My
delegation and I join in expressing our congratulations
to you, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, on your
election as President of the General Assembly at its
sixty-third session, and we hope you have a very
successful and rewarding term at the helm of this body.
We express our gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Srgjan
Kerim for the excellent work done during his tenure as
President of the Assembly at its sixty-second session.
Once again, we have come to this body to
reaffirm the need for what we have always called for:
the implementation of all the promises and pledges that
we have made before. The focus of the sixty-third
session of the General Assembly is on the global food
crisis, climate change and reform of the United
Nations. The confluence of the food, fuel and financial
crises, as well as the effects of climate change, pose the
real threat that they will undermine the progress made
by developing countries in the struggle against poverty
and underdevelopment.
During the Millennium Summit, held in 2000, our
heads of State and Government adopted a Declaration
(resolution 55/2) that communicated a message of hope
and a vision of a better world. Included in the
Declaration was an important section on the special
needs of Africa. In paragraph 24 of the Declaration, the
leaders stated that they would
“spare no effort to promote democracy and
strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for
all internationally recognized human rights and
fundamental freedoms, including the right to
development”.
African and many other, developing countries
have indeed taken responsibility for promoting
democracy, good governance, peace and stability and
human rights. They are also hard at work rolling back
the frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment. But,
despite those strides, it is clear that many in
sub-Saharan Africa will not achieve the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Part of the reason is that
the global partnership for development on which the
achievement of the MDGs was predicated has not been
fully implemented. Despite the lofty ideas expressed at
previous sessions of the Assembly, we continue to fall
short in meeting our commitments to implement that
partnership, in particular in the areas of trade, aid and
debt relief.
We express the fervent hope that the high-level
meetings organized by yourself, Mr. President, and the
Secretary-General, on Africa’s development needs and
on the MDGs, have served not only as important
reminders of the challenges we face, but also as a
catalyst that will cause the world to feel a greater sense
of urgency.
The necessary resources exist in the world to
achieve the MDGs. We need to summon the necessary
political will and compassion. So we join the sister
countries of our continent in calling for massive
resource transfers through development assistance,
investment, trade, technology transfers and human
resource development. These will ensure that African
and other developing countries are able to successfully
adapt to the devastating impact of climate change and
achieve the MDGs.
However, in order to accelerate the achievement
of all the Millennium Development Goals, much more
attention needs to be focused on Goal 3, regarding the
empowerment of women. Women need to be at the
centre of development as agents of change, socially,
economically and politically.
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Billions of the people of the world, whom we are
privileged to represent in the Assembly, have cast their
eyes on this gathering of leaders. They have done so
because they have hope that this leadership will take
the required measures in order to address poverty and
underdevelopment. We dare not fail them.
The food crisis has to be addressed in the short
and medium terms. The Green Revolution that has
been launched by the African Union needs partnerships
in order to succeed. In addition, support for the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development will be a major
contributor to the struggle against poverty and
underdevelopment. In that context, allow me, Mr.
President, to quote from your own statement to the
General Assembly with regard to that socio-economic
programme as well as the role of our immediate former
President, Thabo Mbeki:
“During his presidency of the rainbow nation,
spanning nearly a decade, he, along [with] other
African leaders, championed the vision of
NEPAD we still pursue today. When the affluent
listen to Africa and partner with it, that vision is
within reach. To quote NEPAD’s founding
document: `In fulfilling its promise, this agenda
must give hope to the emaciated African child
that the twenty-first century is indeed Africa’s
century.’” (, p. 3)
The Doha Development Round has stalled despite
seven years of negotiations. We are convinced that
trade and increased market access will make a major
contribution to the achievement of the MDGs. In that
regard, it is our submission that the Doha Round of
trade negotiations should not be allowed to die, but
must remain focused on development, as originally
envisaged.
In recent years, we have all witnessed the
devastating effects of climate change, especially on
island States. Hurricanes have become more frequent
and more vicious, together with droughts, floods and
unpredictable extreme weather patterns in the rest of
the world. Of course, climate change requires an urgent
response. Given the agreement in Bali last year on a
road map for negotiations, it is our hope that the
negotiations, to be completed in Copenhagen in 2009,
will necessarily set the stage for more concerted action
by all countries to address climate change and all its
manifestations, with the developed countries taking the
lead. South Africa commits itself to approaching the
preparations for Copenhagen constructively and with a
view to reaching an agreement that is ambitious,
balanced and inclusive.
We join the many leaders of the world who have
expressed their support for fundamental reform of the
system of global governance, including the United
Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions. It is
important to understand that the critical issues facing
the world today — the current financial, food and
energy crises — cannot be addressed effectively when
so many countries and regions of the world are left out
of the key decision-making processes of important
institutions of global governance. South Africa stands
ready to work with other members of the United
Nations to advance the goal of reform.
Equally, the reform of the Security Council need
not be re-emphasized. We reiterate our view that a
reformed Security Council would have more legitimacy
and that its decisions would have more credibility. We
welcome the recent decision (decision 62/557) to
launch in the General Assembly inter-governmental
negotiations on Security Council reform, to discuss
plans for expanding the Security Council in both the
non-permanent and permanent categories. It is of
course a travesty of justice that Africa, which
constitutes a large portion of the work of the Council,
is not represented in the permanent category. Unless
the ideals of freedom, justice and equality become the
character of the United Nations, including the Security
Council, the dominant will continue to dictate to the
dominated, while the dreams of the dominated will
forever be deferred.
In December this year, my country will complete
its tenure as a non-permanent member of the Security
Council. We have indeed been privileged to serve the
peoples of Africa and the world in that capacity; it has
been a historic first for us as a young democracy. In
that capacity, we were indeed honoured to contribute
meaningfully to global efforts to create peace and
stability in all regions of the world. Accordingly, we
express the humble gratitude of the people of our
country to the general membership of the United
Nations for the trust placed in us in helping the world
discharge this mandate.
During our tenure, the Security Council also
focused on the important question of enhancing the
relationship between the United Nations and regional
organizations, in particular the African Union (AU).
13 08-53141
We were honoured to be able to contribute to that
work. We congratulate the Secretary-General on
appointing an African Union-United Nations panel of
distinguished persons whose mandate is to explore
financing modalities for AU-led peacekeeping
missions.
Peace continues to evade the Middle East. South
Africa participated in the Annapolis Conference in
2007 with great expectations and hopes that progress
would indeed be made to advance the goal of peace in
that region. We will continue to support all
international efforts to help the peoples of Palestine
and Israel in their endeavour to find a lasting and
peaceful solution to their challenges, leading to the
establishment of a viable Palestinian State, coexisting
side by side with the State of Israel, within secure
borders. We understand full well the pain, suffering
and agony that conflict brings to bear on the lives of
ordinary people, particularly women and children.
Those ordinary souls continue to cry out to this
Assembly of the world, as they have done in the past,
to help bring an end to the conflict.
South Africa will continue to work with the sister
peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Burundi and Côte d’Ivoire in their efforts to
consolidate peace and democracy in their respective
countries. With regard to Zimbabwe, the Assembly
must certainly be aware of the recent developments led
by our former President Thabo Mbeki in his capacity as
the Southern African Development Community
(SADC) facilitator, which culminated in the signing of
an agreement between the main political protagonists
in the country. We hope that the leadership of
Zimbabwe win soon finalize aspects of that agreement
to make possible the formation of a new Government
that will help lay the groundwork to address the
political and economic challenges facing their country.
SADC, the African Union and the facilitator stand as
guarantors of the agreement. We call on the
international community to spare neither strength nor
effort in lending a hand to the people of Zimbabwe as
they embark on the difficult path of reconciliation and
reconstruction.
Equally, the situations in Somalia and the Sudan,
and especially in Darfur, remain matters of great
concern. South Africa will continue to do whatever it
can, both bilaterally and in the context of the African
Union and the United Nations, to help the peoples of
Sudan and Somalia find peace among themselves.
We remain concerned about the impasse on the
question of Western Sahara. South Africa is committed
to seeking a just, mutually acceptable and lasting
solution to that problem.
This year also marks the sixtieth anniversary of
the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. During the past six decades, the Declaration
has remained the key standard for human rights, justice
and dignity. We should therefore use this anniversary
period to strengthen our resolve to defend human
rights. South Africa has also had the honour to be
reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review
mechanism of the new Human Rights Council. We
were also honoured with the appointment of our own
Justice Navi Pillai to lead that very important
international institution.
Mr. Siles Alvarado (Bolivia), Vice-President, took
the Chair.
We wish to reiterate our belief in the centrality of
the United Nations. In the Millennium Declaration, we
reaffirmed that the United Nations “is the
indispensable common house of the entire human
family, through which we will seek to realize our
universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and
development” (resolution 55/2, para. 32). Leading
South Africa’s delegation to the Millennium Summit
was our former President, Thabo Mbeki, who reminded
the Assembly that
“Billions among the living struggle to survive in
conditions of poverty, deprivation and
underdevelopment ... as offensive to everything
humane as anything we decry about the second
millennium.” (A/55/PV.5, p. 18)
It is that understanding that has correctly
informed the engagement of successive leaders of our
democratic State with this body over the years. In that
regard, we are touched and humbled by the kind
comments made in the Assembly by the various heads
of State or Government and heads of delegation,
directed at our immediate former President, Thabo
Mbeki. We most certainly shall, through our
Government, convey those sentiments to that noble son
of our people and our continent, and citizen of the
world.
Accordingly, from this rostrum may I also
express our sincere gratitude to the general
membership of the United Nations for the support that
08-53141 14
former President Mbeki and our country received over
the past nine-and-a-half years of his stewardship of our
country. As the leadership of our country is passed on,
we confirm that South Africa, under the guidance of
President Kgalema Motlanthe, shall indeed continue to
be a trusted and dependable partner in the common
endeavour to strengthen our institutions of
multilateralism, starting from the correct premise that
multilateralism remains the only hope in addressing the
challenges facing humanity today, whether they be
terrorism, threats to human rights, peace and stability
or, of course, the central struggle against poverty and
underdevelopment.