STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, FOR SELF-RULE IS STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, SECRETARY-GENERAL STATES

22 May 1998

Press Release
SG/SM/6571
OBV/47

STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, FOR SELF-RULE IS STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, SECRETARY-GENERAL STATES

19980522 On Occasion of Week of Solidarity with Peoples of All Colonial Territories Fighting for Freedom, Independence and Human Rights

Following is the text, as delivered, of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement to the Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, on the occasion of the observance of the Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of All Colonial Territories Fighting for Freedom, Independence and Human Rights, in New York today:

I am pleased to pay tribute to your mission during this Week of Solidarity with the Peoples of All Colonial Territories Fighting for Freedom, Independence and Human Rights. Ever since its founding, the United Nations has been a home and a haven for the peoples of the world still struggling for their independence.

In the 38 years since the adoption of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, some 60 former colonial Territories inhabited by more than 80 million people have attained independence and joined the United Nations as sovereign members. And yet, your work remains unfinished.

As we reach the final year of the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, we must redouble our efforts and see this process to its conclusion. In this fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, allow me to recall also the centrality of human rights to the struggle for independence.

Ultimately, the struggle for independence, for self-rule -- for the right of a people to be a master of its own destiny -- is the struggle for human rights. Let us therefore remember that while human rights begin with independence, they do not end there. It is the solemn duty of all new nations -- whether in Africa or Asia -- to honour their independence by rewarding their peoples with genuine human rights for all, including the right to development and all civil and political rights.

Only thus can we truly honour the long struggle against colonialism and pay tribute to the many men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of freedom and independence.

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