YouSaid · the spoken record

Thabo Mbeki,

lines on the record: 142
first: 1999-09-24
most recent: 2007-09-24
sittings or episodes: 8
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

“Those leaders issued a communique entitled ìA Call to Partnershipî, directed at our summit meeting. In part the call says, "At the urgent call of church leaders in the southern hemisphere, we came together at the Washington National Cathedral as Christian leaders from diverse traditions and places, both rich and poor, in the South and the North, united in a common concern for those of us living in poverty. We see their faces; we hear their voices; they are a part of us, and we are a part of them." As the United Nations reaches its sixtieth anniversary, we give thanks for its work in peacemaking and global reconciliation, particularly the historic commitment to eradicate poverty in the Millennium Declaration of 2000. 10 Five years have passed, and, despite the triumph of principle, there has been a failure in practice.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“First, I would like to salute Mr. Jean Ping, the outgoing President of the General Assembly, for the work he did to guide the General Assembly as the nations of the world considered the immensely important matters that led to the elaboration of the outcome document that was adopted last night. I would also like to congratulate you, Sir, on your election to preside over the sixtieth session of the General Assembly. We are confident that you will lead the Assembly well as it confronts the challenge of implementing the decisions taken during the millennium review summit and remains seized of other important matters that were not adequately addressed in the outcome document. Shortly before we convened here for the millennium review summit, an important meeting of Christian leaders took place in Washington, D.C.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“We are moved by the fact that you had as your predecessor President Julian Hunte, who also understood intimately what must be done to ensure that the United Nations can become, in reality, the indispensable common house of the entire human family. As an Israeli said to us at our headquarters in Pretoria a fortnight ago, it is perhaps time that we, the poor and powerless, abandon our wheelchairs and begin to walk unaided. Perhaps that will help to build the social order of which Hammurabi - and Kofi Annan - spoke, in which right makes might and not might, right.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“Again and again our permanent representatives, with their extraordinary and plenipotentiary powers, report that those resolutions oblige us to act to thwart the deadly plans of murderous terrorist gangs. Again and again they report that yet another appeal has been made to the mighty and the lowly alike, voluntarily to respond to the cries of the wretched of the earth. We are truly proud and inspired to see you, Mr. President, presiding over the proceedings of the General Assembly at its fifty-ninth session, because we know that you will discharge your obligations as a son of the poor of the world should.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“We comforted, or perhaps deluded, ourselves with the thought that this Organization is 'the most universal and most representative organization in the world' - afraid to ask the question, is it? Every year many of us who have spoken, and will speak, from this rostrum make an annual pilgrimage to this great and vibrant city to plead the cause of the 13 poor of the world, hopeful that this time our voices will be heard. Every year, after a few days, we pack up our bags to return to the reality of our societies, whose squalor stands out in sharp contrast to the splendour of New York and this majestic precinct that constitutes the headquarters of the United Nations. In the aftermath, resolutions are passed.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“Neither do they have the power to determine for all humanity that what they decide is the principal threat they confront, is also the principal threat that all humanity, including the rich and powerful, faces. In the Millennium Declaration, we spoke of the need to implement 'policies and measures, at the global level, which correspond to the needs of developing countries and economies in transition and are formulated and implemented with their effective participation' (ibid., para. 5). Perhaps the mistake we made was to assume that the contemporary distribution of power in human society would permit this outcome, and that, regardless of this fundamental consideration, it would be possible for the concerns of the poor to take precedence on the global agenda and the global programme of action.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“The wealthy and powerful feel, correctly, mortally threatened by the fanatical rage of the terrorists. They have the power to respond to this present and immediate danger with all their might, and, because they are mighty, they can determine for all humanity that the principal threat to them is the principal threat that all humanity faces. The poor and powerless feel threatened by a permanent hurricane of poverty, which is devastating their communities as horrendously as hurricane Ivan destroyed the Caribbean island State of Grenada. But, tragically, because they are poor, they do not have the means to respond to this present and immediate danger.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“But because they are powerless, those billions - the overwhelming majority of the same humanity that needs to eat, to drink water, to be protected from the elements, to dream, to love, to laugh, to play, to live - will have no possibility of persuading this Organization, laughably described in the Millennium Declaration as 'the most universal and most representative Organization in the world', to translate what they have concluded into obligatory injunctions, issued by this Organization, which all Member nations will have to accept and implement. If, for a moment, we resist the temptation to speak in parables or in tongues, for fear that we might be punished for telling the truth, we must say that this stark and simple reality reflects the distribution of power and wealth in contemporary human society.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“They will make the determination that, because they are the daily victims of deprivation and want, which claim the lives of millions every year ó translating into cold statistics about shortened life expectancy - deprivation and want represent the central and principal threat and challenge that humanity faces, necessitating changes in the global system of governance in order effectively to respond to that reality.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“Among other things, they have correctly reminded us of the fact that some countries are poorer today than they were a decade ago. They have pointed to the virtual certainty that we will fail to meet the Millennium Development Goals we set ourselves four years ago. Both the powerful and the disempowered agree that the international community must act together successfully to confront this situation, and therefore the threat and challenge of poverty and underdevelopment. However, the disempowered, who are also the poor of the world, will also make the additional determination that poverty and underdevelopment constitute the central and principal threat and challenge that human civilization faces.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“12 Because of their place in the power equation, what they decide will necessarily represent the global decision of what constitutes the central, principal and most urgent threat and challenge to human society, necessitating various changes in the global system of governance. What they decide will translate into a set of obligatory injunctions, issued by this Organization, which all Member nations will have to accept and implement. Again, both the powerful and the disempowered will undoubtedly also agree that poverty, want and underdevelopment constitute serious problems that all humanity must confront. Many of those who have already addressed the Assembly have correctly drawn our attention to the reality of poverty, which billions across the globe continue to experience.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“Both the powerful and the disempowered agree that the international community must act together successfully to confront these situations and therefore the threat and challenge of terrorism and war. However, the powerful will also make the additional determination that terrorism and war constitute the central and principal threat and challenge that human civilization faces. They will make that determination because, almost by definition, the terrorists target them simply because they are powerful; they have no logical choice but to identify terrorism as the central and principal threat and challenge they face, and to which they must respond.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“They have spoken of the bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and of the African and American lives those claimed; of the heinous 11 September outrage in this city; and of the acts of terrorism in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Spain, Israel, Gatumba in Burundi, Beslan in the Russian Federation, and elsewhere. They have correctly drawn our attention to the violent conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, the Sudan, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and elsewhere, and to other unsolved problems, such as self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, that cry out for a solution.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“I am equally convinced that, depending on where we stand relative to the power equation, we will hold radically different views about what constitutes humanity's most serious threats and challenges, and therefore what must be changed to respond to that perceived reality. Both the powerful and the disempowered will undoubtedly agree that terrorism and war represent a serious threat to all humanity. They will agree that we were right to make the commitment in the Millennium Declaration to work for 'a just and lasting peace all over the world in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter' (resolution 55/2, para. 4). Many of those who have already addressed the Assembly have correctly drawn our attention to many instances of terrorism and war, to which we are all opposed.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“As human beings, the powerful share many things with the powerless. Together, the powerful and the disempowered share the common human needs to eat, to drink water, to be protected from the elements, to dream, to love, to laugh, to play, and to live. But life itself tells us that all of that describes only what human beings share. The rest, the relations among us as social beings, is defined by our varied access to power and its exercise. Without fear of contradiction, I have said that we all agree that later this year we will receive the report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“It would seem to me that the answer to that question lies in the fact that we have as yet not seriously confronted the difficult issues that relate to the uses and perhaps the abuses of power. Yesterday, in his statement on his report on the work of the Organization, our Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, spoke eloquently about the 3,000-year-old Code of Hammurabi, and said: 'That code was a landmark in mankindís struggle to build an order where, instead of might making right, right would make might' (). We took it that the Secretary-General was, in his own elegant way, drawing our attention to the central question of our day: the uses and abuses of power. Contemporary human society is characterized by a gross and entrenched imbalance in the distribution of power. That power is held and exercised by human beings.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“I would make bold to say that the vision of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level that we enunciated in this imposing forum four years ago resonates among the ordinary people who are victims of hunger and war as a beautiful dream that will inevitably be deferred. Does this mean that, when we made the promises we made, we deliberately intended to tell the billions of ordinary people a lie? The answer to that question is obviously ìnoî. Did we speak as we did simply because talk is easy and cheap? Again, the answer to that question is obviously 'no'. The question must therefore arise as to why the grandeur of our words and the vision they paint ó of a world of peace, free of war, a world characterized by shared prosperity, free of poverty - has not produced the grand results we sincerely sought and seek.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“I trust that this will not mark the end of the range of issues over which we would speak with one voice. I say this because, when I have asked myself the question 'Have we achieved the goals we set ourselves?', I have found it impossible not to answer that we have failed. There may very well be others among us who will take a different view and say that a good beginning has been made and therefore that it is too early to say we have failed. But I am certain that if we say to those affected by violence and war that we have made a good beginning towards the establishment of a just and 11 lasting peace all over the world, they will not believe us. I am equally certain that if we say to those who go to bed hungry every day that we have made a good beginning towards freeing the entire human race from want, they will also not believe us.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“4) We also said that our efforts to make globalization fully inclusive and equitable 'must include policies and measures, at the global level, which correspond to the needs of developing countries and economies in transition and are formulated and implemented with their effective participation'. (ibid., para. 5) To this we added the commitment that 'We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty'. 'We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want.' (ibid., para. 11) Naturally, we have no choice but to agree that we did say all these things and would undoubtedly agree that we meant what we said.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“In the Millennium Declaration, we used inspiring words to sum up our response to these problems. We said: ìWe have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. As leaders we have a duty therefore to all the world's people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs.î (resolution 55/2, para. 2) We went on to say: ìWe are determined to establish a just and lasting peace all over the world in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.î (ibid., para.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“There are some matters on which we all agree. One of these is that, later this year, we will receive the important report that will be tabled by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which was constituted by our Secretary- General. The other is that, next year, we will mark the tenth anniversaries of the Copenhagen World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Beijing World Conference on Women and discuss their outcomes. The third matter on which we all agree is that, next year, we will observe the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the historic Millennium Declaration. We will also agree that we took all these initiatives ó the convening of the social, womenís and millennium summits and the constitution of the High- Level Panel ó because we were of one mind that we had a number of problems that needed to be solved.”
2004-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 59 (2004)
“The latter face the interesting challenge, important to themselves in their national interests, that the poverty and disempowerment of the billions will no longer serve as a condition for their success and their possibility to prosper in conditions of peace. What we have said today may not be heard, because we do not have the strength to have our voice heard. Tomorrow we may be obliged to say, No more water; the fire next time. As the fires burn, the United Nations will die, consumed by the flames. So will the hopes of the poor of the world die, as they did at Cancun, Mexico, not so long ago. We must act together to say in our words and in our actions, as countries and as the United Nations, that there will be water next time, and not fire.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“They think that we mean it when we say that we will not allow the process of globalization to result in the further enrichment of the rich and the impoverishment of the poor within and between countries. They believe us when we say that our collective future is one of hope, and not despair. They are keenly interested to know whether our gathering, the United Nations General Assembly, will produce those results. To collectively meet those requirements will require that each and every one of us both rich and poor, the powerful and the disempowered commit ourselves practically to act in all circumstances in a manner that recognizes and respects the fact that none of us is an island sufficient unto ourselves. That includes the most powerful.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“The masses of people of our world expect that the statements we will make at this session of the General Assembly as representatives of various Governments will indicate a serious commitment to implement what we say. The poor of the world expect an end to violence and war everywhere. They want an end to the killing that is taking too many Israeli and Palestinian lives. They want Africans to stop killing one another, continuing to convey the message that we are incapable of living in peace among ourselves. They desire the realization of the democratic objective universally: that the people shall govern. They believe that we are seriously committed to the objective of the eradication of poverty and the provision of a better life for all.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Simultaneously, that will make the practical statement that the United Nations is irrelevant to the solution of the most pending problems of our day. The disempowered will continue to look to the Organization, understanding, correctly, that they are too weak to advance their interests singly outside the collective voice of the United Nations. In that regard, they expect that the United Nations will be informed by its founding documents and other solemn decisions it has taken since it was established, all of which have been approved by successive sessions of the General Assembly. 26 Global poverty and underdevelopment are the principal problems that face the United Nations. Billions across the world expect that the General Assembly will address that challenge in a meaningful manner.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Important shifts in the global balance of power and global objectives have taken place since the United Nations was established, 58 years ago. The Organization has not substantially changed, in terms of its structures and mode of functioning, to reflect those changes. That has served as a recipe for an inevitable crisis, a disaster waiting to occur. And so as we meet today we are confronted by global challenges that the global Organization cannot solve. Impelled by the urgent issues of the day, some of the powerful will not wait for all of us to respond to the problems we have raised, and which they face. They will act to solve those problems; their actions will make the statement that they do not need the United Nations to find solutions to those problems.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Accordingly, among other things, the poor billions of the world will argue for action by the United Nations to ensure the transfer of resources to themselves, which will enable them to extricate themselves from their condition of poverty and underdevelopment, consistent with the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, the objectives of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development and other international agreements. Inevitably, that will run counter to the propositions of those who are more powerful than the poor, namely, the Governments, peoples and countries that keep them afloat with development assistance. That will require whether it is stated or not that the recipients of that assistance understand that such assistance can dry up.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“In practical terms that means that all matters that threaten to destabilize the status quo must necessarily be anathema to such people. Such matters will therefore be an issue of principal concern to them. Necessarily and understandably, they will then seek to get the rest of the world to accept their assertion that the maintenance of the status quo must be a universal human preoccupation, precisely the kind of issue on which the United Nations must take a united position. On the other hand, the poor are interested in changing their conditions for the better. Accordingly, they will not accept the maintenance of the status quo, which perpetuates their poverty.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“We also have no choice but to deal with the brute reality that the reform process of the United Nations and all its bodies, and other multilateral organizations, has got to recognize the reality of the imbalance of power, as represented by different countries and regions. At the same time, we must proceed from the position that such distribution of power is not necessarily in the interests of the peoples of the world, or even in the interests of those who today have the power to determine what happens to our common world. That includes acceptance of the fact that, depending on the place we occupy in the global community, we have different priorities. Among other things, the rich are concerned about ways and means to maintain the status quo, from which they benefit.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Understandably, the argument is advanced that it would be unreasonable and irrational to expect such States not to act to deter such terrorist actions against themselves. None of us can defend international rules that prescribe that any one of us should wait to be attacked knowing in specific ways that we were going to be attacked by identified terrorists, and then act against those who had attacked us, with such horrendous costs as were experienced by the United States during the 11 September attacks. I do not imagine that any one of us would seek to impose such a costly and unsustainable burden on any of our Member States, which would also violate the self- defence provisions of Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“25 Our collective experience stretching from New York and elsewhere in the United States on 11 September 2001; and reaching back to Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, in Africa, earlier still; and, more recently, to Bali, Indonesia; to Morocco; to the conflict between Israel and Palestine; to Algeria, India, Russia and elsewhere; and even our own country tells us that the United Nations, working in defence of the collective interests of the peoples of the world, must ensure that we act together to defeat the threat of terrorism, collectively defined. At the same time, we have to take on board the conviction among some of our Member States that they constitute special and particular targets of global terrorism.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“The global resolve to defeat such organizations as al Qaeda has emerged out of our understanding that international aggression should not necessarily be expected to come from formal and recognized State institutions. We have all come to understand that such a threat coming from non-State institutions would express itself as the most inhumane and despicable terrorism, as was most painfully demonstrated on 11 September 2001.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Kofi Annan, has drawn attention to the fact that the United Nations started off as an Organization of 51 States and is now composed of 191 States. Undoubtedly, the perceived and real collective global concerns of our day are, to some extent at least, different from those that prevailed more than 50 years ago, when the Organization was about a quarter of its present size. For more than a decade, this Organization has been involved in discussions about its transformation. Once more, the Secretary-General has reflected on this challenge. The truth is that our discussions have gone nowhere. Earlier this morning the Secretary-General announced steps he will take to facilitate the adoption of decisions that will help all of us to effect the necessary and inevitable transformation of the United Nations. We support the decisions he announced.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“We take those positions because there is no way in which we could advance the interests of the people, the majority of whom are poor, outside the context of a strong, effective and popularly accepted United Nations. An autonomous process of globalization, driven by its own internal regularities, can only result in the determination of our future within the parameters set by those who enjoy the superiority of power. The powerful will do this in their own interests, which might not coincide with ours. When this Organization was established 58 years ago, its objectives and institutions necessarily reflected both the collective global concerns as then perceived and the then balance of power. Among other things, our esteemed Secretary- General, Mr.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“In this situation, it is inevitable that the pursuit of power in itself will assert itself as a unique legitimate objective, apparently detached from any need to define the uses of such power. This also signifies the deification of force in all its forms as the final arbiter in the ordering of human affairs. However, from the point of view of the disempowered, the struggle to ensure the use of such power to address their own interests becomes a strategic objective they cannot avoid. Necessarily this means that power would have to be redistributed. That would be done to empower the disempowered and to regulate the use of power by those who are powerful. Thus we come back to what I said earlier. Because we are poor, we are partisan activists for a strong, effective and popularly accepted United Nations.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Left to its internal and autonomous impulses, the process of globalization will inevitably result in the further enhancement of the domination of the dominant and the entrenchment of the subservience of the dominated, however much the latter might resent such domination. This will include the perpetuation of the dominant positions by those who are dominant to ensure the sustenance of their capacity to set the agenda of the global village in the interest of their own neighbourhoods within that village. Inherent within this is, necessarily, reliance on the use of superior power, of which the dominant dispose, to achieve the objective of the perpetuation of the situation of an unequal distribution of power.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“The reality is that the same processes that bring all of us closer together in a global village are simultaneously placing the residents of the global village in different positions. Some have emerged as dominant, and the rest as the dominated, with the dominant being the decision makers and the dominated being the recipients and implementers of those decisions. To the same extent that our political collectives have not designed the institutions responsive to the evolution of the global village, so have they failed to respond to the imbalance in the distribution of power inherent in contemporary global human society. We speak here of power in all fields of human activity.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Correctly, we speak of a global village driven by recognition of the fact of the integration of all peoples within a common and interdependent global society. 24 Certainly, humanity is more integrated today than it was when the United Nations was established more than fifty years ago. However, many have drawn attention to the fact that, whereas objective social processes have led to the emergence of the global village, all of our political collectives have not yet succeeded in designing the institutions of governance made necessary by the reality of the birth of this global village. Correct observations have also been made that the use of the image and concept of the village does not imply that the residents of this village are equal.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“We are convinced that this General Assembly would disappoint the expectations of the peoples of the world and put itself in jeopardy if, for any reason whatsoever, it did not address these issues. We speak as we do because we represent the people who are more sensitive to the imperatives of what the world decides, given our experience during a period when apartheid South Africa was correctly a matter of focused and sustained interest by the United Nations and the peoples of the world, including ordinary folk, even in the most marginalized areas of our globe. This Organization, and all of us singly and collectively, has spoken and frequently speaks about the phenomenon of globalization.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“This is not a case of the tail wagging the dog; rather, history has placed at our feet an urgent and practical test case that obliges us to answer the question: what do we, collectively, want the United Nations to be? What do we do to distinguish the trees from the forest? In that regard we must make the point directly, that as South Africans, we are partners and activists who campaign in favour of a strong and effective United Nations. We do so because of the place our country and people occupy in the contemporary world. We believe that everything that has happened places an obligation on the United Nations to reflect on a number of fundamental issues that are of critical importance to the evolution of human society.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Matters have evolved in such a manner that to our limited understanding it seems extremely difficult to resolve the issue of the role of the United Nations in Iraq, unless we answer the question about the future of the United Nations as a legitimate expression of the collective will of the peoples of the world and the principal guarantor of international peace and security, among other global issues. Put differently, we could say that what is decided about the role of the United Nations in Iraq will at the same time decide what will become of the United Nations in the context of its Charter and of the important global objectives that have been set since the Charter was adopted.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“Central among them is the question, does the United Nations have a future as a strong and effective multilateral organization enjoying the confidence of the peoples of the world and capable of addressing the matters that are of concern to all humanity? Quite correctly, as we meet here this time, while still preoccupied by the issue of the future of Iraq, I am certain that none of us wants to rehash the debate that took place on this matter in the period following the last general debate in the General Assembly. While for some time after that general debate we were concerned to provide answers to questions about the role of the United Nations in Iraq, today we have to answer questions about the impact of the Iraq affair on the future of the United Nations.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“May I congratulate you, Sir, for assuming the mantle of the presidency for this session of the Assembly and thank the outgoing President, Mr. Jan Kavan. I would also like to echo what other speakers have said about the death of the dedicated United Nations workers who lost their lives in the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last month, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, an outstanding international civil servant. When we met here last year, we were all concerned about what would happen in Iraq. At the same time, we were concerned about what role the United Nations would play in the resolution of the Iraq affair. Dramatic events since then have provided answers to those questions. However, those dramatic events have raised important and disturbing questions about the very future of the United Nations.”
2003-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 58 (2003)
“In conclusion, let me recall that two years ago in the Millennium Declaration more than 150 heads of State or Government resolved that “we believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people” (resolution 55/2, para. 5). Through both our global and our regional programmes we can and must ensure that globalization indeed becomes a valuable process which will bring about sustainable development and prosperity for all. From this fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly must surely issue the unequivocal message that the peoples of the world are united in their resolve to sustain the message of hope by advancing the goals of peace, of democracy, of prosperity and of sustainable development.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“We are pleased that the views of the Movement have helped to inform the advance towards a better life for all, to which we have all committed ourselves by word and deed. In February next year, Malaysia will assume the responsibility of guiding our Movement as it responds to the changed and changing global environment. I am certain that this will add new strength to the Non- Aligned Movement in the interests of all humanity, especially the poor of the world. As before, the Non- Aligned Movement is committed to the peaceful resolution of all conflicts, including those pertaining to Palestine and Israel, as well as Iraq, in keeping with the resolutions of the United Nations. These are urgent tasks to which the Organization must respond.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“Again, this we will do together, under the leadership of the United Nations, while we continue to strengthen the multilateral system of global governance as the only viable international response to all our challenges. Fundamentally, this is the only credible response to the challenge of globalization and the need to enhance human solidarity to meet our common needs. It has been our privilege to chair the Non-Aligned Movement for the past four years. During that time, the Movement has ensured constant dialogue between the countries of the North and South, which has advanced the commonality of interest between States, confirming the view that the future of all humanity is interlinked.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“The Johannesburg Summit confronted the stark reality that billions of people across the world are poor, and it boldly confirmed the need for us to collaborate for a shared human prosperity through sustainable development. We agree that this goal can be achieved because we are inspired by the knowledge that the resources needed exist within the global community. Indeed, Member States have already committed themselves to make available the means necessary for the implementation of our plans, especially finance, technology and capacity-building. It is critically important that we implement everything we agreed, acting with the necessary sense of urgency.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“A number of far-reaching decisions were taken at that important Summit to ensure that we will bequeath to the next generations a better, humane and equitable world based on what we agree are the 11 inseparable pillars of sustainable development: economic development, social development and environmental protection. Delegates from around the world enshrined the decisions they took in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development to ensure that the billions of people who have placed their fate on our collective shoulders have a concrete programme of action to realize the goals contained in Agenda 21 and other documents adopted by the world community of nations during the last 10 years.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“Together, the agencies of the United Nations and the organs of the African Union must give priority to such matters as human resources development and capacity-building, modernizing Africa's economy, dealing decisively with the intolerable debt burden, ensuring access of our products to the markets of the developed world, spreading the emancipation and empowerment of women, combating communicable and other diseases — including AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis — and fighting against environmental degradation. At the end of August and the beginning of this month, the people of South Africa and Africa were honoured to host the World Summit for Sustainable Development.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)
“I am confident that the United Nations will work closely with the African Union and that this premier Organization of the peoples of the world will use its vast and invaluable experience to ensure that the African Union delivers on the important and pressing duty of achieving sustainable development in each and every country on our continent.”
2002-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 57 (2002)