I should like at the outset to
congratulate Ms. Al-Khalifa on her well-deserved
election to the presidency of the General Assembly at
its sixty first session. I am confident that, given her
wisdom and experience, she will steer the proceedings
of the Assembly successfully. I also express our
profound appreciation to her predecessor, His
Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson of Sweden, for his
excellent work during the sixtieth session.
In the same vein, we salute the Secretary-
General, His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, for his
dedication and commitment to the work of the United
Nations. My delegation would like to pay him special
tribute for his distinguished leadership and remarkable
contribution to the United Nations, taking into
consideration his imminent departure at the end of a
long, dedicated and brilliant career in the service of our
Organization. Under his leadership, the United Nations
has recorded significant achievements. He ably laid the
foundation for Member States to make further
progress, especially with regard to the reform of the
United Nations. We will carry on with this task,
bearing in mind his vision of sustained global
cooperation among States. Allow me to wish him the
very best in his future engagements.
We are gathered here to reaffirm our faith in the
United Nations and to recommit ourselves to the
purposes and principles of the Charter. Today, the
world needs a stronger United Nations and effective
multilateralism that reflects current realities. Only thus
will humanity be able to respond in a timely manner
and without hesitation to the global challenges that we
face.
We fully support the comprehensive reform of the
United Nations as proposed by the Secretary-General.
The reforms should aim at strengthening the
Organization and making it more efficient, effective
and responsive to the needs of all its Members. We
further attach great importance to strengthening the
role and authority of the General Assembly as the main
deliberative and policy-making body, whose
relationship with other principal organs should be
placed in a fitting context so as to ensure cooperation
and respect for their roles as provided for in the
Charter.
My Government believes that the reform of the
Security Council, including its expansion, is essential.
The African continent deserves to be fairly and
equitably represented in the Council. That is not too
much to ask.
During the World Summit in September last year,
we reaffirmed our commitment to the Millennium
Declaration (resolution 55/2), adopted more than six
years ago. The Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1)
reiterated our commitments to the implementation of
the decisions made during previous conferences and
summits. My Government appreciates the work done
under the guidance and able leadership of former
President Eliasson in the realization of the Summit
decisions.
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The fruits of those efforts are visible to us all, as
they culminated in the inauguration of the
Peacebuilding Commission, the creation of the Human
Rights Council, the creation of the Central Emergency
Response Fund and the establishment of the Ethics
Office. We also welcome the accomplishments in the
area of management reform. People around the world
have high hopes that these newly created instruments
will achieve the specific mandates set for them. We
therefore encourage all Member States to continue, in
an open and transparent manner, to finalize the review
of the process.
Namibia attaches importance to the global
development agenda. Thus we are concerned about the
slow pace at which this essential matter is being
handled and about the lack of adherence to the
commitments in line with the Millennium Declaration.
In this regard, I urge all fellow leaders to stand
together in finding effective solutions to push back the
ever-encroaching frontiers of poverty, hunger, disease
and ignorance.
The African people know that they must take a
lead in resolving problems and challenges on the
continent. In those endeavours, they need to form
effective partnerships with the international
community. I therefore welcome the commitments
made by the Group and Eight last year in Scotland to
consider increasing development aid to Africa, to
cancel the debt owed by the poorest countries and to
promote universal access to antiretroviral drugs for
HIV/AIDS by the year 2010.
We reiterate our call for cooperation among the
United Nations, its specialized agencies and the
African Union and its subregional organizations
dealing with economic and social development on the
continent. We continue to emphasize the importance of
the Economic and Social Council as a central
intergovernmental body for promoting a more
integrated approach to global peace and development.
Namibia welcomes the presidential and
parliamentary elections recently held in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, which, most international
observers agree, were conducted in a peaceful and
transparent atmosphere. We urge the United Nations
and the international community at large to continue to
support the people of the Democratic Republic during
this crucial democratic transition.
The situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan is
cause for serious concern. The African Union, through
the African Union Mission in Sudan and with the
assistance of the international community, has made
efforts to bring peace to that region under
exceptionally hard conditions. We commend the
African Union Special Envoy, Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim,
for his tireless efforts in bringing the parties to an
agreement. We urge all the parties to respect their
commitments.
We welcome the visit to the Sudan by the United
Nations Security Council team in June this year and the
recommendations they made. Namibia looks forward to
an urgent and smooth transition from the African
Union Mission to a United Nations peacekeeping
mission in Darfur in accordance with Security Council
resolution 1706 (2006). We urge the Government of the
Sudan and other parties concerned to accept this
transition, which we believe will be in the best interest
of the people of the Sudan in general and those of the
Darfur region in particular.
I would like to join other countries around the
world in expressing our concern about the illicit trade
in small arms and light weapons, which remains a
menace to humanity. The proliferation of such weapons
compromises peace and security. They also pose
serious challenges to law enforcement agencies around
the world.
We are concerned that the question of Western
Sahara remains unresolved. The inalienable rights of
the people of Western Sahara to self-determination and
independence must be upheld and respected, as
stipulated in the relevant United Nations resolutions.
We therefore call for the urgent implementation of all
relevant Security Council and General Assembly
resolutions, with the aim of holding a free and fair
referendum in Western Sahara.
Namibia is also deeply concerned about the
ongoing suffering of the people of Palestine. We wish
to reaffirm our full and unequivocal support for the
inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-
determination and national independence. In this
context, we appeal to the United Nations to assume its
full responsibility by implementing all its resolutions
and decisions on Palestine, with immediate effect and
without precondition.
Sadly, the people of Lebanon have once again
been subjected to war and indiscriminate bombing,
19 06-52885
which have caused enormous suffering and the deaths
of innocent people, including children and the elderly,
as well as severe damage to and destruction of property
and infrastructure. Against that background, we call for
the immediate and unconditional implementation of
Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) and appeal to
the international community to provide humanitarian
assistance to the people of Lebanon in dealing with the
resulting humanitarian crisis.
For many years now, the majority of Member
States in this Assembly have expressed concern over
the continuous economic, commercial and financial
embargo against Cuba, which continues to cause severe
hardships for the Cuban people. The Government of
the Republic of Namibia upholds the principles of
peaceful coexistence of nations and fair and open trade
among nations. Thus, we call on all Member States, in
conformity with their obligations under the Charter of
the United Nations, for an immediate and
unconditional lifting of the embargo against the
Republic of Cuba, as called for in General Assembly
resolution 60/12 and many previous resolutions.
In June 2006, the General Assembly convened a
High-level Meeting on the implementation of the
Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. That
Meeting served as an important opportunity for
Member States to assess progress and further
strengthen and expand responses to the HIV/AIDS
pandemic. Before the High-level Meeting, the African
Union had adopted an African Common Position at a
special session in Abuja in May 2006. Namibia is fully
committed to the implementation of the Declaration of
Commitment on HIV/AIDS. We are, equally, grateful
for the support for the call to mobilize resources and to
forge a stronger partnership in confronting the
pandemic. We stress the need for universal and
affordable access to comprehensive service packages
for all those infected.
In our ongoing efforts to reform and strengthen
the United Nations, making it more effective and
responsive to today’s challenges — poverty and
hunger, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, civil wars and the
war on terror — we should place human lives and
human dignity at the centre of all our efforts. The
reform we have embarked upon should be seen as a
process and should be undertaken in a spirit of mutual
understanding and with a sense of collective
ownership. Let us strive to re-energize the United
Nations and make it an Organization that we can all be
proud of, so that we can make planet Earth a common
home for all humanity to live in peace, stability and
prosperity.