Ethiopia

Allow me first to extend to Ambassador Amara Essy heartfelt congratulations on his unanimous election to preside over the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly. His election is a fitting tribute both to him and to his country, Côte d’Ivoire. While expressing our confidence in his skills and capacity to guide this session to a successful conclusion, I wish to assure him of the full cooperation of my delegation in the discharge of the heavy responsibility he has assumed. I wish also to join the heads of delegations who spoke before me in the very pleasant task of welcoming the new democratic South Africa into the United Nations. The recent happy events in South Africa mark a turning point in the history of Africa. They have opened up new vistas for fruitful economic cooperation across the African continent and have allowed the international community to be victorious over institutional racism. It has now been a few years since the international community entered into a new era that is relatively free of ideological polarization. The nuclear confrontation that had haunted the international community before the end of the cold war is now more or less behind us. The demise of the cold war has in this regard contributed to the lifting of the thick veil that had hindered the appreciation of our interdependence. None of the major problems of the present world can be effectively dealt with in the absence of an approach that takes seriously the fact that we live in an interdependent world. The challenges of the environment, the problems of climate change, the unrestrained growth in population and questions of economic growth and development, among others, are all issues that call for greater cooperation between States. It is not too early for us to assess to what extent the international community has taken advantage of new opportunities and, with the major obstacles to joint action having now been removed, how much progress the world has made in addressing the critical problems facing us. Some of these ostensibly affect only part of humanity, but, in fact, are directly or indirectly the problems of the international community as a whole. The ever-deteriorating economic and social conditions faced by the majority of the peoples in the developing world and the abject poverty in which they are condemned to live are the most critical challenge facing the world. The effects of this reality reverberate through all aspects of international life, and they impinge on all issues now routinely accepted as the common challenges of the international community. Actions designed to deal with concerns related to international peace and security, to the environment, to climate change, to population growth and development and to a host of other interrelated concerns will remain only off-target and, at best, partial measures if most of the developing world is allowed to continue to wallow in poverty, and if, as a consequence, despair and hopelessness continue to be the dominant mood of present and future generations in the South. In Africa, for instance, where a genuine fear of marginalization in international economic cooperation has in recent years become the prevailing mood, much of the explanation for the scale, intensity and duration of the conflicts must be sought in the continent’s continuing economic decline and in the consequent social malaise and hopelessness generated by that sad reality. The economic history of Africa over the last two decades is 21 one of precipitate decline. The 1980s was a lost decade, but the first half of the present one is proving to be no better. Each African conflict may have its own unique local as well as extra-local features, but all of them, in one way or another, grow out of the humanly impossible economic and social situations that provide societies with neither hope nor a future. From Liberia to Somalia and from Rwanda to Burundi, what Africa has been witnessing in recent years is the virtual collapse, under the weight of unbearable economic and social difficulties, not only of State structures but also of traditional values and norms of social organization. It seems therefore overdue for the United Nations, when it comes to addressing conflict situations such as those in Africa, to think and to act with the clear assumption that traditional notions of preventive diplomacy, peace-keeping and peace-making, although important, are not enough to maintain the peace and to make it durable. "An Agenda for Peace" will be far from sufficient if it doe not go side by side with, and made an integral part of, "An Agenda for Development". In our part of the world, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) took up a huge challenge when it decided to increase its capacity by setting up a mechanism for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. This is an important step that requires the effective assistance of the international community, and we are appreciative of the support already being given to the OAU by some countries. But we have no illusions: even if the OAU had the capacity required to carry out its mandate in preventive diplomacy, it would not necessarily be able to make substantial inroads in ensuring durable peace in the continent. Nor can the United Nations and the international community do any better unless the challenges faced in connection with preventive measures in the economic and social areas are taken up in the most serious manner and unless the economic and social decline of Africa is reversed. The bottom line is that no African country can categorically be said to be immune from the political and social consequences of the immense level of economic decline, which can be arrested only with the requisite level of international economic cooperation and development partnership. This, incidentally, could also be a way to arrest and contain all varieties of extremism. It seems to us that it is only with the foregoing in mind and with the full appreciation of the very complex nature of some of the conflict situations in Africa that the United Nations can be an effective factor for peace in Africa. This approach would also allow the international community to appreciate fully actual movement, no matter how small, in the right direction towards the resolution of specific conflict situations in Africa. The validity of this is most clearly to be seen in the prevailing situation in Somalia. More than a few still view the situation in Somalia as having shown no improvement and believe that conditions in that country have in fact deteriorated. That view is probably the major reason for the increasing calls for the speedy withdrawal of the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) from Somalia. That view is also certainly behind the latest Security Council resolution on Somalia. The situation in Somalia, and most particularly in some parts of that country, is clearly still far from normal, and there is no question that the overall situation in the country is very fluid. The international community’s frustration at the slow pace of the national- reconciliation process and at the lack of sufficient commitment by all sides in Somalia to their responsibility to sort out their own problems as speedily as possible is also understandable, and this is also our concern. But the feeling that conditions in the country have become hopeless and that the general trend in Somalia holds no promise is not born of what has been taking place there since late last year. That the situation in Somalia today, from the point of view both of the level of armed clashes and of dialogue between Somalis of all factions, is far better than it was a year ago, or indeed a few months ago, cannot seriously be doubted. No one can pretend to have a ready-made solution to the problem of power-sharing in Somalia, which has been one of the major hurdles preventing national reconciliation. The OAU and the countries of the subregion have continued to do everything possible to assist the Somalis to meet this challenge, firmly convinced that the agenda for peace and national reconciliation in the country should be set by Somalis themselves and that the role of extra-Somali parties, including that of UNOSOM, is to assist in the process. We believe that this has been a very fruitful approach. It is the one that has been adopted from the very beginning by President Meles Zenawi, whose OAU colleagues have 22 given him the responsibility of following developments in Somalia. From his station in Mogadishu, President Meles’s envoy has been maintaining very close contact with the various Somali factions. Our general assessment is that the trends in Somalia are encouraging and that the Somalis are taking the first hesitant steps to sort out their problems. Although there is no guarantee of success, the general thrust of developments in Somalia is worthy of the support of the international community. At this time last year UNOSOM was engaged in heavy combat with some Somali factions, and its presence in Somalia did not enjoy universal acceptance there. Today, the situation has changed so dramatically that there is consensus in the country that UNOSOM should stay, one way or another, until national reconciliation is achieved. It would indeed be ironic if the international community were to choose to ignore Somalia precisely when the situation is changing for the better. The efforts of the countries of the Horn of Africa in the search for solutions to situations of conflicts have not been limited to Somalia. It is little more than a year since we in the subregion deployed the initiative of the Inter- Governmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) with a view to assisting in the resolution of the long-standing conflict in the Sudan - a conflict which has created a deep rift in Sudanese society, and whose implications for peace and security, as well as for the social and economic development of our region, are very great indeed. In the course of the negotiations, the IGADD Committee’s major goal was to help the parties to identify and address the central issues that have been the sources of the conflict in the Sudan - a country characterized by religious, ethnic and racial diversity. Pursuant to instructions from our Heads of State, the IGADD Committee of Foreign Ministers attempted, in a series of rounds of negotiation, to help the parties to narrow their differences over the root causes of the conflict and to arrive at a formula for overcoming the deep crisis affecting their countries. Because the IGADD process induced the parties to focus on the critical issues in the conflict, positions have become well defined. The degree of polarity reflected in these positions reveals the gravity of the root causes and explains why the talks have come to deadlock. Thus, the IGADD peace process is at a crossroads in that the positions of the parties have hardened, and the mediators are left to choose between abandoning their efforts and developing alternative strategies in response to the crisis. Faced with this situation, the Ministerial Committee was compelled ultimately to refer the matter back to the IGADD Committee of Heads of State, which met recently in Nairobi. The Heads of State, while recognizing the logjam that has been created in the process of negotiation, have none the less unanimously decided that there is no alternative to continuing with the peace effort. The major consideration here has been the conviction of the Heads of State that a persisting crisis in the Sudan would be not only a cause of continuing bloodshed in that country but also a major source of instability and lack of peace in the subregion. In this regard, the importance of the international community’s input towards breaking the logjam in the IGADD peace initiative in the Sudan can hardly be underestimated. A solution to the problem can come only through the continued efforts of the countries of the region and the international community’s support for those efforts. We in Ethiopia have had more than our share of the tragedies associated with conflicts. It is three years since peace was restored to the country following three decades of civil war and internal strife. Over the past three years the Transitional Government has focused its attention on three broad concerns - the restoration of peace and stability; the democratization of the political process, including the creation of conditions for enforcing the rule of law and setting up democratic institutions; and the liberalization of the economy and the freeing of the economic sector from the strait-jacket of the command economy imposed on our peoples by the military Government. One of the unique aspects of the democratization process in Ethiopia has been the very extensive devolution of power to all regions of the country. In a country known for its excessive centralization of power - something that was pushed to absurdity by the previous Government: the major reason for the absence of peace in Ethiopia for so long - the new relationship between the centre and the regions is becoming a promising arrangement for genuine and meaningful participation of the people, at the grass-roots level, in the political process of their country. We believe that once democracy becomes relevant to the average person and at the grass roots, it will prove to be durable because the struggle between autocracy and democratic forms of governance 23 will not then be between very narrow, elite groups, whether from the military or from other sectors of society. As we approach the end of the period of transition in Ethiopia, we can say with full confidence that we have, by and large, achieved all the major objectives set for that period. Until three years ago Ethiopia’s name was associated with political instability and civil war. Today Ethiopia has not only achieved peace but also become a factor for peace in its own subregion and beyond, as is vividly demonstrated by the Ethiopian peace-keeping contingent in Rwanda. Moreover, we have been gratified by the recent successful elections for a Constituent Assembly, which will be convened very soon to prepare a constitution on the basis of which a general election will be held to install the first-ever democratically elected Government in the country. In the course of the last three years, we in Ethiopia have benefited immensely from the generous assistance of the international community, for which we are very grateful. This assistance was again demonstrated during the recent drought, which affected over 7 million people. Thanks to the assistance of the international community, to the role the Ethiopian people themselves played and to the timely, effective measures taken by the Government, the effects of a drought that could have caused massive loss of life, dislocation and displacement commensurate with those of the 1984-1985 drought were successfully contained. Even though Ethiopia has now started to stand on its own feet, we cannot pretend that we have even remotely begun to address the major challenges still facing us. The fledgling democratic process in a country with no democratic traditions will continue to be a major challenge. But the political will to solidify grass-roots democracy will always be there, among other things because the survival of countries as diverse as Ethiopia can be ensured only on the basis of democratic governance. However, the linchpin of the success of democracy in Ethiopia, as is also true for all similarly situated countries, is sustainable economic growth and development. Citizens who see no future for themselves or for their offspring can hardly be counted on - and for understandable reasons - to be a bedrock for stable Governments, without which democracy will have little chance of flourishing. None the less, even in the economic sector we have made some notable gains, and our cooperation with the international financial institutions has so far been very encouraging. But the challenges ahead of us are immense, and we will continue to count on the support of the international community to help us put our country firmly on the path of sustainable growth and development. One of the major positive outcomes of the demise of the cold war has been the new confidence placed in multilateral approaches to solving the major problems faced by our interdependent world. The United Nations, as the finest expression of multilateralism, has thus been given a new opportunity to make a difference in the world and to spearhead the efforts of the international community for peace and development. In this context, the democratization of the United Nations at all levels, and greater transparency in the operation of the organs of the Organization, including that of the Security Council and of the Secretariat, are some of the required steps which will guarantee that the United Nations can play to the fullest its potential appropriate role as the foremost multilateral organization with the full confidence of peoples in the North as well as in the South. For our part, we will continue to do our share, and do all that is necessary to assist the United Nations in achieving its noble objectives and goals.