COLOMBIA'S PRESIDENT OUTLINES 'GLOBAL AGENDA' FOR WAR ON DRUGS IN ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY

23 September 1996

Press Release
GA/9096

COLOMBIA'S PRESIDENT OUTLINES 'GLOBAL AGENDA' FOR WAR ON DRUGS IN ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY

19960923 Statements also Made by Prime Ministers of Papua New Guinea, Norway, Morocco, as well as Foreign Ministers of Peru, Nicaragua, Ethiopia

Without the establishment of an international anti-drug alliance to combat drug trafficking, international drug organizations would continue to corrupt and contaminate humanity, Ernesto Samper Pizano, the President of Colombia, told the General Assembly this afternoon.

Addressing the Assembly as it continued its general debate, President Samper Pizano outlined a "global agenda for the war against drugs" and charted the establishment of a world-wide mechanism for combating drug trafficking. Fundamental to the proposed agenda would be the creation of a world-wide intelligence network of evidence against drug traffickers; programmes to effectively curb the demand for illegal drugs, including drug prevention campaigns and public health initiatives; as well as international legal systems for conviction and judicial seizure of assets derived from drug trafficking.

The United Nations should establish a fund to support preventive diplomacy in areas of conflict, the Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, told the Assembly. Such a fund would support the Organization's ability to send experienced diplomats and support missions to conflict-ridden areas in a timely manner. Norway, she said, would commit $1 million annually to such a fund.

The Foreign Minister of Ethiopia, Seyoum Mesfin, said economic regeneration and development were the only durable solutions to African political crises and the one means of preventing future conflict. Whatever the constellation of factors responsible for specific conflicts in Africa, civil strife had frequently emerged within the context of deteriorating economic conditions.

The advanced industrial countries must rise above "aid fatigue" and honour their commitments to the developing countries, said the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Julius Chan. With few donour countries meeting aid

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targets, not only was the amount of aid reduced, but recipients were more than ever tied to the donors' preferences.

Statements were also made by the Prime Minister of Morocco and the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Peru and Nicaragua.

Speaking in exercise of the right of reply were the representatives of the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Argentina.

The Assembly will continue its general debate at 10 a.m., tomorrow, 24 September.

Assembly Work Programme

The General Assembly met this afternoon to continue its general debate. It was scheduled to hear an address by the President of Colombia and to hear statements by the Prime Ministers of Papua New Guinea, Norway and Morocco, as well as the Foreign Ministers of Ethiopia, Peru and Nicaragua.

Statements

ERNESTO SAMPER PIZANO, President of Colombia, said that his country had been engaged in mortal combat against drug trafficking for the past several years. Colombia was fighting that war to preserve and protect its values, its young, its democratic government and its national security. Criminal drug organizations were the greatest threat to world security and could undermine the values that support democratic systems. Colombia had suffered the most, invested the most and paid the highest economic and social costs for the war against criminal drug organizations. The President added that he, personally, had been the victim of criminal drug organizations.

A great anti-drug alliance must be established, he continued. Immediate and decisive action must be taken. If not, drug trafficking would continue to corrupt and contaminate humanity. Multilateral cooperation was the only solution. Unilateral intervention was not the way to proceed. It only weakened trust and the ability of governments to take action, thus opening the way for the consolidation of criminal organizations.

Outlining aspects of a global agenda against drugs, he said economic and social initiatives must be undertaken to support the replacement of illegal crops. It was wrong and unrealistic to eradicate illegal crops without offering alternative solutions for small farmers. Also, controls on the traffic of chemical precursors and weapons must be developed. The United Nations must define specific guidelines to regulate the pre-shipment certification of chemical precursors to drug-producing countries, as well as effective systems to control the sale of arms in those same areas. Mandates were needed to combat money laundering. Only decisive action against the profits generated by the drug business could stop the recycling of those resources into legitimate business. He suggested that European agreements governing money laundering investigations and the seizure of assets be used as the framework for international agreements.

His Government also proposed the creation of a world-wide intelligence centre to coordinate the collection of evidence against drug traffickers, the President said. Programmes to effectively curb demand must be implemented. An integrated plan should be developed which included drug prevention campaigns and public health initiatives. While the sovereignty of each nation must be respected, no nation should agree to be used as a refuge or sanctuary for organized crime. Judicial reciprocity and assistance in the exchange of

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evidence must be an integral part of the strategy, as must a system of conviction and judicial seizure of assets derived from drug trafficking and terrorism. Without undermining bilateral or regional agreements, judicial cooperation agreements should establish the criteria for the eventual formation of an international tribunal against organized crime. He proposed that the General Assembly form a group of experts to develop a timetable and action plan for the proposed "global agenda for the war against drugs". The group should hold its meeting within the next four months, and, Colombia would be happy to host such a meeting.

JULIUS CHAN, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, said that the United Nations must be continuously re-invented in order to play an effective role in a rapidly changing world. While the Organization had been successful in such areas as peace-keeping and peacemaking, human rights and sustainable development, it had not done enough to rationalize its operations. However, he also criticized Member States that were slow to meet their obligations towards the Organization. "Their actions -- and inaction -- suggest that they confuse cutbacks in the resources available to the United Nations with real reform", he said.

The Prime Minister described the Security Council as the product of decisions made before most Member States became independent. It was taking longer to reform the Council than it had originally taken to form the Organization. The experience of the difficulties of reform at home had reinforced his Government's commitment to reforming the United Nations.

He said his country was firmly committed to resolving the crisis in the Bougainville Province, in spite of various obstacles provided by the leaders of the militants. The Bougainville Transitional Government had been established and protection made available for people fleeing the actions of the armed and militant minority. Citing an attack on 8 September, in which 12 members of the Government's security force were killed in South Bougainville, he said he was standing firm in his peace efforts. "We will not give them the satisfaction of departing from our basic objective of restoring peace and rebuilding all they have destroyed", he said.

The country had embarked on an ambitious programme of structural adjustment to ensure that development could be sustained, he continued. The Government would accept external advice and appreciated external assistance, but it would not yield to external pressure from the international financial institutions. Self-reliance was a means of achieving sustainable development and maintaining and strengthening the security and sovereignty of States.

As a result of that belief, his Government had proposed that Papua New Guinea enter into a form of permanent association with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). He said that would promote collective self- reliance by furthering the process by which the nation cooperated with

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neighbouring countries. His country had also proposed that Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation set up a scheme to help build capacity among the 13 small island developing countries in the region. That would help those nations work their way through the transition to the achievement of the vision of an open- ended regional free-market by the year 2020.

Continuing, he called on the advanced industrial countries to rise beyond "aid fatigue" and honour their commitments to the developing countries. Except for a few nations, he said, donor countries had fallen behind aid targets to which they agreed a generation ago. As a result, aid had not only been reduced, recipients -- more than ever -- were tied to the donors' preferences.

He stressed that the failure to honour commitments could have a severe effect on national planning. It underlined the need for the development of a greater degree of self-reliance. In view of the vital role that the business sector could play in mobilizing capital for investment and trade, Papua New Guinea welcomed schemes -- even from the advanced industrial countries -- for the development of the private sector.

GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND, Prime Minister of Norway, said that she was going to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty tomorrow. Without the perseverance of the United Nations, the decades of negotiations that led to a treaty would not have worked. That was what the United Nations did best. It was easy to ridicule years of meticulous negotiations. It was easy to deride the process as bloated bureaucracy and inefficiency. But some processes took time, because they were difficult, and because they had a profound effect on the whole world.

For better or worse, she continued, the United Nations had for 50 years reflected its Members, global political trends, contrasts, conflicts and confrontations. It had been judged, unjustly, more by its failures than by its successes. Today, the Organization had increasingly been involved in internal cases. Still, the United Nations did not possess the necessary means, mandates and mission capacity to suppress devastating conflict. All too often, intervention happened when the conflict had erupted, when the battles had been fought and the dividing lines cemented. There was a lack of efficient procedures for dealing with emerging conflicts.

There must be more preventive action and preventive diplomacy, she said. The United Nations needed to develop the institutional, legal and managerial capacity to act -- as a model for regional action. Preventing conflict and human suffering must not be hampered by the traditional norm of State domestic jurisdiction. Killing people could not be protected by the Charter. A lot could be achieved if the United Nations were better able to send experienced diplomats and support missions to conflict-ridden areas in a timely manner. Norway was ready to make an extra contribution to establish a fund for

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preventive action at the United Nations. She pledged some $1 million annually and invited other governments to do the same. That fund would facilitate immediate deployment of first-class expertise for pro-active diplomacy.

Concerning overall reform, she said any organization that failed to change lost its effectiveness. It was necessary to press forward with reform, but not as a result of intimidation. Withholding legally assessed contributions amounted to just that. It was now necessary to settle on a long-term solution for financing the Organization based on a more equitable scale of contributions and the scrupulous respect by Member States for their financial obligations and the payment of arrears. Reform of the Security Council must also move forward. The Council must reflect the world of the present, and the issue of a regionally balanced enlargement now must be addressed. Asia, Africa and Latin America should be represented on a permanent basis; Japan and Germany should each have a permanent seat. A leaner, stronger Organization was necessary to deal with the decisions of Rio, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing.

She said the Nordic countries, in their ongoing project for United Nations reform, had focused on the country level. Today there were several United Nations representatives in one country, often overlapping each other and often contributing to more fragmentation. But political issues, humanitarian issues and long-term development were interlinked. The United Nations organizational set-up should be the same, but humanitarian assistance activities must be better coordinated and human rights must be addressed more openly.

SEYOUM MESFIN, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, said that despite all the hopes of the developing countries and their courageous moves towards economic reform and democracy, it was obvious that many in the developing world were still facing enormous obstacles challenging their aspirations to economic growth and development. At present, Africa was the only continent where the level of poverty was increasing dramatically. Africa's genuine fear was that the opportunity created by the end of the cold war would disappear and that a historic chance would be squandered forever.

Conflicts in Africa, while not peculiar to that continent, had been greater in number and had proven more intractable, deadly and destructive. Whatever the constellation of factors immediately responsible for specific African conflicts, in most cases civil strife on the continent had emerged within the context of deteriorating economic conditions. In that context, he added, any durable solution for the African political crisis and the one reliable preventive means could be found only in economic regeneration and development. And development of Africa would continue to be a distant dream unless the impediment of the debt burden was resolved. While there had been encouraging signs, the upcoming annual meeting of the World Bank and the

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International Monetary Fund (IMF) in connection with multilateral debt was crucial.

He said Africa could not be said to have sat idly by in the face of the conflicts it had endured. While peace and national reconciliation had eluded the people of Somalia, regional efforts continued, to help bring about national reconciliation. The role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) had been vital in Liberia, Burundi and Somalia. It had recently upgraded its capacity for conflict resolution. Conflict situations directly affected the entire region. The absence of central authority in Somalia, for example, had provided an opportunity for extra-regional elements bent on exporting terror and creating regional instability. It was in his country's direct national interest that peace be established in Somalia. The region could not tolerate the establishment of centres of international terrorism by multi-national elements in the area.

At present, he continued, that the conflict in Burundi was the most worrisome in terms of its potential for human decimation. The parties to the conflict had the responsibility to save their society, through accommodation based on principles that suited that country's specific conditions. Ethiopia had, after a difficult period of conflict and economic hardship, finally achieved durable peace and security, and its economic programmes had produced encouraging results. His Government was keen to see more effective cooperation between the United Nations and the OAU.

FRANCISCO TUDELA VAN BREUGEL-DOUGLAS, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Peru, said that reform of the United Nations must include the development of new mechanisms to promote development and economic and social stability. Together with the imperative of resolving the Organization's financial crisis, the United Nations system must be transformed and updated.

Today, the inadequacy of the nation State was more evident than ever and the recognition of "supra-national" structures was more widespread, he continued. While Peru rejected the simplistic vision of pure internationalism, it upheld the validity of the entities which functioned alongside a State's sovereignty. The validity of regional alliances showed the way to a future of vigorous international legal arrangements. International law was the only body of rules which could address the realities of today.

Although today's borders were not obstacles to integration, neither was it implied that a "global State" should be developed, he continued. There were natural limits to the territorial sway of laws. Accordingly, the universal State had not developed, but an open structure of complex political pluralism with a common subjacent basis -- representative democracy, individual liberties and economic freedom. The concept of the State with unlimited sovereignty had broken down. Sovereignty continued to exist, not as

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unlimited political power, but as constitutional legal competence. State sovereignty had already been subsumed under international law, and all moral values had been brought down to their purely personal roots.

The United Nations must take into account the new reality -- that of "functional regionalism" -- as it worked to strengthen the Security Council and reform its institutions, he said. Functional regionalism had already become a "supra-national" reality. The concept of borders was giving way to functional regionalism, and inter-State balance of power was giving way to regional balances of power. States, within the framework of the United Nations, must go beyond their traditional activities and engage in activities based on the new cultural, economic and geographical realities of broad functional regional spaces. That approach was the keystone to the new edifice of the United Nations.

ABDELLATIF FILALI, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Morocco, told the Assembly that notwithstanding the fact that the cold war era ended a few years ago, the current world situation was characterized by confusion and was far from reflecting the order that had been hoped for.

"What we have", he continued, "is a situation in which several local crises are bringing sufferings to millions of people". Those crises likewise highlighted the inability of the international community to devise effective mechanisms to resolve such conflicts in an equitable way. The initiative taken by the Secretary-General for restructuring the United Nations fell within that perspective; preventive diplomacy and promotion of the reform of the United Nations and other international organizations were all aimed at achieving the same objective.

He said the re-election of Boutros Boutros-Ghali as Secretary-General of the United Nations would be the best guarantee for the continuation of those reforms. Any expansion of the United Nations Security Council would need much thinking and circumspection, taking into account current realities and also current financial difficulties. All Member States should pay their contributions and settle their arrears, to give concrete substance to their collective and continued support for the efforts of the Organization.

Citing the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the treaties marking non-nuclear zones in Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific, he said Morocco was convinced that those treaties would pave the way for "complete elimination of nuclear weapons". He expressed the hope that all the countries of the Middle East would also sign such a treaty. "Arms control is the cornerstone of any initiative aiming at firmly establishing the conditions of international peace and security."

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The time had come, the Primer Minister continued, for Morocco to recover all its territories. Morocco was fully committed to peace and to the settlement of all problems through dialogue, and had defended that principle in international forums. "Morocco is convinced that the recovery of the cities of Sebta and Melilia and the neighbouring islands which are still under Spanish occupation will only occur on that basis", he said. The "final radical solution we are advocating", he continued, was one which would preserve Moroccan sovereignty on its occupied territories while guaranteeing Spanish interests.

On the situation in the Middle East, he called for sincere and unequivocal commitment to the Madrid Conference agreements, which provided the groundwork for a just and comprehensive peace in the region. Turning to Iraq, he stressed the need to fully implement the "food-for-oil" resolution of the Security Council to alleviate the hardships of the Iraqi people. The Prime Minister called upon the United Arab Emirates and Iran to find a solution to the problem of the Emirati Islands of the Greater and the Lesser Tumbs and the island of Abu Mussa. He stressed Morocco's commitment to the United Nations settlement plan for Western Sahara. It had now become clear to all, he added, that the plan had reached stalemate; he hoped it would be broken as soon as possible, through the full implementation of the referendum.

ERNESTO LEAL, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, recalling the recent history of his country, told the Assembly that in 1990, when President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro became President, Nicaragua was still in a state of war. Pacifying the country had been a complex task, he said, but it was only the start of a process of peace, reconciliation, democracy and development. It also included initiatives to modernize the State and adapt it to regional circumstances. Nicaragua had completed that process of peace and reconciliation, so necessary for the democratic consolidation of the country. Nicaragua's economy was stabilized and its external debt had been reduced.

One of the chief concerns of the President had been the full respect of human rights, he continued. Nicaragua had adopted legislative and administrative measures that eliminated assassination, torture and impunity in Nicaraguan jails. New institutions had been created to bolster education, commerce and banking.

Today, Nicaragua had the fullest degree of political liberty in its history, he continued. Democracy in Nicaragua was born in 1990, with the only real and free elections in the nation's history. Nicaraguans had accepted the challenge of sowing a new culture of peace. The United Nations played an important role in Nicaragua's progress towards democracy. In the same spirit, he recalled, the United Nations was also helping Nicaragua with this year's elections.

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The Secretary-General's An Agenda for Peace synthesized the most important changes that had occurred in recent years, he continued. The Agenda recognized the difficult situation in developing countries that still faced hunger and poverty, as well as the threat to world stability posed by the enormous debt and the barriers to international trade. All those factors made the development of the concept of national security very difficult. The Agenda was an adequate mechanism for the exercise of preventive diplomacy.

World disarmament had accelerated during the same years that Nicaragua had consolidated its democracy, he said. Central America had made many efforts relating to the production, utilization and transfer of anti-personnel land-mines, and "we have declared the region a land-mine-free zone", he said. During the same years, the world had seen many summit meetings on such themes as the environment, population, human settlements, women, children and social affairs. But developing countries continued to face such serious difficulties as extreme poverty and unemployment. The constant inequalities in the international financial systems still affected Central America. "More just, more equalitarian" international economic relations were needed, he said.

He said that Central America was putting into practice "a new model of regional security". Its most notable elements were a national and regional strategy, aimed at promoting a change of personal and social attitudes, in order to assure the construction of a sustainable model of political, economic, social, cultural and environmental development. Central Americans had already signed a framework treaty for democratic security, meant to ensure the respect and promotion of all human rights for all the inhabitants of the area. Its provisions guaranteed the security of Central American States through the creation of conditions that would permit their development in peace, liberty and democracy. Such initiatives could be examined in other geographic areas, so as to strengthen national processes and achieve the safer and more secure world to which all aspired.

Right of Reply

STEPHEN GOMERSALL (United Kingdom), responding to the statement by Argentina on the Falkland Islands, said he was pleased with the reference to the progress in negotiations. He did not accept, however, the remarks by Argentina about the sovereignty of those islands. The United Kingdom had no doubts about the sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. The sovereignty must be determined by the people of those islands, who had already stated their belief in their right to self-determination. The people had reiterated their desire not to be part of Argentina. Other negotiations on such issues as fisheries would continue going forward, but the issue of sovereignty was not in question.

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Mrs. GAZEAU-SECRET (France) objected to the statement by Papua New Guinea regarding the territories of French Polynesia. The people of those territories had continued to manifest their belief that they were part of the French Republic, and no statement to the contrary would alter that fact.

CARLOS WESTENDORP (Spain) said that it was necessary for his Government to reply to the reference by the representative of Morocco to the Spanish cities of Sebta and Melilia and other Spanish territories. Those were Spanish territories, and the peoples of those territories were represented in the Spanish Parliament. Such references by Morocco were out of tune with the close relationship between Morocco and Spain.

ANA MARIA RAMIREZ (Argentina) endorsed the statement made by the representative of Argentina during the Assembly's morning general debate.

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