I
would like at the outset to welcome the election of
Mr. Ali Treki to the presidency of the General
Assembly at its sixty-fourth session, which is taking
place at a time when major challenges continue to test
the effectiveness of our Organization. From this
rostrum, I would also like to pay tribute to his
predecessor, Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and to
his courageous and energetic actions throughout his
term. I also thank Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for
his exceptional work at the head of our Organization at
a time in history when important reforms are being
undertaken.
I wish to emphasize the extent to which, now
more than ever, the United Nations symbolizes hope in
the face of the major challenges threatening our planet,
which no nation can meet alone. People have never had
such need of that hope.
The Summit on Climate Change, held recently at
the initiative of the Secretary-General, called once
again upon the collective conscience of all nations
large and small, united and stirred by a common
resolve to work to build the better world of which the
founding fathers of our Organization dreamed. In this
village that our world has become, we Members of the
United Nations are the guarantors of people’s liberties
and rights, their security and their future, their dignity
and the promise of world peace.
Mr. Hackett (Barbados), Vice-President, took the
chair.
I know what solidarity owes to the dedication of
the United Nations, and what peace owes to its actions,
commitment and determination. And I foresee what the
future will owe it. It is here that are forged freedom
and human rights, solidarity and universal justice — in
a word, the destiny of humankind. The men and women
here know that more than a billion people still live on
less than a dollar a day and that children die
unnecessarily of hunger and disease. All of us here
know how climate change is abetting these scourges
and how the countries least responsible for it suffer the
most from its effects. Producing only 3.8 per cent of
greenhouse gas emissions, our continent is the most
affected by global warming. Poor populations are its
main victims. The agriculture, fauna and infrastructure
of coastal regions are on the front line.
The Brundtland report of the World Commission
on Environment and Development (A/42/427, annex),
submitted to the General Assembly in 1987, gave us,
more than 20 years ago, the following definition of
sustainable development: “development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs”
(Ibid., p. 54).
Sustainable development is not a concept, as we
have all learned at our own expense; it is an issue
fraught with genuine responsibilities. The balance of
ecosystems has never been so threatened. Urgent
measures are required in Africa and in all nations to
guarantee food security, combat drought and
desertification, and restore natural ecosystems. Such
measures require the mobilization of significant
resources.
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When one’s main resource is the forest, one bears
an immense responsibility. We represent the Earth’s
second most important environmental lung, after the
Amazon. Together with our Latin American brothers,
we are aware of our responsibility as guardians of
forests that represent an essential treasure for all
humankind.
Since the 1990s, the Congo has worked
continuously with the international community to
combat global warming and to implement a policy of
forest protection. Today, our action is more essential
than ever. Our forests represent vast carbon sinks of
global importance for regulating the greenhouse-gas
effect. They are our common salvation and home to
400 species of mammals, more than 1,000 species of
birds and more than 10,000 species of plants, 3,000 of
which are endemic. Gorillas, forest buffaloes,
chimpanzees, bonobos and forest elephants — these
are what must inspire our action, as they help to
maintain the ecological functions of natural systems.
In 1999, the countries of the Congo basin
launched a unique forestry experiment by proclaiming
their common resolve to preserve their biodiversity and
promote the sustainable and joint management of their
forest ecosystems, as well as by ensuring the use of
resources for Central Africa’s economic and social
development. The resulting plan is one of the strategic
components of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development. It represents a significant contribution
by Central Africa to the effort to address the problems
related to global warming. Unfortunately, the funds
necessary for the programme’s implementation are still
lacking.
The countries of the region have nonetheless
made great progress in forest preservation. Today,
Africa requests that the forthcoming Copenhagen
Conference consider mechanisms for adaptation,
mitigation, capacity-building, technology transfer and
financing based on the principle of equity. In
Copenhagen, we must take earnest account of the
forests, which represent carbon sinks of global
importance for regulating and stabilizing our planet’s
climate.
The economic and financial crisis, whose effects
we continue to feel, is the most serious economic
recession that the world has experienced since the
Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis should help
to raise our awareness. It justifies an overhaul of the
international financial architecture and can enable us,
through new commitments, to realize the vision of a
more unified and equitable world. But time is running
out, in Africa more than elsewhere, and the adoption of
decisive measures can wait no longer.
Halfway towards the deadline for achieving the
Millennium Development Goals, our success will
depend on the international community’s new choices
and on the effective implementation of announced
measures. The commitments undertaken at the April
2009 London summit of the Group of 20 must be
honoured, and we hope that the meeting to be held in
Pittsburgh will fulfil all our expectations.
In its capacity as African Union co-mediator,
together with Libya, of the crisis between Chad and the
Sudan, the Republic of the Congo welcomes the
willingness, expressed by both parties at the African
Union summit, to relaunch negotiations based on the
Doha Agreement of 3 May 2009. We also note with
satisfaction that the tripartite initiative aimed at a joint
settlement in the subregion, with the assistance of the
United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office in the
Central African Republic, the General Secretariat of
the Economic Community of Central African States,
the Commission of the Central African Economic and
Monetary Community and the General Secretariat of
the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States, should
enable us to curb the insecurity on the borders of
Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Chad for
the long term.
We welcome the significant progress seen
recently in relations among the countries of the Great
Lakes region on our continent. The warming of
relations between the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and Rwanda, the revitalization of the Economic
Community of the Great Lakes Countries, and the
normalization of relations between Uganda and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo reflect the common
will of the Great Lakes countries to work to
consolidate peace.
With respect to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, we
encourage any initiative to promote sustained dialogue
between the parties in the quest for a definitive and
equitable solution to the crisis.
We welcome the unanimous adoption, on
24 September 2009 at the historic Security Council
9 09-52470
summit (see S/PV.6191), of resolution 1887 (2009),
which reflects the determination of the international
community to work towards disarmament and nuclear
non-proliferation for a safer world.
In the light of these many challenges, we call for
strict compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty in all its aspects, including the right of all
countries to develop nuclear technologies for civilian
purposes.
The Congolese people renewed their confidence
in me last July. That confidence is based on the concept
that we call the “path of the future”. That path proposes
opening the Congo to modernization and
industrialization, to the pursuit of peacebuilding, the
strengthening of democracy and the rule of law, to the
promotion of good governance and to the protection of
human rights. We have pledged to open a new path to
the future and to mark it with proper behaviour and
clean technologies. We have pledged in my country to
never sit on our hands and watch the Earth suffer. That
is a promise which I repeat here.
Our African storytellers have often said that men
were the dream of the Earth. I solemnly promise that
not only will Africans do everything in their power to
never become its nightmare; they will, on the contrary,
open up a gateway to the future for all of us.