YouSaid · the spoken record

President Mitterrand

lines on the record
16
first
1992-01-31
most recent
1992-01-31
sittings or episodes
1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Many others elsewhere have much to teach us by way of example. All are rich in tradition, culture and contributions to world civilization. I simply ask Your Excellencies to be good enough, on behalf of the Security Council of the United Nations, to exploit them,”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  2. “I very much hope - and my country is requesting it - that there will be a world summit on social development that' will enable us to rejuvenate our thinking on development itself and to highlight the human dimension of things. That is what I wished to say today. We are experiencing in Europe - in Western Europe particularly ~ an exceptional experiment: that of a community which has known atrocious wars. These wars monopolized the entire history of this century, piled destruction upon disaster, and long destroyed any chance our continent had. Well, we decided more than 40 years ago to settle our differences by negotiation, to bring about the necessary reconciliations and to learn to share our sovereignties and resources equally in the interests of security and the common good. I do not wish to set that up as an example.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  3. “As for other countries which have not yet succeeded in bringing about true development, let us not.mince words: how can they he reinjected into the world economy? We should really examine this, giving particular thought to the necessary control of primary commodities. Otherwise, intolerable situations will arise and countries of goodwill, which work and require a great deal of their citizens, often find themselves in terrible crises. Their two-, three- or five-year plans for recovery are demolished simply because in a single week international speculation has come into play. Those are a few of the issues I would like the Council to consider.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  4. “Twenty years ago, we could believe in general and uniform progress. Today, there is in truth two basic categories ef countries: some have succeeded in making progress, but many others - particularly in Africa but elsewhere as well, such as in the Indochinese peninsula ~ are bogged down in a Situation from which they cannot emerge without our assistance. If there are many kinds of developing countries - to use the traditional term that I am challenging - we need adapted forms of aid. Those developing countries which really are developing need private and public investment, cheap credit, and growth in international trade. Hence the importance of international negotiations currently under way.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  5. “I am not making any specific allusions, but I would remind the Council that this would make it possible to demonstrate that a spirit of cooperation will be present in our work. My third and last point concerns the conditions for a new solidarity. Security cannot be conceived solely in military terms, Obviously, it has an economic aspect which is in fact supreme over the other as time passes and so long as economic insecurity does not generate new military conflicts. Many proposals can be made. North-South confrontation should not he allowed to replace the East-West confrontation. I am sure all will agree to that. Politics, like economics, disarmament, social development and the environment, takes us back to the same law - that of solidarity. For a long time now the general term "developing countries" has not been in keeping with reality.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  6. “Those are good suggestions, which is why France recommends the establishment of regional funds for the conversion of military research and development to civilian production, for the benefit, to begin with, of new States: republics, with urgent needs, which once formed part of the former Soviet Union, I am certain that other countries too will be able to benefit, including States of the Middle East. Similarly, on the model of Europe, why should we not establish in each region appropriate arbitrating bodies? The European Community already has such a body. Those are a few of the possible instruments. We must, moreover, ensure that the United Nations has regular, increasing financing. To that end, arrears must be paid.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  7. “Members of the Council should undertake systematically to provide the Secretary-General with information on international security and to give him the mandate to maintain regular contacts with his counterparts, the leaders of regional organizations. Chapter VIII of the Charter, on regional arrangements, should no longer be disregarded. We must be able to turn as necessary to new bodies to meet specific needs. On the relationship between disarmament and development, suggestions have recently been made, for example by Germany.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  8. “For a long time, the Charter was hobbled, but today all its provisions are usable, and we must implement them immediately. I am certain that other colleagues will also be making proposals to ensure the greater effectiveness of peace-keeping operations. I state that for its part France is ready to make available to the Secretary-General a 1,000-man contingent for peace-keeping operations, at any time, on 48-hours notice. That figure could be doubled within a week. Such deployments would involve activity by the Military Staff Committee, as provided for in the Charter. Secondly, it is indispensible that we develop preventive diplomacy.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  9. “uf Human rights have triumphed - and I hope it is no temporary triwnph - in the ideological struggle of the cold war. I am not proposing a new system. I merely remind the Council that democracy begins in the schools. We must consider and renew the role of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to make it exemplary; we must consolidate it. It is time for the States that have left UNESCO to return and contribute to its great task. Collective security will be jeopardized very quickly if we do not create up-to-date conditions for it, Past experience has shown that nothing can be done without the determination of States, particularly the major Powers, to reject the law of the jungle and the principle that might is right. That determination is reflected in the Charter of the United Nations.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  10. “We must continue the work already, begun, for example, on the question of debt by considering the position of intermediate-~income countries among the less wealthy. I would mention the case of Venezuela and France: without any great fanfare, we have been working since July to achieve an agreement between a consumer and a producer of oil. We must revise many of our methods, our concepts and our approaches. I shall not dwell on the question of the environment. Soon a conference on the subject will be held in Rio de Janeiro, where we shall have to take a broad view in order to save the planet while still enabling peoples to make progress. Peoples are often compelled to alter the natural balance, because they lack the means to live in any other way.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  11. “We should establish a closer link between the concepts of non-proliferation and disarmament, and so forth. We are no longer engaged in a race towards over-armament; on the contrary. That is excellent news. Everyone must now participate in nuclear disarmament, provided first and foremost that all States in question are able to see that their security is assured. There should not be vast differences among the nuclear potentials of various parties. Economic interdependence is another axiom, We have a great deal of ground to cover in order to reap the practical benefits of such interdependence. We are now in a position to decrease military budgets for the benefit of development. I would recall that. many of us have called for continued dialogue between the North and the South. We do not want the gap to grow even wider.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  12. “It also calls for universal adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. For its part, France is in the process of ratifying that Treaty. France will also become a party to Additional Protocol I of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America - the Treaty of Tlatelolco -~ vhose twenty-fifth anniversary will be marked in two weeks. But the establishment of such a zone requires also the adoption of a convention banning chemical weapons. That is possible, which is why I call upon all States to come to Paris to sign such a convention before the end of the year, We should also try to monitor and limit.arms transfers and, as so aptly proposed by President Bush and President Yeltsin, to accelerate genuine reductions in nuclear weapons.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  13. “Needless to say, my statement will not be exhaustive, for we have only a limited amount of time to say what we want to say - and that may be a good thing. I shall merely put forward a few ideas, a few plans. It is a fact that since 1945 all the world's major problems have required a universal approach. We must now create the instruments for that universal action: instruments on security, on how to expand the means available to the Security Council for intervention. Take, for example, resolution 687 (1991), which put an end to the Kuwait war. Its strict implementation is necessary to restore peace in the Middle East, but it is not enough. The situation clearly calls for the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, which means the participation of all the States of the region - and of other regions.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  14. “It is true that a time of crisis, such as we are living through now, is also a time of choice. On the one hand there is war, exodus, the break-up of States and terrorism, Are they unavoidable? We can prevent them. That is my first assertion. Preventing them is precisely the primary task of the Security Council of the United Nations, in accordance with the Charter. A meeting like today's has been needed since March of last year. Prime Minister Major was absolutely right: the time was ripe for inviting us here.. By no means does everything depend on us ~ but a great deal does. Let me join my colleagues in tracing the route we should follow. First of all, a world in crisis requires instruments for comprehensive, universal action; secondly, we must guarantee collective security; and finally, we must create new forms of solidarity.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  15. “That was a new, but essential step, though the war of course inevitably brought suffering in its wake. There have been many upheavals since then, with people thrown onto the road, civil wars and the disruption of vast political entities of long standing. Where are we heading? We are looking for signposts, but we do not always find them. It is the role of the Security Council and the General Assembly to point the way. Disorder and upredictability have become the rule. It will be said that perhaps there are too many things happening at the same time and that the only constant today is change. But are we now to mourn the old order and prefer, with Goethe, the great German writer, injustice to disorder? Surely not! Liberty has grown in the world; we must continue to help it. Are there any clear responses?”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source

  16. “First, Mr. President, I should like to thank you for your initiative which has brought us together here as members of the Security Council. It is a very important event, as the Secretary-General has just emphasized. I should like to tell him how pleased we are to see him today heading our great international society. I wish him every success in his work, in which we shall be unsparing in our support. In addition to those words of encouragement, I should like to express our gratitude to Mr. Perez de Cuellar, gratitude which has already been so well expressed by you, Mr. President. I myself had hoped for a meeting such as this 10 months ago, when we were at the end of a war waged to deal with aggression and to restore law and order, under the aegis of the United Nations.”

    1992-01-31 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3046 (1992) · source