S/PV.5979
5979th meeting
Tuesday, 23 September 2008, 3 p.m.
New York
Maintenance of international peace and security
Mr. Ettalhi (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic): It was a great honour for us to see His Excellency Mr. Blaise Compaore, President of the Republic of Burkina Faso, presiding over our Council and managing our work, following the able leadership of our colleague Ambassador Michel Kafando. We are also honoured by the presence of our other distinguished guests.
Today’s meeting adds value and special importance to our deliberations and falls within the framework of the efforts and firm determination of President Compaore and the other leaders of Africa to achieve lasting security, without which our continent will not enjoy sustainable development.
The concept paper that the delegation of Burkina Faso has prepared focuses on mediation as a means to settle disputes that is given special priority in Article 33 of the United Nations Charter and is reaffirmed by the Statute of the African Union and many other texts. The option of mediation offers ideas and proposals to urge the parties to a dispute to resort to dialogue. At minimum cost, either before or after a conflict breaks out, mediation can ensure that the parties find a way to end it and to build and maintain peace. Mediation that takes the interests and requirements of local parties into account is appropriate to the situation in Africa in particular and the international situation in general, especially since the end of the cold war and the subsequent search for consensus solutions.
Moreover, neither the non-binding nature of mediation, compared to other peaceful means of settlement, nor the fact that mediation may not achieve its objectives in all cases undermines its importance, because mediation allows the parties to re-evaluate or reconsider their positions and thus to move forward in their efforts to reach a sustainable peaceful settlement to conflict.
There is no doubt that the effectiveness of mediation rests not only upon the impartiality of the mediator and his skills and knowledge of the geographical, historical and cultural framework of the conflict and its root causes, but also on the unity and coordination of regional and international efforts. That has been affirmed by international and African reports and documents on African conflicts and on the strategies and means for managing them.
Allow me to state frankly nevertheless that we are still far from implementing our obligations and the recommendations offered in those documents, nor have we yet achieved an international African partnership that integrates resources and capabilities and renounces circumstantial, partial and expensive approaches in favour of comprehensive long-term solutions. That has become bitterly clear from my country’s experience with mediation initiatives over the past decades.
Much remains to be done and there are still structures and mechanisms that require development. The noble efforts of the Secretariat and its resources are still inadequate to the logistical and planning support needed to enhance African capabilities and in light of the diplomatic efforts that the African continent has witnessed from the establishment of the Organization of African Unity in the 1960s to this very day.
We must reconsider the existing approach in light of the lessons of the past and support mediation efforts that would eliminate or at least alleviate human suffering and the international system and the power of the Security Council as the main guardian of international peace and security. Therefore, the African Union, with its dynamism and growing capabilities and the will and determination of its leaders, can be a model for United Nations ties with regional organizations and the maintenance of international peace and security in a regional context. That is what we hope.
In closing, Mr. President, I would like to thank your country’s delegation for preparing the draft presidential statement. We support it fully and look forward to adopting it at the end of this session.
