Two years ago, at this same rostrum, as the conclusion
of my statement (see A/59/PV.10), I quoted these
famous verses of the Spanish poet Antonio Machado:
“Traveller, your footsteps
Are the road, and nothing else;
Traveller, there is no road.
The road is made by walking;
Walking makes the road.”
What a road we have travelled since then. Indeed,
the opening of the sixty-first session of the General
Assembly is above all the opportunity for us to look
back and assess the progress we have made,
particularly since the September 2005 World Summit,
but also to try to assess the work that still needs to be
done to implement the noble ambitions we all agreed
06-53323 10
upon one year ago in this Hall where we meet every
year as a real parliament of nations. On that historic
occasion, we forcefully reaffirmed that peace and
security, development and human rights are the pillars
of the United Nations system and constitute the
essential element of a more just and a more peaceful
world order.
One year later, what have we accomplished, and
how can that progress be assessed in the light of these
criteria: the reality of the situation, and the way in
which the complex international situation and the
never-ending future are evolving?
When we look at the current situation, we have to
see that areas of shadow coexist with reasons for hope,
and we have some cause for concern. More than ever,
the Middle East is the centre of deep political, military,
socio-economic and cultural tensions, with military
confrontation on Lebanese lands and bombings in
northern Israel, to mention only the most recent
examples. A month of war has left behind it a terrible
legacy of death and injury, destruction and
contamination by mines and unexploded ordnance, as
well as major economic consequences. My country
immediately joined international solidarity efforts. The
Stockholm conference enabled us to coordinate
international support and to move towards
reconstruction under the aegis of the United Nations
and the Lebanese Government.
But beyond that immediate reaction, now that a
cessation of hostilities has been brought about — late,
it is true — we now have to consolidate the ceasefire
and lay the foundations of a sustainable political
process, the principal elements of which are defined in
Security Council resolution 1701 (2006). As reaffirmed
a few days ago from this podium by the current
President of the European Council, Ms. Tarja Halonen
(see ), the European Union is prepared to
fully play its role in this context. Already, European
contributions — to which my country is committed to
participate — constitute what Secretary-General Kofi
Annan has called the backbone of a strengthened
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
So the task of supporting the emergence of a fully
sovereign and independent Lebanon which can exercise
its sovereignty and a monopoly on armed force
throughout its territory must be completed; all regional
players must make their contribution to this process.
By bringing about the lifting of the blockade of
Lebanon, and by concretely addressing the issue of
prisoners, the Secretary-General has laid the
foundations for a lasting solution. We thank him for his
effective work.
I was in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Ramallah a few
days ago, and I realized once again the extent to which
the absence of true peace in this region has had a
negative effect on civilian populations, particularly in
the occupied territories, where the humanitarian
situation is getting worse day by day. I also realized the
extent to which confrontation, violence and despair
tend to spread and become entrenched. It is this
grievous machine that we have to stop. More than ever
before, it is clear that there can be no military solution
or unilateral solution to the continuing conflicts in the
region.
On 15 September, the ministers for foreign affairs
of the European Union reaffirmed our full support for
the search for a negotiated solution. We welcomed the
announcement by President Abbas with regard to an
agreement on the formation of a government of
national unity, and we expressed the hope that such a
government’s programme would reflect the principles
of the Quartet. Two days ago, as we know, the Quartet
too endorsed that position.
However, persistent tension in the Middle East
must not divert our attention from Africa. That
continent continues to be scourged by poverty, disease
and armed conflict. But at the same time there is hope,
thanks to the continent’s extraordinary vitality and
creativity. Although far too many internal conflicts and
international crises remain in many areas in Africa —
for example, in Côte d’Ivoire; the Sudan, in particular
the Darfur region, where a large-scale humanitarian
crisis is looming; the Horn of Africa; and other areas as
well — there are some signs of hope, sometimes fragile
to be sure, are to be seen in countries as diverse as
Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, where an electoral process of
unprecedented scale is under way with the massive
support of the United Nations and the European Union,
among other partners.
The African Union is also playing an increasingly
positive role in crisis management on the African
continent, as illustrated by its action in Darfur through
the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS). It is
essential that this crucial action be speedily taken up
by the deployment of an enlarged United Nations
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mission, as provided for in Security Council resolution
1706 (2006).
With the creation and the operationalization a few
months ago of the Peacebuilding Commission, another
World Summit commitment has now been met. The
United Nations now has an innovative instrument to
manage post-conflict situations in order to ensure
optimal transition from peacekeeping and urgent
humanitarian assistance to restarting the development
process. We wish every success to this new body,
which certainly gives rise to great hope throughout the
world.
Before leaving the issue of peace and security, I
must briefly mention two subjects that have a major,
horizontal impact: terrorism and the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and their delivery
systems.
With regard to the scourge of terrorism, concerted
and decisive action at the international and region
levels must obviously be taken. I am pleased that at the
end of its sixtieth session, under the energetic
presidency of Mr. Jan Eliasson, whom I congratulate
for his work, the General Assembly adopted the United
Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (resolution
60/288). The Strategy must both address the conditions
that encourage the spread of terrorism and seek to
prevent and act against terrorism, including through the
various bodies of the United Nations, while at the same
time guaranteeing respect for human rights and the rule
of law. As European Union ministers for foreign affairs
declared a few days ago, that latter consideration
applies in particular to the treatment of all detainees, as
well as to the problematic issue of secret detention
centres.
The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
and their delivery systems continues to give rise to
grave concern at the international level. The attitude
and the activities of North Korea in the area of nuclear
proliferation recently led the Security Council
unanimously to adopt its resolution 1695 (2006).
Another subject of concern is Iran. In its
resolution 1696 (2006), the Security Council defined
the main parameters which will guide the way in which
the Iranian nuclear issue is approached by the
international community and the European Union,
which has been in discussion with Iran for more than
two years. If those demands — particularly the
suspension of all enrichment activity — are met,
negotiations on a comprehensive agreement can begin
and confidence can be restored.
The Summit Outcome Document (resolution
60/1) highlighted in particular the importance of
development, which directly affects the fate of billions
of human beings. While 2005 was the year of great
development commitments, with the holding of the
Group of Eight Summit at Gleneagles and the decision
taken by the European Union — under the Luxembourg
presidency — to meet the target of 0.7 per cent of
gross national income in official development
assistance by 2015, 2006 has been the year of
implementation, particularly with the adoption of
resolution 60/265, which reflects the international
consensus in that area.
For its part, Luxembourg continues to be proud of
its participation — still too limited unfortunately — in
the 0.7 per cent club, with 0.82 per cent of its gross
national income devoted to official development
assistance in 2005. We hope to reach 1 per cent within
the next few years.
The meeting held earlier this week to consider the
implementation of the Brussels Programme of Action
for the Least Developed Countries showed once again
that the establishment of a true development
partnership remains a priority and urgent task.
Unfortunately, that also remains true for international
action against HIV/AIDS, which was the subject of a
high-level meeting in June.
Concerned about improving the quality and
effectiveness of aid to the most impoverished, my
country looks forward with great interest to the
proposals of the High-level Panel on United Nations
System-wide Coherence which will be made public in
the next few months. The maxim “development is the
other name for peace” remains amazingly current.
In September 2005, the participants in the
Summit formally recognized that development, peace,
security and human rights are linked and mutually
reinforcing. To strengthen the international framework
for the promotion and protection of human rights, the
General Assembly decided in March 2006, as we know,
to replace the old Commission on Human Rights with a
Human Rights Council. While the new Council’s first
session enabled it to make some important progress in
terms of standards, we must now bolster its
establishment by providing it with all the means and
instruments it needs — including special procedures —
06-53323 12
to promote the cause of human rights and to react
swiftly and effectively to specific situations of serious
human rights violations.
Likewise, we welcome the recent conclusion of
the negotiations on a draft international convention on
the rights of persons with disabilities. We hope that
that important instrument can be adopted this fall by
the General Assembly. Another significant innovation,
adopted at last year’s Summit — the notion of the
“responsibility to protect” in case of genocide, war
crimes, ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity —
should be applied in accordance with the criteria and
conditions defined in the Summit Outcome Document
so that it can progressively become an undisputed
standard to guide the action of the international
community as the situation requires.
While peace and security, development and
human rights are the three basic pillars on which the
United Nations is based, those fundamental values can
be fulfilled and fully expressed in real terms only
through an effective and credible multilateral system.
Multilateralism must not remain only a word. In the
light of recent events in the Middle East, no nation,
large or small, can escape the conclusion that
multilateralism offers the only viable framework for
finding solutions to the conflicts and threats that
confront us.
It is our responsibility to provide the multilateral
system with adequate means to carry out its principal
missions. We must also ensure that the working
methods and decision-making procedures of our bodies
are defined and structured so that they can produce the
best results and can best meet the legitimate
expectations of Member States. Achieving a better
cost-effectiveness ratio to benefit our peoples must be
an objective of all Member States, large or small, of
the North or the South. What is at stake is the
credibility — perhaps even the survival — of
multilateralism as a way to manage the major problems
shared by humanity.
Some progress was made over the past year in
reforming administrative and financial management,
but much remains to be done. We must unite to bring
about essential reform to transform the United Nations
into an instrument fully capable of addressing the
grave and multiple challenges at the beginning of the
twenty-first century.
In that context, we cannot overlook the organ to
which the Charter of the United Nations entrusts a vital
role in the maintenance and preservation of
international peace and security: the Security Council.
For many years, ways and means to strengthen the
legitimacy and effectiveness of that essential body
were the subject of in-depth discussions, without any
significant progress being made. For our part, we are
convinced that Security Council reform remains
indispensable. It must be carried out both to strengthen
the Council’s representativity — by increasing the
number of its permanent and non-permanent members,
but without overburdening its functioning by granting
the right of veto — and to improve its rules of
procedure in order to enhance the effectiveness and
transparency of its work and, thus, the legitimacy of its
action.
I should like to conclude by referring to the
person who has guided us and provided us with
benchmarks as he has led the Organization for the past
10 years. I am, of course, speaking about our
Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan. Although there is
still some time before the end of his mandate — and I
am sure that he intends to carry out a number of
important missions before then — it is important that I
now pay tribute to him and thank him for the work
accomplished over the course of a lifetime devoted to
serving the Organization.
The country that I have the honour to represent in
this Hall, Luxembourg, also intends to be an important
part of the life and the future of the Organization,
which, more than 60 years after its establishment,
continues to represent a noble ideal and hope for
millions and millions of men and women. Luxembourg
wants to put itself at the service of that ideal and of the
international community and to shoulder its part of the
responsibility in that regard. That is why, five years
ago, we decided to submit our candidacy for a non-
permanent seat on the Security Council for the
biennium 2013-2014. Luxembourg, a founding
Member of the United Nations that has not yet held a
Council seat, views this candidacy as a new expression
of its commitment to the purposes and principles of the
Charter, to peace and security, development and human
rights and to an effective multilateral system.
Despite difficulties and obstacles, we must
persevere, through dialogue and diplomacy, to fashion
a United Nations worthy of our expectations. As we do
so, let us be inspired by the reflection of the great
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Michelangelo, who said, “The greatest danger is not
that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too
low and we reach it”.