PM'S ADDRESS TO 57TH SESSION OF UNITED NATIONS
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
The Prime Minister, Shri Atal Bihari
Vajpayee addressed the 57th session of the United Nations
General Assembly in New York today. Following is the English rendering
of the text of the Prime Minister’s address in Hindi:
"Mr. President, I
congratulate you on your election as President of the 57th
General Assembly. We wish you success and pledge our whole-hearted
support. I also extend my best wishes to Secretary General Kofi
Annan in this first year of his second term in office.
Mr. President, two days ago,
we commemorated the first anniversary of a terrible event, which
focused the collective global consciousness on international terrorism.
Terrorism did not start on September 11. It was on that day that
it brazenly announced itself on the global stage, flaunting its
immunity from distance and power.
As a country exposed to the depredations
of terrorism for decades, India empathized with the pain of the
American people, admired their resilience in coming to terms with
the consequences, and supported the bold decision to counterattack
terrorism at its very source.
The international community has
taken some collective decisions in the global effort to combat
terrorism and to choke off its lifelines. The U.N. Security Council
Resolution 1373 contains the essence of these decisions. Its Counter-Terrorism
Committee should now move beyond information compilation and legal
assistance to enforcing compliance by states known to be sponsoring,
sheltering, funding, arming and training terrorists.
In our South Asian region, nuclear
blackmail has emerged over the last few months as a new arrow
in the quiver of State-sponsored terrorism. Dark threats were
held out that actions by India to stamp out cross-border terrorism
could provoke a nuclear war. To succumb to such blatant nuclear
terrorism would mean forgetting the bitter lessons of the September
11 tragedy.
As far as India is concerned,
we have repeatedly clarified that no one in our country wants
a war – conventional or otherwise. Nor are we seeking any territory.
But absolutely everyone in India
wants an end to the cross-border terrorism, which has claimed
thousands of innocent lives and denied entire generations their
right to a peaceful existence with normal economic and social
activity. We are determined to end it with all the means at our
command. Let there be no doubt about it in any quarter.
Mr. President, yesterday we heard
the extraordinary claim in this Assembly that the brutal murder
of innocent civilians in Jammu & Kashmir is actually a "freedom
struggle". And that the forthcoming elections in that state
are a "farce", since they cannot be a substitute for
a plebiscite demanded over 50 years ago.
It requires an effort of logical
acrobatics to believe that carnage of innocents is an instrument
for freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression!
If the elections are a mere fraud, why are terrorists being trained
and infiltrated into India at the command of the Inter-Services
Intelligence Agency of Pakistan to kill election candidates and
to intimidate voters?
If Pakistan claims to be a crucial
partner in the international coalition against terrorism, how
can it continue to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy
against India? How can the international coalition condone Pakistan-directed
killings of thousands of innocent civilians – women and children
included – to promote a bizarre version of "self determination"?
Those who speak of "underlying"
or "root" causes of terrorism, offer alibis to the terrorists
and absolve them of responsibility for their heinous actions –
such as the September 11 attacks on the United States or the December
13 attack on our Parliament.
General Musharraf has himself admitted
that rigging was responsible for his winning the referendum by
a dubious margin of 90 per cent in April this year. As for the
"true" democracy he intends to establish in Pakistan, he has rendered
it impotent even before the elections are held next month.
Those who had to "adjust"
voting and counting procedures to win a referendum and achieved
constitutional authority by the simple expedient of writing their
own constitution – are ill-placed to lecture others on freedom
and democracy.
Mr. President, yesterday we heard
yet another patently false and self-serving claim that in India,
Muslims and other minorities are the target of "Hindu extremists".
With 150 million, India has the second largest Muslim population
in the world, more than in Pakistan. We are proud of the multi-religious
character of our society. Equal respect for all faiths and non-discrimination
on the basis of religion, is not just our Constitutional obligation.
As the whole world knows, it is the signature tune of India’s
civilization and culture.
Mr. President, we have to recognize
that the developmental divide between the North and South is becoming
wider and deeper by the day. The challenges that face us are stark
and there is no alternative to all the countries of the world
joining hands to face them together.
Over the last decade, 10 million
people have been joining the ranks of the poor each year. A quarter
of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty. A million
lives are lost to malaria each year. Tuberculosis claims twice
as many lives annually. One-fifth of the humanity does not have
access to safe drinking water.
We have to find US$24 billion
annually for investment in poor countries if we are to achieve
the World Food Summit goal of halving hunger by 2015. It was this
bleak picture that we addressed in our Millennium Declaration
in 2000 with a time-bound road map for poverty eradication, with
goals and targets to be achieved by 2015. The Monterrey Conference
on Financing for Development was an encouraging beginning in the
effort to enhance international financing for development.
Continuation of widespread poverty,
at a time when unimaginable wealth is concentrated in a small
social layer, is totally unacceptable. The 21st century
has all the means to end this sad legacy of the past centuries.
What is lacking is the political will among the developed countries
to sincerely and speedily address the legitimate developmental
needs of the developing countries, especially the least developed
ones.
The poor of the world, as also
the more enlightened sections of the rich around the world, would
like the United Nations to spearhead efforts to end the systemic
indifference towards poverty. The agenda of action that would
achieve this objective is clear:
- One, asymmetry in trading relations between developing
and developed nations; the problem of declining prices for commodities
from developing countries; and all unjustified barriers to their
exports must be removed;
- Two, extreme volatility in global energy markets
has been causing havoc with the trade and fiscal balances of
developing countries. This must end.;
- Three, unpredictability in global capital movements,
which periodically devastate the economies of developing countries,
must be controlled;
- Four, malfeasant corporate practices, which drain
off the natural resources and traditional knowledge base of
developing countries without fair compensation, must be dealt
with sternly.
Casting an even longer shadow
over this grim developmental canvas is global climate change -
from which the poor will suffer the most, though they contributed
the least to it. The recent flood and forest fires in Europe are
a forewarning that the countries of Asia and Africa are not the
only victims of the fury of a degraded environment. The Earth’s
atmosphere and biosphere know no national boundaries. The choice
before the global community is stark: either we take urgent steps
to protect the environment, or be prepared for far worse natural
calamities.
Early this month, the Johannesburg
Summit for Sustainable Development debated some of the linkages
between poverty, trade, environment, national, international and
corporate governance and global financial flows. We emerged from
the Summit with some encouraging outcomes, but these fell well
short of the demands of our time.
It has become a categorical imperative
to understand, and address, man’s developmental needs in their
totality – and not in isolated parts. It is disconcerting that
the highways of development are jammed by the noisy and unruly
traffic of materialism and its brash cousin, consumerism. Human
values have become mute bystanders in most political, economic
and social activities.
The result of this imbalance
between our material and non-material needs can never be happy
for mankind. On the contrary, by placing compassion, care, fellow
feeling, cooperation and other human values in the driver’s seat,
we are bound to get the right solutions to every problem on our
planet.
Humanity is crying out for a
harmonious integration of the economic, social, political, environmental
and spiritual dimensions of development. This task calls for the
closest possible cooperation among nations and communities, with
a readiness to accept the best from every cultural and spiritual
tradition around the globe. The United Nations needs to take up
newer and bigger initiatives in this direction.
In this Assembly, less than a
year ago – and in the US Congress the year before – I had extended
India’s offer to coordinate a Comprehensive Global Development
Dialogue. I reiterate that offer today. If we are to achieve the
development goals we have promised ourselves by 2015, we need
such a dialogue urgently.
Mr. President, as we come together
once again at the United Nations, at the time of new and varied
challenges, we should reflect on our collective commitment to
the UN Charter, its purposes and principles. There is a growing
perception – particularly among the weaker and poorer countries
– that responses to issues of far-reaching impact often seem arbitrary
or contradictory.
A common destiny is at stake.
The world needs collective multilateralism. It needs the United
Nations – the coming together and working together of all its
nations in the development of a common and collective perspective.
Conflicts arise when there is
no spirit of democracy within and among nations. A genuinely democratic
framework enables us to respect alternative points of view, to
value diversity, and to fashion solutions responsive to the aspirations
of the people. India’s own experience as a hugely populated and
diverse nation shows how complex problems can be addressed within
a constitutional and democratic framework.
These values need to be assiduously
nurtured in our societies, so that at least a future generation
is rid of the scourge of poverty, intolerance, obscurantism and
religious extremism. Democratic societies are far less prone to
ideologies based on violence or militarist yearnings, since they
do not have their fingers permanently on the trigger of a gun.
We have to be vigilant against threats to democracy worldwide
arising from forces that are opposed to it, be they rooted in
fundamentalist political dogmas or extremist religious ideologies.
Mr. President, all of us are
aware of the challenges. Most of us are agreed that a stable global
order has to rest on the four strong pillars of peace, security,
sustainable development and democracy. We have to ensure that
each of these pillars is strong and resilient.
We are conscious of our collective
responsibility. It is the leap from this theoretical understanding
to its practical realization, which we have often failed to execute.
We should not fail again. Our future generations will not forgive
us if we do".