YouSaid · the spoken record

Baali

lines on the record: 956
first: 1996-10-10
most recent: 2005-12-20
sittings or episodes: 121
sources: un-security-council

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

“Aware that only a peaceful, stable and unitary Africa can hope to meet the challenge of recovery, African leaders decided to strive with renewed vigour to settle the conflicts that have cast their peoples into mourning and wasted their precious resources. They would do so by addressing the underlying causes of these conflicts and establishing conditions for implementing African solutions informed by African values. Africa emerged from the Algiers Summit serene, unified and strong. Africa has perceptively drawn lessons from past failures and refined its vision and its quest for future successes. Africa has undertaken to overcome difficult problems within its borders and, beyond, to take its place among the architects and beneficiaries of collective security and globalization.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“The Summit was also a milestone in the fruition of major changes deeply affecting Africa, which has come to learn that its renewal calls inescapably for the satisfaction of the demands of democratization and good governance, the promotion of social justice and free economic enterprise, and the protection of all human and national rights. The Algiers Summit proved that all Africa has met, assembled and set off, with a sense of responsibility and realism, down the road to peace, unity and work - in a word, to recovery. A new spirit calling for concord and peace prevails from the North of our continent to the South.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Nevertheless, in spite of the picture of suffering and contrasts which the continent presents to the world; in spite of the upheavals that wrack its civil societies; and in spite of all the difficulties draining its capacity to steer its own way through a troublesome environment, Africa has taken the costly and demanding road of renewal that is so necessary if it is to assume control of its own destiny and to achieve a balanced world situation in the future. This year, the OAU heads of State and Government, meeting in Algiers, participated in unprecedented numbers to make their thirty-fifth annual Summit a particularly outstanding event.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“With a continually declining level of official development assistance; a suffocating debt burden; a still meagre flow of direct foreign investment; a heavy dependence on, and thus a significant vulnerability with regard to the commodities that are often its sole exports; an insignificant level of participation in world trade; and among the lowest social development indicators, Africa today is a continent afflicted by serious handicaps that further hinder the development efforts it has made to recover from the most unfavourable and adverse conditions. In brief, Africa, striving and sacrificing to reform itself and thus take its place in the management of world affairs, is unjustly penalized and blocked in its efforts to recover.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“It is a tragic demonstration of Africa's isolation from the rest of the world that our continent is the only region where education is declining at a time when the developed countries are moving at full speed into the information age and waging a technological revolution that is having an unimaginably positive impact on the quality of life in their societies. Indeed, our continent is home to two thirds of the least developed countries and to three quarters of those at a low level of human development, and almost half of its inhabitants live in absolute poverty.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“But the legacy of the twentieth century is as heavy as it is uncertain. Considerable, swift and inadequately controlled changes have exposed the restructuring of international relations to the opposite phenomena of fragmentation and globalization. The asymmetry between Africa and the developed world has become structural in relation both to the problems of peace, security and stability and to economic development and integration. Africa continues to suffer from a chronic deterioration in the terms of trade, the external debt burden, heavy unemployment and the effects of pandemics, as well as the many torments brought on by human and natural evils.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Since then, the OAU has belied speculation on its obsolescence and defied the challenges posed by internal problems and external interference. The OAU thus developed a faithful partnership with the United Nations in its quest for peace and development, implementing a doctrine whose soundness was amply confirmed by its hard-won aloofness from the East-West confrontation and by its emphasis on the North-South gap, which it had constantly warned against. The remarkable developments in the course of history, with the victory of Africa and the United Nations over colonialism and apartheid and the disappearance of ideological confrontation in international relations, have established conditions propitious for work on economic and social development and for the building of democratic political systems.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Indeed, in emerging on the scene of history, African countries have been responsible for priority being given by the United Nations to the major redemptive projects that go by the names of decolonization, development, disarmament and democratization. In establishing the OAU as a crucible for their solidarity and a channel of their aspirations, the African countries were able to preserve their independence in the face of the demands of the prevailing bipolar structure of international relations and, further, to find in the principles of non-alignment the tools for unity of action to ensure for themselves a significant say in the course of events within the United Nations, which had become the object of great hopes.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Since then, the Secretary-General of our organization, who has just presented to us a useful and exhaustive report, has endeavoured, with his well-known courage and tenacity, to gradually make Africa the focus of United Nations concerns. His statement here before the Council this morning is just another striking illustration of this. But it is from Africa itself that the most powerful message of hope has come. Realizing that its salvation depended first and foremost on its own efforts, Africa has, with unexpected vigour and vitality, undertaken to get back on its feet. To fully accomplish this, however, it needs the support of the international community, and especially of the United Nations, which Africa has greatly helped live up to its original ideals.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Two years ago the Security Council met at the ministerial level to consider the possibility of international action to promote peace and security on the African continent. In so doing, the Council assessed for the first time the scope of the challenges facing Africa. At the same time, the Council showed its readiness to assist in the struggle for peace and development on that continent, which has been able to rid itself of colonialism but not to rid itself entirely of the weight of colonialism's heritage. This heritage is quite often the source of conflicts that tear the continent apart and of the poverty with which it is afflicted.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“I would like to pay a well-deserved tribute to your predecessor, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, for the elegance and competence he showed in leading the work of the Council during a month when the world continued - the summer season notwithstanding - to be rocked by crises, tensions and armed conflicts. I would also like to welcome the presence here among us of several Ministers for Foreign Affairs from Africa and other friendly countries. Their presence attests to the importance that the international community attaches to Africa and its recovery. I would like, finally, to express our great joy at seeing Mr. Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary-General of the OAU, taking part in this debate and having him share with us his sound knowledge and consummate experience of African affairs.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“Mr. Baali (Algeria) (spoke in French): It is indeed a pleasant duty to submit to you, Sir, on my own behalf and on behalf of the current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whom I have the honour of representing here, my heartfelt congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council. The convincing results that this body has achieved under the direction of Ambassador Peter van Walsum promise to make this debate on Africa, organized at the initiative of your country, a great success.”
1999-09-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4049 (1999) · source
“We hope that African children like other children in the world can once again start to dream of the day when they can be teachers, doctors or farmers - in a word, where they can become ordinary citizens of the world.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“From that standpoint, it is our wish that the solemn appeal on 12 August by the United Nations Secretary- General to donor countries to provide emergency assistance in the order of $500 million for the victims of conflicts and natural disasters in Africa be promptly and totally heeded. Indeed, to repeat the language used by the Secretary-General in an interview he gave last Thursday to a European newspaper: "Never has Africa more needed political and financial assistance. But also, never has it been in a better position to take advantage of it." We hope that the international community will shoulder its responsibilities to Africa, which is on the road to recovery and which intends to take its rightful place in the new world order which is being established.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“There is also the risk of it being used for political or media purposes - which has already happened - of it becoming a substitute for prevention and settlement of conflicts - which has already happened - and even of its being used as an alternative to development assistance, as is often the case. In fact, the only real solution is to extirpate the roots of conflicts by, as a matter of priority in Africa, attacking the primary causes of wars - that is, the poverty, destitution and human distress which often are the breeding ground for intolerance, hatred and violence, and by working to educate children to promote a culture of peace as well as dialogue and understanding among people.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Otunnu opened up a number of directions for possible collective action. He also urged - and he did so again today - the international community, and in particular the Security Council, which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, to attack the causes of the tragedies suffered by children, that is to say, to work to prevent conflicts. The point today is not to try to redress, to lessen or to mitigate the effects of conflicts on children. Humanitarian assistance, however necessary and welcome it may be, does indeed have its limits, and it can be misused.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“It cannot do this as long as the lucrative arms trafficking continues, as long as the plunder of the continent's resources goes on, as long as the sanctions imposed by the Security Council or by the OAU are circumvented and as long as, in the name of some justification or consideration, the independence and sovereignty of African States is violated. The appointment of Mr. Olara Otunnu - who succeeded Mrs. Graga Machel, a great lady from our continent whose gentle persistence has lifted the dark veil of indifference hanging over the cruel fate of children - has galvanized us all, States, intergovernmental institutions and non-governmental organizations which refuse to accept the ugly treatment meted out to children. At the first debate the Council held on this serious question, Mr.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“It has decided to declare the coming year a year of peace and stability in the continent, and for some months it has with courage and determination committed itself to resolving conflicts that ravage the continent and use up its energies and resources. But clearly it does not have the resources and it cannot do this alone - that is, without the effective mobilization of the international community and without strong support for its efforts to resolve conflicts, to consolidate peace and stability throughout the continent and to rebuild the economies that have been ravaged by wars.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“It also appealed to all member States of the international community to lend assistance in the psycho-social rehabilitation of children affected by the proliferation and illicit circulation of and trafficking in small arms. In a word, by calling for compliance with relevant international and regional instruments, by taking necessary practical steps to prohibit the recruitment as soldiers of children under the age of 18 and by adopting measures against the proliferation of and the illicit trafficking in small arms, the Algiers summit has indeed proved the seriousness with which Africa intends to tackle this problem and, in so doing, indicates to the rest of the international community the path to be followed. However, Africa cannot alone resolve the problem of children affected by conflicts. Doubtless it has today shown the political will.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“The Assembly launched an appeal to the international community to give affected African countries every necessary assistance in order to enable them to implement programmes to resolve problems relating to the proliferation of small arms, and it urged the Secretary-General once again to solicit the views of member States on the proliferation and illicit circulation of and trafficking in small arms, in particular with regard to actions to be undertaken. In that decision the summit stressed the impact of the proliferation and illicit circulation of and trafficking in small arms on the recruitment of an increased number of child soldiers and the psychological trauma resulting from this, and the need to comply with provisions of the African Charter on the Rights and Well-being of Children.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“In the last decision, which deals with proliferation and the illicit circulation of and trafficking in small arms, the Algiers Assembly welcomed initiatives taken by member States and regional organizations concerning the question of small arms, in particular the moratorium of the Economic Community of West African States on small arms, the destruction of surpluses of small arms and obsolete weapons in South Africa and the destruction of illicit weapons in Mozambique.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“It recommended the establishment of a special committee on the situation of children in armed conflict; urged States to adopt and promote norms banning the recruitment and use of child soldiers under the age of 18; and called upon the Secretary-General of the OAU to set up appropriate mechanisms to activate the process of combating this phenomenon with a View to drafting an international convention on the subject.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“The second decision deals with the African Conference on the Use of Child Soldiers which was held in Maputo from 19 to 22 April this year, the outcome of which was the adoption of a declaration condemning the recruitment of children as soldiers, calling for raising the recruitment age - even for voluntary recruits - to 18 and advocating the physical and psycho-social rehabilitation of demobilized children and their reintegration into society, as well as the indictment of those who use children as soldiers. In the Algiers decision, which refers to this conference, the summit welcomed the positive results of the Maputo meeting.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Finally, the thirty-fifth Assembly of Heads of State and Government, which met in Algiers from 12 to 14 July, adopted three very important resolutions dealing with this most sensitive issue, which was the subject of special attention by all member States. In the first decision, on the ratification of the African Charter on the Rights and Well-being of Children, the OAU makes an urgent appeal to States that have not yet done so to sign and ratify that Charter, and it calls upon member States to work together with the United Nations Children's Fund and the OAU Secretariat, within the framework of a protocol of agreement, to speed up effective implementation of the Convention.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“In fact, in 1979 the member States of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) adopted in Monrovia the declaration on the rights and well-being of children, followed 10 years later by the African Charter, which bans the recruitment of children under 18 years of age as soldiers and which says in its preamble that children, given their specific needs for their physical and mental development, require special attention for their health and their physical, mental, moral and social development, and require legal protection in conditions of freedom, dignity and security. Furthermore, the OAU, at the Yaounde summit in 1996, adopted a resolution stating that the use of children in armed conflicts was a violation of their rights and should be considered a war crime.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Similarly, by introducing provisions relating to children in paragraph 16 of the resolution adopted last week on Sierra Leone, the Security Council took an innovative step that we hope will be taken regularly. Africa has supported this movement and has sometimes taken the initiative, as when it adopted the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which will enter into force as soon as 15 States ratify it. We hope this will occur in the near future.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Of course, the international community has not been inactive in recent years, even if its efforts have scarcely been marked by the staunchness or resolve that the gravity of the situation would require. The holding of this debate demonstrates that a real awareness is developing, an awareness that was activated near the beginning of the decade with the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and continued with the ongoing drafting of the optional protocol, the appointment of the Special Representative of the Secretary- General and the adoption by the Security Council last year of a statement condemning abuses against children, calling upon States to comply with the norms of international law and outlining a number of steps and actions to save children from the violence of which they are Victims.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“But it is in particular the globalization and the growing ordinariness of violence, disseminated by the media, and sometimes practised or encouraged by States, and also the failure of the culture of solidarity, the extreme poverty rampant in the countries of the South, the extreme selfishness of the well-off minority, the lack of prospects for the great majority, human distress and despair; all these things are behind this crisis of values, which is first and foremost a crisis of confidence in man's humanity, of humanity towards itself. Given this serious degradation of universal values and the tragedy that is the daily lot of tens of millions of children, and not just because of war, the United Nations has responsibilities to shoulder and a role to play.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“At the local level, underdevelopment and poverty, the prevalence of political interests and tactics and, finally, the infiltration of alien ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour have often led to the undermining of a society, breaking the subtle balance that held it together and toppling the system of references and the scale of values on which it was built.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Otunnu said in his first statement to the Council, the fate of children is tied to a genuine crisis of values at the international and the local level. At the international level, instruments establishing the limits of war are often violated. Recent and not so recent events offer many examples of the bombing of civilian targets, even civilian populations, which have been presented as a necessity or at best as a regrettable mistake. The life of the individual has lost the sacred quality it is supposed to have; now everything is permitted. This abandonment of civilized norms is also clear in certain occupied territories where the occupying Power disregards the provisions of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, by subjecting civilians to the worst excesses without batting an eyelash.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“The reason for this is that these conflicts are often fuelled, supplied and perpetuated - and they can go on for decades - by illicit small arms trafficking, which, despite all the declarations, appeals and warnings, continues to prosper, placing in the hands of children the tools of their own destruction, thus undoing all of our efforts to curb conflicts. Similarly, and despite the adoption almost three years ago of a Convention that was described as a historic turning point in our struggle to ban anti-personnel landmines, the use of these arms has hardly diminished. Even if it had, we would hardly have noticed it, so numerous are the mines that were planted in the past, including during the colonial period and up to the Second World War. Every day, in Angola, Rwanda, Cambodia and elsewhere, they kill and maim. Last year, as Mr.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“In fact, we are talking here about armed groups that increasingly conscript adolescents forcibly into their ranks and that indulge today in violence that is particularly unrestrained because they are not bound by any code of honour. This violence is directed not against military targets, but against defenceless civilians, whom they terrorize in order to subjugate and use them or whom they exterminate because of the evil represented by their ethnic or religious identity. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that 90 per cent of the victims of conflicts going on in the world are civilians, a large proportion of which are women and children.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Explanations abound, and they indicate to us the path to follow and the solutions to be implemented to put an end once and for all to the unbearable pictures that television networks, as if to make us feel guilty, show us in all their stark brutality and inhumanity. First, many of the conflicts in the world are clearly internal in nature with strong ethnic or religious overtones. It is not regular armies that are waging war; those armies are supposed to enforce respect for the limits by which the law of war and international humanitarian law have tried to manage the conduct of war, trying to humanize somehow the deadly madness of mankind.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“But never have children been so targeted, massacred, abused, raped, mutilated and robbed of their innocence and childhood dreams as they are at the dawn of the third millennium. These children - Victims of war, physically and mentally disabled, orphans raised in street Violence and in poverty - what kind of future can they dream of, if they can dream at all? Tens of thousands of them remember only atrocities and battle from their childhood, whether as actors or as victims. They are caught in a spiral of violence and despair whose causes they do not know and whose consequences they cannot control. How have we arrived at this senseless dehumanization, at this wanton desecration of life, these outrages committed against our children?”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“The nightmare goes on, because conflicts have in recent years increased in number and in intensity, continuing to cut short the lives of thousands of children, primarily among those 300,000 who serve as child soldiers in several areas of conflict; also among civilian populations, which today are being particularly targeted and where women and children are the primary victims of violence; and finally in situations where anti-personnel and other types of landmines killing and maim, year in and year out, more than 800 children. It is true that war is not a recent phenomenon. It is as old as the human race. It has accompanied its evolution throughout the ages and served its interests. Women and children have always suffered from the savagery of men, have been used as war booty and have supplied the slave markets.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“That answer sums up in a nutshell the magnitude of the tragedy suffered by the tens of millions of children affected in some way by natural or man-made disasters. I am certain that all present today recall the terrifying figures quoted a year ago in this Chamber by Mr. Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, who today has returned to express his horror at the continuing tragedy of children in Africa and elsewhere and to remind us of our obligations and our past commitments. More than 2 million children have been killed, millions of others wounded or maimed for life, 10 million seriously traumatized and 12 million abandoned to their fate and left homeless - all of this in the past decade alone.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“On behalf of the current Chairman of the Organization of African Unity, Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, whom I represent here, and on behalf of the Group of African States - which I have the honour of chairing during this month of August - I wish to convey to you, Sir, my heartfelt congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Council and to express our confidence in you and in your wise and successful conduct of the work of the Council. I should like also to take this opportunity to pay sincere tribute to Ambassador Hasmy of Malaysia for his presidency of the Council, which he assumed with discretion and skill. In one of the United Nations Children's Fund's publicity campaigns, a child, asked what he wants to be when he grows up, answers, "I want to be alive".”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“Mr. Baali (Algeria) (spoke in French): There is very good reason why questions that are of great concern to Africa in recent weeks have been the subject of such careful - and, we hope, fruitful - consideration by the Council. The emphasis placed today by the Security Council on the tragic situation of children in armed conflict stems not only from the Council's long-standing interest in this question but also from your personal commitment, Mr. President, to just causes in general and to African causes in particular. It stems also from the fact that, out of solidarity with all those who are suffering, your country - our sister country, Namibia - has always sought to espouse those causes, as the day-to-day work done by Ambassador Martin Andjaba in the United Nations has made abundantly clear.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037Resumption1 (1999) · source
“The Council is therefore called upon today to take a firm and clear-cut position vis-a-vis these Israeli acts of provocation and to shoulder its responsibilities fully. The Arab Group also makes an especially urgent appeal to the two sponsors of the Middle East peace process - the United States and the Russian Federation - to act with resolve to salvage the peace process and put it back on track. The Arab countries have made a strategic choice in favour of peace. They remain convinced that the only way to resolve the Middle East problem once and for all lies in the establishment of comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region, on the basis of the principle of land for peace and guaranteeing the right of the Palestinian people to create its own independent State on Palestinian territory, with Al-Quds al-Sharif as its capital.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“In addressing the Security Council, the highest international forum responsible for safeguarding international peace and security, the Arab Group expects that the Council will fulfil its responsibilities to induce Israel to cease its expansionist projects in the occupied Palestinian territories, abandon its plans to extend the municipal boundaries of Al-Quds al-Sharif to the Jewish settlements that surround it and conform to the rules of international law that incontestably prohibit any alteration of the demographic and geographic composition of the occupied city. In fact, any leniency on the part of the Council will only lead to extremism and increasing stubbornness on the part of the Israeli Administration in the pursuit of its policy that is contrary to peace and to the letter of the law.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“The provocative actions that Israel continues to undertake in the region of the Middle East in general, and in Al-Quds al-Sharif in particular, is undoubtedly an outright threat to international peace and security. The climate of tension that they create in the region could cause the situation to degenerate at any stage into a fresh confrontation that would sweep away all peace efforts. The persistence of the Israeli administration in defying the will of the international community and ignoring resolutions - particularly those adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council - is simply an unacceptable act of defiance towards the international community and very clearly undermines the entire foundation for action of the United Nations.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“Those accords decided that the consideration of the question of Al-Quds al-Sharif would be deferred to the final phase of the peace negotiations. This was done, however, on the condition that the two parties would undertake to maintain the status quo of the city and refrain from any decision or unilateral measures that would result in a change in the legal status of the city or its demographic and geographic character. The Israeli measure is therefore contrary to that commitment and is clearly a deliberate act on the part of the Israeli administration aimed at anticipating events and piling up faits accomplis in order to be able to exercise the necessary pressure on the Palestinian party during the last stage of the negotiations on the final status of Al-Quds.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“Moreover, Israel's decision is not in keeping with the basic principles of the peace process. It contravenes the principle of land for peace, which is the keystone of the peace process on which the participation of Arab countries in the Madrid Conference of 1991 was based. It is also very clearly spelt out in the letters of invitation that the sponsors of the process sent to all the parties, including the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. Lastly, Israel's decision to expand the municipal boundaries of occupied Jerusalem - along with other decisions that affect the Holy City - is a flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of the Oslo accords signed between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“This is precisely what has been constantly done, and is still being done, by Israel in Al-Quds al-Sharif. This decision is also deliberately contemptuous of resolutions of international legality, first and foremost among which are those of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Security Council has adopted many binding resolutions on the subject of the city of Al-Quds, all of which have remained unimplemented. These include resolutions 252 (1968), 476 (1980) and 478 (1980), all of which define Al-Quds al- Sharif as an occupied city, forbid the occupying Power from changing the geographic, demographic or urban configuration of the city and regard any measure that is contrary to these provisions as null and void and as something that should be revoked.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“Israel's decision to expand the municipal boundaries of Al-Quds is proof of this policy of provocation, because it conflicts with the rudimentary rules of international law, ignores the resolutions adopted within the context of international law, contravenes the principles of the Middle East peace process and violates the spirit and letter of the Oslo accords. This decision is first and foremost in conflict with international law because it knowingly disregards a whole set of international treaties, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. That Convention prohibits the imposition by occupying Powers of their administrative jurisdictions on territories under their domination, the transfer of civilian populations to those territories and any disruption of the composition of their populations.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“This is demonstrated by the project for the new Jewish settlement at Jebel Abu Ghneim; the creation of a civil guard composed of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories; the transformation of the illegal status of the Ariel settlement in order to make it a fully separate town and thereby exempt it from the final status negotiations; and, lastly the extension of the boundaries of the city of Al- Quds to areas within the occupied territories in order to encompass a number of Jewish settlements situated to the east of the Holy City. The measures taken by Israel to restart its settlement process are in outright defiance of international law and the will of the international community.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“We express the hope that the cause of peace and reconciliation to which he so fervently devoted himself will be realized. My delegation asked to participate in the work of this urgent meeting of the Security Council in order to express Algeria's position concerning the threats to peace and security that have multiplied in the Middle East region since the series of unilateral and illegal steps taken by Israel in the occupied territories, particularly in occupied Al-Quds. In fact, over the space of several weeks now Israel has taken a series of decisions to extend, expand and tighten its grip over the territories that it occupies. The occupying Power has decided to pursue its policy of settlement and settlement enlargement.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“Mr. Baali (Algeria)(interpretation from Arabic): Allow me at the outset to convey to you, Sir, the great pleasure it gives me to see you presiding over the Security Council with such skill and competence and in a manner that commands our respect and admiration. I should also like to pay a well-deserved tribute to the representative of Kenya, Mr. Mahugu, who succeeded in conducting the work of the Council with skill and effectiveness in a particularly busy month. Finally, I would like to express our distress and our sorrow at the sudden death of Maitre Alioune Blondin Beye, a most eminent son of Africa, who tirelessly pursued his mediation efforts in Angola. We wish to take this opportunity to extend our sincere condolences to his family, to his country - Mali - and to the Secretary- General of the United Nations.”
1998-06-30 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3900 (1998) · source
“What Africa expects from our Organization today is that for once it will go beyond making declarations of intent and expressions of solidarity and truly commit itself, side by side with Africa, through a programme of action that fully addresses our concerns and our particular features and that can meet our expectations and the historic challenges that face our continent every day.”
1998-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3875Resumption1 (1998) · source
“Many of these problems are also faced by other regions of the world and cry out to all of us for solidarity; many of them are complex and require our serious and thorough consideration both in this Council and in other organs and institutions, first and foremost among which is the OAU, which is bound to the United Nations by a long tradition of concerted action and cooperation, strikingly illustrated last year by a joint commitment for peace in the Great Lakes region.”
1998-04-24 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3875Resumption1 (1998) · source