I extend our warm
greetings to the President and to this Assembly. I
congratulate him on his election to the presidency of
the General Assembly at this sixty-fourth session. I pay
tribute to his predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Miguel
d’Escoto Brockmann, for presiding over the sixty-third
session with great sensitivity and for bringing a human
face to our work.
The sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly
will address important contemporary issues of interest
to all Member nations. Such issues include seeking out
effective responses to global crises and strengthening
multilateralism and dialogue on international peace,
security and development. Those issues are indeed of
critical importance to my own country, a small island
developing State that has been enriched by its
membership of and participation in the United Nations.
Fiji and its people, like all small developing
island States, are among the first victims of
contemporary global crises, such as the financial and
economic crisis, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and, most
dramatic of all, the phenomenon of climate change. In
small economies like ours, those global events have a
very real effect on the daily livelihoods of our people.
For our part, we have attempted to respond to some of
those crises by making policy changes and
adjustments, encouraging our people to grow their own
food and discouraging food imports wherever possible.
Over the past two years, the size of our public service
has been rationalized. We have maintained a very
streamlined Cabinet structure and significantly
controlled Government operational costs.
There have been critics of the events in Fiji since
December 2006, when the military, with great
reluctance, was forced to remove the then Government
of Fiji. I believe that these critics are largely unaware
of the extent to which politicians, in league with those
who employ terror as a tactic to push racial supremacy
and a corrupt agenda, had become a threat to the safety
and security of our people. Terrorism has become a
global issue and it impacts Fiji as well. We are fully
cooperating in the international effort to control and
contain this scourge.
Next year on 10 October, Fiji will celebrate the
fortieth year of its independence and the fortieth
anniversary of its membership in the United Nations.
We embraced our independence full of enthusiasm,
excited by the prospect of deciding our own future and
believing that our community as a whole would work
5 09-52592
together to achieve a better life for all of our people.
Our path has not been smooth or easy.
The President of Fiji abrogated the Constitution
on 10 April this year. He took this step when a Court of
Appeal ruling created a legal vacuum — a
constitutional anomaly which would have also
prevented implementation of the reforms which were
mandated by him in order to achieve a truly democratic
State.
On 1 July of this year, I announced a road map to
lead Fiji to a new constitution and elections based on
equality, equal suffrage, human rights, justice,
transparency, modernity and true democratic ideals.
My Government and I were mandated to carry out and
to continue the reforms, which will ensure that true,
democratic, non-communal and equal suffrage-based
elections for parliamentary representation will be held
by September 2014. A road map to implement this
mandate was announced on 1 July of this year.
Together with stringent steps to protect our
economy from the effects of the world economic crisis,
work will commence on a new constitution by
September 2012. The basis for the new constitution
will be the ideals and principles formulated by the
People’s Charter for Change and Progress, a document
prepared following widespread consultations with and
input from the people of Fiji. The People’s Charter was
adopted by the President after the endorsement of the
majority of the people of Fiji.
Work on the new constitution will involve
consultations with all the ordinary citizens of our
country, as well as with civil society. Consultations
will focus on issues such as the size of the new
parliament, the sustainability of a bicameral system,
the terms of office of Government, and systems of
accountability of Government to the people. The new
constitution will implement reforms and the results of
extensive consultations and will be in place by
September 2013. This will give the people of Fiji a
year to become familiar with its provisions before the
elections take place in September 2014.
There have been critics of this timeline. These
critics have asked why work on the new constitution
will not commence before September 2012. The
answer is very simple, at least to those who know and
understand Fiji’s history. Fiji has a colonial history that
has created many anomalies and inequalities and whose
legacy resonates today. Consequently and due also to
the politicians, our post-colonial period has been
punctuated by political instability. On each occasion
that a new Government has been voted into power, the
old elite which benefited financially from the previous
established Government has been able to successfully
destabilize the Government and to replace it with its
own supporters and representatives. This was possible
only because those institutions of the State that were
supposed to protect democracy and democratic values
instead colluded with the elite to destabilize and
replace the new Government.
And that is not all. Fiji has suffered more than
20 years of mismanagement, corruption and nepotism.
Our infrastructure, our judicial system and our systems
of accountability have all remained underdeveloped
and unproductive. Many of our finest brains have left
the country because they could see no future in a
country governed by ethno-nationalism, corruption and
greed. In order to ensure that democracy has a real
chance of survival in Fiji’s future, serious and
principled reforms must be implemented to build roads,
institutions and values.
Together with infrastructure, the hearts and minds
of our people must adopt and cherish true democracy.
The way of the old elite must never triumph again.
There must be reforms before elections to ensure that
democracy is sustainable for Fiji’s long-term future.
The people of Fiji deserve better than the short-term
band-aid solutions we have experienced over the past
decades.
I ask for patience and understanding, particularly
from our neighbours, who have shown a surprising lack
of understanding and disregard of the peculiar situation
which our country has experienced since independence.
Put another way, there is an almost blind faith that
once independence has been granted to those who were
under colonial rule and the machinery of democracy
begins to work, the country concerned will enjoy
smooth sailing. Nothing could be further from the
truth. I invite the international community to engage
with us, to visit our country to see the situation, and to
provide practical support and assistance to enable us to
implement the reforms.
History is replete with the struggles of people the
world over for self-determination in order to be free
from subjugation and foreign domination. Our own
experience should have provided some indication, if
09-52592 6
one is needed, of how difficult it has been for us to
achieve true, genuine and sustainable democracy.
Many of the nations represented in this Hall
today have experienced the traumas of nation-building.
It would not be out of place to reflect on what
President Obama said during his address to the General
Assembly on Wednesday, 23 September:
“Democracy cannot be imposed on any
nation from the outside. Each society must search
for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each
country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of
its people and in its past traditions.” ()
We thoroughly endorse such sentiments.
Our dream is for equality, for justice and for
security. Our dream is for dignity and for economic
well-being. Our dream is for true democracy. I thank
those of our friends who have had continued dialogue
with me and my Government and who have helped us
to achieve what they themselves now take for granted.
I thank Fiji’s friends for their respect and
understanding even when we agree to differ on some
issues. If there is to be genuine dialogue at both the
regional and the international levels, there must be a
willingness to listen and to respect a different point of
view.
To those nations that have refused to engage with
Fiji and have expressed an unwillingness to enter into
dialogue, I can only repeat my plea that they change
their stance. Fiji is a small nation. Our people pose no
threat to anyone, least of all to the big Powers of the
South Pacific that have arrogated to themselves the
right to dictate to us our future and the way we govern
ourselves. We respect the right of anyone who
disagrees with us to exercise their freedom. However,
that does not give them the right to interfere with our
efforts to build a better country for our people.
In addition to all of this, they have used their
extensive diplomatic and financial resources to deny
Fiji the ability to participate in new peacekeeping
operations. Fiji has participated in peacekeeping
operations since 1978 and is proud of its association
with the United Nations, in particular with the
Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Indeed, the
Fiji Military Forces, since the beginning of their
participation in peacekeeping, have established a
reputation for professionalism, skill and rapport with
the communities in their areas of operation.
Fiji has been disappointed by what appears to be
a unilateral decision on the part of the United Nations
to debar our country from any new peacekeeping
operations. To this day, we have not been able to
receive a clear and satisfactory reply from the
Organization on this matter. I express the hope that the
United Nations will deal equitably and fairly with
troop-contributing countries.
Our experiences as a member of the United
Nations, particularly in the area of peacekeeping, will
be strengthened and enhanced by our People’s Charter
and the road map to the elections. Those documents
aptly demonstrate the positive values of genuine
dialogue and engagement. We believe that, if we are to
achieve genuine peace, security and development in
our country, we must build on a foundation of patience
and respect for all views.
Like most small island nations, Fiji regards the
threat posed by climate change as one that will
undermine international peace and security. The lives
of real people from real places are at stake. The future
survival of real generations, the continuation of real
cultures and the security of belonging to a real
homeland are being threatened.
The adverse impacts of climate change will be
politically blind; its devastating effects on humanity
will far outweigh any ideology or system of belief
devised by man. The potential casualties resulting from
its impacts could be far greater than those caused by
any of the battles we have ever fought. Yet the ability
to reverse its onslaught is well within our collective
control.
Fiji is thankful to the general membership of the
Assembly for adopting, at its previous session, a
resolution promoted by small island developing States
linking the threat of climate change to security. Some
of Fiji’s closest neighbours live on the lowest-lying
atolls in the world. The rise in sea level brought about
by climate change threatens literally to drown them.
Why should they be forced to abandon their homeland
for no fault of their own? All human beings have the
right to live in their ancestral homeland, if they so
choose.
It is vital to understand that no measure of
financial assistance can resurrect what has submerged,
generate rain to end drought, reverse the effects of
natural disasters or replace what has been lost as a
result of climate change. No small island State can
7 09-52592
survive the future by merely mitigating the impacts of
climate change. Adaptation and mitigation are not
enough. We can halt the impact of climate change and
ensure the survival of island States only by
significantly reducing carbon emissions.
It is on the basis of that premise that Fiji, as one
of the States that are more vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change, calls on all nations — in particular the
major emitters — to be responsible and commit
themselves to the carbon emission reduction targets of
approximately 45 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020
and 85 per cent by 2050, with a global atmosphere
concentration of less than 350 parts per million; and,
further, to limit temperature increases to less than
1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level by
2020. I wish to emphasize that, realistically, that is the
minimum reduction level that will allow us to address
the devastating impacts of climate change that we
currently face.
To fail to meet those targets would be to make the
probability of risk astoundingly high for the most
vulnerable. To negotiate on those targets would mean
negotiating on the lives of millions. The inequity that
exists in terms of the extent of our vulnerabilities and
abilities to meet mitigating costs vis-à-vis our
contributions to climate change has divided our views
and weakened our collective strength to deal with this
global issue. Those inequitable circumstances are
further complicated by the conflicting political and
economic interests of States. Understandably, decisions
and positions are based on national self-interests,
which, in most cases, take priority over the principles
of equity and responsibility.
Those are the differences that have given rise to
the challenges that we currently face as an international
community in arriving at a binding international
agreement that responds to the current most
fundamental need of the world: its survival.
Fiji hopes that political goodwill and compromise
will be found on the road to Copenhagen and that the
necessary platform will soon be found for a fair,
effective and ambitious climate change regime that
ensures significant reductions in carbon emissions and
the creation of a financial regime that supports the
adaptation and mitigation needs of every country,
particularly the most vulnerable ones.
My Government is committed to upholding the
principles and values enshrined in the Charter of the
United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and other United Nations conventions. We are
resolutely committed to the elimination of all policies
and laws that are inconsistent with our international
obligations. We wish to create a new and brighter
future for our people based on equality, dignity and
respect.
We seek the understanding of the General
Assembly and the community of nations, as well as
their support in fulfilling our dreams.