PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
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Statement by
H. E. Vartan Oskanian
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
At the General Debate
Of the 60th Session of the General Assembly
Of the United Nations
September 18, 2005
Mr. President
Mr. Secretary General
Dear Colleagues
Mr. President,
We warmly welcome you to your position and we know we will enjoy working
with you. And to the outgoing President, our special thanks for his
engagement and contribution to our work.
Mr. President,
When the Millennium Summit was held in 2000, in another New York, in another
era, before unspeakable security challenges overtook our agendas, it was the
lack of universal economic development that was our supreme security
challenge.
That is why the Millennium Development Goals were born. It took the will and
determination of nearly 200 world leaders to put forward eight
straightforward, obvious objectives which can be summed up in Amartya Sen¹s
eloquent postulation: Development is Freedom.
In these five years, these goals have become no less imperative. Pretending
that anything less will do in this era of huge wealth creation is
disingenuous and dangerous and unfair.
If global security is our focus, and we are convinced that the road to
security is through democracy, then we must remember Eleanor Roosevelt, who
nearly 60 years ago, in working on the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, articulated the obvious: men in need are not free men.
It is only through the achievement of these goals that man will live Œin
greater freedom¹.
Mr. President,
In Armenia, where economic resources are limited, but our people¹s will is
great, we have been able to register high economic growth. Yet, the
challenge – ours and the world¹s – is to turn economic achievements into
human development advances.
Armenia looks forward to each year¹s Human Development Report because it¹s
like a report card. Fortunately, each year, we have received a good report
card, we have recorded forward movement, we have recorded improvement. This
year, we have placed number 83, ahead of all our neighbors.
We should not underestimate these gains. But if we¹re going to be fair and
forward-looking, then neither should we exaggerate them. We must look at the
promise of this index and see in it that there are gaps we must close.
First, We must target ways to accelerate poverty reduction. A society is
judged by how it deals with those most vulnerable. In Armenia, poverty is
concentrated in the rural areas. We must ensure that our high economic
growth trickles down to the individual families outside cities and in the
regions. So, economic development for us means integrated rural development,
it means identifying and encouraging the conditions which favor development
and enable unleashing production capacity. Just as the MDGs require a
partnership between rich and poor countries, we must foster partnership
between the rich and poor in our country, thus stepping up the pace of
development.
Second, we are turning democracy into a tool for development. Democratic
institutions and processes are not just ends. They are also means to
creating the necessary political and economic environment which lead to
distributed growth and dignified development. The cruelties inherent in the
process of massive economic readjustment which we have been undergoing have
led to a sense of powerlessness on the part of ordinary citizens. Stable,
consistent, transparent, strong democratic institutions empower each
citizen. Democracy is more than elections. Democracy is institutions which
are egalitarian and predictable and constrain the actions of the elite thus
preventing uneven playing fields. In other words, we need strong democratic
institutions and legislation to guard against the weaknesses of human
nature.
We will not continue to be satisfied at being ahead of our neighbors, in the
middle tier of all of the countries of the world. Being there today is
satisfactory only because we have demonstrated that against all odds,
despite geography, in spite of history, we know how to survive.
Mr. President,
Armenia is a small land-locked country with few natural resources. We¹ve
become accustomed to saying that our greatest natural resource is our
people, because indeed all the other resources which exist in the countries
around us – oil and gas – are not to be found on our territory.
But, Mr. President, I can tell you that if we did have oil, we would use oil
revenues to double our education budget, because education is essential for
change, because education creates new dreams and the ability to fulfill
those dreams.
We would use those oil revenues to double our social security budget because
there are still painful gaps between our people¹s dreams and prospects.
We would use the money to double our environmental protection effort,
because it is the surest investment plan that a country can have.
Mr. President, what we would not do is double our military budget. What we
would not do is create an imaginary external threat to legitimize our
inactions. We would not pretend that there are simplistic, zealous remedies
to complex social, economic and political challenges. In other words, we
would not presume that military force is a tool either in domestic or
foreign policy. Military force is not an option in ruling people.
Mr. President, when it comes to regional conflicts, advocating military
solutions is not only unrealistic, but it demonstrates a patent lack of
understanding of democracy, human rights and rule of law. The founders of
the United Nations knew that security, development and human rights go
together.
Self-determination is a human right, Mr. President. The people of Nagorno
Karabakh fought for and earned the right to self-determination. To do that,
they resisted the political and military aggression of a government
not-of-their-own-choosing that tried to violently, fiercely, brutally,
suppress them. Fighting for their rights was not a matter of choice. Their
rights were neither abstract nor excessive. What they wanted is what most of
us have – the right to live peacefully on our lands, in our homes, safe from
violence. Against all odds, they succeeded. Since then, they have
demonstrated the ability to govern themselves, to develop democratic
institutions and sustain their independence.
Mr. President, countries like mine come to these annual meetings with huge
expectations. We come wanting to participate, contribute, give and take.
If the Foreign Minister of a country that is obviously small and, frankly,
imperfect, doesn¹t have the right to moralize about our collective future,
then allow me to just for a moment, to dream as a citizen of the world.
The prospect of UN reforms has been the beginning of a promise of a world
that looks a bit more like OUR world today. Mr. President, we may not agree
here, now, this week, this year, but we will have to agree on reforming this
institution some time. We cannot pretend that we don¹t know our history,
that we don¹t clearly see the realities facing us, that we don¹t know that
the world has changed. It is not 1945 any longer.
Still, it is reassuring that the principles enshrined in the UN charter
written three generations ago remain significant. That¹s because the spirit
of San Francisco in 1945, the global compact that was forged, was a
revolution. It affirmed that generations are accountable to future ones,
that states are accountable to each other, and that together, states can,
must, guarantee peace in the world. The formula by which they agreed to
achieve that goal worked.
Today, we need to rework the formula, to reaffirm the responsibility and
accountability of states to their citizens, of states to one another, of
international institutions to their members. We need the democratization of
international relations, of international institutions, and we need fair
representation, earned representation around the decision-making table.
Earned representation Mr. President: where states engaged in promoting and
protecting human rights and rule of law have the right to be presented on
the Human Rights Council, states serious about democratic and economic
development have the opportunity to be part of the Economic and Social
Council, and where states committed to the progress and dignity of the
international community have the opportunity to be part of the leadership of
the world community.
There is nothing ambitious about these goals. It is natural that national
interests will differ. That is why this international institution must step
in to fill that gap by assuring participation and cooperation, in exchange
for commitments and action.
Mr. President,
It¹s all about being accountable to our children. What if we don¹t achieve
the MDGs even as the world economy continues to create wealth, and half the
world¹s population continues to find the fruits of that wealth out of reach?
How do we explain this to our children?
What if we, in our region, don¹t take this opportunity to make the peace and
leave behind the war, its memories, its consequences, its social, economic,
emotional legacy? Then, what are we leaving our children?
What if we don¹t learn from the past, reject our collective Œresponsibility
to protect¹ and allow yet again and again governments to plan and carry out
torture, ethnic cleansing, genocide against their citizens? How will we face
our children?
When the UN was formed, following two great world wars, it gave the people
of the world hope, faith, in their leaders, in their future, for the lives
of their children.
Today, following huge catastrophes – manmade and natural – it seems that the
peoples of the world need again to have their faith restored. Devastation
like that caused by the tsunami and Katrina, violence such as that being
perpetrated in Darfur, carnage that we witnessed in London, make us question
ourselves, our neighbors, our assumptions.
Our answers to ourselves and our children must be about united momentum,
united resources, united responses, by nations, united. The United Nations
can still be that answer.
Thank You.