YouSaid · the spoken record

Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi

lines on the record: 49
first: 1999-09-24
most recent: 2000-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
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

“Please help us to talk with them, in order to put an end to this war, which should end as all wars end. Some of us lost all our hair waiting for the blessed day, 17 May 1997, after 32 years of activity. Look at President Kabila's head and mine; we can be recognized by our advanced baldness, which came about while we were waiting for the moment when we could re-enter Kinshasa. So, my African brothers and my brothers from other countries, including many from Latin America, I conclude with a Spanish saying. I do not wish to translate it, so those who do not understand will have to stop a Spanish-speaking colleague and ask What did he say?: (spoke in Spanish) When your neighbour's house is on fire, watch out for your own house.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“They are not at home. We do not want them in our country. They must go home. The Second World War erupted after a long incubation. We now see hope for perpetual peace following that war, but I agree with Paul …luard that we must be vigilant because the womb that bore the vile beast is still fertile. We want all men, even our enemies, to be our brothers. We want to rebuild our country, which was dismantled by the excesses of 29 Mobutu. Like luard, we want to turn water into light and, as I said, to make every man our brother. That is my message to the Assembly. I repeat: do not tell me (spoke in English) You have made a wonderful speech. (spoke in French) Say We have understood your message and we shall tell our Governments to implement the relevant United Nations resolutions immediately so that the aggressors go home.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“The Second World War ended in negotiations; the war in Algeria ended in negotiations between France and the National Liberation Front; the war in Viet Nam ended in negotiations between the host country here and the Vietnamese; the war between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, which has broken all endurance records, is showing signs of ending soon. How? Through negotiations between the Catholics and the Protestants. Just the other day, in reference to another topic, I mentioned that Security Council resolution 242 (1967) was adopted over 40 years ago, but that it is only now beginning to be implemented. Now, we are not going to wait 40 years for our Clinton and our Camp David. The United Nations must implement its resolutions immediately. It must support us to ensure that the aggressors, whatever they may say, go home.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“We must act to ensure the implementation of the United Nations resolutions. We would tell the United Nations that, in order to be more effective and to have a greater chance of success, it must implement its own resolutions. I would express the hope that I shall not have to return here next year to repeat yet again that the Rwandans are still in my country, sowing death and pillaging our land. The United Nations must finally implement its own resolutions. How can it do so? It can compel the Ugandans and Rwandans to return to their homes. We do not want them in our country. They are our eternal neighbours, asteroids that orbit our planet. Let them go home. Let them talk to us. We want this war to end as all others do: with negotiations.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“These parties signed the Agreement, but Security Council resolution 1304 (2000) implies that they are the aggressors and enjoins them to leave my country. Thus, they are no longer parties, but aggressors who should leave as soon as possible. Moreover, their Congolese puppets are playing the role of Trojan horse. These invaders have exploited certain Congolese supporters of Mobutu to justify their invasion of our country and their aggression. Now, one of these asteroids is giving shelter to Mobutu's former soldiers. They are training in Kampala and their aim of returning to Kinshasa has been openly declared. One large country is helping others to build military bases on our borders and is training their soldiers in order to increase tourism in our country. We must be vigilant.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Everyone is convinced that we are erecting obstacles to the diplomatic work of the United Nations, but Lumumba's tooth should be a sign that we have historical reasons for our actions. What goes around comes around. I recognize that we have been very particular about how the United Nations forces may be deployed, but we have acceded to the Organization's wishes. We agreed to the Mission and to the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, although the fire has yet to cease. People persist in believing in the validity of the Agreement, but it was signed on 10 July 1999 and the fires are still burning today and the war continues. Still, people keep talking about the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. Well, the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement designates the invaders, the aggressors, as parties.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“I think these people intend to open a museum some time soon and to grow rich charging admission to see Lumumba's tooth. My African brothers may also be prosecuted when people arrogating the right to appoint members of Government issue warrants for them. That is why my brothers should not remain silent. They are foreign ministers and the same thing could happen to them. They should react. They should not think of me as someone who is uneducated. These countries must be prevented from acting beyond their rights. No one assigned them the task of running the world's affairs through their own brand of justice. I do not wish to linger on this ridiculous topic, but I would go even further in discussing truth and mendacity.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“I have not been warned or notified, but INTERPOL knows it must arrest me if it gets its hands on me. They have been just like big game hunters. Everyone knows what happened to our Prime Minister, Mr. Lumumba. In the tragedy in which a Secretary-General of the United Nations lost his life, the people one person in particular who carried 28 out that dirty work dissolved Lumumba's body in sulphuric acid. Perhaps they are after me now because they are suffering a shortage of sulphuric acid. This gentlemen kept one of Lumumba's teeth as a talisman and displayed it on television, admitting that they had dismembered Lumumba's body, dissolved it in sulphuric acid and kept his tooth as a charm. These universal judges have not been moved to prosecute the person who boasts of having dissolved Lumumba's body and kept one of his teeth.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“I say uneducated because I have urged our people to rise and crush the invaders and to make them eat their words, but these judges thought I had called for the invaders to be strangled. These judges are so uneducated they did not realize that I was quoting Voltaire. And now that I've admitted to quoting Voltaire, they will probably issue international arrest warrants for him, because they have no idea who he was. Who are these countries to appoint themselves universal judges and to prosecute people who are not their citizens for acts that were not committed in their territories? These judges do not rely on law since their position is indefensible but on the law of the jungle, because they are hunters. They made their pronouncements two years ago. They are like hunters who make no sound as they stalk their prey, but I too am silent.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Nonetheless, in their speeches they say they are in favour of the territorial integrity and political independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the same time, though, they are appointing governors in our country, changing the names of our streets and making decisions as if it were their country. These countries have spilled blood in our jungle and dare to assume the right to tell us who our Minister for Foreign Affairs should be. In threatening my freedom of movement, perhaps they imagined that I would not manage to reach New York, but we have more than one trick up our sleeve. Here I am. I will leave New York and go wherever my President tells me to go. We hope that other countries that wish to maintain good relations with us will refuse to heed these uneducated judges.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“That country, one eightieth the size of our own, allows its justice system to prosecute me, to issue an arrest warrant against me and to inform all other countries that if I go to their country, I should be arrested for crimes against humanity, just because I spoke as a patriot against those who have come into my country. One country, more powerful than the others, has asked, because of the thrashing it has received, to be allowed a corridor to the Atlantic. We do not know how these people got to the province of Kivu, which they have virtually annexed. They have changed the local administrators, appointed new governors and changed the telephone system. In order to call this province, you have to dial the code for Rwanda. This is well known. They even direct automobile traffic. In other words, they have completely taken over our province.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“A country that is one eightieth the size of ours, that not long ago, before Lumumba, held the reins of our country, dares to allow its justice system because in our country there are patriots and nationalists I come from a province near the Atlantic, 2,000 kilometres away from the Rwandan border. I see appear in my province people who are easily recognized by their phenotype, accompanied by some Congolese passing through the province on their way to Kinshasa. They even go to the airport to defend their borders, which are 2,000 kilometres away. Our patriots and nationalists stand up and do not welcome them. We tell them what we must tell them, as a true patriot would do in the face of the invader.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“If you look at the stock exchange, you will see that Rwanda this month exported so many diamonds, but those diamonds are covered in the blood of the Congolese people. The gemocracy that employs them is doing the same thing in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola. One could say that the common denominator between those countries and ours is that we are under the thumb of gemocrats who prevent us from creating democracy. We have gemocrats against democrats. That is the deepest meaning to be found in these poor countries that wish to become rich through pillaging and plundering, which they do in the full light of day where everyone can see them. What is more surprising still is that nobody tells them to stop their plundering and go home. This is an absolute fraud, and it threatens our African brothers as well.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Well, these people occupy two provinces in the border area of our country and one other province that is even farther away, farther from the equator. They have never caught any génocidaires, living or dead. It would be a shock if they did. The Rwandans 27 are saying that there are génocidaires in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to justify their presence. However, they have never caught any. Why have they never caught a génocidaire? I think they are incapable of doing two things at once. Each Rwandan or Ugandan has only two hands, and those two hands are busy. Do you know what they are doing? They are taking our diamonds, copper, gold, precious wood and rare animals, which they do not have on their asteroids. And they are becoming diamond exporters.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“If you look at the map, you will see that these asteroids, in order to secure their borders, have gone 2,000 kilometres beyond this real border, to the Atlantic, to start a war. We do not know how they manage to move their soldiers around because they do not have aeroplanes; however, know that they manage. They move heavy weaponry 2,000 kilometres in order to start a war, the purpose of which is to defend their borders 2,000 kilometres away. Who can possibly believe this? Who can claim that this is the truth? When you wish to defend and secure your border, you put your troops at your border so that others do not cross. There is yet another lie: they say that they are pursuing the perpetrators of the genocide that everyone remembers from 1994. They claim that they are pursuing them because they have hidden in our country.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“They are burying women alive and cutting off the penises of prisoners. This needs to be analysed. Why would anyone do that to prisoners? The lies in the lift will not tell you about that, but the stairway will. I hope you will inform your respective Governments of the realities of the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. People say it is complex, but in fact it is not complex at all. Those people are not in their country. They have crossed our borders, supposedly to secure their own borders and supposedly because the génocidaires are in my country, occasionally returning to their own countries to sow disorder. Once again, look at a map of our country. You will see that the asteroids that I mentioned, Rwanda in particular, have borders on Lake Kivu. It is a very small area that is the real border between us.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“They believe that this lie will prevail because it has taken the lift, while our truth has to take the stairs. But I believe that our truth is making headway in your minds. Right is on our side. None of our own soldiers are in Kigali or in Kampala, but there is an unwanted multitude of foreign soldiers in my country, growing in number as well as in weaponry. No doubt they are there for tourism. Since we are embarking upon a historic millennium and we should consider the meaning of that adjective we must remind those people that they have to leave now, today. They should go home. They must not remain in my country because what they are doing is abominable. I have given the Assembly a Dantesque description of what these people are doing in my country, supposedly for peaceful reasons. They are massacring people, as I have stated.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“And they have the nerve to say We will not leave, notwithstanding the clear Security Council resolutions that enjoin them to leave our country without delay or conditions. I am repeating today what I said last year; however, I must repeat this because these people are still in my country and show no sign of leaving. They have outrageous plans, such as creating a Great Lakes Republic by cutting up our country and joining entire provinces of it to their countries. All of this will seem quite clear if you look at a map of my country. You will see that our 2.347 million square kilometres are located amid small asteroids that gravitate around it in some sort of Brownian motion. They enter our country, massacre people and, as I said earlier, shamelessly state that they are not going to leave.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“I want to be told We shall report back to our Governments and heads of State what you said, because it is the truth: truth in response to deception. As the philosopher Spinoza said, Verum index sui et falsi; that is, truth is a touchstone both of the truth itself and of falsehood. One of our singers his name, Koffi Olomide, is worth remembering sings, in one of the languages that are well known to Africans who listen to Congolese music and from which I am translating: A lie takes the elevator, but the truth uses the stairs. The phrase is even prettier in Lingala. And so it is the lies of the aggressors have quickly arisen to fool people. They are trying to pass for little lambs, these people who are in a country that is not their own, where no one wants them to be and where they have not been invited. They are there.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Unjustifiably! It is a deception for the head of State of one of these countries to play around in New York and say We will not leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Notwithstanding the clear resolutions of the Security Council resolutions 1234 (1999) and 1304 (2000) which state plainly that the Rwandans, the Ugandans and Burundians must leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo, representatives of those countries come here and say We will not leave. These impostors come to this very building and dare to engage in such arm wrestling for the benefit of the 26 leaders and other representatives of the countries gathered here. I do not want someone to tell me even if it is true You have made a wonderful speech.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“And, as if they had not already gone too far, they have taken it upon themselves to say what we should do to settle the problems among the Congolese people. They do not talk about inter-Ugandan dialogue; they do not talk about inter-Rwandan dialogue. They talk about the inter-Congolese dialogue. Perhaps that is why they are slitting people's throats, massacring people, cutting off penises, burying women alive. They are planting fields of arms in the way that Van Gogh planted fields of sunflowers, burying women alive and leaving their arms sticking out of their graves with the idea of later harvesting arms. They have multiplied the number of Dachaus by thousands. They shut up our populations in their humble huts and then set the huts on fire. Perhaps this is their understanding of participating in a solution to the Congolese problem.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“I would suggest to delegations a small exercise regarding the reputedly historic work we do here. By playing with historic a little, by transposing a letter or two, another meaning can be found. I am awaiting the letter of the solution that the United Nations will adopt one day regarding the problem of the aggression against, and occupation of our country by, people who are here in this very Hall and who have spoken falsely yesterday and today. Uganda has said that it has come to my country in order to solve problems among the Congolese. Have the Ugandans come as tourists? Have they come as scientific researchers? We need to return to the letter of the definition of aggression. These people, who ordinarily are our neighbours, leave their country, cross our borders, come into our country and are occupying it even as I speak.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“Once again I shall rely on the kindness of those who interpret our speeches, since I am yet again putting them to the test of working without a written text. I shall switch between repetition and familiar issues, between deception and truth. First, repetition. As last year, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Laurent-DÈsirÈ Kabila, has sent me to this very same rostrum to speak about the same issues. Once again our invaders and aggressors from Rwanda and Uganda in particular are in our country, and I shall speak about this again. This falls under the heading of repetition. I shall talk about this issue in the spirit and the letter of the principles of the United Nations. The letter is important insofar as it helps us make sense of this situation.”
2000-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 55 (2000)
“If they were not able to catch a single Interahamwe while their officers were in our army; if they have been unable to stop the interahamwe in their two-year occupation of that region, then the task is beyond them. It must be left to the United Nations to unseat these Interahamwe, if they exist, and let us pursue our national reconstruction. I have a great deal more to say and believe that we will have further opportunities in due course.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“They have no business in our country; let them relinquish their place to United Nations forces, which will secure their borders. That is in itself a fiction that we have not had an opportunity to dwell on. They helped us to raise Lumumba's torch. They were in our army. Most officers in our army were from Rwanda, as was the Chief of Staff, who dispatched his troops on the basis of his particular military skills. Moreover, these people have occupied that region of our country for two years and are still hunting the Interahamwe, as the Incas were once hunted here. They will not stop until Joe the Ugandan and Bill the Rwandese have extended their hunting grounds to the entire territory of our country while they prance after the Interahamwe. This is just a pretext.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Our United Nations mission is at Members' disposal to provide irrefutable testimony, which we have published in a three-volume white paper that could easily grow into further volumes describing similar incidents. We have requested that this white paper be issued as a working document of the Security Council. All are invited to study it in order to understand precisely what is happening and to put an end to this situation — to save the United Nations itself, to help us Africans, and the Congolese in particular, who had to wait 32 years to defeat and eliminate a regime of notorious satraps, only to see new satraps step in two months later to occupy our country and put it to the sword. Help us to make our Rwandese, Ugandan and Burundian brothers understand that they must go home.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“If differences must be settled by invasion and plunder, there will no longer be a United Nations, because there will no longer be any rules to unite us. That prompts my request to the Assembly, because the suffering being endured by the Congolese people and the atrocities being visited upon us are unimaginable. Under the very nose of the Vatican, in the Italian mission of Kasika, these new-style Huns entered, tore open the chest of a traditional chief, pulled out his heart, shredded it and distributed the pieces like hosts. The killers who did this sucked on the bloody heart as if it were an ice-cream cone. We have seen this and continue to witness such acts.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“One moment the Congolese and Rwandese affiliates who refuse to come; the next, it is the Ugandans or their Congolese puppets. Here we are on 29 September and nothing has yet been done seriously to implement an Agreement that was reached on 10 July. That is why we ask the Assembly, if only out of respect for the Articles of the Charter, to do something about it. It is intolerable and incomprehensible that these people remain, and may even take the floor here, while they continue to violate the United Nations Charter and the principles that bring us together here. If you violate the principles of an organization to which you belong, you are no longer worthy of belonging. We must remind our brothers that, as Members of the United Nations, they are bound to respect the Charter. This cannot be done by occupying other people's countries.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Those people are our neighbours and we can never replace our neighbours, but they are on our territory, which means they are no longer our neighbours. I ask the Assembly to help us to resume our status as neighbours. Let them go back home and if 30 there are problems that we must settle among ourselves, we shall settle them by peaceful means. I am speaking without acrimony. We hold out our hands to our brothers from Rwanda, who have been here for several days. I offer them signals of friendship when we pass, and they respond. We are here so that in three months, when the new millennium dawns, we will not still be fighting. One must deal with urgent matters quickly. The Lusaka process, in which I participated, raised hopes that have been dashed by dilatory tactics.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“When the “one man one vote” law was enacted in 1960, the obsession of each of these groups was to seize power and abuse it in order to hasten the carnage. This carnage has been alternating and reciprocal and did not begin in 1994. I cited a date when I was in short pants, and I can assure the Assembly that it was not yesterday. It is the open faucet that produced the interahamwe that we must close. Rwanda must become democratic; Rwanda must adopt a culture of politics and abandon its culture of carnage. Rwanda must leave our country; Uganda must leave our country; Burundi must leave our country and turn over the task of providing security to United Nations observers, who will take their place and serve as a buffer force between us.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Those who are guilty of genocide are in our country right now. Let them leave and go on sowing misery in their own countries: Rwanda, Uganda or Burundi. As I said at the outset, President Kabila has raised Lumumba's torch and welcomed those who sought refuge in our country, because over there you do not seek refuge — you get your throat slit. I was just a schoolboy when I saw Hutus fleeing cutthroat Tutsi and Tutsi fleeing cutthroat Hutus. They all sought refuge with us. That is how those who helped us, who walked with us on our march on Kinshasa, came to be refugees in our country — they fled Hutus who would have cut their throats. That is at the heart of the current instability and reflects the values of our brothers in Rwanda. We must help our Rwandese to change their political culture.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Therefore, we are outraged to see bloodstained cobalt, bloodstained copper, bloodstained gold and bloodstained diamonds for sale on the international market, and to see that it does not occur to the buyers of this booty to put a stop to this practice by refusing to buy it — even though they oppose dirty money. Double standards continue to prevail. Dirty money poses a threat to the world. And yet, while the blood of the Congolese people is spattered on our cobalt, our copper and our gold, that doesn't seem to bother those from all over the world who buy them and give money to the pillagers and occupiers our country. If we revisit this issue, I reserve the right to address it again. I wish, however, to speak out loud and clear against the infamous pretext that has aroused the world's prurience and sensitivity about genocide.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“These people from the hills do not have a third hand, as I said earlier, yet I am sure that, driven by their greed, they are going to take as many diamonds and as much copper and cobalt as they can — and at the risk of fighting each other for these minerals, since Uganda also wants to take them. The statistics on sales of diamonds indicate that last month our Rwandan brothers sold more than a million carats of diamonds — a mineral not mined in their country — and with the money from the sales they are buying weapons so as to be able to fight us. Then they take more diamonds, buy more weapons and continue to fight us. In this Hall speeches have been made against dirty money.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“And these people from the hills continue to advance even though they signed with us, last 10 July, a Ceasefire Agreement that lacks both fire and a cease, as they continue to advance and lay siege to our cities. Their latest exploit, which they are now engaged in, is to lay siege to the city of Mbuji-Mayi, the world diamond capital, but also the world capital of children afflicted with polio. I do not think that their haste and willingness to return to Mbuji-Mayi are out of desire to vaccinate the poor Congolese children who are infected with or at risk of getting polio.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“They are building up their arsenals, bringing in troops, taking towns. What reassures us is the teaching of the Marquis de Sade that taking is not the same as possessing. Thus, these people are taking towns but they do not possess them. And they will not posses them because, just as in erotic relations, there is no possession without consent — that consent that has been given to us. Otherwise, our people would not have fled to the forests to escape from these people who come from the hills. Our citizens' lengthy stay in the forests has led to the reappearance of some diseases that were eradicated as long ago as the Belgian colonial era. Having to flee the invaders like the plague makes our citizens' lives more difficult.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“These soldiers do not have time to vaccinate our children. They do not even have time to pillage effectively because these Horatii and Curiatii have taken to fighting each other on our soil. They came to take control of our country, but now, how strange, they are fighting each other, these people who came to teach us 29 democracy, these people who came to restore peace. In order to have a break from their looting, they are enjoying a little war on our land, and in the process destroying the 3 million doses of vaccine that the United Nations, through the World Health Organization, sent to Kisangani. They shoot at each other, each band allied with this or that local. This is what is happening. And then these people take their place here as United Nations Members — after having treated us like that, and as they continue to do so.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Luckily, they took a licking, and they would all have been wiped out if the Americans had not asked us to allow them to return home along a designated route. They retreated after their thrashing and tried their luck in the east of our country. After the ceasefire requested by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, United Nations staff went to the area to carry out an order of the World Health Organization to vaccinate all children up to five years of age. We have vaccinated them in the part of the country that we continue to control. But these others — who only have two hands, both of which are busy pillaging — have yet to vaccinate the children in this age group. Thus, these children are in danger not only of polio, but also of other diseases that the agencies of our Organization have been striving to eliminate from our continent.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“In order to help our people we had begun by planting peanuts, corn and beans, but our efforts were stopped cold by these people who are now in our territory, who came from the hills, who came to defend their borders — their borders that, according to them, were threatened by genocidal bands in our country. I ask the Assembly to look at a map of Africa, a map of the Congo in particular. I come from the Atlantic Coast province of Bas-Congo. Do you know where these people who began the war came from, in order to secure their borders? They came from 2,000 kilometres away from my province. They began in my province in order to secure borders 2,000 kilometres away. They brought soldiers 2,000 kilometres from their borders in order to begin the occupation of our country.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“They are undermining all national reconstruction efforts. This should be clear to those who understand the condition in which we found this country, which used to be called Zaire and which we now call, as Lumumba called it, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The presence of these outsiders, their occupation, impedes our efforts to reconstruct our country. They came upon us like thieves who attack without warning. They attacked while we were busy sowing corn, peanuts and beans, and we were doing so because that was what we was needed in this country that is overflowing with diamonds, gold, cobalt, copper and so forth.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“When events are repeated, they do not always happen in exactly the same way, but sometimes the repetition strikes a familiar chord. Now we see the United Nations delaying putting an end to what it calls euphemistically the “conflict” in the Great Lakes region. This terminology is being used for some reason — but what? A foreign army crosses the border, occupies the country, a part of the country; it pillages the country's wealth — and the United Nations calls this a “conflict”? We should check our dictionaries. This is a war. Instead of shouting themselves hoarse about sending peacekeepers, Member States must send people who can put an end to the war. This is what I am waiting for. Our Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundi brothers must be solemnly requested here and now to go back home. They have no business being in our country.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“We do not wish, we will not allow, that same flag to be a shroud for those who have taken up the torch that fell from Lumumba's hands and who carried it, with some help of course, as far as lying down — with their boots on — in Mobutu's bed. This is something with which the Assembly is familiar. It is on behalf of my President, my friend, my long- time comrade, that I speak. As representatives will see, and as I often say, we will have no more charming “Rastas”, because we lost our hair waiting for President Kabila to return to relight the torch that fell from Lumumba's hands. If people do not watch out, if they let things slide along, if they tolerate arrogance and do not stand up to impunity, there are those who will begin to dream of wrapping Kabila up in the United Nations flag, as was done in the case of Patrice Lumumba not long ago.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“As I speak I feel the presence of illustrious persons who have spoken from this rostrum in the past, such as Cabral, Nkrumah and — I say this with a great deal of emotion — Lumumba, who came here to denounce what was being set in train more than 30 years ago, under United Nations banners which is now being repeated. We know the United Nations. The French rightly say “A cat that has been scalded is even afraid of cold water.” They have already come, those United Nations forces; they came to restore peace, and the result was that for one of the most illustrious sons of our people, the most admired African nationalist President Patrice Lumumba, the flag of the United Nations served as a shroud.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“On 2 August 1998, some two years ago, our brothers from the hills of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda invaded our country in an unprovoked blitzkrieg, without having declared war, and it continues to this very day. For two years now those Members of the United Nations have been violating Article 2, and they continue to violate it, with arrogance and total impunity, which is not the case for those who fail to pay their dues. 28 It is perhaps better to violate Article 2, occupy other countries, pillage them, deport their inhabitants and torture children, women and old persons, than it is to commit the mortal sin of failing to pay up. There are two yardsticks, double standards, which we regard as an immense injustice.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“So, if you have your right to speak taken away, if you are punished as a Member of the United Nations because you do not pay your dues, what about those who violate Article 2 of the Charter, who cross the boundaries of another State with their armies, sow hardship in that country, occupy vast portions of its territory, plunder its natural resources, steal the fauna and rare species of animals which international organizations recognize as being received by other countries, carry out a blitzkrieg such as the one in the early 1940s, without warning, without provocation, entering the country of another people with their arms and everything else they need, under pretexts which I shall expose in a little while.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Are there represented in this Hall — yes or no — Members that do worse than those that do not pay their dues, or pay them late, regarding which immediate reminders are sent, and rightly so, since the rules of procedure of the Organization of which they are Members prescribe that for its proper functioning each Member must pay its dues? Failing to do so even means being stripped of the right to speak here at the United Nations.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peach and security, and justice, are not endangered. “4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”. I say to representatives: This is the United Nations Charter, your Charter. Are there represented in this Hall — yes or no — Members that violate these principles governing relations between nations?”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Finally, my delegation would like to welcome here in our world Organization three new Members: the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga. I invite Members to read my prepared text at their leisure, so that I may say a few other things. I begin with a good quotation, from Article 2 of the United Nations Charter: “The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles. “1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. “2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter. “3.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“Theo-Ben Gurirab as recognition of his many sterling qualities, both human and professional, and as an acknowledgement by the international community of the important role played by his country, Namibia, in building an Africa and a world that will be marked by peace, political stability and economic prosperity. The President may be sure that the delegation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo will unreservedly support him in fulfilling his mandate and in guiding the work of the Assembly to a successful conclusion. I also extend to his predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti, our full appreciation of the extremely important work he did during his presidency, as well as the commitment he showed throughout to the triumph of the ideals embodied in the United Nations Charter.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)
“The convening in the splendid metropolis of New York of this last General Assembly session of the millennium affords me the happy opportunity, on behalf of the people, the Government of Public Salvation and the head of State, His Excellency President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to convey our warmest greetings to all people the world over who love peace and justice. It is my pleasant duty also to congratulate the President of the General Assembly and the other Assembly officers on their unanimous election to the leadership of the Assembly at its fifty-fourth session. My country views the election to the presidency of Mr.”
1999-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 54 (1999)