I would first like to express to the United States authorities our sincere thanks for the warm welcome they give us each time we arrive in the beautiful city of New York to take part in this great annual meeting. I want to express our sincere sympathy to the American people, who are commemorating the twentieth anniversary this month of the cowardly attacks of September 2001, and I join in the tribute to the victims of that barbaric act.
I would also like to add my voice to those of the eminent persons who have preceded me on this rostrum in congratulating Mr. Abdullah Shahid on his brilliant election to preside over the General Assembly at its seventy-sixth session. My delegation and I believe firmly that his human and professional qualities can be put to good use for the success of our work in the context of this session. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay well-deserved tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Volkan Bozkir, for the efficiency with which he directed the work of the seventy-fifth session and fulfilled his noble duties. Finally, on behalf of my country and my delegation, I want to sincerely congratulate His Excellency Mr. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on his reappointment to a new term, and to express our appreciation and our gratitude for his sustained investment, as well as that of his entire team, in serving the United Nations, which is facing challenges that make his work increasingly difficult but still essential.
This seventy-sixth session of the General Assembly comes at a particularly crucial moment in the history of the world and of our Organization. It is happening at a time when all nations are deploying their best efforts to master and defeat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and its variants, which have brought all the peoples of the world to their knees for nearly two years. On behalf of my delegation, I welcome the surge of salutary solidarity that has made it possible to avoid the worst. Indeed, after the shock of the first days and weeks, human solidarity established and laid the foundations for a struggle that has helped us to gradually regain control of events, little by little. In that regard, the Union of the Comoros salutes the women and men, the scientists, researchers, experts and laboratories, who have worked so effectively and invested themselves in researching and producing vaccines against the virus and have ultimately succeeded in restoring hope worldwide. Of course, we cannot forget the sacrifices made by the thousands of women and men on the front lines in every country and in every category of health care who have risked their lives and found the courage and strength to brave the storm of this deadly enemy.
I want to express our infinite gratitude and a hearty “well done” to each and every one of them.
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the economies of the world and upset the centuries-old order among States, nations and peoples. It has forced us and taught us to live differently. Since November 2019, the date of its appearance in the world, we have been living through an unprecedented crisis, a true world war. The pandemic has slowed the course of life, further widened the gap between rich and poor, accelerated inequalities and disrupted the balance of our national economies. No nation has been spared!
The pandemic also revealed the extent of the technological gap between countries and showed us the importance of new information and communications technologies and the need for urgent action to reduce that gap. Likewise, the inequalities we have seen in access to vaccines underscore the importance of acting to secure our spirit of solidarity and remember the essential role of multilateralism. And the reason we need greater solidarity and an understanding of the true meaning of multilateralism is so that we can work together to rebuild the world and save our nations and peoples. It is by integrating this reality that we will succeed in the work of this session of the Assembly and of other major international meetings, in particular the next World Food Summit, the twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.
The theme of this session concerns reform of the United Nations, which represents the best we all have to offer the world in our continuing quest for lasting peace and security. It is therefore an opportunity to evaluate the Organization’s performance with a view to ensuring better representation for developing countries, especially on the African continent, which, as we know, encompass zones of dynamic economic growth but also conflicts, some of them bloody, which delay the development and well-being of their peoples. As a community of nations, we have a duty to tackle problems — in particular those linked to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States — that, if unresolved, will destroy the Organization’s credibility.
On behalf of my Government and the Comorian people, I therefore want to reiterate the vital need for a rapid, just and equitable solution to the question of Palestine, a solution that will secure the Palestinian people’s right to a sovereign State with East Jerusalem as its capital, living in harmony and perfect health and security with the State of Israel. While I understand the position of certain brother countries in the Arab world that have renewed relations with the State of Israel, it is up to the State of Israel to recognize and act on those bold initiatives for the benefit of all.
Furthermore, and with a view to a lasting settlement of the issue of the Moroccan Sahara, which is of great concern to my Government, I would like to express here our encouragement to the efforts undertaken by the Kingdom of Morocco. We hope that they will lead to a solution that will enable our brother country to regain its autonomy and territorial integrity over that Moroccan province. My Government welcomes any initiative that will help to ensure peace in this region and strongly encourages dialogue between our brother countries of Morocco and Algeria.
Also with respect to sovereignty, the Union of the Comoros reiterates its position on the necessity for the People’s Republic of China to regain its integrity where the Chinese province of Taiwan is concerned.
With regard to the Franco-Comorian territorial dispute over the issue of the Comorian island of Mayotte, in recent years we have witnessed the desire of the two parties, the Comoros and France, to capitalize on the achievements of our common past, while maintaining a frank and constructive dialogue with a view to reaching a peaceful and definitive solution that respects international law and is in the interests of both countries.
I want to emphasize that we must not remain indifferent to the hotbeds of tension that undermine peace in various parts of the world and have become fertile grounds for outbreaks of international terrorism, as in the Sahel and more recently in Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. The situation in Afghanistan also concerns us and I would like to renew my country’s support for the Afghan people in this crucial phase of their destiny. The recent unconstitutional changes that have taken place in many countries, in Africa and around the world, remind us of the urgent need to consider innovative and lasting solutions that are not bound by short-term geopolitical issues. In order to consolidate peace, security and stability in the world, we therefore need a strong consensus, and we should always put the emphasis in that regard on conflict
prevention, along with providing constant support to efforts to resolve emerging crises.
The principles and values of the United Nations are now united around the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a priority for every country. They constitute an ideal platform for our collective commitment and a foundation for our actions in favour of development. In that process, and as shown in my country’s voluntary national assessment report presented to the high-level political forum in 2020, the Union of the Comoros has embarked on a path aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in all their aspects, for which the Emerging Comoros Plan for 2030 is our relevant national framework.
As we tackle the work of this session, let us not forget that according to current studies and research, entire regions are expected to simply disappear, while others will be affected by the intensification of climate events such as floods, droughts, fires, coastal erosion and ocean acidification, the consequences of the harmful effects of the degradation of our environment. While those events spare no country or region, we should note that the situation of small island developing States such as the Comoros is even more worrying and deserves greater attention from us leaders. And like so many others, these States are also dealing with other dangerous problems such as piracy, human trafficking at sea, drug trafficking, illegal fishing and the plundering of natural resources at sea. My Government associates itself with every national and global initiative aimed at waging merciless war on such barbaric acts, which are a major threat to the security of our populations. That is why I intend to reorient our diplomacy’s strategic axes so as to integrate the dimension of security into our geostrategic action, especially in the area of the Mozambique Channel and the South-Western Indian Ocean. That new vision, which requires the assistance of our neighbours and development partners, has become the basis for any projection for the future of this part of the world, for which the development of a sustainable and controlled blue economy holds immense and vital potential.
At the national level, I am aware of the need for political stability as a guarantee of the socioeconomic development for which my Government is working tirelessly. Political stability and national cohesion are dear to our country because they are essential to any initiative. Our salvation depends on a peaceful, united society that is increasingly inclusive of all the strata of which it is composed.
The false information purveyed by social networks, and through unreliable and unofficial channels, has no aim other than to damage the peaceful climate within our islands and undermine the efforts to develop the Union of the Comoros. With a view to improving our national cohesion, I have therefore decided to engage mid-term in a national political dialogue that I hope will help to bring together more Comorian women and men around our essential objectives — that is, peace, security and national unity — which will enable us to capitalize on our efforts for the socioeconomic development of our country. I would like to thank the African Union mission led by the Commissioner for Peace and Security, who has just completed his stay in the Union of the Comoros and in the space of a week was able to meet with all the stakeholders in this dialogue, listen to everyone, appreciate their positions and make recommendations. It is now up to all the parties to this dialogue to move forward. It is clear that our country needs all its national stakeholders to consolidate our achievements of the past 20 years in the areas of human rights and democratic change and thereby advance its development.
Comorians must also be able to trust the justice system, the guarantor of respect for their rights and protection. The Comorian judicial system must remain the support that the State offers the weakest for their defence and the most deprived for the protection of their rights, in the face of an upsurge in violence, especially against women, children and vulnerable members of society. Such acts must be very severely punished. That is why my Government has set up a higher judicial council composed of eminent magistrates with long experience in their field, and has adopted a revised penal code and code of penal procedure, incorporating provisions aimed at providing the country with an improved and adequate political and legal framework.
On the societal front, COVID-19 has occupied our minds, as it has everywhere else, and forced us to prioritize the management of the disease. The Union of the Comoros has had two waves, of which the second was more virulent. Nevertheless, the situation has been brought under control thanks to measures taken and provisions made by the authorities in that regard, with support from all our bilateral and multilateral partners, our communities and members of civil society, to whom we are very grateful. It must be said that while
the Union of the Comoros, thank God, is now in the “green” category, we must continue to be vigilant, especially as an island country, in order to avoid any further spread of the disease. To date, a second stage of vaccinations has been completed, and the third phase, which begins soon, will enable us to reach the goal of 80 per cent of the target population that we have set for ourselves by the beginning of 2022. My Government is also making major efforts to support our people in their daily life, especially with regard to protecting them from the looming global food crisis that is likely one of the consequences of the situation created by COVID-19.
We welcome the assistance of all my country’s development partners. The new framework plan for sustainable development that has just been signed for the next five years with the United Nations system perfectly integrates the priorities adopted by the Emerging Comoros Plan. All the combined efforts of the Government and bilateral and multilateral partners of the Comoros must be focused on the major objective of ensuring our country’s emergence by 2030. I would like to point in that regard to the Development Partners Conference for Comoros held in December 2019, in which hundreds of bilateral and multilateral partners and representatives of the private sector participated. By the end of the Conference, which France was kind enough to host, we had mobilized partners who expressed their interest in supporting the implementation of our plan, which today remains the general benchmark for the development of the Union of the Comoros. The strong presence of our nation’s partners and the importance of the announcements made attest to the success of that historic meeting.
I am also committed to close cooperation with the countries with which we share a common destiny in the South-Western Indian Ocean. Together we intend to implement common actions to significantly strengthen our bonds of good-neighbourliness and cooperation for the well-being of our respective peoples. However, all that momentum has unfortunately been blunted by the major health crisis, which took every country by surprise and weakened our follow-up to the commitments made at the Paris conference. The reality today is that we have to face facts. We have no choice but to learn to live with this virus. We therefore need to find ways to move forward with our previously planned projects. I would like to launch a friendly and fraternal appeal from this rostrum to all our partners so that together we can find the ways and means to realize our commitments made in Paris aimed at financing the various projects in the Emerging Comoros Plan. The Union of the Comoros has set up an executive secretariat responsible for monitoring the Development Partners Conference, which will work in close collaboration with the relevant national authorities as well as all our partners.
At the regional level, the Union of the Comoros passed the torch of the presidency of the Indian Ocean Commission last May to France, to which we wish every success and the triumph of the ideals and values cherished by the peoples of the Indian Ocean. The Comorian presidency of the Indian Ocean Commission was a success. It advanced the subregional organization in a reform process aimed at making it more efficient, more modern and better able to meet the expectations of our countries’ populations, following a ministerial retreat that my Government organized in Moroni. Our Comorian presidency also worked to successfully manage the COVID-19 pandemic in member countries and to establish a regional plan for the blue economy and a strategy for the revival of regional economies.
The Union of the Comoros is also participating in regional efforts aimed at ensuring security in East Africa. We have given unwavering support to our sister republic of Mozambique in the fight against the scourge of terrorism, which unfortunately spares no countries. We must therefore maintain our regional and international solidarity in a relentless effort to combat it and ensure our regional security.
The Union of the Comoros has been very honoured to assume a vice-presidency within the African Union (AU) and is therefore committed to playing an effective role, helping to promote the noble values defended by the African Union in connection with peace, stability, respect for human rights and the achievement of the Agenda 2063 in all its aspects. We are working closely with the AU Bureau, particularly on the quest for a peaceful solution to the dispute between our brother nations of Egypt, the Sudan and Ethiopia.
Our presence here every year at the United Nations is proof of the importance we attach to multilateralism and of our belief in the major role that this Organization plays in further humanizing the world. In that regard, I want to commend the address by President Biden of the United States and his commitment to multilateralism. Our presence at the General Assembly this year also reflects our common determination, even stronger and more steadfast, to act for the good of our respective
peoples. We are here to say yes to everything that will contribute to a better balance in the world, and to say no to anything that contradicts that. And we especially say no to COVID-19.