SMALLER COUNTRIES DESERVE GREATER RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN UN SYSTEM, SINGAPORE FOREIGN MINISTER TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

26 September 1996

Press Release
GA/9102

SMALLER COUNTRIES DESERVE GREATER RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN UN SYSTEM, SINGAPORE FOREIGN MINISTER TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

19960926 Chile Urges Security Council Enlargement; Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Liechtenstein, Kuwait, Turkmenistan Also Speak in Continuing Debate

For the United Nations to avoid being marginalized, there must be real reform of the Security Council and the financial system which granted small countries -- the majority of Member States -- greater responsibility and authority, said the Foreign Minister of Singapore, S. Jayakumar this afternoon in the General Assembly.

Continuing the Assembly's general debate, Mr. Jayakumar said the permanent members of the Council had been reluctant to accept even the most superficial re-examination of their authority or their relationship with the membership as a whole. The same resistance to seriously engage the legitimate interests of the small States was also behind the Organization's financial difficulties. It was politically incongruous and basically unfair to ask the small countries to assume a greater share of the financial burdens without being prepared to allow them more authority over the important expenditure decisions.

Also stressing the interests of the smaller States, Lakshman Kadirgamar, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka, said those countries must receive constant reassurance from the larger nations that their interests would be safeguarded and their sovereignty respected. He emphasized the significance of the Non-Aligned Movement of 113 countries, which had emerged as the voice of the third world, of the smaller countries which were "crying out for a place in the sun and demanding opportunities for economic development and self-expression".

Hans van Mierlo, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, said that at the current critical juncture the United Nations was seeing its authority compromised and weakened. The present financial turmoil and unprecedented level of arrears was a reflection of declining confidence in the Organization's potential. The financial crisis was not the cause of the United Nations predicament, but rather the consequence of it. Empty coffers led to less output; less output undermined authority; less authority led to fewer payments, thus exacerbating the financial crisis.

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On the subject of Security Council reform, Jose Miguel Insulza, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile, said there was sufficient basis for the inclusion of Germany and Japan as permanent members. An increase of non- permanent seats, according to an equitable geographic distribution, would mean a larger membership, but a total of 25 seats was not an excessive figure and would make the Council more representative.

Also making statements this afternoon were the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Liechtenstein, Kuwait and Turkmenistan.

The Assembly will meet again at 10 a.m., Friday, 27 September to continue its general debate.

Assembly Work Programme

The General Assembly met this afternoon to continue its general debate. It was to hear statements by the Foreign Ministers of Sri Lanka, Chile, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Netherlands, Kuwait and Turkmenistan.

Statements

LAKSHMAN KADIRGAMAR, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka, said that, despite fashionable theories about the need to limit national sovereignty, the members of the Organization remained sovereign, independent States. Each State, however small and weak it may be, jealousy guarded its sovereignty. The consent and cooperation of States was vital, to ensure the success of any United Nations endeavour which impinged on the territory of a Member State.

In playing its role in conflict resolution and peacemaking, the Organization should not stray into domestic issues and conflicts which were within the domestic jurisdiction of the States concerned. Nor should its mandates be used to serve the interests of any one State or group of States. The United Nations must not be used as a franchise to give legitimacy to causes that might not reflect the general will of the membership on whose behalf the Council should act at all times. The smaller nations of the world must receive constant reassurance from the larger nations that their interests were safeguarded, their sovereignty respected.

Turning to the issue of terrorism, he said the epithet "terrorist" had too often been hurled unjustifiably at genuine national liberation movements -- those who struggled, for example, against foreign occupation and apartheid. Time need not be spent seeking to evolve a comprehensive definition of "terrorism". An international consensus against terrorism based on the recognition of stark reality had matured over the years; it was imperative to implement that consensus.

He said Sri Lanka had been racked by violent ethnic conflict for almost two decades. It had dealt with an armed group which sought to dismember the country by violent means. The group -- the Liberation Tigers of Tami Eelam -- had been perpetrating a series of terrorist acts in many parts of the country. The terrorist group did not represent the people for whom they claimed to fight. They did not believe in the path of peaceful negotiations. The group drew support from persons outside the country, but not a single State supported them in either word or deed. Terrorists in Sri Lanka had deliberately targeted civilians and caused thousands of deaths. The world needed a convention on measures to combat terrorism. Concerted international cooperation was necessary to ensure that terrorists did not enjoy safe havens around the world.

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He concluded by emphasizing the significance of the Non-Aligned Movement of 113 countries, of which Sri Lanka was a founding member. Today it was the largest grouping of independent sovereign States in the world, other than the United Nations itself. With the end of the cold war, there were skeptics who thought that the Movement would die, but it had instead emerged as the voice of the third world, of the smaller countries which were "crying out for a place in the sun and demanding opportunities for economic development and self-expression".

JOSE MIGUEL INSULZA, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile, told the Assembly that for his government, the highest priorities of the multilateral system were international peace and security, free trade, social development, protection of the environment and democracy and human rights.

Chile's participation in the Security Council, he continued, was its own contribution to maintaining international peace and security through preventive diplomacy, solutions based on consensus, conflict prevention and peaceful settlements of conflict through peace-keeping operations, conciliation and good offices and the protection of affected populations. He said recent Council resolutions, such as those on the protection of the Kurdish population, on assistance to victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on relief for the civilian population of Iraq from the burden of the sanctions imposed against it, showed how the Council could adapt its approaches, with a wider interpretation of possible threats to peace.

Initiatives such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Chile had signed last Tuesday, and all others concerning disarmament, gave the lie to those who cited the supposed inefficiency of the United Nations. He also spoke of United Nations peace-keeping operations, noting that Chile had taken part in such operations in India and Pakistan, the Middle East, Cambodia and Kuwait, and was currently assisting the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq. Chile fully supported the creation of a United Nations multinational rapid reaction force to deal with emerging conflicts.

He said that in recent years Latin America was "living democracy" as never before in its history. Problems such as corruption, inefficiency and insensitivity to social demands could erode the legitimacy of democratic governments, and that issue would be the central theme at the forthcoming Ibero-American Summit in Santiago in November.

On the subject of United Nations reform, he said there was sufficient basis for the inclusion of Germany and Japan as permanent members of the Security Council. An increase of non-permanent seats, according to an equitable geographic distribution, would mean a larger membership, but a total of 25 seats would not be excessive; it would make the Council more representative.

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ANDREA WILLI, Foreign Minister of Liechtenstein, said the General Assembly should take steps to address the Organization's financial crisis during the current session. The principle of sovereign equality should guide reform of the Security Council, as should the ideas of balanced geographic distribution. In the field of peacekeeping, the preventive capacity of the United Nations must be improved. She called upon the Assembly working groups addressing such questions as preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and post- conflict peace-building to complete work on comprehensive proposals for consideration by the Assembly.

Liechtenstein had introduced an initiative aimed at preventing intra- state conflicts, she continued. It was based on the principle of self- determination and it called for the development of mechanisms which would enable different groups within the same country to exercise self-determination in flexible ways aligned with international law.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty should be seen as one step towards the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Liechtenstein would sign the Treaty tomorrow and it encouraged other Member States to do so as soon as possible. Noting the destructiveness of land-mines, she called for a total ban on those weapons.

She said Liechtenstein was implementing the platform of action adopted at last year's Fourth World Conference on Women. Ongoing measures included encouragement of women to enter into politics; vocational guidance for girls; efforts to facilitate the compatibility of professional and family life; and awareness training on violence against women and children. Her Government supported the appointment of more women to senior United Nations positions.

S. JAYAKUMAR, Foreign Minister of Singapore, said that if the United Nations was to avoid being marginalized, there must be reform of the Security Council and of its financial system. While it had been agreed that there should be greater transparency and participation in the work of the Council, the permanent members had been reluctant to accept more than cosmetic changes to the Council's working methods.

He said that one of the most important and innovative proposals made, which would have allowed greater participation by non-members in the Council's informal consultations, had been categorically rejected by most permanent Council members. Informal consultations were an innovation which had evolved over time, and the most important decisions of the Council were now made informally by its permanent members. Even the participation of the non- permanent Council members in real decision-making was at times more symbolic than significant. The participation in informal consultations by non-members would be a simple reform -- of compelling interest to small countries -- and would not have to be contingent on, or await the elaboration of, more complicated Security Council reform.

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He said the same resistance to seriously engage the legitimate interests of small States was also behind the Organization's financial difficulties. Several permanent Council members had complained of their financial burdens and had sought to spread the burden more widely. However, there had never been any suggestion by any of the big powers that their control over critical United Nations expenditure decisions, in particular peace-keeping expenditures, be proportionately distributed among the small countries.

All of the permanent members, he went on, had been reluctant to accept even the most superficial re-examination of their authority or their relationship with the membership as a whole. Discussions on the role of the General Assembly had touched on peripheral issues. It was politically incongruous and basically unfair to ask the small countries to assume a greater share of the financial burdens without being prepared to allow them more authority over the important expenditure decisions. It was untenable to have a separation between the authority to mandate a peace-keeping operation and the authority over how it would be paid for.

He said the stubborn defence of the status quo was all the more striking since only the most modest and incremental adjustments in the relationship between the Assembly and the Council had been sought. Such changes would allow the general membership a little greater participation in and shared responsibility for decision-making and for budgetary implications.

HANS VAN MIERLO, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, said that while the United Nations own power was rather limited, it did have a great deal of moral and legal authority. If the Organization was to approach the future from a position of strength, its authority must remain intact. At the current critical juncture, however, the United Nations was seeing its authority compromised and weakened. Multilateralism was under pressure and alternative sources of international leadership had sprung up. The United Nations was regarded more and more as a vehicle for safeguarding a nation's particular interest, rather than a preferred avenue of solving pressing worldwide problems.

Gradual loss of authority, he continued, had also been caused by frustration and disappointment over the outcome of such missions as Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Frustration mounted over effectiveness and efficiency, two qualities that had eluded the United Nations for a long time. It would be facile to blame the lack of them on the Secretariat alone; the grinding manner of the working of the Organization's intergovernmental machinery was also a major factor.

While the track record of the United Nations was in many ways impressive, he indicated that criticism, "UN-bashing", had become the current craze and even a tool of campaign rhetoric. The financial situation and unprecedented level of arrears was a reflection of declining confidence in the Organization's potential. The present financial turmoil was not the cause of

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the United Nations predicament, but rather the consequence of it. Empty coffers led to less output; less output undermined authority; less authority led to fewer payments, thus exacerbating the financial crisis.

The United Nations, he said, had particularly lost authority in the area of peace and security and stood to lose even more. For example, in Burundi the humanitarian and political situation was alarming and the world was witnessing a creeping genocide. "We cannot allow another disaster to happen, such as the one that took place in Rwanda in 1994... If we fail once again, and a second genocide does take place, the United Nations will suffer the most dramatic loss of authority ever." The problem then was to reverse the downward spiral of loss of authority. The various instruments at the disposal of the international community had to be used in an integrated manner; such an approach was the only way effectively to prevent and combat conflicts. "The United Nations needs to be on the ground when it matters and where it matters." That was the lesson to be drawn from recent crises such as Rwanda and Somalia, where the international response to tragic violence became ineffective through lack of coherence. Preventive diplomacy on the one hand and post-conflict peace-building on the other required increased attention.

Another threat to authority was the existence of impunity. As in the cases of Burundi and Liberia, the prospect of impunity provided an open invitation to the commission of crimes without fear of retribution, and stood in the way of future reconciliation and reconstruction. The Tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and on Rwanda could not be allowed to fail. The establishment of ad hoc tribunals once again underlined the need for rapid creation of a permanent international criminal court.

SABAH AL-AHMAD AL-JABER AL-SABAH, the first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kuwait, said Kuwait was impressed with the performance of the Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and supported the Secretary-General's bid for "remaining on board".

He called for the constitution of a Security Council whose work and procedures should be more transparent, with resolutions reflecting more faithfully the will of the universal membership of the United Nations. Its composition should be expanded to reflect the recent increase in Member States and the equitable distribution of seats among the various regional groups. He described as "a textbook case" the position of the Council towards the Iraqi regime and supported by the international community as a whole. The question of prisoners and hostages remained a human tragedy, and a humanitarian issue of top priority to the people and Government of Kuwait.

Iraq was legally bound to cooperate with UNSCOM to eliminate its arsenal of mass destruction weapons. He noted that Kuwait itself continued to provide humanitarian relief assistance in kind to Iraqi refugees. He welcomed the accord between Iraq and the United Nations on the implementation of Security Council resolution 986 as a step towards alleviating the suffering of the

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Iraqi people. He said he wished to reiterate the position of Kuwait that Iraq's unity and territorial integrity must be preserved.

He declared that Kuwait put the question of Palestine among its top concerns. It had devoted enormous effort and resources to that cause since Kuwait had always believed that Israel did not fulfil the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood, let alone the fact that it had seized all Palestinian territory in disregard for United Nations resolutions. Israel must stop its settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, especially in the holy city of Jerusalem, and cease forthwith all changes to its Arab character and legal status. He condemned the building and opening of the tunnel under the western wall of the Al Aksa Mosque and the desecration of the holy places. Withdrawal of Israel from the Golan was the litmus test of its good intentions to achieve a just and balanced peace, and he supported Syria's position to resume negotiations from the point where they had ceased. In addition, Kuwait supported Lebanon in its legitimate insistence that Israel must fulfil all provisions of Security Council resolution 425 requiring Israel to pull out fully and unconditionally from the Lebanese territory under occupation.

The Minister welcomed the peaceful measures taken in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the outcome of the recent elections. He called for efforts of the international community to continue in Somalia, Afghanistan and Burundi.

On international trade, he said that Kuwait had been advocating the removal of barriers because in the context of an interdependent globe, collective political security could not be isolated from the economic concerns of nations. He welcomed the efforts of countries readjusting their economic approaches towards genuine openness and the adoption of free-market policies.

BORIS SHIKHMURADOV, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, said that in the past year, his country had hosted talks between Tadjik factions in Ashgabat, provided assistance to the mission of the Secretary General's envoy for Afghanistan and hosted a number of major international forums. This was in an effort to contribute to the stabilization of the situation in the strife-torn region, to help in peace- building, and to serve the interests of cooperation at an interregional level.

He said Turkmenistan, an Asian country, had become one of the actors in the "all-European process", which was an opportunity to cooperate within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), European Union and other organizations, as well as to promote better understanding and improvement of North-South cooperation.

He called for an international centre for political studies, under the aegis of the United Nations, to be established in Turkmenistan to study the political and economic situation in the region comprising the former Soviet

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Central Asia, South-West Asia, and the Near and Middle East; the centre could elaborate specific strategic recommendations in the interests of global peace and security.

He stressed that a system must be established of full trust and interaction among the Caspian States -- Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakstan, Russia and Turkmenistan -- for unilateral decisions and dictates. The forthcoming conference of foreign ministers of those States to be held in Ashgabat should serve as a forum for discussion of their common problems.

He said he hoped an agenda for development would be finalized during the current Assembly session, to help establish a system of priorities and assistance to States pursuing national development programmes. His country, he said, possessed colossal natural resources, including the richest deposits of hydrocarbons in the world. One of its major tasks was the establishment of a pipeline infrastructure that, in conjunction with the existing pipelines, would ensure the supply of Turkmen gas to Europe and Asia.

He said that in the struggle against drug distribution and trafficking, Turkmenistan had established a State coordination commission. For the purpose of protecting democracy, human rights, and the right of people to property and legal protection, it had created an institute for democracy, human rights and statehood development. Noting that conflict situations persisted in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, he said his country believed that those two "ancient and wise peoples" were capable of overcoming the lingering syndrome of mistrust and differences. The President of Afghanistan, by constant consultations with the leaders of neighbouring countries and the United Nations Secretary-General, had expressed the country's readiness to take an active part in the search for a settlement.

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