Madagascar

I join all those who have welcomed the start of this fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly. Endorsing the Millennium Declaration of the Millennium Summit, I reiterate its message: Let us — the peoples of the United Nations, faced with new challenges; brothers and sisters, partners linked by and in our support for the principles of our Organization; with the expectations and constraints of our countries and peoples, yearning for peace and well- being; likewise facing the requirements of globalization and the manifold risks of conflict and marginalization — be united in our action; let us say: “We the peoples”, inspired by new hope and new momentum, are for a better millennium. The delegation of Madagascar congratulates you, Mr. President, on your unanimous election to preside over the fifty-fifth session of the General Assembly, a tribute both to your eminent diplomatic qualities and to your country, Finland. We also pay tribute to Mr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Namibia, for the dedication and determination he displayed in presiding over the fifty-fourth session. We convey our congratulations to the Secretary- General on his efforts he has made. His actions will benefit all the citizens of the world, who are all anxious to leave deprivation and poverty behind. I also take this opportunity to thank, from this rostrum, the United Nations, for having adopted resolution 54/96 M of 14 March 2000, as well as all the countries and organizations that helped Madagascar following the cyclone damage at the beginning of this year. With regard to restructuring the United Nations, it is high time to enact such proposals as enlarging that cornerstone of collective peace that is the Security Council, streamlining the institutional structure to make it work better, and improving the financial structure with a view to a more equitable assessment of contributions. The power of the veto, which in itself constitutes a nullification of democracy, is incompatible with the founding principles of our Organization. We know that, unfortunately, Africa is a place of perpetual conflict, but a new impetus is manifesting itself in the search for lasting peace and reconciliation. With regard to the crisis in Comoros, Madagascar respects the position expressed by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) at its thirty-sixth Assembly of Heads of State and Government, held at Lomé. The Antananarivo Agreement of April 1999 remains the viable solution for bringing to an end the separatist crisis in Anjouan, a crisis that was caused by the unconstitutionality of the regime currently in power. Madagascar welcomes the efforts undertaken in Burundi by President Nelson Mandela in his capacity 18 as mediator and facilitator. Those efforts led to the signing of the Arusha agreement, which we hope will allow the people of Burundi to be united once again and to find peace and a new impetus for development. Madagascar has long supported the struggle for self-determination of the Sahraoui people and encourages the implementation of the United Nations Settlement Plan as the only viable mechanism able to resolve the differences between the two parties. We welcome the outcome of the mediation efforts undertaken by President Ismail Omar Guelleh of the Republic of Djibouti. Thanks to those efforts, Somalia is now beginning to find peace after more than a decade as a non-State. The election by the parliament in Djibouti on 25 August 2000 of Mr. Abdikassim Salad Hassan as the new President is a step towards agreement. The people of Somalia can now embark upon the process of restoring a State of law and civil peace through their own efforts and with the support of the international community. The desire in recent months for dialogue between the two Koreas is encouraging. We welcome the summit conference held in Pyongyang in June 2000 to discuss peaceful reunification that led to the signing of a joint North-South declaration. The family reunions that took place after half a century of separation were moving, and such meetings should be facilitated in the future. The decision to have the athletes of the North and South march together at the Olympic Games in Sydney reflects a desire for reconciliation. Madagascar is a peaceful island in the Indian Ocean. Through me, my country reiterates its commitment to carrying out disarmament. We are counting on the implementation of the conventions prohibiting the production, proliferation and illicit sales of weapons of all kinds. On 25 August 1999, Madagascar ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. Furthermore, our Parliament's ratification process for the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons has begun. The proliferation of light weapons is one of the causes of the spread of conflict. My country therefore fully supports the convening in 2001 of an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations on the illicit trafficking in light weapons in all its aspects. We pay tribute to the United Nations peace volunteers who were victims of the recent terrorist act of aggression in West Timor. We underscore the need for a joint strategy to deal with the current wave of violence. Thus on 1 October 1999, Madagascar signed the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. We look forward to a speedy conclusion of the draft convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism. Madagascar strongly supports the recommendations of the Brahimi report and looks forward to their effective and speedy implementation so as to strengthen the peacekeeping capacity of our Organization. We should stress the training, equipping and safety of peace volunteers. In this connection, the countries concerned and neighbouring States should make their contributions. Adopting a comprehensive approach to conflict prevention is necessary because the problem needs to be tackled at the source. Because we support democracy and the observance of human rights and the rights of citizens, Madagascar joined in the decision taken at Algiers in 1999 during the thirty-fifth OAU Assembly of Heads of State and Government to condemn the taking of power through unconstitutional means. A resolution of the thirty-sixth Assembly, which was held at Lomé, urges the international community to condemn with one voice such anti-democratic practices and to enact sanctions against regimes that result from such practices. In the new millennium, let us ensure that children remain at the heart of our collective efforts. The twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly, on social development, held in June 2000 at Geneva, emphasized the need to protect children, to inform them of their rights and to educate them fully in order to prepare them for citizenship. In order to mark the Millennium Summit, on 7 September 2000, Madagascar signed Optional Protocols: one to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and another to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Gender equality is for us an ongoing challenge. We condemn anything that runs counter to the progress of human beings, and we endorse the common struggle against social scourges and transnational 19 crime. We also wish to draw attention to the upsurge in such new areas of concern as sex tourism, paedophilia and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, together with my sister Ministers for Social Affairs, we spoke out in favour of a united struggle against those scourges in a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. What Africa needs is easier access to care and medications. Without opposing in any way the noble principle of freedom of thought and expression, we deplore the ill effects of any type of physical or moral aggression that is the result of the proliferation of cults, and media representations of obscene and immoral images. In this regard, legal instruments should be designed and implemented to create parameters for the electronic dissemination of material that poses a threat to morality. The signing by Madagascar on 7 September last of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography attests to our determination to work to safeguard the family unit and family values, which are a source of human dignity and which guarantee stable sustainable social development. In this context, Madagascar adopted a law in 1999 which outlaws paedophilia. Madagascar has also involved itself in the various stages of the negotiations that led to the adoption and the signing, on 14 September 2000, of the Protocol on Biosafety, the objective of which is to avert the dangers of using genetically modified substances. Madagascar is also against any use of the research relating to the cloning of human beings. The economic and social difficulties facing my country are made worse by the uncertainty and changes in the international system. We must therefore strengthen international dialogue on the basis of partnership and shared responsibility. We are convinced that the promotion of a culture of peace and of mutual understanding will help bring about a harmonious world. Accordingly, Madagascar supports General Assembly resolution 53/22, which proclaimed 2001 the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. We hope that this session will outline strategies that are consonant with the requirements of development and of human security, in keeping with the plan of action proposed by the Secretary-General in his report. An overall rethinking of development is necessary, because it is in everyone's interests to increase the purchasing power of the developing countries, so that in the near future they can become equal partners as well as a potential market. We deplore the glaring inequalities that exist today: our peoples are suffering from famine and malnutrition, whereas some others are enjoying amazing overproduction. This imbalance does nothing to promote commercial and financial flows. We therefore support the Millennium Summit Declaration, which proposes the adoption of a duty-free admission policy for products exported by the developing countries, an increase in official development assistance, and the implementation of a debt relief and forgiveness programme. The holding in May 2001 of the third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries should lead to decisions that ultimately will help to eliminate the least-developed-country category from the scale of world economic values. Accordingly, we support the principles of self- confidence and of mutual trust in the establishment of a monetary fund — a development fund — and a commodity price stabilization fund. This initiative seeks to both reduce the vulnerability of the developing countries to exogenous factors and to decrease the dependence of our economies on those of the developed countries. Concerning Africa specifically, regional and continental integration is vital in order to avoid marginalization. In this respect, Madagascar signed the draft Charter of the African Union, which is the expression of the rebirth of a responsible, sovereign Africa. Important meetings await us in 2001, including the high-level intergovernmental meeting on financing for development and the special session to follow up on the World Summit for Children, which are all opportunities to give real meaning to the commitments undertaken during this Millennium Assembly. We have come to this historic session convinced that it will breathe new life into our Organization and provide the basis for a dynamic for peace and 20 cooperation. We have come here because we have confidence in concerted action to meet today's challenges. We have come here because we have hope in a viable future free from need in a world of well- being and peace.