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Statement by and Agenda Item 44: New York, 4 October 2002 Mr. President, My delegation welcomes the annual report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization. As usual, it offers a comprehensive, succinct review of United Nations’ activity in the past year, indicating areas of success and failure, and pointing out the way forward. It is enriched and supported this year by the arrival of the first-ever report of the Secretary-General on the follow-up to the outcome of the United Nations Millennium Summit. We thank him for both reports. Both reports remind us of the extraordinary challenge to international security and stability in the past year, following the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, barely one year after the adoption of the Millennium Declaration. The Secretary-General draws attention to the important role played by the United Nations in mobilizing international action in the global struggle against terrorism during the period, but notes that the phenomenon of terrorism has deep political, economic, social and psychological roots. We support the view that Member States have the primary responsibility to prevent the conditions within their borders capable of giving rise to terrorism. In the view of Indonesia, terrorism is a heinous crime. We need to combat this phenomenon and address its root causes comprehensively. However, while we fully support the resolutions adopted in the past year by the Security Council in an effort to combat terrorism, and the measures taken by Member States and regional groups, we believe that the challenge before the international community - as the Millennium Declaration makes clear - is, in effect, to make life worth living for all, so that terrorism has no hidden corners in which to sulk or to breed. We must commit ourselves to lifting peoples from poverty. We believe that the international community should pay very close attention to this point, and accept as never before, that the issue of development is of urgency, indeed a priority. Unfortunately, on the subject of development and poverty eradication, the Secretary-General describes the prospects for meeting the Millennium development goals (one of which is cutting in half the number of people living on one dollar a day) as “mixed,” with progress in some parts of the world either “hardly advancing” or “falling back dramatically.” We still have 13 years to go before the target date, but as the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs stressed here in the general debate last month, the war against terrorism can only be won if we emerge victorious in a more basic struggle—the one against poverty. In other words, it is not too early to remind ourselves that we cannot afford to fail. In this connection, Mr. President, and in recognition of the various issues at stake, Indonesia recalls that last month, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, for which we were pleased to have been the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee, reached an agreement on a global programme to reduce poverty and restore the integrity of our planet. If governments, private business and civil society faithfully implement the action plan that emerged, the world now has a good chance of making progress on this subject. It is our hope that this session of the General Assembly will translate the aspirations of developing countries expressed at the WSSD into reality. We also share the appeals being made by other developing countries for our development partners and the international financial institutions to provide additional resources and honour the agreed targets for ODA. In addition, we reiterate that for the Millennium development goals to be met, it is important to achieve an international trade regime where genuine multilateralism wins over unilateral practices and protectionism. We further support the initiative of the Secretary-General to establish a Millennium campaign in the United Nations to continuously place the Millennium goals in the forefront of public consciousness throughout the world and ensure that they are the focus of action. Mr. President, We believe that this same approach should be applied to the subject of conflict prevention and peacemaking. The Secretary-General notes that the focus of implementation of the recommendations contained in his report of June 2001 on the prevention of armed conflict has been on securing greater cooperation with Governments, supporting subregional initiatives to promote peace and stability and encouraging the mainstreaming of conflict prevention into national development programmes. We are in support of these efforts. The General Assembly, along with other agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations, has responsibility for eliminating the root causes of conflicts, especially those relating to socio-economic development. The link between conflict-prevention and sustainable development has been established before, and we call for action on the short and longer-term measures. We hope that before the close of the 57th session, consensus will be reached on the draft resolution on conflict-prevention. In this regard, it is a sad reality that the international community seems more predisposed to absorbing the enormous costs of conflict than finding the will to prevent it. If the Millennium Declaration is to have any meaning, if it is to make a resounding impression in many parts of the world, it must begin by demonstrating not the capacity of the international community to help find ways out of bitter conflicts, but the commitment to prevent them in the first place. In this regard, we are grateful for the recognition accorded by the Secretary-General in his report to our approach in ASEAN to the prevention of regional conflict by focusing on economic integration and “quiet dialogue.” Mr. President, We cannot end our comment on the subject of conflict-prevention without saying a couple of things on the situation in the Middle East, about which the Secretary-General observes that during the past year, the political tension was aggravated by further violence. My delegation shares his view concerning the opportunities that arose during the year for progress towards a political settlement. In reference here are Security Council resolution 1397 (2002), which endorsed the prospects of a region where two States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders, and the emergence of the Quartet to help both parties transcend the cycle of destruction. We reiterate our call on those Member States that wield influence in the region to adopt a just and balanced approach to the issue of Palestine. They should persuade Israel to withdraw its forces from the occupied territories and cease settlement activities in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions towards giving peace a genuine chance. In the interim, we once again stress the urgent need to deploy an international security force to protect innocent civilians in the conflict-ridden areas. On the subject of disarmament, Mr. President, it is disappointing that in the past year, international cooperation in multilateral forums continued to suffer. According to the report of the Secretary-General, negotiations on nuclear disarmament and a treaty on fissile materials, as well as efforts to prevent an arms race in outer space, remained deadlocked in the Conference on Disarmament. In addition, the review of the Biological Weapons Convention was suspended until November 2002, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty has still not entered into force. We welcome, however, the signing of the Moscow Treaty by the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation as a step towards reducing their deployed strategic nuclear weapons, but agree with the preference of the Secretary-General for such reductions to be made irreversible, transparent and verifiable. We reiterate our call on nuclear weapon States to return to negotiations, and to pursue them with serious political commitment. Turning to humanitarian issues, we agree with the assessment of the Secretary-General that the scale of diversity of the humanitarian challenges of the past year do underline the need to further strengthen the capabilities of the United Nations to respond, quickly and effectively, and to offer comprehensive protection to civilians facing war and natural disaster. It is disturbing to learn that the challenges of delivering assistance and mobilizing adequate resources for underfunded emergencies has not improved over previous years, and that donor responses to United Nations Consolidated Appeals remains unsatisfactory. Mr. President, We note the continuing and growing use of the tool of partnerships in the work of the Organization. Indonesia is proud to be a part of these partnerships which we encourage as they nourish human understanding and support the work of the Organization. In his report, the Secretary-General notes his visit to Indonesia in May 2002, and draws attention to the efforts being made by the United Nations funds and programmes to support the Government’s pursuit of political, economic and social reforms. The Government of Indonesia is determined to promote good governance, and establish a stable, democratic and prosperous society, and we are grateful both for the Secretary-General’s visit, and for the declaration of his intention to enhance the efforts of the United Nations to assist the Government of Indonesia in these efforts. While this first report of the Secretary-General explores the efforts being made to implement the Millennium Development goals in general, it is enriched by a very useful statistical annex that tracks the progress in achieving those goals, using a common baseline. We thank the Secretary-General for this detailed information, and hope that it will enable Member States of the United Nations to keep track of yearly progress as we approach 2015. Finally, permit me to say a word about strengthening the United Nations. We are in agreement with the Secretary-General concerning the tremendous changes that have taken place in the Organization since it was formed in 1945, and of the improvements that must be made if the Organization is to continue to offer the peoples of the world its best service. On this point, Indonesia would like to emphasize the necessity to make the revitalization of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council a reality, not just a convenient slogan. We share the view that no reform of the United Nations would be complete without the enlargement of the Security Council; the more the Council is seen to be representative, the more authoritative it will be. At the same time, it is important to remember that the authority of the Council will be strengthened by its working methods and ability to respond with equal purpose and fairness to the issues that are brought before it. It is by taking concrete action that the promise of the Millennium Declaration, which is a promise to posterity and to the peoples of the world, will be fulfilled. Thank you, Mr. President.
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