SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS ON INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO REDOUBLE EFFORTS TOWARDS ERADICATION OF COLONIALISM

22 February 1999

Press Release
SG/SM/6898
GA/COL/2996

SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS ON INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO REDOUBLE EFFORTS TOWARDS ERADICATION OF COLONIALISM

19990222 Kofi Annan Addresses Opening Meeting Of 1999 Session of Special Committee on Decolonization

Following is the address at the opening of the 1999 session of the Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, in New York today:

I am pleased to join you as you begin your deliberations for 1999. The decolonization movement has brought about one of the signal transformations of our century. This Committee, helping to bring to life the Charter principle of "equal rights and self-determination of peoples", has made important contributions to that historic change.

The General Assembly established this Special Committee in 1961 to examine the application of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and to make recommendations on the Declaration's implementation. Thirty years later, the General Assembly adopted a plan of action for the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, with the aim of achieving complete decolonization by the end of the year 2000.

Today, working closely and constructively with the peoples of the remaining territories and the administering Powers, you continue to play a key role in our efforts to reach that goal. As always, my staff and I are pleased to assist and work with you. Let me also use this occasion to urge the specialized agencies, the offices of the United Nations system and the international financial institutions, each in its respective field, to continue assisting the Special Committee.

Last year, in commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we reaffirmed the centrality of human rights in the struggle for independence and the right of a people to be the master of its own destiny.

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In that spirit, I would encourage the administering Powers to work closely with this Committee and especially with the people of the remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories to help them reach a "full measure of self-government", in the words of the Charter, and to realize their aspirations.

More than 80 nations whose peoples were formerly under colonial rule have joined the United Nations as sovereign independent States since 1945. Many other territories have achieved self-determination through political association with other independent States or through integration with other States.

This is great progress. As the century comes to a close, and as we mark the penultimate year of the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism, let us redouble our efforts to see this process through to its conclusion.

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