YouSaid · the spoken record

Louis Michel

lines on the record

118

first

1999-09-24

most recent

2003-09-24

sittings or episodes

5

sources

un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “Here it is opportune to recall the urgent need for the international community to provide itself with the tools needed to prevent and punish barbaric acts. We need a tribunal charged with prosecuting those responsible for the gravest crimes affecting the whole international community. The adoption in Rome of the Statute of the International Criminal Court is an important landmark. I appeal to all States to sign and ratify it so that the Court can start to operate as soon as possible. Belgium's ratification of the Statute is imminent. This new tribunal must be endowed with the human and material means necessary for the accomplishment of its mission. This leads me to the issue of United Nations reform, and primarily the reform of the Security Council.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

2. “My country deeply regrets that a potential double veto constituted an insurmountable obstacle that was inappropriate given the extreme urgency of the situation. We hope that resorting to force without the Council's approval will not constitute a precedent. The world needs an international legal order that prevails over the law of the jungle. In this respect, we all hope that resolution 1244 (1999) signals a return to international legality. 17 Belgium welcomes the decisive attitude of the Security Council regarding East Timor. We hope for a speedy restoration of normality there, with the return of its inhabitants, reconstruction of the country and the establishment of a state of law resulting from the expressed will of its people.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

3. “Article 42 of the United Nations Charter allows the Council to qualify such violations as a threat to international peace and security and to authorize armed intervention, as it has on several occasions — for example, in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991; in Somalia in 1992; in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994; and in Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1997. If the Security Council could not fully play its role at the beginning of the Kosovo crisis, this was due less to a divergence of views between States over the essence of the problem than because there was a rift between the advocates of the right of humanitarian intervention and the defenders of the traditional legal system, which regards national sovereignty as the absolute foundation of international relations.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

4. “The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention has appreciably reinforced the idea that moral and ethical considerations are in the process of overshadowing the traditional concept of national sovereignty in international relations. If there is one lesson for our Organization to learn from the twentieth century, it is that for no State can the massacre of its own people be considered an “internal affair”, under any pretext. This legal formalism would ultimately amount to admitting that, as the head of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Bernard Kouchner has said, it would be “legitimate, although not elegant, to massacre one's own people”. Yet the Security Council is well-equipped to deal with massive violations of human rights.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

5. “I also hope that the international Community will fulfil its commitment to support the Middle East peace process. There, too, it will be a matter of releasing the financial and human resources to ensure the economic, social and democratic development of the various regions and peoples who are committed to peace. My country is ready to respond to calls for cooperation in this regard. There is another region where the United Nations has been called upon to play a crucial and difficult role. The Kosovo crisis has implications for the security of my country and Europe as a whole. It also obliges us to ask a sensitive question about the limits to the right of the international community to intervene in the internal affairs of a State.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

6. “But much remains to be done to improve the situation of the peoples of southern Sudan and of Somalia. Whatever the media's focus, now turned towards other parts of the world, it is important that we do not forget the suffering of men, women and especially children of those countries of Africa, who aspire to education, health and development. The new international policies, based more on balance and on the sharing of prosperity, should be directed towards them, too. I turn briefly to North Africa. The presidency of the European Union recalled that the Maghreb countries are experiencing significant growth. They remain an essential partner for Europe and for world peace, prosperity and development. Economic, social, cultural and political ties with the southern Mediterranean basin will have to be strengthened in the coming months and years.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

7. “We believe such s partnership pact should be based on the voluntary and mutually respectful cooperation of each African and non- African signatory country and should in no way be construed as an attempt at neo-colonial domineering of that part of the world. Other regions of Africa deserve more attention and effort on the part of the international community. I think in particular of the bloody conflict which has plunged Angola into unspeakable humanitarian tragedy. I also think of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which must be prevented from extending into Somalia. In Sierra Leone, the efforts of neighbouring countries, which Belgium and other partners have supported, give reason for optimism. We also hope that Guinea-Bissau will regain civil peace.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

8. “But this can imply no ambiguity about the roles of the Security Council and of the General Assembly. Nor does 16 it mean that the rest of the world should refrain from action: achieving peace in the Great Lakes region will require tremendous efforts and resources. Here we must think about concluding a true partnership pact with the countries of Central Africa. Inspired by the Stability Pact for the Balkans, this would form part of a genuine strategy for cooperation among countries. With the support of the major financial institutions, such a pact could revitalize the economic mechanisms of partner countries and reinvigorate their social and democratic development.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

9. “It requires the political will of the various parties concerned to address the root causes of the present conflict and to seek solutions at a regional level. A significant effort by the international community will be necessary to encourage and support them. My country will do its share, and will intensify its direct contacts and its financial support. Belgium has responded to the appeal of the Security Council by placing liaison officers at the disposal of the Secretary-General. They will be deployed in accordance with Security Council resolution 1258 (1999) of 6 August 1999. It goes without saying that we fully respect the wish of African leaders that they should find their own political solutions to the conflicts that undermine the continent.”

   1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

10. “Belgium must reestablish the bonds with that region which history and experience have bestowed upon it. This also implies responsibilities which my Government will endeavour to shoulder in a responsible and coherent manner. I am thinking in particular of the twofold task of the United Nations as an organization both for the maintenance of peace and for the promotion of development. I also have in mind human rights issues, of which my Government is particularly aware. Against this backdrop, the new Belgian Government has placed cooperation with Central Africa at the top of its agenda. To us, it is important that peace and stability should return to Central Africa. The Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement offers hope.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

11. “We hope that this major event will lead to a renewed commitment to the integration of these countries in the world economy on the basis of concrete and quantifiable objectives. The Belgian Government, which recently came into office, has clearly expressed its political will gradually to increase our funding of bilateral partnerships and cooperation. We shall pay particular attention to the quality and the coherent implementation of the projects we sponsor. I express the wish that this Assembly session be conducted under the banner of Africa. Your stimulating opening statement, Mr. President, and the addresses by President Mbeki of South Africa and by President Bouteflika of Algeria, sent a strong message in that regard. We Belgians have a traditional interest in the political, economic and development prospects of Central Africa.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

12. “This means we must be more determined to restoring the primacy of policy and no longer to permit democratic legitimacy to be circumvented or even flouted by selfish or speculative interests. The rights of peoples must always prevail over the power of money. Belgium will support United Nations efforts to restore the Organization's mission to protect against the unacceptable side-effects of globalization. In that spirit, my country attaches great importance to the success of the coming Millennium Assembly. In that context, Belgium is pleased that it will serve as host to the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in the spring of 2001, which will bring together in Brussels all development partners.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

13. “For this fight against poverty and this campaign for emancipation to succeed, we must agree to a decisive review of the mechanism that underlies the economic fluctuation, that causes financial tension and its attendant social consequences, and that tolerates massive exploitation of the weakest by forces that are often impersonal and unidentifiable. Hence, we are deeply convinced that we must restore the primacy of political leadership in our globalized society. We must endeavour without hidden agendas to organize a new world political order. We need stronger and more coherent United Nations action for economic and social development, which requires the use of all available global tools for economic, financial and commercial governance.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

14. “As I speak, 1.3 billion women and men are surviving — or trying to survive — on less than one dollar per day; 840 million of them, including 160 million children, suffer daily from hunger or malnutrition. Even more serious, as those two teenagers remind us, 260 million children have no access to primary or secondary school because of a lack of means. Every day, 250 million children go to work instead of to school. At the dawn of the third millennium, it is increasingly difficult for our civilization to tolerate such social and human marginalization and such a lack of solidarity, in particular for our children. We must forge stronger solidarity within the United Nations. We must restore humanism to its rightful place in international relations.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

15. “The 15 universal commitments made at Jomtien for education, at Rio de Janeiro for the environment, at Vienna for human rights, at Copenhagen for social development, at Cairo for population and development, at Beijing for women, at Rome for hunger and at Istanbul for human settlements constitute irreversible gains for mankind. It is gratifying that the concerns debated and the conclusions adopted at those conferences have increasingly become the inspiration for our national policies and are helping to bring about the indispensable convergence among those policies. But the tragedy of Yaguine and Fodé brings us face to face with the harsh reality of unbalanced development.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

16. “We need you to fight poverty”. The great organization of which Yaguine and Fodé dreamed is here before me in its most universal form. It was conceived from the outset for the maintenance of peace and for economic and social development. The authors of the Charter regarded those two aspects as inseparable. Over the last decade, this great Organization has succeeded in laying a worldwide foundation for economic and social values aimed at creating a more civilized world, a world in which globalization has gradually come to the fore. Here I am thinking of the discrete but tenacious work at the great United Nations conferences and summits to find new directions for development. That significant work must be continued and consolidated.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

17. “Early in the month of August, two young African children, Yaguine and Fodé, were found dead, stowed away in the landing gear of a Sabena aeroplane, victims of an idealism and an innocence that led them to embark on a reckless voyage in search of the mirages of western society. Yaguine and Fodé left us a moving message, of which I would like to quote some passages here: “To the people in charge in Europe: it is to your solidarity and to your kindness that we make an appeal for help for Africa ... We are suffering enormously ... We have war, disease ... We have schools, but in order to get a good education and good teaching, one needs large amounts of money; and our parents are poor. “So, we Africans, especially African children and young people, ask you to create a great and effective organization for Africa ...”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)

18. “I should like first of all to congratulate you, Sir, on your election as President of the General Assembly and to thank you for having accepted the weighty task that you will be carrying out during this session. We also wish to express our best wishes to your country, Namibia, which you so ably represent. We also pay tribute to your predecessor, Mr. Opertti, for the manner in which he guided our work during the previous session. I should also like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere congratulations to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga on their admission to our Organization. My statement is in line with the statement made here by the Presidency of the European Union. I wish merely to highlight some of the issues that are particularly important for us.”

    1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)