity. Otherwise, peace is
at risk in the developing world and in pockets of
poverty in the developed world. What the world needs
today is a new Green Revolution — a Green
Revolution that this time embraces the entire
developing world, especially Africa. Developing
countries must now put agriculture, especially food
production, back into the core of their development
agenda. For their part, the developed countries must
put agriculture and food production into the core of
their trade and aid programmes.
In that regard, the experience of Indonesia may
be instructive. It is not easy to feed a population of 230
million, the fourth largest in the world, but there are no
food riots in Indonesia. Last year, we had a surplus
production of rice. We used that surplus to bolster our
national stockpile. That has contributed to national
stability. This year, we expect another surplus of 5 per
cent, which brings production to 36 million tons. We
are going to export part of that as our contribution to
global food security.
We can do that because we have vastly improved
our rice productivity by providing our farmers with
microfinancing, improved seed varieties, cheap but
appropriate farm technology and affordable fertilizers.
We have thus developed some experience and expertise
that worked for us and can work in other developing
countries. We will continue to share those in the spirit
of South-South cooperation.
Food security is a cause in which everyone must
be involved. In that light, I firmly believe that this
General Assembly of ours is called upon to take a
number of concrete measures.
First, we can task the World Bank and the
relevant United Nations bodies to develop ways and
means of helping national Governments to spend more
on agriculture and on rural infrastructures to empower
small farmers.
Secondly, let us ensure that the appropriate
United Nations bodies link up with regional
mechanisms for food security, such as common food
reserves and early warning systems on regional food
08-53129 16
crises. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has
such an arrangement and so do other regional
arrangements. The United Nations can serve as the
hub, while the regional arrangements serve as the
spokes of a global wheel for food security.
Thirdly, let us establish the framework for a
global partnership on food security. We should ensure
that the World Trade Organization Doha development
negotiations reach a conclusion that supports increased
food production. Let us make use of the forthcoming
review of the Monterrey Consensus on financing for
development as an opportunity to devise ways to fund
the Green Revolution.
Let us be mindful, however, that agriculture does
not always lead to a food harvest. It is even possible
that an imprudent rush to produce biofuels will lead to
a severe reduction of the food supply. It is true that by
switching from fossil fuels to biofuels, we can cushion
the impact of the skyrocketing of the world price of oil
and thereby address the energy crisis. It is also true
that, by making that switch in fuels, we reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and thereby address the
challenge of climate change.
It would be unwise and reckless, however, to
address two crises by aggravating a third. We cannot
allay the energy crisis and the crisis of global warming
by deepening the global food crisis. That will only
worsen the plight of humankind, but we can carry out a
broad range of rational and coordinated policies and
initiatives that address those crises systemically. We
can address the energy crisis by developing all
alternative sources of available energy, which will help
mitigate global warming.
Moreover, in the next 16 months we can advance
the climate change agenda through the Bali Road Map,
all the way from Bali to Copenhagen through Poznan.
Indonesia is fully committed to that process. After
hosting the Bali conference that produced the Road
Map, we have joined the troika of host countries to
give the process a push among world leaders. By 2009,
we should produce an ambitious post-2012 global
climate regime that will contain global warming to
within two degrees Celsius in the next 20 years. But
even before the process is concluded in Copenhagen,
we in Indonesia are partnering with other countries to
enhance our topical forests and coral reefs in an effort
to reduce carbon emissions.
Even as we face the challenge of global warming
in the physical world, we must also deal with the
reality of a global chill in the politico-security field.
Symptoms of that chill are the military tensions that
have arisen in Eastern Europe.
There is also a new arms race. There is more
military spending now than there was at the end of the
cold war. Moreover, the conflicts and tensions of a year
ago are still with us. The dream of establishing a
Palestinian State by the end of this year has virtually
crumbled. The Iraqi and Afghan conflicts keep raging
on. North Korea, the subject of so much uncertainty
today, is backsliding from its commitment to dismantle
its nuclear weapons programme. The nuclear issue in
Iran remains unresolved.
In the face of those conflicts and tensions, the
Security Council should have been more decisive. That
the Council has failed to resolve them is a cause for
concern. Of the issues that the Council has failed to
resolve, two are of great concern to Indonesia, namely,
those recent cases that directly infringe on the principle
of the territorial integrity and political independence of
States, both involving external intervention that led to
the secession of a part or parts of a State. Both cases
involved major Powers.
It is of the greatest importance to Indonesia and, I
believe, to many developing countries that those recent
cases do not set an ill-advised and dangerous
precedent. Developing countries in the midst of nation-
building and State-building would be extremely
vulnerable to such precedents. The danger is that it
takes only one misstep to kill principles that have been
enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, such as
the principle of the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of States. If we kill those principles, we have killed the
ideal that holds the United Nations together.
The sovereignty of States must be preserved if
there is to be a democratic spirit in international
relations. That idea is essential because, without
democracy, a world organization like the United
Nations cannot be effective. Indeed, the failure of the
Security Council to come to grips with recent
challenges to global security is due largely to the fact
that it is not democratic enough.
To make the Council more democratic, the use of
the veto power of the permanent five must be
regulated. The misuse of the veto by any one
permanent member should no longer be allowed to
17 08-53129
paralyse the entire Council. Democratization of the
Council also means an equitable distribution of its
membership, not only in terms of geographical
representation, where we already have imbalances, but
also in terms of constituencies. Hence, the world’s
major civilizations should be proportionately
represented. The world’s community of 1.1 billion
Muslims must be represented on the Council if it is to
be truly democratic.
The need for democratization is also deeply felt
at the regional level. In the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), I am pleased to say, we have
responded to that need. The cause of democracy is
gaining ground in the region as we transform ASEAN
from a loose association into a true community that is
firmly committed to the promotion of democracy and
human rights. All members, without exception,
strongly share that commitment.
It is in that spirit that Indonesia is launching the
Bali Democracy Forum this December. It will be not an
exclusive forum among democracies, but an inclusive
and open forum for the countries of Asia to share their
experiences and best practices in fostering democracy.
A true democracy is always homegrown; it is never
anything that is imposed from outside.
Meanwhile, we in Indonesia continue to tend to
our young democracy. We are seeing to it that
democracy takes root, not only by holding free
elections, but also by working hard to provide good
governance, to sustain a system of checks and balances
among the three branches of Government, and to
strengthen the roles of the mass media and civil society
in our national life. Thus we pursue the democratic
ideal: democracy at the level of the United Nations,
democracy at the regional level and democracy within
the nation.
At each of those levels, we hope to see nations
and people taking control of their lives and taking part
in the decision-making processes that shape their
future. The realization of that ideal will give full
meaning to the first three words of the Charter of the
United Nations. Indeed, “We the peoples” is what
democracy is all about.