IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO EVENTS IN RWANDA, KOSOVO EXAMINED BY SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Press Release
GA/9595
IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO EVENTS IN RWANDA, KOSOVO EXAMINED BY SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN ADDRESS TO GENERAL ASSEMBLY
19990920Assembly Opens General Debate, Hearing from 4 Heads of State; President of Algeria Stresses Africa's Concerns on Sovereignty
"While the genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the consequences of inaction in the face of mass murder, the more recent conflict in Kosovo has prompted important questions about the consequences of action in the absence of unity on the part of the international community", Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the General Assembly this morning, as the Assembly opened its general debate for the fifty-fourth session.
In the case of Kosovo, he continued, the inability of the international community to reconcile the question of the legitimacy of an action taken by a regional organization without a United Nations mandate, and the universally accepted imperative of effectively halting gross and systematic violations of human rights, could only be viewed as a tragedy. It had revealed the core challenge to the Security Council and the United Nations as whole in the next century: to forge unity behind the principle that massive, systematic violations of human rights -- wherever they might take place -- should not be allowed to stand.
He said, to those for whom the greatest threat to the future of international order was the use of force in the absence of a Council mandate, one might ask in the context of Rwanda: If a coalition of States had been prepared to act in defence of the Tutsi population, but had not received prompt Council authorization, should such a coalition have stood aside and allowed the horror to unfold? To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when States and groups of States could take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might ask: Was there not a danger of such intervention undermining the security system created after the Second World War and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions?
The President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is also the current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), said that in the debate on interference in internal matters, it was necessary to determine where aid
General Assembly Plenary - 1a - Press Release GA/9595 4th Meeting (AM) 20 September 1999
stopped and interference began; what lines were to be drawn between the humanitarian, the political and the economic; and if interference was valid only for weak or weakened States. Interference in internal affairs could only take place with the consent of the State in question. The OAU member States were extremely sensitive to any undermining of their sovereignty -- not only because it was their final defence against the rules of an unequal world, but also because they were not a part of either the decision-making process of the Security Council, or the monitoring of the implementation of that process.
Addressing the same issue, the Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil, Luiz Felipe Palmeira Lampreia, said that whenever an unfolding crisis due to international indifference broke out, the world public looked to the United Nations for meaningful answers. The upshot was frustration with the Organization, either because the necessary initiatives were adopted outside the United Nations framework, as in the case of Kosovo, or the measures taken did not meet needs, as in East Timor. Why did certain predicaments generate intense mobilization of ways and means, but not others? he asked. Why did human suffering in some parts of the world generate greater indignation than in others? Angola and East Timor were glaring examples of the unequal attention given to world problems.
The Prime Minster of France, Lionel Jospin, said the civilizing goal of the United Nations was first achieved through the peaceful settlement of inter-State conflicts. In that mission, the Security Council's role was pre- eminent. There had been circumstances when an urgent humanitarian situation dictated immediate action, but such an approach must remain an exception. The Organization must take care, as was the case in Kosovo, to reinsert such action within the context of the Charter. The new strategic concept of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) recognized the Council's primary responsibility in peacekeeping. While the United Nations had not hesitated to respond to crises over the past few years, its relative timidity whenever Africa was concerned was regrettable. The extent of the tragedies on that continent required more resolute action.
Also this morning the Assembly authorized the Preparatory Committee for the Special Session of the General Assembly on the Implementation of the Outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives to meet in New York during the main part of the fifty-fourth session. It also authorized the Committee on Information to meet at Headquarters during the main part of that session.
Statements were also made by the Presidents of South Africa, Namibia and Georgia, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Jordan.
The Assembly will meet again at 3 p.m. today to continue its general debate.
Assembly Work Programme
The General Assembly met this morning to begin its general debate for the fifty-fourth session. Scheduled speakers are: the Presidents of South Africa, Algeria, Namibia and Georgia; the Prime Minister of France; and the Foreign Ministers of Brazil and Jordan.
Also, the Secretary-General was scheduled to present his report on the work of the Organization. The report (document A/54/1) has six chapters, covering all aspects of the work of the United Nations, including its efforts towards achieving peace and security; cooperating for development; meeting humanitarian commitments; engaging with globalization; and managing change. One of the chapters is also devoted to the international legal order and human rights. (The report is specially summarized in Press Release SG/2057- GA/9598.)
Statement by Secretary-General
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary-General, said he had made it his highest duty to restore the United Nations to its rightful role in the pursuit of peace and security, and to bring it closer to the people it served. At the brink of a new century, that mission continued. It continued, however, in a world transformed by geopolitical, economic, technological and environmental changes whose lasting significance was still elusive. "As we seek new ways to combat the ancient enemies of war and poverty, we will succeed only if we adapt our Organization to a world with new actors, new responsibilities, and new possibilities for peace and progress", he remarked.
State sovereignty was being redefined by the forces of globalization and internal cooperation, he continued. The State was now widely understood to be the servant of the people and not vice versa. At the same time, individual sovereignty had been enhanced by a renewed consciousness of the right of every individual to control his or her own destiny. Those parallel developments did not lend themselves to simple conclusions. They did, however, "demand of us a willingness to think anew" about how the United Nations responded to the political, human rights and humanitarian crises affecting so much of the world; and about "our willingness to act in certain areas of conflict while limiting ourselves to humanitarian palliatives in many other crises".
"While the genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the consequences of inaction in the face of mass murder, the more recent conflict in Kosovo had prompted important questions about the consequences of action in the absence of unity on the part of the international community", he said. In the case of Kosovo, the inability of that community to reconcile the question of the legitimacy of an action taken by a regional organization without a United Nations mandate, on one side, and the universally accepted imperative of effectively halting gross and systematic violations of human rights, on the other, could only be viewed as a tragedy. It had revealed that the core challenge to the Security Council and the United Nations in the next century: To forge unity behind the principle that massive, systematic violations of human rights -- wherever they might take place -- should not be allowed to stand.
He said that, to those for whom the greatest threat to the future of international order was the use of force in the absence of a Council mandate, one might ask -- not in the context of Kosovo, but in the context of Rwanda -- if a coalition of States had been prepared to act in defence of the Tutsi population, but had not received prompt Council authorization, should such a coalition have stood aside and allowed the horror to unfold? To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when States and groups of States could take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might ask: Was there not a danger of such intervention undermining the imperfect, yet resilient, security system created after the Second World War, and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions?
He said that some had suggested that the Charter itself -- with its roots in the aftermath of global inter-State war -- was ill-suited to guide the Organization in a world of ethnic wars and intra-State violence. "I believe they are wrong", he said. The Charter was a living document, whose high principles still defined the aspirations of peoples everywhere. Nothing in the Charter precluded a recognition that there were rights beyond borders.
He said that, while the sovereign States who drafted the Charter were dedicated to peace, they were also experienced in war. They knew the terror of conflict, but equally understood that there were times when the use of force might be legitimate in the pursuit of peace. That was why, in the Charter's own words, "armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest". What was the common interest, who should define it, who would defend it, and under whose authority and with what means of intervention? he asked. Those were the monumental question facing the international community as the world entered a new century.
First, he continued, it was important to define intervention so as to include actions along a wide continuum, from the most pacific to the most coercive. It was also necessary to recognize that any armed intervention was itself a result of the failure of prevention. "We must redouble our efforts to enhance our preventive capabilities", he stressed. Further, a new more broadly defined definition of national interest in the new century would induce States to find far greater unity in the pursuit of such basic Charter values as democracy, pluralism, human rights and the rule of law.
In the event that forceful intervention became necessary, he added, it must be ensured that the Council was able to rise to the challenge. The choice must not be between Council unity and inaction in the face of genocide, as was the case in Rwanda, and Council division and regional action, as was the case of Kosovo. In both cases, Member States of the United Nations should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the Charter, and acting in defence of "our common heritage". The Charter required the Council to be the defender of the "common interest". Unless it was seen to be so, there was a danger that others could seek to take its place.
He said the Council's prompt and effective action in authorizing a multinational force for East Timor reflected precisely the unity of purpose that he called for today. Already, however, far too many lives had been lost and far too much destruction had taken place "for us to rest on our laurels". The hard work of bringing lasting peace and stability to East Timor "still awaits us", he said. Finally, after the conflict was over, in East Timor as everywhere, it was vitally important that the commitment to peace be as strong as the commitment to war. "Our greatest, most enduring test remains our ability to gain the respect and support of the world's peoples", he stressed. If the collective conscience of humanity could not find its greatest tribune in the United Nations, there was grave danger that it would look elsewhere for peace and justice.
Statements
LUIZ FELIPE PALMEIRA LAMPREIA, Minister for Foreign Relations of Brazil, said that whenever an unfolding crisis made headlines, the world public looked to the United Nations for meaningful answers. Yet, the international community was only compelled to act in a coordinated fashion when long- festering problems got out of hand. The upshot was frustration with the United Nations, either because necessary initiatives were adopted outside the United Nations framework, as in the case of Kosovo, or the measures taken did not meet needs, as in East Timor. In Angola, the United Nations was now dealing with a conflict of catastrophic proportions, because it had not been addressed in a timely manner.
Why did certain predicaments generate intense mobilization of ways and means, but not others? he asked. Why did human suffering in some parts of the world generate greater indignation than in others? The plight of Angola and East Timor were glaring examples of the unequal attention given to world problems. Brazil had special ties with Angola, and the Security Council should take urgent action, as its resolutions on angola were being blatantly ignored. Similarly, Brazil shared linguistic, cultural and historic ties with the Timorese. The multinational force authorized by the Security Council must halt the atrocities that had been occurring there since the resounding vote for independence.
Over the past decade, Latin America had refashioned its former image as an area of backwardness and dictatorships, he said. Democracy had returned to countries all over the continent. Human rights were being fostered, consistent economic policies were being adopted, and strong ties had formed between countries. Organized crime and drug trafficking, however, posed major challenges, as did the spiralling trade in small arms associated with scourges. Giving first priority to tackling the problem of small arms, Brazil had approved an Inter- American Convention on Transparency in Conventional Weapons Acquisitions. The Assembly at the present session should endorse the holding of an international conference on illicit arms trafficking in all its aspects. Also, a draft convention against transnational organized crime was most important.
Finally, he said, the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction remained a threat to the security and very survival of mankind. All actions contrary to the aims of the non-proliferation regime should be condemned by the international community. Brazil would co-sponsor a draft resolution on the "New Agenda for Nuclear Disarmament" during the Assembly's present session.
THABO MBEKI, President of South Africa, said that the United Nations Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights provided all nations with the vision towards which they should strive. He supported the central message expressed in the Universal Declaration which affirmed the dignity and worth of humanity and promoted social progress, and said that the time had come to ensure that all nations worked together to reconstruct society in a manner consistent with the letter and spirit of the Charter.
He said that the conditions existed in the world to successfully pursue the vision contained in those two documents. He cited two factors that pointed to those conditions. First, with the end of the cold war, there was no sign anywhere of an ideologically driven contest among super-Powers which dictated that each destroy the other in order to protect itself. Second, the overwhelming majority of countries in the world had opted for democratic forms of government.
Those two factors should lead to at least three conclusions, he said. First, there should be no need on the part of any country to seek to establish a sphere of influence as a supposed necessary condition for the advancement of its national interest. Second, the very sustenance of global democracy required that ordinary people feel that they enjoy the right to determine their own destiny. Third, those circumstances created the possibility for a more democratic system of international governance.
Those developments, he said, suggested that perhaps humanity had never had as bright a prospect for durable world peace and security as it did today. "The mere spread of democracy throughout the world", he said, "speaks of a greater commitment among nations to the resolution of national and international conflicts by peaceful means."
He said he also felt that there existed sufficient resources within the world economy to address the issue of social progress called for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Science and technology continued to develop in such a way that, along with large concentrations of capital that characterized the world economy, it was hard to believe that the means did not exist to make an impact on poverty, ignorance and disease.
The evolution of human society presented world leaders with new possibilities to move the globe a "giant step forward" towards a new actuality about which the poor and powerless dreamed everyday. "What may be in short supply is the courage of politicians, as opposed to an abundance of good- sounding rhetoric", he said. "Only time will tell whether we have the courage to rise to this challenge."
ABDELAZIZ BOUTEFLIKA, President of Algeria and current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), said that the thirty-fifth OAU Summit, which had been held in Algiers last July, had shown that Africans were ready to work for peace, stability and cooperation and to strengthen the political and economic reform, but it had also revealed how insubstantial North-South cooperation was. The Summit had pointed out the difficulties which were inherent in the social, cultural and psychological configuration of different countries, which often resulted in misunderstandings resulting in the systematic implementation of the criteria of force.
The problems were global, so it was necessary to globalize the solutions, he continued. It could not be over-emphasized that it was discouraging to see an ever-widening gap between rich countries and the third world countries stifled by their debt. By letting poverty proliferate in an increasingly interdependent world, rich countries were paving the way for a disrupted national life and international relations, which would be increasingly susceptible to threats of violence, conflict and discord. In today's world, "is there anything better than the United Nations system to take up challenges, solve problems and settle disputes?" he asked. The United Nations family could give rise to new forms of cooperation with States and non-governmental organizations, such as the OAU, to advance the cause of peace, justice and development.
During the Algiers Summit, priority had been given to concord and peace in Africa, he continued. Africa was determined to speed up the settlement of conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia, in the Great Lake region, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Sierra Leone. Actions in that respect had been intensified within the context of the OAU and subregional organizations. In the same vein, the OAU countries had unequivocally stated that they supported international legality, democracy and the respect of law. The guidelines of the OAU's position with regards to the situation in Angola and Western Sahara had also been set. There, the OAU fully supported the United Nations initiative. It also supported the good offices of the United Nations in the Comoros.
By the same token, he said, the OAU was concerned for peace and security in the Gulf, where disastrous economic sanctions should be lifted, as well as those unjustly imposed on Libya and the Sudan, even though their Governments had fully cooperated in the relevant investigations. The embargo imposed on the Iraqi people should find its solution in a "less harmful" way. He did not deny the right of the public opinion of the northern hemisphere to denounce the breaches of human rights where they existed, and the United Nations had the right and the duty to help suffering humanity. However, the countries of the OAU remained extremely sensitive to any undermining of their sovereignty -- not only because it was their final defence against the rules of an unequal world, but also because they were not taking part either in the decision- making process by the Security Council, or in the monitoring of their implementation.
He said that the debate on the concept of interference in internal matters seemed far from finished, as several questions required exact answers. Among those were the questions of where aid stopped and interference began; what lines were to be drawn between the humanitarian, the political and the economic; and if interference was valid only for weak or weakened States. In any case, interference in internal affairs could only take place with the consent of the State in question.
For its part, Algeria had paid a heavy price for democracy and had to shoulder the high social cost of the reforms it was undertaking, he said. It was working hard to restore civil concord, to widen its democratic project, to establish the rule of law and to renovate and modernize the judicial system and the administration. Today, the Algerian people were rejecting violence because it was not part of their traditions. They had proven it in the referendum of 16 September by giving a resounding affirmation to the law on civil concord voted in by Parliament in July.
SAM NUJOMA, President of Namibia, said today, economic disparity, debt burden, social injustice, unemployment, refugee problems and environmental degradation had become unacceptable hardships in various regions of the world. It had been argued that the solution to underdevelopment was globalization and liberalization of the world economy. For globalization to work, it must be transformed from a mere concept into reality. It must be a collective undertaking for the benefit of all. The reality of inequality of States must be at the centre of any discussions of the world economy. The United Nations couldn and should help developing countries to maximize the benefits from a globalized economy.
The biggest menace of the twentieth century had been the unacceptably high and ever-increasing poverty which denuded humanity of its dignity, he said. He recalled that among the commitments made during the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995 was to halve poverty levels by the year 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa required a growth rate of 7 per cent annually if it was to achieve those levels. The future looked bleak, but the determination was strong to overcome all odds and succeed.
Africa today was democratizing and undertaking economic reforms to maximize social and economic prosperity for its people, he said. And indeed, some significant economic growth had been recorded in a large number of countries. However, political and economic reforms in themselves would not deliver sustained economic growth. Increased foreign direct investment was very important to complement those reforms and to sustain the current growth rate; however, it should not replace official development aid.
The information super-highway has changed forever the way business was done, he said. Much of the world was now fully connected through the Internet. Notwithstanding all that, much of Africa was still struggling to gain meaningful access to knowledge and information. In addition to efforts to become more wired, Africa was now faced with the enormous challenge of ensuring that its resources were all Y2K compliant, before 31 December 1999, in order to avert disasters. Namibia called on all those countries which had the resources and the necessary know-how to assist developing countries in dealing with the problem.
The reform of the Security Council constituted one of the important components in the efforts to strengthen, revitalize and democratize the United Nations, he said. His Government strongly favoured correcting the existing imbalances in its composition. Developing countries must adequately be represented; Africa deserved at least two permanent seats and additional non- permanent seats in the expanded Council.
EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE, President of Georgia, said that unresolved conflicts and violated territorial integrity remained Georgia's most painful problem. As a result of the campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing conducted by Abkhaz separatists with external military support, many civilians of Georgian and other ethnic extraction had been killed and nearly 300,000 people displaced. Despite the aid that the Government, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other organizations provided, those innocent victims continued to live in conditions of extreme deprivation. It was unfortunate that, unlike the confrontation in the Balkans, the Abkhaz conflict had been given no exposure on the world television screens and, therefore, the international community had little awareness of it.
He said that the Abkhaz, who originally constituted 17 per cent of the population, with the help of foreign regular army units and mercenaries expelled the majority, just because they were not Abkhaz, but Georgians, Armenians, Jews, Russians, Greeks or other ethnicities. That was accomplished alongside ethnically motivated summary executions and mass killings. The involvement of international institutions -- the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Russian Federation, the United States, France and the United Kingdom -- had so far failed to produce tangible results. Georgia was offering Abkhazia the broadest status for a federal entity that could be found in international practice, he said. Abkhazia would be allowed its own constitution. It would also be permitted to determine the structure of its own parliament and executive bodies, create a judiciary, participate in the work of international interregional organizations and decide matters pertaining to social policy, culture, education, science, environmental protection and other pertinent issues.
Developments in recent years had clearly shown that the existing system of collective responsibility for global security was still far from perfect, he continued. Order could not be ensured unless negative sanctions were applied, and that was exactly what the United Nations was avoiding in every way. Aggressors who had perpetrated all manner of grave crimes continued to do so with impunity. They even acquired a certain respectability by participating on an equal basis with legitimate governments in negotiations held under United Nations auspices.
Now that the dividing lines of ideological confrontation had been overcome, the other lines that divided the peoples of the world into rich and poor, educated and uneducated must be erased. In today's interdependent world, the poverty of States would produce echoes of terrorism, drugs and crime in others.
` LIONEL JOSPIN, Prime Minister of France, said that the grand design of the United Nations -- to affirm a body of legal rules framing relations among States -- was achieved first through the peaceful settlement of conflicts between States. In that mission, the role of the Security Council was preeminent, which was derived from the Charter. There had of course been circumstances when an urgent humanitarian situation dictated immediate action, but such an approach must remain an exception. The Organization must take care -- as in the case of Kosovo -- to reinsert such action within the context of the Charter.
The fundamental rule was for the Security Council to resolve crisis situations, he continued. Indeed, the new strategic concept of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reiterated the primary responsibility of the Security Council in the field of peacekeeping. However, while the United Nations had not hesitated to respond to crises over the past few years, and on several continents, he wished to express regret at the relative timidity of the Organization whenever Africa was concerned. The extent of the tragedies on that continent required more resolute action.
The United Nations mission was not limited to the settlement of conflicts between States, he said. With the growth of human aspirations for freedom and responsibility, its mission extended to the protection of human dignity within each State and when necessary -- as the Charter permitted -- against States. A case in point was the conflict in Kosovo, where Security Council resolution 1244 had laid down the bases of a settlement that aimed at ensuring security for all. Now, in East Timor, another people was asking that its rights be recognized. Some had tried to oppose that choice with violence. He welcomed the Security Council's adoption on 14 September of a resolution paving the way for a restoration of peace and successful conclusion of the democratic process. France was participating in the multinational force set up by the Council's decision.
Much effort was still needed for the values of the United Nations to be respected everywhere, he said. International criminal law must be strengthened. Furthermore, in order to deal with financial difficulties -- and prevent those difficulties from becoming a pretext for inaction -- all Member States must meet their financial obligations to the Organization. Also, new challenges emerging from a "networked" new world must be faced. Globalization generated remarkable progress, but also led to unacceptable inequalities, including in communication technology. Communication was a right. It was essential that it not be threatened by the concentration, in just a few hands, of sources of information and the means of production and distribution. Finally, faced with the temptation of unilateralism, it was more necessary than ever to base action upon multilateral rules respected by all.
ABDEL-ILAH EL- KHATIB, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Jordan, said that the late King Hussein had succeeded in turning Jordan from a small country with limited resources into an oasis of peace and stability in a region beset by disturbances and wars. The Palestine question continued to be the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the establishment of peace in the region required that a joint solution be reached, which would satisfy the peoples of the region. Jordan had been calling for the implementation of the Wye River Memorandum, and the signing of the Sharm el-Shaikh Memorandum had enhanced the prospects for its implementation. It would also advance the final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The issues of such negotiations were directly linked to Jordan's national interests, he continued, particularly the issues of the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Direct expenditures by the Government of Jordan on services provided to the refugees in 1998 had reached four and three quarter times the amount spent by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Jordan called on the international community not to allow any reductions in the UNRWA's role or its programmes until the refugee question had been resolved in accordance with international legitimacy.
Jordan also strongly supported the efforts aimed at reactivating negotiations on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks and the demand of those countries that negotiations should be resumed from the point at which they had stopped, he said. His country hoped that Syria and Lebanon would be able to recover their legitimate rights through Israel's withdrawal from the Syrian Arab Golan and from southern Lebanon.
Speaking about the need to lift sanctions against Iraq, he said that relevant Security Council resolutions should be implemented, including those concerning the Kuwaiti prisoners of war and missing persons. He called on the Security Council to conduct the comprehensive review, which would lead to extricating Iraq from current situation. Jordan affirmed its position upholding the territorial integrity of Iraq as one of the main pillars of regional security. The lack of progress in the peace process and the continued economic sanctions against Iraq had subjected the Jordanian economy to tremendous pressures and had made it impossible for Jordan to achieve acceptable levels of economic growth, while it continued to suffer a huge external debt, he said.
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