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Speech
on the occasion of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General
Assembly
President
Robert Mugabe
September
26, 2007
Your Excellency,
President of the 62ndSession of the United Nations General Assembly,
Mr. Srgjan Kerim,
Your Majesties,
Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government,
Your Excellency the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr.
Ban Ki-Moon,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Mr. President,
Allow me to
congratulate you on your election to preside over this august assembly.
We are confident that through your stewardship, issues on this 62nd
Session agenda be dealt with in a balanced manner and to the satisfaction
of all.
L et me also
pay tribute to your predecessor, Madame Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa,
who steered the work of the 61st Session in a very competent and
impartial manner.
Her ability
to identify the crucial issues facing the world today will be remembered
as the hallmark of her presidency.
Mr. President,
We extend our
hearty welcome to the new Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, who
has taken up this challenging job requiting dynamism in confronting
the global challenges of the 21st Century. Balancing global interests
and steering the United Nations in a direction that gives hope to
the multitudes of the poor, the sick, the hungry and the marginalized,
is indeed a mammoth task. We would like to assure him that Zimbabwe
will continue to support an open, transparent and all-inclusive
multilateral approach in dealing with these global challenges.
Mr. President,
Climate change
is one of the most pressing global issues of our time. Its negative
impact is greatest in developing countries, particularly those on
the African continent. We believe that if the international community
is going to seriously address the challenges of climate change,
then we need to get our priorities right. In Zimbabwe, the effects
of climate change have become more evident in the past decade as
we have witnessed increased and recurrent droughts as well as occasional
floods, leading to enormous humanitarian challenges.
Mr. President,
We are for
a United Nations that recognises the equality of sovereign nations
and peoples whether big or small. We are averse to a body in which
the economically and militarily powerful behave like bullies, trampling
on the rights of weak and smaller states as sadly happened in Iraq.
In the light of these inauspicious developments, this Organisation
must surely examine the essence of its authority and the extent
of its power when challenged in this manner.
Such challenges
to the authority of the UN and its Charter underpin our repeated
call for the revitalisation of the United Nations General Assembly,
itself the most representative organ of the UN. The General Assembly
should be more active in all areas including those of peace and
security. The encroachment of some U.N. organs upon the work of
the General Assembly is of great concern to us. Thus any process
of revitalizing or strengthening of the General Assembly should
necessarily avoid eroding the principle of the accountability of
all principal and subsidiary organs to the General Assembly.
Mr. President,
Once again
we reiterate our position that the Security Council as presently
constituted is not democratic. In its present configuration, the
Council has shown that it is not in a position to protect the weaker
states who find themselves at loggerheads with a marauding super-power.
Most importantly, justice demands that any Security Council reform
redresses the fact that Africa is the only continent without a permanent
seat and veto power in the Security Council. Africa's demands are
known and enunciated in the Ezulwini consensus.
Mr. President,
We further
call for the U.N. system to refrain from interfering in matters
that are clearly the domain of member states and are not a threat
to international peace and security. Development at country level
should continue to be country-led, and not subject to the whims
of powerful donor states.
Mr President,
Zimbabwe won
its independence on 18th April, 1980, after a protracted war against
British colonial imperialism which denied us human rights and democracy.
That colonial system which suppressed and oppressed us enjoyed the
support of many countries of the West who were signatories to the
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Even after
1945, it would appear that the Berlin Conference of 1884, through
which Africa was parcelled to colonial European powers, remained
stronger than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is therefore
clear that for the West, vested economic interests, racial and ethnocentric
considerations proved stronger than their adherence to principles
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The West still
negates our sovereignties by way of control of our resources, in
the process making us mere chattels in out own lands, mere minders
of its trans-national interests. In my own country and other sister
states in Southern Africa, the most visible form of this control
has been over land despoiled from us at the onset of British colonialism.
That control largely persists, although it stands firmly challenged
in Zimbabwe, thereby triggering the current stand-off between us
and Britain, supported by her cousin states, most notably the United
States and Australia. Mr Bush, Mr. Blair and now Mr Brown's sense
of human rights precludes our people's right to their God-given
resources, which in their view must be controlled by their kith
and kin. I am termed dictator because I have rejected this supremacist
view and frustrated the neo-colonialists.
Mr President,
Clearly the
history of the struggle for out own national and people's rights
is unknown to the president of the United States of America. He
thinks the Declaration of Human Rights starts with his last term
in office! He thinks she can introduce to us, who bore the brunt
of fighting for the freedoms of our peoples, the virtues of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What rank hypocrisy!
Mr President,
I lost eleven
precious years of my life in the jail of a white man whose freedom
and well- being I have assured from the first day of Zimbabwe's
Independence. I lost a further fifteen years fighting white injustice
in my country.
Ian Smith is
responsible for the death of well over 50 000 of my people. I bear
scars of his tyranny which Britain and America condoned. I meet
his victims everyday. Yet he walks free. He farms free. He talks
freely, associates freely under a black Government. We taught him
democracy. We gave him back his humanity.
He would have
faced a different fate here and in Europe if the 50 000 he killed
were Europeans. Africa has not called for a Nuremberg trial against
the white world which committed heinous crimes against its own humanity.
It has not hunted perpetrators of this genocide, many of whom live
to this day, nor has it got reparations from those who offended
against it. Instead it is Africa which is in the dock, facing trial
from the same world that persecuted it for centuries.
Let Mr. Bush
read history correctly. Let him realise that both personally and
in his representative capacity as the current President of the United
States, he stands for this "civilisation" which occupied,
which colonised, which incarcerated, which killed. He has much to
atone for and very little to lecture us on the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities.
He still kills.
He kills in
Iraq. He kills in Afghanistan. And this is supposed to be out master
on human rights?
He imprisons.
He imprisons
and tortures at Guantanamo. He imprisoned and tortured at Abu Ghraib.
He has secret torture chambers in Europe. Yes, he imprisons even
here in the United States, with his jails carrying more blacks than
his universities can ever enroll. He even suspends the provisions
of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Take Guantanamo for
example; at that concentration camp international law does not apply.
The national laws of the people there do not apply. Laws of the
United States of America do not apply. Only Bush's law applies.
Can the international community accept being lectured by this man
on the provisions of the universal declaration of human rights?
Definitely not!
Mr President,
We are alarmed that under his leadership, basic rights of his own
people and those of the rest of the world have summarily been rolled
back. America is primarily responsible for rewriting core tenets
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We seem all guilty
for 9/11. Mr. Bush thinks he stands above all structures of governance,
whether national or international.
At home, he
apparently does not need the Congress. Abroad, he does not need
the UN, international law and opinion. This forum did not sanction
Blair and Bush's misadventures in Iraq. The two rode roughshod over
the UN and international opinion. Almighty Bush is now corning back
to the UN for a rescue package because his nose is bloodied! Yet
he dares lecture us on tyranny. Indeed, he wants us to pray him!
We say No to him and encourage him to get out of Iraq. Indeed he
should mend his ways before he clambers up the pulpit to deliver
pieties of democracy.
Mr President,
The British
and the Americans have gone on a relentless campaign of destabilising
and vilifying my country. They have sponsored surrogate forces to
challenge lawful authority in my country. They seek regime change,
placing themselves in the role of the Zimbabwean people in whose
collective will democracy places the right to define and change
regimes.
Let these sinister
governments be told here and now that Zimbabwe will not allow a
regime change authored by outsiders. We do not interfere with their
own systems in America and Britain. Mr Bush and Mr Brown have no
role to play in our national affairs. They are outsiders and mischievous
outsiders and should therefore keep out! The colonial sun set a
long time ago; in 1980in the case of Zimbabwe, and hence Zimbabwe
will never be a colony again. Never!
We do not deserve sanctions. We are Zimbabweans and we know how
to deal with our problems. We have done so in the past, well before
Bush and Brown were known politically. We have our own regional
and continental organizations and communities.
In that vein,
I wish to express my country's gratitude to President Thabo Mbeki
of South Africa who, on behalf of SADC, successfully facilitated
the dialogue between the Ruling Party and the Opposition Parties,
which yielded the agreement that has now resulted in the constitutional
provisions being finally adopted. Consequently, we will be holding
multiple democratic elections in March 2008. Indeed we have always
had timeous general and presidential elections since our independence.
Mr. President,
In conclusion,
let me stress once more that the strength of the United Nations
lies in its universality and impartiality as it implements its mandate
to promote peace and security, economic and social development,
human rights and international law as outlined in the Charter. Zimbabwe
stands ready to play its part in all efforts and programmes aimed
at achieving these noble goals.
I thank you.
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