YouSaid · the spoken record

ROMULO

lines on the record: 501
first: 1957-09-24
most recent: 1994-09-24
sittings or episodes: 17
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

“Because it has lagged behind the first two of the preoccupations of the United Nations, I suggest that we now pay closer attention and turn our efforts more to the third of our Organization’s principal concerns — the social component of the basic needs of the human community and the human person. As we approach this important milestone of the Organization, it is altogether fitting that we focus the work of the United Nations on the human person and society, whose interest and welfare, after all, are the ultimate reason for the existence of the United Nations and the final objective of its works.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The Philippine delegation welcomes the creation by the General Assembly of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. We suggest, however, that the Assembly consider the possible establishment of an independent advisory group to oversee the work and receive the reports of this Office. 22 This would provide the checks and balances so necessary in a large organization such as the United Nations. As the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations approaches, we must ensure that the balance is maintained among the principal concerns of the Organization — the maintenance of peace and security, the promotion of economic progress and the advancement of social development.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The General Assembly, for its part, must revitalize itself if it is to carry out its functions and discharge its responsibilities under the Charter, including those pertaining to the maintenance of international peace and security in which it must assert its role as the only principal organ with universal membership. In the past two years, the General Assembly adopted two resolutions to this effect. Let us begin implementing their key provisions. Revitalization of the United Nations is demanded by the new circumstances and challenges of today’s dynamic world. Let us, at the very least, do our very best to uphold and strengthen the principle of universality in our Organization. It is in the interest of revitalizing the United Nations that the effective management of the Organization assumes enormous importance.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Specifically, we believe that the Council’s membership should be better balanced in terms of geographic distribution and increased representation of the developing countries. At the same time, the Security Council has to improve the transparency of its working methods and decision-making processes, which, in turn, would enhance its working relationship with the general membership and the other principal organs of the United Nations, especially the General Assembly. We look forward to early action on this aspiration by the working group of the General Assembly dealing with the expansion of the Security Council and related matters.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“It is ironic that, in the midst of the rapid spread of democracy within nations in recent years and the expanding membership of the United Nations, the Security Council remains unrepresentative in its size and in the geographic distribution of its membership and undemocratic in its decision-making and working methods. Clearly, while the composition and methods of the Security Council must reflect the realities of political and economic power, we have to redress the imbalance in its composition and increase the participation of the general membership and other United Nations organs in its decision-making, if we are to enhance its effectiveness and its accountability. This would involve both enlarging the Council’s membership and reforming its methods and procedures.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In light of this, and because of the growing number and complexity of United Nations peace-keeping operations, we in the United Nations have to agree on a set of guiding principles for the establishment and conduct of such operations. Such a set of guidelines would not only contribute to the effectiveness of the peace-keeping operations but also broaden the base of active support for them. The maintenance of international peace and security is a collective responsibility. The United Nations must ensure the international nature of all peace-keeping operations if it is to maintain their credibility. It is in this spirit that we approach the live question of the reform of the Security Council.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We must, however, make sure that the peace-keeping function does not divert resources from economic and social development, is not used by the major Powers simply to pursue their respective agendas, and is carried out in a transparent and democratic manner. The Philippines fully supports an approach to international peace and security that is based on securing friendly relations among peoples of different political, cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, respect for international law, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. We believe that the maintenance of international peace and security should not rest primarily on the use or threat of sanctions, armed force, or other coercive measures. Nor should peace-keeping operations, important as they are, take the place of the political settlement of disputes.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Since the concept of the inherent rights and equality of human persons resides in the minds of people, United Nations efforts in this regard must begin with education. As our Constitution proclaims, human-rights education is itself a human right. Our delegation reaffirms its full support for a proposal introduced last year for the declaration of a United Nations decade on human rights education. At the same time, the United Nations human rights machinery must be strengthened, particularly the new office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Centre for Human Rights. Even as we refocus our concerns on basic human needs, we should not lose sight of the continuing, and even increased, importance of peace-keeping in the mandate of the United Nations.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We also call upon the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders to take steps towards making gender-based violence a crime, especially violence against women migrant workers and the victims of the traffic in women. Underlying the need to safeguard the welfare of these vulnerable groups is the fundamental issue of human rights, the issue of respect for all people and their rights, the issue of their inherent equality as human beings. The United Nations has adopted numerous international instruments on human rights, beginning with the Universal Declaration. The Philippines is party to 21 of these. 21 The United Nations must renew its commitment to foster compliance with these solemn covenants, always with respect for the sovereignty of nations.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“The rights, education and empowerment of women around the world are of special importance to the United Nations and to the world, as they have everything to do with some of mankind’s most vital concerns — the health and education of children, the advancement of the economy, the preservation of the environment and the management of the country’s and the world’s population. We in the Philippines look forward to the Fourth World Conference on Women, and call for the inclusion in its platform of action of measures for the protection and advancement of women’s rights, particularly of women in positions of great vulnerability, including women migrant workers, women refugees, and minority women.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Natural and man-made disasters have created large-scale flows of refugees around the world. While the distinction between refugees and economic migrants has to be resolutely made, genuine refugees must be given all the protection that international conventions call for. Children, by their very nature, have a claim to mankind’s protection and care. That claim is special in the case of street children, children coerced into drug addiction, refugee children and children in the areas of armed conflict or natural disasters. National societies and the international community must ensure that such children are provided with adequate food, medical care, shelter and education. We may need to draw up a convention dealing with the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and the nefarious trade in body parts of children.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We urge member States to ratify or accede to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families as an expression of their recognition of the common humanity that they share with migrants and their families. The Secretary-General might form a group to submit recommendations to the Assembly at our next session on improving coordination of the various efforts of the United Nations on behalf of migrant workers. And I call upon the High Commissioner for Human Rights to make the rights of migrant workers one of his priority concerns. I reiterate the call for a global conference on international migration and development, which was supported by many delegations at the recent International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This is the result of supply and demand for workers seeking equilibrium. Migrant workers, however, are more than a commodity to be traded in the international market-place. They have the same dignity and rights as any of us in this Hall. Moreover, they make a vital contribution to the economies and societies of the countries in which they live and work. And yet, many countries, including developing countries, treat migrant workers as being less than the human beings that they are. At best, these workers are left unprotected by the law governing labour and employment. The international community, the United Nations, cannot allow the abuse of these vulnerable and valuable members of the human family to continue.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Mankind has made progress in advancing the truth that there are certain things that transcend national boundaries and are the common heritage, the common concern and the common responsibility of all nations and of mankind as a whole. Among these are the environment and the oceans and their resources. There is something else that transcends national boundaries and summons global responsibility, something that is of infinitely greater worth than even the environment or the oceans. I am speaking of the world’s most vulnerable human groups. I speak specifically of migrant workers, refugees, children, the aged and the disabled, and the special concerns of the world’s women. The transnational migration of workers is an increasingly prominent phenomenon of international life in our time.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Each country must have a stake in this expansion and an enlarged share of it. Even this is not enough. The international community must go beyond nations in its ministrations. It must devote greater attention to care and respect for people and to the recognition of the inherent equality of all human beings — regardless of gender, of age, of race, of religion, of language, of culture or of nationality. 20 We must all remember that the sources of conflict do not lie only in disputes over territory or resources. As we know only too well, they arise also, and it seems increasingly, from intolerance of other people’s beliefs and cultures and from the less than human treatment of people from other lands.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We are expanding the empowerment of our people and their communities, particularly of the most vulnerable groups. We have devoted attention and resources to the concerns of women, including women workers, and of children, particularly those of the poor. We have protected the rights and culture of our ethnic minorities. And we have allocated substantial resources to health and education for the development of our people as our most valuable asset. We in the Philippines believe that this simultaneous and balanced approach to peace, development and the quality of individual lives must be applied in the international community as well as within nations, in the family of man as well as in national societies. The expansion of the global economy is important for peace in the world and the progress of nations, but it is not enough.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Simultaneously, we have adopted a social agenda through a broad national consensus. In accordance with that agenda we have endeavoured to improve the quality of life of our people, not only because such an improvement is their inherent right, and not only because the ultimate purpose of development, in our view, is the welfare of the individual and his community, but also because we know that the best way to spur economic development is to afford the people a stake in it and because we recognize that the people are an economy’s most vital resource. We are thus jealously safeguarding the individual Filipino’s fundamental rights and freedoms. Part of this effort is the importance that we place on human-rights education for all, including the armed forces and the police, a mission that is mandated by a unique provision in our Constitution.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“We have devolved extensive authority, responsibility and resources on local governments and communities, and we have restored the system of democratic pluralism, through which the people and their groups can thrash out their grievances and advance their interests in peace and with civility. At the same time, we have pursued a purposeful programme of economic development through the liberalization of the conditions governing trade, investments, and banking and finance, and through the privatization of Government enterprises. We have provided infrastructure facilities and generous incentives for domestic and foreign investors. These, together with the restoration of political stability, have placed us back on the road to economic recovery and self-sustaining growth.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Care for citizens’ fulfilment as human beings, for their community and for society cannot wait. It cannot wait for total peace to be achieved or for a certain level of development to be attained. All these — peace, development, and the quality of society and of human life — must proceed simultaneously. We in the Philippines have learned this lesson the hard way and are now applying it faithfully. We have secured peace and national reconciliation through a peace process that includes having sincere discussions with dissident elements and extending a generous amnesty to them. We have granted a substantial degree of autonomy and self-rule to our ethnic minorities, particularly the Muslim community.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Indeed, economic growth cannot be sustained for long unless the individual citizen and the individual community have a stake in that growth and unless they are mobilized and empowered to take active part in the process of development. Economic growth would be meaningless to the individual who does not share in its benefits or whose community is destroyed by it. Development is empty for persons who are deprived of their individual rights and freedoms. A society cannot find fulfilment in growth, and indeed the development process itself is severely hampered, if it does not take adequate care of its vulnerable groups: women, children, ethnic minorities, the handicapped, the homeless. Development cannot be sustained unless the nurturing qualities of the natural environment are conserved for future generations.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Fortunately, many developing nations — and the Philippines is proud to take its place among them — have made hard political decisions and adopted economic policies favourable to dynamic and sustained economic growth. 19 These are thus hopeful times for economic growth, at least for those countries in a position to take advantage of a more liberal international trading regime. However, as many countries, and the United Nations itself, have realized, economic development by itself is not enough. Raising the overall income of a nation is not enough. A larger gross national product does not necessarily mean a better life for the individual citizen. A bigger economy by itself does not satisfy the individual person’s aspiration to human fulfilment.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“For a long time, the United Nations has advanced the proposition that economic development — raising the income of a nation as a whole — was vital to peace and stability in the world. The United Nations is certainly right to emphasize this important reality. In many cases, extreme poverty has led to despair and to a sense of outrage over the perceived injustice of living in penury and deprivation in a world of affluence and profligate consumption, of being inadequately compensated for the use by others of one’s nation’s human and natural resources, and of being doomed to a chronic inability to shake off an unpayable debt to foreign creditors.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This was made possible by the tenacious insistence of the international community, mainly through the United Nations, on the right of the Palestinian people to govern themselves and on the right of all States in the region to a secure existence within internationally recognized boundaries. It finally occurred because the leaders of Israel and the PLO and other Arab leaders recognized the essential nature of these rights. Sadly, savage conflicts continue to ravage lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Rwanda and other areas experiencing similar tragedies, mainly because people of influence among the various ethnic groups, tribes and clans have not accepted the fundamental truth of their common humanity.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“In South Africa, national peace and reconciliation in a regime of democracy emerged victorious after decades of struggle, led by the United Nations, against apartheid and on behalf of human dignity, racial equality, majority rule and political pluralism. This happened only after most of the political forces in the country recognized these universal values as essential to the survival of the South African nation. In the Middle East, the dramatic breakthrough worked out by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has opened the doors of hope for an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“It is thus there, at their roots, that mankind must deal with questions of war and peace. As we look back at this half-century, we see with extraordinary clarity that the enduring triumphs of the international community have come not with the imposition of outside force but when the deepest concerns of the nations and peoples involved are addressed and resolved. In the past year, two such triumphs brightened, like twin comets, the history of the human community, forcefully demonstrating yet again this essential reality. These triumphant achievements came in precisely those two areas that had most deeply engaged the United Nations for the greater part of its existence — South Africa and the Middle East.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“This we have seen in such places as Cyprus, Angola, Mozambique, Liberia and certain parts of the Middle East, including Lebanon. In recent years, a singular success was achieved in my own part of the world when in Cambodia, upon the resolve of the international community and the Cambodian parties themselves, the United Nations not only enforced the peace but also managed the transition to a regime of peace and national reconciliation. Contending with matters of war and peace has engaged the greater portion of the attention and preoccupation of the United Nations and of the international community. However, our founding fathers recognized from the very beginning that it is not enough to head off crises and intervene in conflicts, but that the roots of war and peace lie in the human condition and the human mind.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Emerging from the unspeakable horror and devastation of untrammelled global conflict, the international community brought forth the United Nations as an instrument, above all, for preventing conflict and keeping the peace. This mission was to be carried out, if possible, through the encouragement of the peaceful settlement of disputes by the contending parties themselves or, if necessary, through the interposition of armed force by the United Nations. As with any human institution, the United Nations record in this regard has been mixed. We find that the United Nations has been effective in keeping the peace in those cases in which both the parties to the disputes and the major Powers involved have turned — or have been compelled to turn — to the international community to separate the contending forces and allow them a respite from war.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“Please allow me to congratulate you, Sir, on your election to the exalted office of President of the General Assembly. Your distinguished career and your experience in international affairs, together with your outstanding personal qualities, assure us of wise and skilled leadership at the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly. As we approach the fiftieth year of the life of our Organization, let us look back to the first principles of its existence. Let us see how we can apply those principles to the dynamic realities of our time and, to the extent that human discernment will allow, to the uncertain circumstances of the next half century.”
1994-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 49 (1994)
“For reforms in the United Nations will place the Organization in a better position to deal with the demands upon it in the second half-century of its existence and to fulfil in the next millennium the vision that its founding fathers had for this great and indispensable Organization.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“It may be a small amount in the totality of the Organization’s resources, but it is substantial in proportion to our financial capacity. We would not want to see it squandered. We cannot afford it. Neither can the United Nations. May I propose, then, that a group of men and women with both extensive experience and skill in corporate management and extensive exposure to the special requirements and problems of the United Nations be commissioned to study this question in greater depth and detail and with greater objectivity, and to make the appropriate recommendations. There are many in this Hall right now who would be eminently qualified to perform this task. The Philippines will explore the possibility of a draft resolution to this effect at a suitable time. This is a matter of great and urgent necessity.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Funds and other assets must be most meticulously safeguarded and effectively utilized. Duplication must be avoided, costs drastically cut, waste radically reduced, and corruption abolished. I am sure that many developing countries share our desire that the United Nations should impose upon itself the austerity and discipline that are required of many of us by the international financial institutions. We pay a tribute to the Secretary-General’s attention to this aspect of his work. We welcome in particular the creation of the new post of Assistant Secretary-General for Inspections and Investigations as an indication of his determination to address this problem. The Philippines is up to date in its contribution to the finances of the United Nations.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“And we urge that, in view of the repercussions that such a reform would have on other United Nations bodies and activities, this reassessment be carried out within the context of a thorough review of the Charter. The sober, rational and realistic proposals propounded yesterday by the Foreign Minister of Singapore might serve as a useful starting-point for our consideration of this important matter. The entire United Nations is, in fact, in need of reform. In the new international situation, the enlarged demands upon the United Nations and the constraints on the available means require that the resources of the United Nations be carefully husbanded for their most efficient use. The concept and substance of management - and by that I mean the science of management - must be imposed upon the United Nations bureaucracy.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“We recognize the reality of continuing imbalances in world power and the necessity for the Security Council to reflect this reality. But, surely, we must also recognize the reality of the worldwide trend towards, and the people’s desire for, democratization and transparency in political affairs. Surely, the Security Council, the United Nations body with the greatest impact on international peace and security, must also reflect this reality in its size, in its structure, in its procedures, in its relations with other United Nations bodies, including the General Assembly. We are, therefore, in favour of a searching reassessment of the structure, role and procedures of the Security Council with a view to its reform.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Forty-eighth session - 7 October l993 15 In few aspects of the work of the United Nations is this need for renewal more evident than in the Security Council. The structure of the Security Council was formulated at the very birth of the United Nations, at the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the cold war. Forty-eight years have passed. Massive changes have occurred in the world, particularly in recent years. Empires have crumbled. The ideological division of the world has melted away. The cold war has ended. The membership of the United Nations has multiplied from 51 at the time of its founding to 184 today. And yet, apart from the enlargement of its membership 30 years ago from 9 nine to 15, the Security Council has not changed. It has remained small, unrepresentative, undemocratic, opaque.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“These scourges of mankind - mass poverty, external debt, environmental damage, illicit drugs, abuses against women, the mistreatment of migrant workers - would be more effectively addressed if Governments, societies and the international community were to place people at the centre of development and international cooperation. This is what the World Summit for Social Development is intended to do. We urge the world’s leaders and their Governments to ensure maximum participation in this milestone event in Copenhagen in 1995. The world has changed radically, largely for the better. But old problems remain, and new challenges confront us. To respond to these problems under the new circumstances, and to deal with these new challenges, our Organization, the United Nations, must renew itself.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The abuses to which they are exposed, and often subjected, are a veritable litany of woe - denial of their rightful wages, excessive deductions by their employment agencies, intolerably long working hours, insufficient food, lack of medical care, the absence of any avenue for the redress of their grievances, physical attack, rape and other forms of sexual abuse. We call upon the Assembly to keep among the areas of its concern the condition of women, who make up half of the world - in particular, the migrant workers among them. And we call upon the Governments concerned to enact laws and other measures for the protection of these migrant workers. We ask these Governments to cease the callous treatment of migrant workers as commodities that are subject only to the law of supply and demand.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“It knows no national boundaries. We therefore appeal for the full and effective implementation of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme and the Global Programme of Action. In situations of conflict, women, as well as children, become the most tragic victims by virtue of their inherent vulnerability. The systematic rape and murder of women and girls in Bosnia and Herzegovina is only the most outrageous instance of this abhorrent reality. Similarly, in situations of extreme poverty, women - particularly migrant workers - are the most vulnerable to abuse. Detached from the family, away from their homeland, often living in their employer’s home, unprotected by the country where they work, women migrant workers are especially susceptible to maltreatment.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“After all, some nations have been favoured with decisive - even radical - measures to alleviate their foreign debt, such measures having become politically useful to the creditor countries. The ravages that the profligacy of man has wrought upon the Earth’s delicate environment continue to endanger our fragile planet and many nations. The Philippines has kept faith with the commitments made by us all at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development because of its conviction that development cannot be sustained if the world’s - and the country’s - natural riches and the balance between them are destroyed. No less destructive is the accelerating increase in the illicit trafficking in drugs, which destroys the lives of our people in the vigour of their youth. It gives rise to lawlessness and crime.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Decisions on global finance continue to be made by a few, with the rest of the world standing by even though it is vitally affected. The burden of foreign debt continues to be a millstone round the necks of many developing countries, and the problem is often aggravated by decisions on interest rates and exchange rates in which those countries have no voice. The Philippines continues faithfully to fulfil its external financial obligations, regardless of the extent to which that policy holds back our economic growth, constitutes a burden on our people, and imposes a heavy domestic political cost on our leaders. But we wonder whether the world has tried hard enough to devise creative solutions to this economic plague upon the developing countries.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The Philippines favours the extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and calls upon all to abide strictly by its provisions, including the safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the same time, we urge the nuclear-weapon States to fulfil their own obligations under the Treaty and further reduce their stocks of such weapons until they are no more. Amid the rising tide of economic liberalization, the siren song of protectionism continues to entice nations with its fraudulent promise. Legitimate concerns over health, food safety, the environment, workers’ welfare, and even human rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples - and now "social dumping" - are being invoked to clothe in various guises policies of naked protectionism.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“Despite - in certain cases, because of - the onset of a climate of peace, trafficking in the weapons of war sometimes continues unabated, dissipating resources, endangering people, imperilling the peace. The Philippines steadfastly supports measures to promote greater transparency in arms transfers and military expenditures, including the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms. 14 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session The Philippines urges the nuclear-weapon States, in the strongest terms, to restore the recently broken moratorium on all nuclear testing, and hopes that the international community will decide, through a comprehensive test-ban treaty, to cease for ever the testing of nuclear devices, which so gravely threaten the very existence of the human family.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“But grave dangers and tragic situations remain. Old scourges continue to torment the human family; new agonies confront it. Religious intolerance and the rise of nationalist ambitions have supplanted ideological fanaticism as the fuel for the fires of conflict that now burn in too many places in the world. The collapse of empires has let loose the savage impulse to settle historical scores, redress ancient ethnic grievances, and set right real or imagined injustices over national borders, the treatment of minorities, or the control of resources. The tragedy of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the worst and most dangerous of these barbarities.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The Philippine economy is ruled no longer by the tyranny of excessive regulation or of corporate monopoly but by the invigorating regime of market forces and free competition.Global competitiveness, in place of political contention, is now the watchword throughout the land. All this is being carried out with the most meticulous respect for human rights in accordance with the national consensus and the deepest convictions of our people. It is being achieved within the framework of our democratic institutions. For we are convinced that there is no substitute for respect for human rights and democracy in the achievement of long-term stability and progress, as well as in the assurance of human dignity and the fulfilment of human aspirations. The new situation in the world gives us new hope and a brighter promise.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The commitment to the free market has found its most forceful expression in the decision of ASEAN’s leaders to establish an ASEAN Free Trade Area through the steady reduction and eventual elimination of trade barriers within ASEAN. Happily, the dawning of a new era of peace and the promise of prosperity in our region have found a bright reflection in my country. President Ramos’ policy of national unity and reconciliation has replaced the politics of division. Dissident elements have been drawn back into the fold of society. Peace talks with the remaining disaffected groups are being held. Amnesty has been offered to all. The economics of selfishness and greed is being replaced with reforms to secure economic fairness and social justice.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The Declaration by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the South China Sea, which was issued in Manila last year, has received the strong endorsement of the United Nations and of individual Governments, and we in South-East Asia have continued our measured effort to build a regime of peace, cooperation and mutual confidence in that disputed area. Earlier this year we in ASEAN, joined by the other nations of East Asia, including Viet Nam and Laos, and by others with interests in the region, agreed upon an ASEAN Regional Forum in which questions of regional security can be periodically examined and discussed together. In East Asia, the rapid advance of economic liberalization has propelled the economies of the region to achieve some of the highest growth rates in the world.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The conflict in Cambodia and the agony of the Cambodian people long preoccupied this Assembly as well as the Security Council. Going beyond the expectations of so many, the Cambodian people have made their historic decision for peace and reconciliation. We now call upon the international community to extend its support to the Cambodian people and their new Government so that they will find surcease not only from war, but also from poverty and want, and so that they will find not only peace, but a life of dignity and freedom.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The most obvious victim of these rearguard actions is the Uruguay Round, which, after years of frustrating negotiations and painstaking bargaining, has yet to come to a conclusion. The ultimate victims are the global economy and the livelihoods and standards of living of the world’s peoples. Here, the accusing finger of history points at certain developed countries, with their short-sighted subsidies and protectionist devices. Nevertheless, the trend towards trade and economic liberalization gathers momentum. More and more nations recognize that that trend can be reversed only at the peril of the well-being of the world’s peoples. Our region of South-East Asia has been a vital part of the global political and economic transformation.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“But there is now, more than ever before, reason to trust that in that long-afflicted part of the world the politics of intolerance, hatred and despair is being replaced by the politics of accommodation, enlightenment, pragmatism and hope. Thus, the international community’s political agenda, and the substance and content, if not the item-titles, of the Assembly’s agenda, have radically changed. The global economy is being transformed no less radically. Everywhere, obsolete obstacles to trade are coming down, if not yet globally, then within the various Forty-eighth session - 7 October l993 13 regions of the world. To be sure, economic barriers continue to be propped up by atavistic hands that seek to reverse the tide and hold back the march of global economic progress.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“In its place, multiracial negotiations - in themselves an amazing phenomenon in that country - have led to a specific programme with a precise timetable for the conversion of South Africa, in the words recently uttered in this Hall by that authentic leader of the South African people, Nelson Mandela, "into a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist country". The whole situation in the Middle East, too, has been transformed, a transformation symbolized by a single handshake in Washington. That historic gesture resulted from complex combinations of circumstances and developments and presages further arduous negotiations and determined efforts by the Israeli and Palestinian peoples and their neighbours.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)
“The President is presiding over the work of the Assembly in a world that continues its amazing political transformation. Since we met in this same Hall last year, a period that is but the twinkling of an eye in the long history of mankind, the world’s political landscape has been further and radically transformed. That transformation is, above all, reflected in and exemplified by two of the major preoccupations that have exercised the Assembly and the international community for decades - namely, the situation in South Africa and the problem of Palestine. The abhorrent system of apartheid, long the evil foundation of the South African State, has finally crumbled because of the unremitting efforts of the people of South Africa and of the international community, not least of the United Nations.”
1993-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 48 (1993)