S/PV.3492Resumption2 Security Council

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I should like to inform the Council that I have received a letter from the representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina in which he requests to be invited to participate in the discussion of the item on the Council's agenda. In conformity with the usual practice, I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite that representative to participate in the discussion without the right to vote, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter and rule 37 of the Council's provisional rules of procedure. There being no objection, it is so decided. At the invitation of the President, Mr. Misie (Bosnia and Herzegovina) took the place reserved for him at the side of the Council Chamber. The President (interpretation from Spanish): The next speaker is the representative of Brazil. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Valle (Brazil): First of all, I should like to express the satisfaction of my delegation in congratulating you, Sir, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of January. As the Permanent Representative of the sister nation of Argentina, you have been conducting the Council's work with admirable competence and paying special attention to transparency - a feature which has been meeting with widespread appreciation among non-members and deserves public recognition. I also wish to express to Ambassador Manzi Bakuramutsa of Rwanda words of great respect for the wisdom and professional integrity with which he most ably discharged his duties last month. I take this opportunity to greet the five new non-permanent members who have joined in the Council in its deliberations for what will undoubtedly be a busy and challenging term. We welcome the opportunity offered to the United Nations membership at large to react to the "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace", which the Secretary-General has placed before the Security Council and the General Assembly on the occasion of the Organization's fiftieth anniversary. This exchange of ideas and observations, although of a preliminary nature, will provide delegations and the Secretariat with a useful input for an in-depth reflection on the Organization's capacity to maintain peace and security at a moment of new, historic opportunities for the overall role of the United Nations. I must preface my comments on more specific aspects of the document by recalling that Brazil remains convinced that peace and security cannot be dissociated from social and economic well-being. Having felt the need to become actively involved in the promotion of a renewed international effort in favour of development, we strongly believe that a new Agenda for Development is essential for the success of any Agenda for Peace. We should therefore like to stress the importance of advancing in the creation of a true partnership between the less developed and the more developed, at an appropriate pace, as a crucial step in fostering an equitable and peaceful international system at the threshold of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. The Secretary-General's Supplement contains a number of ideas and proposals which will require careful study and examination. The fact that it is addressed to the General Assembly at its fiftieth session - in addition to having been presented to the Security Council - will thus call for a prolonged debate, allowing delegations to dwell on the interesting thoughts and suggestions included in the report and to focus on action that may realistically be taken thereon. The analysis of the changes in the international environment presented by the Secretary-General in the Supplement before us bears the authority of experience acquired through first-hand contact with a number of difficult situations, some of which remain unresolved and continue to defy contemporary diplomatic resourcefulness. While acknowledging the complexities of dealing with inter-State conflicts or internal ones that have exposed the United Nations to criticism, the Secretary-General retains a cautious approach to the problems encountered and refrains from redefining the accepted tenets under which efforts at peacemaking and peace-keeping must continue to be carried out. In this context, we agree with the relevance attributed by the Secretary-General to Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter and with his assertion that "consent of the parties, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defence" (S/1995/1, para. 33) are essential to the success of United Nations endeavours. We also welcome the clear recognition of the need to keep troop-contributing Governments fully informed on the evolution of peace-keeping operations. There have been some significant recent improvements in increasing transparency, and there appears to be an emerging consensus on the desirability of further progress in this direction. It is doubtful, however, whether agreement could easily be reached on the proposal for the creation of a rapid reaction force or similar arrangements for dealing with emergencies. Although Brazil has been taking a number of steps in order to facilitate the availability of troops to the United Nations, through streamlined legislative approval procedures for deployment and the organization of special military training courses, we would not be in favour of hastening into the creation of a reaction force before a thorough consideration of financial and other related implications. Likewise, any modification of the essentially economic, social and humanitarian role of United Nations resident coordinators to include a wider political mandate in the context of post-conflict peace-building would require previous careful examination. As a general comment, my delegation would contend that in looking at ways to improve or speed up the response of the Organization to situations that threaten international peace and security, we must not lose sight of the inherent difficulty in prescribing general solutions to problems that are specific by their very nature. Whether focusing on preventive diplomacy, peace-keeping or national reconciliation and economic reconstruction within a post-conflict scenario, case by case sensitivity and expertise will continue to be necessary, with due regard given to the concerns of the affected civilians, if we are adequately to meet the challenges of the post-cold-war era. The experience of the past years has indeed taught us that there are no ready-made formulas for promoting peace, nor can any individual player in the concert of nations claim a monopoly over wisdom. At this stage, my delegation wishes to reiterate the importance of the United Nations counting on the means to implement all Charter-mandated activities in a stable and predictable manner. In particular, in the case of peace- keeping operations, perhaps the most valuable tool at the disposal of the Organization to deal with situations that threaten international peace and security, the institutionalization of the ad hoc scale for the apportionment of peace-keeping expenditures, inaugurated by General Assembly resolution 3101 (XXVIII) of 1973 and repeatedly endorsed since then, is a goal to be sought. The special scale embodies a number of fundamental political and economic considerations. The continuing adherence to it for more than 30 years provided stability to the financial foundations of this Organization. First and foremost, the principle of the special responsibility of the permanent members of the Security Council, as recognized by General Assembly resolution 1874 (S-IV), is the acknowledgement that peace-keeping expenses, which nowadays constitute the bulk of the Organization's costs, are a collective but differentiated responsibility of Member States. The special scale is a reminder that when the Security Council exercises the exceptional powers conferred upon it by the Charter, it should act in a financially responsible way. The other principles of the special scale have also been consistently upheld by Member States in all General Assembly resolutions devoted to the financing of peace-keeping expenditures. Developed countries are in a position to make more substantial contributions than developing ones to the financing of expenditures, since the maintenance of international peace and security is a solidary task that should be performed through mustering resources from States according to their capacity to pay and in accordance with the necessities of the maintenance of international peace and security. I shall concentrate my additional comments essentially on the sections of the Secretary-General's document devoted to sanctions and to disarmament. The Chapter on disarmament seems to focus on a questionable perspective, in so far as it places on the same level both the process of limiting the spread of small arms among individuals and factions within a society and the task of pursuing, establishing and verifying disarmament among States. The process termed "micro-disarmament" relating to small arms should preferably not be addressed as a sub-section of disarmament, and would seem to fit more adequately into the context of measures designed to reverse the breakdown of law and order after a conflict. Furthermore, this section of the document fails to portray the role that can be played by disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation in the present security context. We recall that there has been widespread agreement in recent years on the increased importance of preventing the spread of, and gradually eliminating, all weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical and biological. It is worth noting, on the other hand, that efforts regarding transparency and confidence building, in the field of conventional weapons and military budgets, have been meeting with some success. May I note with satisfaction that the chapter on sanctions tackles in a candid and creative manner an issue that has been raising increasing concern among Member States. Indeed, the problems and contradictions mentioned by the Secretary-General reflect the disquiet of a growing number of delegations with regard to what is often perceived as a precipitate resort to sanctions or their implementation beyond what would seem to be a fair or adequate span of time. I would also recall that Brazil has continuously expressed the View that the Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions must be abided by by those to whom they are directed as well as by the Council itself. The proposal for the creation of a mechanism to monitor the application of sanctions, as described in paragraph 75, has merit, although its establishment and functioning would have to be widely debated, and the precise role of the Secretariat would need to be discussed among delegations. In concluding, the Brazilian delegation expresses thanks to the Secretary-General for providing us with interesting material on which to focus our attention, and declares its readiness to participate in further deliberations on the topics raised in the document before us. As a last word, I would like to lend our support to suggestions that a list be drawn up in response to the difficulty encountered by the Secretariat in finding senior persons with diplomatic skills who are willing to serve as Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, and our willingness to provide some names to be included in that list.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Brazil for his kind words addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of New Zealand. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Keating (New Zealand): It is a great pleasure for me to sit here at this table under your presidency, Sir. I know full well that the Council is in extremely good hands, and we wish you all the very best for the remainder of your term. I would also like to request the delegation of Rwanda to convey to our friend and colleague, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Rwanda, our congratulations and thanks for what he did; his hard work during the month of December was much appreciated. Like the Ambassador of Brazil, I would like to extend my congratulations to the new members of the Council. We are very pleased to see them all taking over their very important responsibilities. They have our support, and in some ways also our sympathy. I do not intend this morning to set out the full range of New Zealand's views on our collective efforts to maintain international peace and security. My Foreign Minister did that in the General Assembly general debate last September, and what he said at that time seems to me to be still relevant. Instead, I want to make some preliminary comments on the Secretary-General's "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace". I hope that you, Sir, and the members of the Secretariat will forgive me for the fact that I have not come here with a prepared statement. I think that some of the important reforms that we have made in the processes of the Council in the past year or so have been predicated on the fact that there ought to be a better dialogue between the members of the Council and the Members of the United Nations that are not members of the Council. It seems to me that, if we are to have a candid dialogue, we need to be able to come here to the Council and have an exchange of views. We certainly should not come with a closed mind and an inability to respond to the points that have been made in the course of discussion. In referring to the Secretary-General's "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace", I would like to begin with his conclusion because I think it is very important and I endorse every word of it. He says that hard decisions are needed. Now, they are not needed because we have failed; I believe that real progress has been made. Hard decisions are needed because we have begun to succeed. The United Nations has begun to work in the area of international peace and security in the way it was designed to do. It seems to me that, for most of the past 50 years, the United Nations has been crawling. In the past few years, we have begun to learn to walk and even, perhaps, to run a little bit. Naturally, there have been a few stumbles. That is life. But let us not pay heed to those who have spoken in this debate to advocate that the United Nations should go back to crawling because that is what it knows best. We stand firmly with the Secretary-General when he says: "There is no reason for frustration or pessimism" (S/1995/1, para. 105). We should go forward with confidence and courage. Let me turn to the part of the Secretary-General's Supplement on preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. This is a fundamental task set out in the Charter of the United Nations. I find it somewhat curious that in this very important and substantial section of the Supplement the Charter is not mentioned at all. The Secretary-General notes in paragraph 25 that the objective is to find ways of enabling the United Nations to perform better the roles envisaged for it. I think that there is an anomaly in the fact that when we look at the Charter and at what it says about preventive diplomacy and peacemaking we find that there is absolutely no mention at all of a role for the Secretary- General in those areas. Instead, we find a very substantial Chapter - Chapter VI - which gives primary responsibility to the Security Council in matters which, in our terminology of today, can only be described as preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. I would be the first to endorse the very significant contributions that successive Secretaries-General have made to preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, and I would be the first to insist that those should continue. But I do think that it is curious that the Security Council's role in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking is somehow submerged. It does not appear in the document and it does not appear in the literature. I think that the Security Council has a very important role to play in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, and I would note in this context that one of the principal conclusions the Secretary-General has reached is that one of the things that are frustrating his efforts in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking is the lack of a norm by which States should accept the good offices of the United Nations. Let me say in response to this that I agree that there should be a norm, but when you look at the Charter you see that there is already such a norm, set out in Article 37. Article 37 is in fact more than a norm - it is a legal obligation on all States Members of the United Nations. If it proves impossible to resolve a dispute or conflict in a face-to-face manner, there is an obligation to bring that matter to the Security Council. So the norm for the involvement of the United Nations is already there in our Charter. I believe that what this demonstrates is that we need to look for some new kind of partnership between the Council and the Secretariat in which they both see themselves as being engaged in a cooperative effort to implement the principles that are already set out in the Charter. As the members of the Council are well aware, there has been for quite some time a degree of concern and apprehension amongst the non-members of the Council, which gets expressed from time to time in the General Assembly, that the Security Council should put more effort into action under Chapter VI rather than Chapter VII. Speaking personally, I believe that the Security Council has actually been doing that and doing a lot of it very successfully. But because it is not recognized in the way I have described, it is perhaps missed. How would such a partnership between the Secretariat and the Security Council work? It seems to me that the model perhaps could be the work that was undertaken last year in the mission which the Security Council sent to Burundi. I do not think that there is any doubt at all that the Security Council played a very important role in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking when the mission went to Burundi at a very critical time. I think also that my own personal experience on a mission to Somalia reinforces this conclusion. Preventive diplomacy and peacemaking were not part of the original mandate of the mission that went to Somalia, but certainly there was an unexpected outcome from that mission. Before we left, we were informed in a briefing by the Secretariat that it was to be expected during our time there that the parties would both unilaterally announce the formation of competing governments. I think there is no doubt that the presence of the mission in Somalia had a very important impact in persuading the parties to hold back from what would have been a disastrous outcome, both for the United Nations and for any prospects of reconciliation. Now, four or five months later, that restraint still prevails. I think that it is also instructive to note that this partnership can work not only here in New York, but also on the ground. It was certainly the experience of those of us who went to Somalia that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and his political civilian advisers greatly valued the presence in the field of another organ of the United Nations to work with them at a critical time. I think we can, and must, replicate these two examples in other areas, and I have one practical suggestion that members of the Council might like to reflect on. Over time, a practice could perhaps develop whereby, when the Council takes up an issue under its preventive diplomacy and peacemaking mode, it might look to appointing, either formally or informally, one Member State that clearly has no interest in the issue in question to act as what other organs of the United Nations might call a rapporteur or a coordinator - or what might be called a godfather. That Member State would take responsibility for a particular problem the Council is dealing with, and it might also work with the Department of Political Affairs to ensure that the Council's handling of its role in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking is appropriate and timely. If a mission is called for, then a mission can take place. I am conscious of the fact that many Members of the United Nations would feel very strongly that, if the Council were to become more involved in preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, its members should always remember their roots - that they are Members of a broader Organization. I believe that it is possible for the Council to play this role and to involve the States of a region that would have a special interest in its handling of an issue. Again, I should like to give an example from the work of the mission to Somalia. I believe that a very important event during that mission was the convening, in Nairobi, of a meeting between the Council mission and the representatives of the countries of the region. We were able to brief them on what the Council was doing and to receive their views on how we should handle the situation upon our return to New York. So I think it is possible for the Council to play a much more active role in peacemaking and preventive diplomacy. I should like to turn now to the question of peace- keeping. I was very struck by what the Secretary-General said in paragraph 36, that peace-keeping and peace enforcement "should be seen as alternative techniques and not as adjacent points on a continuum, permitting easy transition from one to the other." I thought long and hard about that sentence, and I concluded that, while I agree that this is the idea], it does not correspond to what happens in the real world. We should always be striving to make the real world conform to our ideals, but I want to give an example of why I think the real world is different. Let us look at what confronted General Dallaire in Rwanda. General Dallaire had a very critical problem; he had to respond to a situation of desperate human need. Did he protect the civilians in the stadium or did he not? In the real world, there is always, I think, transition from peace-keeping to peace enforcement, where occasionally force will need to be used without consent. Take the case of Bosnia. Again, I feel the Secretary- General's analysis is a little faulty. I think this is a case where the Security Council did listen to what the international community was saying. Some would say it did not go far enough, but the Security Council did respond, and it did give a partially forceful mandate. I believe that human history suggests that decisions to go to war - to use force - are rarely taken in a clinical way, and the recent history of the United Nations suggests that we will not be immune from that tendency. Finally, I should like to make a comment about command and control. The Secretary-General says that the Security Council has tended to engage in micro- management. I think that that is a straw man; I think the Security Council does not even engage in management, let alone micro-management, of issues in the field. The Security Council does require a detailed understanding of the operational conditions in the field, and this is not only a question of information. On the question of information, we know that the fog of war argument does not always hold up, because there are large amounts of information available in the Secretariat: witness the digest that we used to receive, but not longer receive. But there is a broader question, a question of political accountability between the Secretariat, which is the administrative organ of the United Nations, and the policy organ of the United Nations, which is the Security Council and on occasion the General Assembly. Efficiency is important, but all democratic structures must make a trade-off between bureaucratic efficiency and political efficiency. If we make bureaucratic efficiency an absolute, this results in "bureaucratic capture". I believe that in all modern democracies being politically efficient means a quite detailed level of intrusion into the decision-making that is being done by those charged with implementing policy, a detailed intrusion by those responsible for the political implications of the action being taken. That is certainly the case in my country, and I know it is the case in many of the other countries represented here in this Chamber. I do not think that the United Nations should be any different. A final word about sanctions: sanctions have proved themselves to be an important tool in the armoury of the United Nations, and I think the report slightly underrates the significance of this. I can see that there is a very strong argument for Members of the United Nations impacted by sanctions to support the concept of a mechanism to investigate the economic implications. I believe that there is merit in considering this issue, but it should not be looked at in isolation. We must bear in mind that there are other issues relating to sanctions that should be studied at the same time. Enforcement is one of them. Sanctions committees are constantly made aware of the fact that action in the field is being affected by events that are outside United Nations control. I think if we were to have a study of a mechanism, it should also study the question of enforcement and who pays for enforcement, because, in the view of my authorities, a "user-pays" element in the administration of sanctions regimes is long overdue, and I believe that the Security Council could well encourage the study of such a "user-pays" system. I do not want to leave the impression that with these comments, which have been somewhat critical of the report, we are any less supportive of the excellent work that has been done by the Secretary-General in following up "An Agenda for Peace". As those who have worked with us in the past know, there has been no stronger supporter in the Security Council of the Secretary-General, his staff, the Department of Peace-keeping Operations and the Department of Political Affairs, and I intend that New Zealand will continue to maintain that level of support for the United Nations in its role outside the Security Council. I thank you, Mr. President, for the excellent opportunity you have provided us to express some views on the "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace", and we wish you well.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of New Zealand for the kind words he addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Slovenia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Tiirk (Slovenia): It gives me great pleasure to see you, Sir, presiding over the present discussion. We deeply appreciate your efforts to improve the working methods of the Security Council, and we consider it most fitting that the present discussion takes place under your presidency. We are convinced that under your presidency the work of the Security Council will be successful. We are grateful to the Secretary-General for the "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace", and we commend him for the valuable ideas expressed therein. We particularly welcome the point made towards the end of the document that the changing circumstances require, inter alia, perceptive, adaptive and creative responses. The Supplement prepared by the Secretary-General will certainly facilitate the search for such responses, and we wish to offer some of our thoughts pertaining to the same search. An important part of the "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace" is devoted to the Secretary-General's reflections on the specific features of political and military conflicts after the end of the cold war. Indeed, the new international political environment is often characterized by conflicts which are in some respects different from those of the past. The number of political actors involved in conflicts has increased and become more diverse. The current wars by proxy are sometimes fought on behalf of smaller States and for diverse political agendas. In several conflicts the inter-State aspect is less apparent or deliberately obscured. All this calls for additional efforts in the analysis of the causes of conflicts. It is sometimes suggested that ethnic or religious factors are crucial in many conflicts, which are therefore described as ethnic or religious. We would like to caution against the hasty use of these terms to qualify conflicts. A look to the past would help reveal the presence of ethnic or religious elements in many conflicts of the past and other, non-ethnic and non-religious elements in present military conflicts, including those which are described as ethnic. As a matter of fact, it is possible to speak of the ethnic coefficient in most military conflicts in human history. What is really necessary is a careful identification of actors in each conflict and of their actual agendas. Only if this is possible and done can one hope that the response by the United Nations and by other international mechanisms will correspond to the actual needs. A related problem stems from the fact that, as a rule, the qualification of a conflict as ethnic does not explain its causes or nature. Such qualification is too often a result of political convenience, intellectual laziness or, worst of all, willingness to accept a situation as insoluble. Such approaches ought to be avoided. Our final remark on the issue of the nature of present- day conflicts is this: a number of recent conflicts have been fought under the slogan of preservation of the territorial integrity of States. Here, again, we wish to emphasize the need for careful analysis of the real nature of the conflict and of the actual agendas involved. The use of powerful and generally supported values and principles for the purpose of justifying very prosaic goals, such as the pursuit of power and control over others, are as old as military conflicts themselves. Moreover, in some recent military conflicts such prosaic goals have motivated the use of force against the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination and have made political negotiation on the most appropriate and peaceful form of self-determination more difficult and sometimes impossible. It is indeed paradoxical that in our era the use of military force under the slogan of territorial integrity has more often than not led to the social and political disintegration of societies and in some cases to the disintegration of States. The purpose of these admittedly somewhat lengthy opening remarks was to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the challenges put before the United Nations and the international community at present. Moreover, we believe that careful clarification of military conflicts is necessary in any effort intended to devise the United Nations response to a given situation. That response, of course, need not always be a military one. Very often political means, such as good offices, advice or economic cooperation, can be more useful, in particular in the period before the full outbreak of a military conflict. In the situation of conflict itself, it is necessary to agree on the nature of the conflict prior to defining the nature of the United Nations military operation. Here we suggest that careful thought be given to the exact nature of the United Nations operation. We agree with the Secretary-General when he emphasizes in the "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace" that "Peace-keeping and the use of force (other than in self-defence) should be seen as alternative techniques and not as adjacent points on a continuum, permitting easy transition from one to the other." (S/1995/1, para. 36) We would like to add in this connection that it is necessary to re-evaluate the so-called complex peace-keeping operations and consider the possibility of limiting peace-keeping operations to what they actually should be: operations intended to support and stabilize a cease-fire or a truce already agreed to by the parties in conflict. In our opinion, adding other elements should be avoided, both as a matter of principle and as a matter of expediency. This approach does not exclude the possibility that the United Nations can authorize or resort to the use of force in forms other than peace-keeping, in accordance with the Charter. But in such cases the specific type of use of force should be characterized as what it actually is. Perhaps an improved practice would also require clearer terminology; the term "peace-keeping" should be reserved for genuine peace-keeping operations, while other military operations should be termed in appropriate words. While this might be politically difficult in some situations, the advantage of preservation of intellectual and moral accuracy would be to the benefit of all Members of the United Nations. We studied carefully the comments by the Secretary-General on sanctions, and we generally agree with his analysis. In particular, we would like to support the idea, expressed in paragraph 75 (a), that there should be a mechanism to assess, before sanctions are imposed, their potential impact on the target country and on third countries. Any sophisticated system of decision-making requires impact assessment prior to the final taking of a decision. Recent experience with sanctions has shown that their effects are sometimes slightly different from what was generally expected, and that sometimes a disproportionate burden is placed upon neighbouring States or on major economic partners of the targeted State. We would therefore urge that the question of mechanisms for the assessment of effects of sanctions and the methodology of preparation of statements of impact assessment be given a high priority. Before concluding, I wish to make a few remarks on the Secretary-General's analysis of preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. It is a matter of common sense that prevention is better than cure. It is also clear that successful preventive diplomacy is considerably less costly than peace-keeping and other types of military operations that become necessary in situations where preventive diplomacy failed or was not attempted. We therefore support the recommendations in paragraphs 31 and 32 concerning the practical measures necessary for the successful implementation of the mandate of the Secretary-General in the domain of preventive diplomacy. But more needs to be done, and - hypothetically, at least - can be done. The Secretary-General recognizes, in paragraphs 27 and 28, the problems of political will and the reluctance of certain States to accept United Nations assistance. We agree with the Secretary-General that the solution can only be long term, and that it depends on the necessary climate of opinion, or ethos, within the international community which would encourage Member States to accept an offer of United Nations good offices. The real question here, in our opinion, is whether such a climate or such an ethos might be expected without an effort on the part of various United Nations organs and, in particular, the General Assembly. In matters of preventive diplomacy the Secretary-General is not alone and should not be alone. In our View the entire United Nations system should be seen as a whole, and different tasks in the domain of preventive diplomacy pertain to all United Nations organs within their respective powers defined in the Charter. The Permanent Representative of New Zealand has just spoken at some length on the powers and possibilities for the Security Council in this domain. I largely share his analysis. What we would like to recall in this context is that the General Assembly, in its resolution 47/ 120 B, entitled "An Agenda for Peace" expressed its resolve to make full and effective use of powers set out in Articles 10 and 14 of the Charter, in conformity with other relevant provisions of the Charter. The General Assembly then went on to decide, in paragraph 2 of part I: "to consider the use of existing or new machinery, including subsidiary organs under Article 22 of the Charter, to facilitate consideration of any situation coming within the scope of Article 14 of the Charter, with a View to recommending measures for the peaceful adjustment of such a situation". The resolution was adopted by consensus by the General Assembly on 20 September 1993. An appropriate machinery established by the General Assembly could help the Secretary-General address any situation which it, as Article 14 says, "regardless of origin deems likely to impair the general welfare or friendly relations among nations." This may help reduce the problems of political will to tackle a situation at an early stage. The long-term processes to which the Secretary- General refers in paragraph 28 of the Supplement could thus be accelerated. In this context, I should like to make a specific proposal. Perhaps the Secretary-General could suggest consultations with the General Assembly, initially through its President, with a view to establishing the machinery called for in General Assembly resolution 47/120 B. It seems necessary to take advantage of the General Assembly and its potential and competences in this context. We have commented upon several aspects of the "Supplement to an Agenda for Peace". We are hopeful that the Supplement and the discussions it has generated will contribute to the improvement of the work of the United Nations and to the adjustment of its mechanisms to current and evolving needs.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Slovenia for his kind words addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Sri Lanka. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Rodrigo (Sri Lanka): At the outset, allow me to thank you, Mr. President, and the other members of the Security Council for the opportunity to present Sri Lanka's Views on the Supplement to the Secretary- General's "An Agenda for Peace". Sri Lanka would also like to extend its deepest condolences to the people and Government of Japan on the tragic loss of life and devastation caused by the earthquake in the region of Kobe. During your stewardship of the Council, Mr. President, we have experienced welcome advances in the process towards greater openness in the Council's work. My delegation greatly appreciates your approach. We are also grateful to the Permanent Representative of Rwanda for the efficient conduct of the Council's work during December. The Secretary-General in his introduction to the Supplement recalls the political climate surrounding the first Security Council meeting held at Heads of State level in January 1992. He describes it in paragraph 1 as "a time of hope and change". The 1990s represent, as Charles Dickens described an earlier period of change, not only "the spring of hope" but also "the winter of despair". The cold war may certainly be over, but that late and not much-lamented phenomenon was not the sole cause for the constraints placed upon the United Nations, or, as the representative of New Zealand would have it, for making the United Nations crawl. There are other maladies, particularly economic ones, which lie outside cold war complications. Since "An Agenda for Peace" was first issued in June 1992, three annual reports of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization have reviewed its basic premise. As a welcome corrective to what was primarily a political emphasis in the original Agenda for Peace, we have also seen the Secretary-General's "An Agenda for Development", exploring the nexus between political concerns and underlying economic factors. The Agenda for Development seeks to identify the multiple dimensions of development. Peace, the economy, the environment, society and democracy were all seen as essential dimensions of development. While peace was thus seen as providing the most secure context for lasting development, there has also been recognition of the reality that political conflicts have, at root, economic and social causes. "An Agenda for Development" thus extended the horizons of "An Agenda for Peace". It has served, as the Secretary-General's Supplement puts it, to advance international consensus on the crucial importance of economic and social development as the most secure basis for lasting peace. We now hope for a practical manifestation of this consensus through the effecting of a balance between peace-keeping activities and pressing socio-economic imperatives. Two years ago "An Agenda for Peace" offered a new vision to guide post-cold-war approaches to preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peace-keeping and peace-building. The Organization has come to be increasingly involved in a wide range of often controversial United Nations experimental activities relating to peace and security. Since June 1992 many of these activities have been guided by approaches outlined in the Agenda for Peace. In some situations the approaches adopted have been less successful than in others. The experiences gained, whether negative or positive, have been the subject of constant assessment by the Council and by the General Assembly, as well as by individual Member States. The Secretary-General has not been insensitive to all this, as the Supplement - a frank and thought-provoking paper - clearly shows. It is the latest, but hopefully not the last, document in what we see as an incremental exercise to improve and hone the capacity of the United Nations to more effectively and efficiently respond to threats to international peace and security. We would welcome the continuation of this process, for two reasons. First, the global tectonic rumbles which began in the late 1980s have not yet settled. Further changes will take place, not necessarily for the better. We are by no means yet on a yellow brick road leading to the end of history. Secondly, the responses of the United Nations to these developments are likely to continue counting not only successes but failures. The Organization must therefore develop essentially consensual courses of action - not to mention garnering essential resources - to respond to new eventualities. As the representative of Indonesia, speaking on behalf of the non-aligned countries, suggested, the current debate on the Supplement could thus be advanced further with the participation of all Members through some suitable mechanism. The comments made by the representative of Slovenia are relevant in this connection. The representative of Indonesia, in his statement, which we support, dealt also with many other issues of concern to my delegation. I therefore need to make only some brief supplementary comments. My delegation has in other forums stressed the importance of what we have called the "before" of peace-keeping. It is essential that the United Nations have a clear and accurate understanding of the complexities of any situation in which it contemplates involvement or intervention. Every encouragement should be given to national domestic efforts being pursued to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes before the United Nations intervenes. The United Nations should scrupulously respect the principles of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of States and should not intrude into areas which lie within their domestic jurisdiction. The Department of Political Affairs, which has been organized in the Secretariat to follow international developments, should maintain close touch with Member States so as to be alive to complexities involved in each unique situation and to ensure the accuracy and fairness of political assessments that are being made. Reluctance to seek recourse to the United Nations - which the Secretary-General notes and regrets - will be reduced only to the extent to which States develop confidence and faith in the Organization. When eventually decided in respect of a conflict situation, the peace-keeping operation should be conducive to its eventual settlement, and not confuse or confound it. When the United Nations intervenes, the objectives it seeks to fulfil must be clearly understood and embodied in coherent peace-keeping mandates which enjoy the support of the general membership of the United Nations. Resources needed to pursue and attain these objectives within realistic time frames must be anticipated, and their availability ensured, so as to permit a credible and sustainable level of effective engagement. Efficient, cost-effective management and rational utilization of these resources are vital in order to retain States' confidence in the United Nations. The consent of States, impartiality and the non-use of force, except in self-defence, are cardinal principles of peace-keeping. Finally, my delegation would like to comment on section E of chapter III of the Supplement, which relates to sanctions. We endorse the View that the purpose of sanctions is to modify and influence the behaviour of those who threaten international peace and security, and not to punish or otherwise exact retribution. All Member States are bound to comply with decisions relating to sanctions, and the imposition of sanctions therefore involves all Member States. The impact of sanctions, given the extent of global interdependence, affects more States today than ever before - some economically vulnerable States even more adversely than others. A balanced analysis is therefore necessary before the imposition of sanctions, not only to assess whether the threat to international peace and security would indeed be removed by sanctions, but also to avert the suffering of the innocent in the target State, as well as in other States. By the same token, a strong case exists for much closer and more regular scrutiny of the situation in respect of States currently under sanctions, particularly where vulnerable civilian populations are being adversely affected. The Secretariat deserves to be strengthened with additional staff and resources required to more effectively and expeditiously fulfil its functions in respect of Article 50 of the Charter. We would therefore welcome close study of the timely suggestions made by the Secretary-General in paragraph 75 of his position paper. We are grateful that the Agenda for Peace has remained open for improvement and that the Secretary-General has been responsive to the many suggestions that have been made in the two years since his original document was issued. We urge the process forward, not only in the Security Council but also in the General Assembly and in other forums, so that the decisions eventually reached, however hard, will be effectively carried out with the support and acceptance of the general membership of the Organization, on whose behalf the Council acts.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): The next speaker is the representative of Australia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Butler (Australia): It gives me great pleasure to be at this table to offer you, Mr. President, congratulations on assuming the high office that you now hold. This meeting of the Security Council is a remarkable one. It takes place at the beginning of the year in which the United Nations will mark its fiftieth year of life. It is focused on a paper by the Secretary-General which, with impressive clarity, analyses major issues revealed by, and needing to be addressed in, the period of transition - transition from the old to the new - through which we are passing. Australia is grateful to the Secretary-General and his staff for providing the Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace". We also welcome the opportunity that the Security Council has provided for the paper to be discussed in an open debate. This debate is significant because the subjects which are addressed by the Secretary-General concern all States Members of the Organization and are ones on which we must all work together if the "hard decisions" - to use the Secretary-General's words - which he rightly says need to be taken are to be taken. This debate also reflects once again the new directions the Council has embarked upon in taking account, in its working methods, of the interests of non-Member States. The Supplement identifies clearly the challenges and opportunities that the United Nations faces, following the end of the cold war and in an increasingly complex global environment. It outlines the significant action which has been taken in many areas since the Security Council Summit in 1992, and the subsequent publication of "An Agenda for Peace", to strengthen the role and functioning of the United Nations in order to enable it to respond effectively to those challenges and opportunities. These are important features of the Supplement, but in our View its chief value lies in its identification of the issues on which attention needs to be focused in the future, and the steps needed to be taken to strengthen our common capacity to deal with threats to peace and security. That capacity must be developed both intrinsically and at a fundamental level, a conceptual level. For these purposes we need action in three main fields: in economic and social development; in continuing development of all regimes of disarmament; and in major progress on reshaping, on reintegrating, the United Nations itself. With respect to economic and social development, we are required, because of the pledge in the Charter - I am talking about Article 56 - but also for human and ethical reasons to seize the opportunity of the post-cold-war period to dramatically change our collective effort in support of the world's people. But there is another reason, relevant to today's debate. As the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Gareth Evans, said at the forty-ninth session of the General Assembly, in his general debate statement, "The distinction between peace and security on the one hand and development on the other has too often been a matter for sterile and unhelpful debate, with attempts to trade off one for the other as key goals for the United Nations. Any viable modern concept of international peace, let alone peace within States, must recognize that the two are indissolubly bound up with each other: there can be no sustainable peace without development, and no development without peace." (Ofiicial Records of the General Assembly, Forty-ninth Session, Plenary Meetings, 15th meeting, p. 8) For all of these reasons, Australia welcomed the Secretary-General' s "Agenda for Development", following on, as it does, from "An Agenda for Peace". Among other very important considerations, it fully recognizes the relationship between peace and development, and it acknowledges that equitable development eradicates many of the socio-political conditions in which threats to peace breed. And it is only through such an integrated approach that we will be able to strengthen our common capacity to deal with the threats to peace and security to which the Secretary-General's paper refers. The Secretary-General's paper also gives a very welcome attention to disarmament, on all levels. As we will review the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) just three months from now, it is important to recognize what is at stake, 25 years after the entry into force of that unique agreement. The Non-Proliferation Treaty addresses a question which was not able to be addressed when the Charter was written, but one placed squarely on the agenda of history only months after San Francisco. That question is and was: will we live in a world permanently characterized by nuclear weapons? The answer given in that Treaty, by nuclear and non-nuclear weapon States alike, was "No". We must extend indefinitely the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is unthinkable that we should in any way qualify that clear answer given in 1968. And we must use the review and extension Conference to further strengthen the application, the effectiveness and the implementation of the Treaty. In his paper the Secretary-General also mentioned "micro-disarmament", to use his phrase. We strongly support him in this. The new world we are building must be freed from the destruction and waste caused by small conventional weapons. This Organization alone can forge international agreement on such measures, including measures on the clandestine arms trade, a trade which is so often associated with the major threats to peace and security of people caused by the narcotics trade and by international criminality. In the consideration of the current situation, two and a half years after the publication of "An Agenda for Peace", when the United Nations is still passing through a period of transition, it is appropriate that the Secretary-General should mention comprehensively the range of instruments which the United Nations has developed for controlling and resolving conflicts between and within States, instruments such as preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, peace- keeping, peace-building, disarmament, sanctions and peace enforcement. All of these instruments have been employed in pursuit of the objective of a stronger international security environment. All have a role and a contribution to make. But the particular instrument that I wish to highlight in my statement today is that of preventive diplomacy. We highlight it because of its extreme relevance to the roots of conflicts we are witnessing in contemporary circumstances and because it is the paradigm of a reintegrated United Nations. One of the most crucial elements in any functioning system of cooperative security is an effective capacity for preventive diplomacy. We note - and express our appreciation to him for them - the efforts the Secretary- General has made to strengthen the United Nations capacity in this field. But Australia is convinced that more can and should be done to prevent disputes escalating into armed conflict by giving increased attention to preventive diplomacy. By doing so, we will be making an invaluable commitment and contribution to creating a more peaceful and stable world. As a major means to the peaceful settlement of disputes, preventive diplomacy is both consistent with the spirit and in accordance with the letter of the Charter of the United Nations. An essential and accepted principle of preventive diplomacy is respect for the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the political independence of States. By nature, preventive diplomacy techniques, as set out in Article 33 of the Charter, are non-intrusive and non-coercive, as they require the consent of the disputing parties. This is recognized by the Secretary-General in his position paper, where he refers to the fact that "Clearly the United Nations cannot impose its preventive and peacemaking services on Member States who do not want them." (S/1991/1, para. 28) One of the strengths of preventive diplomacy is that it is all about non-military measures. It is quite distinct from preventive deployment using peace-keeping forces. In fact, the record shows that there has been limited use of preventive deployment, whereas the use of dispute settlement machinery has a long history, as illustrated by the United Nations handbook on the peaceful settlement of disputes. It is also important to remember that strengthening the United Nations role in preventive diplomacy would not entail any diversion of attention or resources from the critical task of promoting development. The figures speak for themselves: a very small proportion of United Nations resources has so far been used for preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. We also strongly believe that developing a greater ability within the United Nations system to solve disputes peacefully and avoid the costs of armed conflict is necessary as a matter of balance between the vital role of the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security - but overloaded with crises and often called upon to act at the eleventh hour - and the General Assembly, which, with the benefit of all Member States' views and with the opportunity to reflect on questions of principle and general approach, can and should contribute its views on the security role of the United Nations and what can be done to act sooner to prevent the escalation of disputes into conflict. It is also a matter of balance between the costs - financial and in terms of a tax on the credibility of the United Nations - of reliance on peace-keeping and the costs of other military options when there is enormous scope to develop negotiation, good offices and other techniques for the peaceful settlement of disputes. There is also the potential to strengthen the Secretary-General's own role in preventive diplomacy, as he mentions in his paper. Preventive diplomacy is, in short, a field rich with promise and opportunity. We must give greater attention to strengthening this key element in our common search for a more effective peace and security system. In summary, we Australians believe that we need a reintegrated United Nations, a United Nations which addresses and is competent in the relevant range of contemporary concerns in development and disarmament and with respect to threats to the security of people as well as of States. The "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace" and indeed today's debate are strong steps along that path.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Australia for his kind words addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Colombia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Garcia (Colombia) (interpretation from Spanish): On behalf of my Government, I wish to express our sorrow and convey our condolences to the Government and the people of Japan on the tragedy that has befallen their country as a result of the earthquake there this week. First of all, I must emphasize our support for the statement made yesterday by the Ambassador of Indonesia on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned States. My delegation also wishes to thank the Secretary-General for submitting his "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: position paper of the Secretary-General on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations". From an initial reading of this document we can see that, in its preparation, account was taken of some of the concerns expressed by various delegations, including that of my country, during the discussions that followed the submission of "An Agenda for Peace" in June 1992. This is particularly true of the references for many aspects of peace-keeping operations and the relationship between development and peace, and the consideration of items of the greatest importance, such as disarmament, and matters relating to the objectives, implementation and consequences of sanctions imposed under Article 41 of the Charter. As has been said, greater emphasis is now being placed on economic and social affairs as the foundations of peace. Indeed, the existence of an international consensus on the paramount importance of economic and social development as the soundest basis for lasting peace is now recognized. On this subject, we are deeply convinced that the Organization must accord priority attention to economic and social development. We agree that the fiftieth anniversary offers an opportunity for the international community to begin its preparatory work on what has been called An Agenda for Development. Chapter II of the paper, on quantitative and qualitative changes in this period of transition for the international system, contains a diagnosis that deserves serious consideration, particularly with regard to the increase and complexity of internal conflicts. In this connection, the framework for the Organization's actions must be based on the provisions of the Charter, especially paragraph 7 of Article 2. That is why my delegation agrees with the assertion made in the document that the United Nations, for eminently valid reasons, is reluctant to shoulder responsibility for maintaining law and public order and to impose new political structures or State institutions. As has been indicated, one of the subjects about which the Secretary-General's paper acknowledges the many concerns that were raised when "An Agenda for Peace" was issued is precisely peace-keeping operations. In this regard, it rightly envisages the following as basic principles: the consent of parties, impartiality, and non- use of force except in the case of self-defence. It also recognizes the need for making information more readily available and communicating and coordinating with, those countries that have contributed troops to such operations. Attention should also be drawn here to the reference in the paper to the success achieved in those operations that had been established on the basis of a negotiated agreement and designed to ensure implementation. Although it is premature to refer in depth to the analysis of the changes that have occurred in peace- keeping operations, it is none the less appropriate to stress the advisability of a broader discussion of and greater clarity about the nature of multifunctional operations. Furthermore, the formulation of the proposal for the establishment of a rapid reaction force - about which my delegation has some reservations - should be studied in depth and with the greatest caution. Despite the very relevant reference to the Charter and in particular to paragraph 7 of Article 2, the ideas expressed in the paper's Chapter III A, on preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, and in Chapter III C, on post-conflict peace-building, require further discussion and analysis. Although rather limited, the reference to nuclear disarmament in Chapter III, on instruments for peace and security, is very timely. The changes that have occurred in the international system make it even more obvious that nuclear arsenals must be eliminated. We are optimistically preparing to participate in the discussions at the Conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and we stress the importance of strict compliance with the objectives defined in article VI of that Treaty. The Secretary-General's paper pays particular attention to "micro-disarmament" within the context of existing conflicts. Without doubt, the proliferation of automatic assault weapons, anti-personnel mines and other, similar weapons is an anomaly which encourages the outbreak and deterioration of conflicts of all kinds, while obstructing the processes of peace and reconstruction. With regard to the proliferation of anti-personnel mines, we agree that the international community has been paying greater attention to this problem. Nevertheless, the measures that have been adopted are clearly insufficient. Even an effective moratorium on the production and export of these mines would still leave us with the 110 million that have already been laid. The set of proposals made by the Secretary-General on the question of sanctions merit more thorough study. We emphasize the importance that we attach to defining "clear objectives", to taking into account in advance of the lifting of sanctions the possible effects this would have on third States and the more vulnerable groups of the population, and to assessing the criteria for and the results of such a step. In the light of the experience acquired over recent years, we should give serious consideration to the Secretary-General's suggestion that instruments be established that would enable the United Nations fully to develop and implement the provisions of Article 50 of the Charter. Finally, my delegation emphasizes the appropriateness, timeliness and importance of the initiative that has made it possible for us to engage in this consideration of the paper submitted by the Secretary-General. We also wish to stress your skilful leadership of this discussion, Mr. President. We are sure that there will be broader and deeper discussions of the paper in the General Assembly and in this Council, in accordance with the Charter's mandate in such matters. To this end, we agree that a working group of the General Assembly should be established to study the Secretary- General's document.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Colombia for the kind words he addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Hungary. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Nathon (Hungary): I should like to join those speakers who have congratulated you, Sir, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for January. I wish you much success during the rest of the month. First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the Secretary-General for the important document that is before the Council today. In the position paper, he has provided us with a thoughtful and comprehensive analysis on how to improve the capacity of the United Nations to maintain peace and security. We believe that the proposals he has put forward in the present document can serve as a useful additional basis for evaluating and further developing some conceptual and practical elements of "An Agenda for Peace". No one can deny that during the last two and a half years the activities of the United Nations relating to the maintenance of peace and security have undergone significant changes. Nevertheless, most of the ideas set out in 'An Agenda for Peace' have remained relevant. At the same time, we should admit that the rapid increase in peace-keeping operations and the diversification of their mandates have resulted in an inadequate use of related principles, methods and resources as well. We must, therefore, agree with the Secretary-General that it is time to highlight certain areas of the activities of the United Nations in order to draw lessons from the experience gained. Certain developments in the nature of conflicts have further increased the importance of rapid actions. This calls for the strengthening of preventive diplomacy, including developing adequate early warning capacities, dispatching field missions, and utilizing the good offices of Governments, international or regional organizations or eminent personalities in order to get to the source of an imminent conflict and safeguard the security, well-being and human rights of the affected civilian population. Hungary, for its part, supports the Secretary-General's proposal that a climate be created within which it would be a basic rule for Member States to accept the involvement and the assistance of the United Nations in such conflicts. During the last few years the character of the peace-keeping operations has changed dramatically. The operations have become more complex and also more dangerous. It has become increasingly difficult to find sufficient troops and other personnel. The Secretary-General presents to us a set of proposals on how, in his opinion, the United Nations could get out of this "pitfall" situation. In this respect we look forward to receiving further details about his idea of a rapid reaction force. The importance of the post-conflict peace-building activity of the United Nations has grown considerably in recent years. Objectives like demilitarization, control of small arms, development of the police force and the judiciary, establishment of the rule of law, building up of democratic institutions, monitoring of human rights, and assistance for social and economic development have all become indispensable elements of this activity, in which peace-building efforts should go beyond traditional functions. Post-conflict peace-building has thus turned into a multifunctional activity in which the responsibilities of the United Nations have increased, particularly in the humanitarian and human rights fields. We welcome the progress that has been made in this regard and encourage the Secretary-General to further strengthen all aspects of this crucial activity. Cooperation between the United Nations and the regional arrangements under Chapter VIII of the Charter is on the rise. We whole-heartedly welcome this relatively new phenomenon. The various fields of collaboration between the United Nations and regional organizations are duly reflected in the document in the reference made to concrete examples of consultation, diplomatic support, operational support, co-deployment and joint operations. I would like to mention here an additional example: the participation of regional arrangements - the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Western European Union (WEU) - in enforcing sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). We think it would be appropriate for the United Nations and the regional organizations to strengthen cooperation in the fields of preventive diplomacy and regional arms control and disarmament arrangements. In our capacity as Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE we deem it extremely important that the already promising and fruitful cooperation between the two organizations develop further. Recent changes in the institutional structure of the OSCE - for example, the establishment of the post of Chairman-in-Office and the Troika - have made it possible for the OSCE to act more efficiently in its relations with other organizations. A good reflection of this development is found in the almost daily contacts between the United Nations and the OSCE. Working-level cooperation between the two secretariats should be further encouraged. For our part, we will do everything in our power to give impetus to this collaboration. In his paper the Secretary-General pays special attention to the question of sanctions. Undoubtedly, sanctions are a very blunt instrument. However, in the last couple of years, the Security Council has increasingly resorted to the imposition of sanctions in order to either modify the behaviour of a party that constitutes a threat to international peace and security, or enforce the mandatory resolutions of the Council. Since sanctions do not involve the use of force, they are the last 'peaceful' means among the instruments for peace and security at the disposal of the international community to enforce its will. The imposition of sanctions inevitably affects the economic interests of neighbouring countries of the targeted State. An important element for consideration could be the involvement of such countries in the negotiating process of the Security Council before the actual imposition of sanctions. However, under the relevant provisions of the Charter, mandatory sanctions imposed by the Security Council represent internationally binding obligations for all States, which are duty bound to implement them. Article 25 of the Charter remains a cornerstone of the United Nations. Therefore, those who, for one reason or another, call into question their obligations relating to the implementation of sanctions, undermine the very existence of the world Organization.

The President (interpretation from Spanish ): I thank the representative of Hungary for the kind words he addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Ireland. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Hayes (Ireland): It is a great pleasure for my delegation to see you, Sir, presiding over the Security Council. Our confident expectations that your performance of the duties of this high office will be marked by wisdom and effectiveness have already been fully justified, and we wish you continued success for the rest of your month in office. We particularly appreciate your efforts to continue the improvements in the transparency of the work of the Security Council. We would also like to thank the representative of Rwanda for the effective conduct of the Security Council's business last month. Permit me also to express to Japan our heartfelt sympathy over the disastrous earthquake which has struck that country and which has caused so many casualties and brought so much suffering on its people. It is our wish that the efforts of the Government to alleviate the plight of those suffering will meet with significant and early success. I welcome this opportunity to give a response to the Secretary-General's important and, in View of the United Nations fiftieth anniversary this year, timely report, which has been published as a supplement to "An Agenda for Peace". At the outset, I wish to thank him for having taken the initiative in giving us his analysis of the many changes that have occurred since June 1992 and for the valuable recommendations which he makes. The Secretary-General' s analysis and proposals are all the more valuable since they are clearly based on the experience acquired during the past few years, and in particular the lessons to be derived from operations such as those in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. As measures designed to strengthen the role of the United Nations in the area of preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping, the Secretary-General's proposals merit careful study and, in general, evoke the support of my Government. The comments I wish to make should be seen in the context of the statement made by the Ambassador of France on behalf of the European Union, which we, of course, fully endorse. In View of the importance of the issues at the heart of this debate and the public interest and concern they arouse, my Government wishes to make some supplementary observations. Our first comment, a general one, is that the ground covered in this report, as indeed in "An Agenda for Peace", impinges on the peace role of the United Nations system as a whole, including, in particular, not only the Security Council but also the General Assembly and the Secretary- General himself. The manner in which United Nations operations in the field have qualitatively changed in recent years and, in particular, have had to take on a multifaceted approach in order to deal with the many complex problems arising from preventive diplomacy, peace-keeping and peace-building mandates, appropriately forms one of the major themes of the Secretary-General's report. My Government has welcomed the development of this multifaceted approach to the conduct of the United Nations responsibilities in this general area. We would like to see this approach further developed in the future through, in particular, ensuring that a human rights dimension is clearly provided for in humanitarian and peace-keeping operations and is included in further mandates, as appropriate. The Secretary-General in his report quite rightly highlights the increasing number of conflicts around the world today that are within States rather than between States. These conflicts are often of the most barbaric and cruel kind, with large numbers of innocent civilians as their principal victims. The role that can be played by the United Nations to end these conflicts is both complex and delicate, and cannot easily be performed without the help of regional organizations. We fully support the importance the Secretary-General attributes to the role that regional organizations can play in preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping. In this regard, we fully subscribe to the principles which he has proposed should underlie the relationship between the United Nations and regional organizations in this area. The way in which preventive diplomacy can be used to pre-empt conflicts and defuse them at an early stage is well known and has been successful on many occasions. However, as the Secretary-General has himself pointed out, too often the offer of assistance from the United Nations is rejected or comes too late. There is also the problem of ensuring that all information on or evidence of growing instability or a potential crisis is expeditiously brought to the attention of the competent organs, and that appropriate action is quickly taken. For example, ample information on the deterioration of the situation in Rwanda was available within the United Nations system in advance of the crisis, but did not lead to timely preventive action. We need to examine such problems carefully and as a matter of urgency in order to improve the manner in which the preventive diplomacy efforts of the United Nations are undertaken. In this regard also, I should like to recall a proposal put forward by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland, Mr. Dick Spring, in his address to the forty-ninth regular session of the General Assembly. In that address, he called for the establishment of a mediation body to which the Security Council or the General Assembly could refer difficult issues. Such a body would, of course, act in close consultation with the Secretary-General and would be made up of personnel skilled in mediation. In our View, such a body could quickly acquire an expertise and authority that would enhance the peacemaking capacity of the United Nations. My Government has noted with great interest the Secretary-General's comments regarding the difficulties involved in the establishment and financing of small field missions for preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. We believe firmly that the financing of such important missions needs to be put on as assured a basis as possible and therefore would urge that favourable consideration be given by the appropriate bodies of the General Assembly to the specific proposals which the Secretary-General has made in this regard. In this respect, we submit that a positive and creative approach to a more proactive role for the United Nations in preventing and defusing conflicts is called for. Success in such a role not only would prevent much human suffering, but would have the additional advantages of strengthening the United Nations capacity for maintaining peace and of reducing the need for costly peace-keeping missions. Again, a case in point is Rwanda, where early preventive diplomacy could have avoided much bloodshed and also averted a belated and more costly international operation. The principal - indeed, one might say quintessential - instrument employed by the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security throughout the first half century of its history has been peace-keeping. My Government fully subscribes to the view articulated by the Secretary-General in his report that recent experience has confirmed that respect for certain basic principles of peace-keeping, such as impartiality, consent of the parties and non-use of force except in self-defence, are absolutely essential if peace-keeping mandates are to be implemented effectively. We equally endorse his View that classic peace-keeping must be clearly seen as distinct from peace enforcement at all times, and the latter should never be seen as logically deriving from the former. The importance in United Nations peace-keeping of ensuring strict adherence to the principle of unity of command is a concept which my Government has always recognized and supported, and we therefore endorse the Secretary-General' s comments on this important matter. We have also noted his comments generally on the subject of command and control and, in particular, his concerns regarding micro-management of peace-keeping operations by the Security Council. We understand his concerns on this point. My Government has consistently held the view that effective communication of information between troop- contributing countries, the Security Council and the Secretary-General is absolutely essential in order to ensure adequate public confidence in, and understanding of, the United Nations and its role in the areas of peacemaking and peace-keeping. We have therefore warmly welcomed the recent efforts made to improve consultation procedures in this regard, and we feel sure that these and any further efforts to develop them can also contribute to improvement of the overall command and control structures. As regards the issue of availability of troops and equipment, my Government has taken note with interest of the Secretary-General's proposal regarding establishment of a rapid reaction force, and it believes that, as outlined in the statement of the European Union, this proposal merits further examination in all its aspects and in conjunction with the ongoing efforts to develop the system of stand-by arrangements. In his report the Secretary-General has quite rightly pointed out that the measures available for use in pursuit of post-conflict peace-building can equally be applied in support of preventive-diplomacy activities. He has drawn attention, however, to the difficulties which may exist in triggering international recognition for the application of such measures in a situation of potential conflict where there is as yet no United Nations peacemaking or peace-keeping mandate. In this regard, we support his comments on the effective early-warning role which agencies and programmes of the United Nations system can play in alerting the Secretary-General to potential disputes. I also wish to reiterate my Government's belief that the Economic and Social Council can, and should be encouraged to, play an important role in ensuring that information on economic and social conditions likely to result in a threat to international peace and security is quickly brought to the attention of the Organization and, in particular, the Security Council. In a wider context, we fully share the views put forward by other speakers in this debate on the importance and relevance of the "Agenda for Development" in addressing the economic and social circumstances which so often trigger and, indeed, fuel conflicts. My Government has noted with satisfaction the pertinent comments of the Secretary-General on the question of what he has termed "micro-disarmament". The proliferation of small arms and light weapons, in its own way, needs to be as much a cause of concern for the international community as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. There can be no doubt about the need to stem and control the flow of small arms. It was for this reason that my Foreign Minister once again proposed on behalf of my Government in September last that the United Nations should elaborate a code of conduct for conventional arms transfers. This proposal for a code, which would set out common principles to be observed in this area, was subsequently developed as a European Union initiative during the recent session of the General Assembly. It is still our belief that such a code of conduct remains necessary and would help to bring about the progress in conventional-arms control which the Secretary-General has called for in his report. The Secretary-General's report recalls that the Charter authorizes the Security Council to impose sanctions for the purpose not of punishing a State but of securing modification of State behaviour which is threatening international peace and security. Drawing on the experience of cases where sanctions have been imposed, the Secretary-General accurately describes them as a blunt instrument. He adverts to aspects of their application which should be considered before their imposition, such as clear establishment both of the aims they are intended to achieve and of objective criteria for their termination. He also identifies several undesirable side effects that may result from their application, including severe impact on third States and exacerbation of humanitarian problems. He suggests two headings under which action to alleviate such effects might be taken: first, facilitating the work of humanitarian agencies in situations where sanctions are imposed and, secondly, responding to the expectations raised by Article 50 of the Charter in regard to third States which are particularly adversely affected economically by sanctions. These are extremely important considerations, not least in the context of the status of and support for Security Council decisions to impose sanctions. We believe that the Secretary-General's proposal, in paragraphs 75 and 76, to set up a Secretariat mechanism and give it investigatory tasks regarding the effect of sanctions is useful, and that its potential should be carefully examined by Member States. It is, or should be, well understood by now that the whole capacity of the United Nations to engage in peacemaking and peace-keeping activities is hostage to the willingness of Member States to observe their obligations to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time. My Government fully endorses the pertinent comments of the Secretary-General on this matter, in particular his comments in paragraph 97 of his report. We look forward to solid progress being achieved in 1995 to improve the overall financial situation of the Organization so as to enable all United Nations activities, including those in the area of peacemaking and peace-keeping, to be conducted on a more secure financial basis. In conclusion, my Government shares the View of the Secretary-General that, in taking stock of all that the United Nations has achieved in the area of peacemaking and peace-keeping during the first half-century of its existence, there is no reason for undue pessimism. As he aptly points out, much has been achieved, taking into account the fact that it is only in the past few years that the United Nations has really been in a position to act in the manner which was originally intended. Problems still remain to be resolved but they can be overcome provided the United Nations and its Member States demonstrate a willingness both to learn from recent experiences and to build on the Organization's successes. Progress will also require new attitudes and new thinking, and in this regard we echo the Secretary-General's views on the timeliness of a demonstration on the part of all Member States of a deeper commitment to the goals of international cooperation and true multilateralism.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Ireland for the kind words he addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Romania. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Gorita (Romania) (interpretation from French): Allow me first of all, Sir, to express to you our congratulations on your accession to the presidency of the Security Council for January. Under your competent direction the Council has already carried out substantial work. I should also like to congratulate your predecessor, the Permanent Representative of Rwanda, on his performance as President of the Council for December. This discussion of the Secretary-General's report "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace" has given rise to a whole series of activities, exchanges of View and possible recommendations, decisions and measures in connection with the long-term prospects for the United Nations in the light of the fiftieth anniversary of the world Organization. The quantitative and qualitative developments in the world with regard to stability and security which are referred to in chapter II of the report evoke analyses and possible conclusions, both conceptual and practical. Preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, peace- keeping, peace-building and peace enforcement - designated by the Secretary-General as instruments of peace and security - have become standard terminology for collective efforts to achieve international peace and security. Developing those instruments is only logical given the state of affairs. The wide participation in this discussion and the preceding statements have demonstrated the importance attached to the subject and the readiness of Member States to contribute to the dialogue in this context. We fully share the view presented here by Ambassador Merimee on behalf of the European Union. I propose now to set forth some of our views on, in particular, such salient topics such as peace-keeping operations and sanctions. Instruments such as preventive diplomacy and peacemaking have a dominant political component. It seems to us very important that this political component maintain its central place, even in those instances where efforts at prevention have not succeeded and resort to other peace- keeping instruments has become necessary. Experience has shown the importance of the political component during the mandate of a peace-keeping operation. From this point of View, material resources and personnel must be well calibrated. Conceptually, this implies the beneficial coexistence of the peace-keeping efforts, the functioning of the operations begun to that end, and the pursuit of sustained political action for the settlement of disputes and conflicts and the full restoration of peace. We have studied with special attention the detailed analysis in the Supplement to An Agenda for Peace of United Nations peace-keeping operations. We find arguments there for the need for the international community to adopt a new attitude towards this increasingly complex dynamic field. Romania has fully supported in the last five years the realistic and innovative ideas put before the Security Council and the General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies. The document presented by the Secretary-General is a laudable effort to make conceptual clarifications and to find the means to bridge the gap which continues to exist between the concrete operational capacity of the United Nations and the ambitious goals pursued. In my delegation's View, the increase in United Nations responsibility requires not only a clear determination by Member States to use already existing means but also the exploration of new means. To be sure, all the possible options have to be in keeping with the spirit of the Charter and must respect the criteria and the principles of time-tested United Nations operations. The opinions expressed regarding command and control, dialogue between permanent members of the Security Council, the Secretariat and the troop- contributing countries, and a coherent approach to the tasks entrusted to United Nations missions offer additional elements for future developments. Romania is prepared to make its contribution to the conceptual debate and is also prepared to participate effectively in the field. The increasingly frequent resort to sanctions regimes as an instrument of security raises problems related to their impact and their unintended effects. In the report which is the subject of our debate, emphasis is placed on the legitimacy and the importance of sharing the costs of sanctions, so that they are not borne solely by a limited number of States that have the misfortune of being neighbours or principal economic partners of the State subjected to sanctions. We must find the necessary ways and modalities to bring about, in the case of sanctions, the kind of solidarity that exists in the sharing of other costs resulting from United Nations peace-keeping and peacemaking operations. Ensuring that the political impact of sanctions is maximized while minimizing the collateral unintended damage seems to us a particularly relevant idea in this context. We consider that the suggestions put forward by the Secretary-General in paragraphs 75 and 76 of his report deserve the full attention of the Security Council and of the United Nations in general. The Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace" rightly emphasizes the relevance - the increasingly decisive relevance - of coordination and effective interaction between the United Nations and regional organizations to ensure international stability and security. For Romania, as for other countries in the central and eastern European region, the hopes for real stability and security are essentially linked to integration into the political, security and economic structures of the European-Atlantic community - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union and the Western European Union. The establishment of a strategy calling for a supple and coherent approach in relationships of partnership between NATO, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations, where each has its own responsibilities, powers and ways of operating, is of Vital importance to the entire matter of Euro-Atlantic security, with beneficial effects for the entire collective security system based on the United Nations Charter. I should like, before concluding, to make two more comments. It is necessary to emphasize the importance of placing arms control and disarmament in the context of international stability and security. We pay tribute especially to the attention that the Secretary-General has given in his report to micro-disarmament. Full respect for arms embargo regimes is particularly relevant in this context. In our opinion, one remarkable merit of the Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace" is the frank and realistic presentation of a special section on problems that arise with regard to enforcement action against those responsible for threats to the peace, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): The next speaker is the representative of Latvia. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Baumanis (Latvia): I should like, first, on behalf of my Government, to offer heartfelt condolences to Japan and its people and Government, and especially to the people of Kobe - the sister city to my capital city of Riga - for the human suffering and material losses caused by the earthquake three days ago. Allow me, Sir, to congratulate you warmly on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of January. Your wide experience and diplomatic talent make me confident that the work of the Council will show excellent progress under your leadership. My deep appreciation also goes to your predecessor, Ambassador Bakuramutsa of Rwanda, for his capable leadership of the Council last month. I am deeply grateful to the Secretary-General for his Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace". This report contains a very useful summary of lessons taught by the successes and failures of this Organization in promoting the maintenance of peace and security during the first years of the post-cold-war age. It brings to our attention some problems that need hard decisions by the Member States. Last, but not least, it is written in a plain and forthright style that aids comprehension and emphasizes the gravity of the subject. The following is a response to selected proposals of the Secretary-General and to some subjects he has addressed in his report. Latvia welcomes the Secretary-General's proposal, in paragraph 44 of document S/1995/1, for a rapid reaction force that can be deployed when there is an emergency need for peace-keeping troops. Latvia and its Baltic neighbours - Estonia and Lithuania - have demonstrated the importance they attach to peace-keeping through the establishment of a joint peace-keeping force called the BALTBAT - the Baltic Battalion. This battalion is currently being trained and equipped. Latvia is grateful to all those countries that have offered and will offer, to assist us with training and the supply of equipment. Subject to legislation of the three Baltic States and agreement at the United Nations, the BALTBAT could become a part of the rapid reaction force. The Secretary-General, in paragraphs 63 to 65 of his report, has brought to the attention of Member States the large role that light weapons, especially small arms, play in the deaths and injuries that result from current conflicts. Latvia agrees with the Secretary-General that it is time to begin looking for effective solutions to the problems posed by small arms. Latvia favours a comprehensive and long-range solution to this problem. Without going into technical details of the solution, I can say that it appears to have three major steps. The first step is to gather information on the nature and extent of the problem and then analyse the information, including a comparison of the present effects of small arms and weapons of mass destruction. The information thus gathered and analysed would be disseminated to Member States and to the public at large. In the second step the quantities of small arms available in conflicts would be minimized by various means, such as United Nations control, buy-outs and/or confiscation, followed by destruction, and actions to diminish the volume of intra-regional and inter-regional transfers of small arms. In the last, and ultimately most important, step, actions would be taken to diminish the volume of the production of small arms. A weapon not produced is a weapon that can never kill or cause injury. In regard to sanctions - discussed by the Secretary- General in paragraphs 66 to 76 of his report - Latvia wishes to make the following points. Sanctions, especially embargoes on goods other than weapons, are a blunt and infrequently effective instrument which can hurt not only aggressor Governments but innocent people and victims and third countries as well. This means that they are an instrument to be applied but rarely and with a clear understanding of its potential impacts. Sanctions need to respect the right to self-defence guaranteed by Article 51 of the Charter, and they must include effective means to respond to the claims of third countries under Article 50. In regard to enforcement action - discussed by the Secretary-General in paragraphs 77 to 80 of his report - Latvia wishes to emphasize its belief that such action needs to be clearly separated from peace-keeping actions, in respect of both the authorities responsible for managing the actions and the forces engaged in them. The fundamental reason for the separation is that successful peace-keeping and successful enforcement are opposites, in three important respects: the former, unlike the latter, must have the consent of all parties to the conflict; it must be impartial; and it must not use force, except in self-defence. In regard to these points, it is only fair to point out that Latvia is a party to a bilateral agreement that provides a role for the Security Council in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter. With respect to financial resources for the maintenance of peace and security, the Secretary-General states in paragraph 97 of his report: "The failure of Member States to pay their assessed contributions for activities they themselves have voted into being makes it impossible to carry out those activities to the standard expected." (S/1995/1, para. 97) Latvia wishes to make two observations in regard to that statement. First, the table on page 4 of the Secretary- General's report shows a dramatic increase in United Nations activities related to peace and security during the last eight years, including a budget for peace-keeping operations that has increased approximately sixteen-fold over this period. Secondly, the important elements of the methodology of assessing peace-keeping contributions, in particular the scheme of limits and the division of Member States into four groups for assessment purposes, were decided prior to this dramatic increase and may not be suitable to the present situation. An inevitable consequence of the aforementioned points is the fact that over half of the outstanding contributions to the peace-keeping budget at the end of December 1994 was owed by 32 Member States. These are the Member States that suffer from excessive assessment rates due to distortions from the application of the scheme of limits, and in addition have generally poor economies. We note that Member States did not explicitly vote a specific large increase in the total peace-keeping budget, nor did they explicitly vote excessive peace-keeping contributions for the 32 Member States. Most if not all Member States did not anticipate, and could not have anticipated, the present situation, because it is an indirect consequence of many decisions both by the 15 members of the Security Council and by the General Assembly, taken without explicit consideration of cumulative long- term effects. The time has come to carry out a comprehensive study of the decision-making process for peace-keeping operations with a view to improving, inter alia, control over the total peace-keeping budget and over the apportionment of peace-keeping contributions to Member States.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Latvia for his kind words addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Bulgaria. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Pashovski (Bulgaria): Allow me at the outset to congratulate Ambassador Cardenas of Argentina on his assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for this month and to wish him success in his activities. I would like also to express our appreciation to last month's President, Ambassador Bakuramutsa of Rwanda. Let me take this opportunity to express our high esteem for the delegations of all the members of the Council whose term expired at the end of last year. I would like also to congratulate the new members, which have already started performing their important responsibilities with commitment and dedication. This debate is being held at an important time in the life of the United Nations. We are on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the Organization. In this regard, the report of the Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, presented as a supplement to "An Agenda for Peace", is a timely and very useful document. We welcome the ideas and proposals put forward in it. They will, without doubt, serve as a necessary impetus to the consideration of the problems the Organization is facing today. For the past several years, we have no longer been living in a world marked by the characteristics of the cold war. The new realities have brought with them the need for new approaches by the international community and the United Nations as its universal representative body. The report entitled "An Agenda for Peace" was a truly innovative and constructive document. It played the role of a catalyst for reform of the Organization, adapting it more adequately to its new mission and arming it with a whole array of instruments for conflict prevention, crisis management and peace-building. As we gain more and more experience in coping with the existing threats to peace and security, it is becoming increasingly evident that the trend towards expanding the involvement of the United Nations in preventive diplomacy and crisis management should be encouraged. Bulgaria has traditionally acknowledged and supported the better use of the instruments for prevention of conflicts and crises, and we welcome the substantive progress made in that sphere. Therefore, we share the prevailing opinion that conflict prevention and peace-keeping should be given priority over peace enforcement after conflicts have already broken out. At the same time, we are concerned at the problems that the Organization is facing in this area, some of which have been outlined by the Secretary-General in his paper. Further efforts should be exerted by the whole membership to overcome these impediments to the capacity of the United Nations to prevent and forestall conflict. A major component of the Organization's efforts in conflict resolution is the growing involvement of the United Nations in peace-keeping throughout the world. Peace- keeping operations nowadays are more complex, dangerous and expensive than they were in the past. Special attention should be given to such pressing issues as enhancing the Organization's institutional framework in the area of peace- keeping, improving the planning process, searching for ways and means to solve the financial problems related to peace-keeping operations, and ensuring greater safety and security for peace-keepers - which is an imperative need. Significant progress has been made in these spheres. We support the development of the system of so-called stand-by arrangements. Bulgaria has already committed national resources for use in United Nations peace- keeping operations. My Government is in the process of defining further possibilities for wider participation in United Nations peace-keeping operations, including through contributing military, police and civilian personnel. We share the growing concern over the existing problems in the financial aspects of peace-keeping. Therefore, we join those who call for redoubling the efforts to find answers to these questions. In this respect, more attention should be given to the necessity to ensure the financial basis of new peace-keeping operations before they are established. We find it very encouraging that there is an increasing awareness of the paramount importance of the issue of training in peace-keeping. It is clear that training is essentially the responsibility of national Governments. Nevertheless, we believe that there is a great potential, and indeed a need, for cooperation and assistance among Member States in this field. The United Nations Secretariat - the Department of Peace-keeping Operations in particular - also has a role to play. As for Bulgaria, we would welcome assistance from it for the establishment and operation of a national peace-keeping training centre for military, police and civilian specialists. The Secretary-General has rightly pointed out the significance of adhering to a set of basic principles in the peace-keeping activities of the United Nations. Traditional rules and guidelines in this respect should continue to be upheld and reinforced. At the same time, new experiences prompt the need for innovative approaches, which should also be studied. My country has repeatedly championed the improvement of consultation and coordination mechanisms for a more active involvement of Member States in the process of decision-making on peace-keeping operations, especially at its earlier stages. In this respect, we welcome the significant progress reflected in the Security Council statement of 4 November 1994. We would be glad to see this process continue with a view to introducing further necessary measures. While on the topic of the comprehensive array of preventive and enforcement measures to solve conflicts, let me recall that Bulgaria attaches extreme importance to the issues related to devising an overall mechanism for the implementation of Article 50 of the United Nations Charter. We uphold the position that such a mechanism should guarantee equitable sharing of the economic burden by the whole international community. The Republic of Bulgaria observes the decisions of the Security Council in good faith and to this effect has undertaken internal measures for strict implementation of the Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions. As a result of the application of the sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Iraq and Libya, my country is suffering serious economic difficulties and enormous financial losses. To cite a specific example in this regard, suffice it to point out that Bulgaria's losses as a consequence of the sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) alone amounted to $6.139 billion as of 30 September 1994. Our special situation in this respect has contributed to the heightened concern and sensitivity of the Bulgarian people to the so-called collateral or side effects of sanctions as an instrument of crisis management. It is therefore with justified interest and appreciation that we have considered the Secretary-General's ideas outlined in his report. Indeed, the need for consultations with States that are not members of the Council but are directly concerned is most strongly felt when economic sanctions and other similar preventive and enforcement measures are considered. We note the steps taken in this direction during the past year as well as the proposals of the Secretary-General for further action. We cannot help but recognize, though, that there is still a lot to be desired with regard to addressing the existing problems in an adequate manner. We, too, uphold the position that an institutionalized mechanism should be set up to provide a realistic possibility of offsetting the unfavourable effects of sanctions on third States and compensating them for their losses. This mechanism should involve the advance assessment of potential negative effects on their economies and the definition of ways and means for dealing with such unfavourable effects. Along with the United Nations Secretariat, the international financial institutions and other components of the United Nations system should assume greater responsibility. Judging from our previous experience in this regard, it would be realistic to expect that the process of elaborating and putting into effect such a mechanism would take some time. Therefore, taking into account the fact that the problems of affected countries persist and are worsening, we deem it appropriate that the Security Council should in the meantime focus more actively on exploring ways of assisting them on a case-by-case basis. My country expects that the Security Council will address the need to render concrete assistance to Bulgaria in this regard. The Republic of Bulgaria believes that the States which are potentially most affected should by all means be consulted regarding the implementation of economic measures taken in pursuance of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. It is our view that greater transparency in the work of the Security Council in its decision-making on sanctions-related issues will have great importance for increasing the effectiveness of the measures taken. At the same time, we deem it necessary to bring about a real improvement in the efficiency of the work of the sanctions committees. We hope that our proposals of 22 June and 15 December 1994 will meet with favourable consideration. The budgetary and personnel difficulties experienced by the United Nations Secretariat with regard to the services provided to these committees should also be speedily resolved. This is of concern not only to us but to other Member States as well. The cooperation of the United Nations with regional organizations is an essential element of the evolving new international system of security and stability. Some very promising avenues for joint activities have already been revealed. My delegation is of the opinion that the meeting of regional organizations convened by the Secretary- General in New York on 1 August 1994 provided an ample opportunity better to understand and address the problems and challenges facing the international community today. As a European country, Bulgaria attaches particular significance to the coordination of efforts between the United Nations and the European and trans-Atlantic arrangements and security structures, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Western European Union. In conclusion, I would like to underscore once again our appreciation of the dedication of the Secretary- General to the overall reform and adaptation of the Organization to the new challenges of our time. In this connection, allow me to reaffirm our commitment to this process as well.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Bulgaria for his kind words addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of the Libyan Arab J amahiriya. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement. Mr. Muntasser (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (interpretation from Arabic): At the outset, my delegation extends to you, Sir, its warm congratulations on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for this month. We are convinced that you will accomplish this task with the greatest competence. My delegation also wishes to express its gratitude to Ambassador Manzi Bakuramutsa, the Permanent Representative of Rwanda, for his leadership of the Council last month. I take this opportunity, on behalf of my country, to congratulate the new members of the Security Council: Botswana, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia and Italy. The representative of Indonesia spoke yesterday on behalf of the member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement. My delegation fully endorses his statement and wishes to add the following comments. During the forty-seventh session of the General Assembly my delegation welcomed "An Agenda for Peace", drawn up by the Secretary-General. Today, in discussing the "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace" (S/l995/1), my delegation wishes to thank the Secretary- General for his preparation of this important document, which we welcome as a further contribution to strengthening United Nations efforts to overcome negative factors and devise new approaches towards creating a world in which security and stability prevail, on foundations established by all States, foundations of equality and mutual respect. Desirous of working for the maintenance of international peace and security, the Secretary-General has put forward some new ideas and proposals for strengthening the role of the United Nations in this respect. He has raised some very important issues. My delegation would like to express its view on some of these issues. It must be recognized that there has been an increase in the number of peace-keeping operations undertaken by the United Nations. This is a result of an international imbalance, and it is that imbalance that should be stressed rather than the efforts to solve armed conflicts as such. We must deal with the underlying causes of this imbalance, whether political, economic or social. It must be noted that the United Nations has scored some limited successes with its peace-keeping operations. But we must ensure more successes for these operations through the international support that is so essential and through the formulation of a clear mandate for each operation. The Secretary-General has stated his views on the ways to meet actual and potential challenges. He has emphasized that the United Nations is in the best position to take a global, long-term approach in order to achieve lasting settlements of conflicts. My delegation supports his position on this, and we believe that the practical application of his approach requires that the United Nations discharge its functions under the Charter more appropriately. Moreover, certain great Powers must be prevented from exploiting the failures that have occurred in this sphere to resort to such unilateral methods as direct military intervention, as happened in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda, which casts doubt on the real motives of such actions. The Secretary-General has raised a number of points in the sphere of disarmament. My delegation shares his concern at the tremendous arms traffic and also at the existence of various types of mines. We support his appeal to all Member States to accord the highest priority to this question. With regard to the other matters dealt with by the Secretary-General in this connection, we believe that the international community must focus its efforts more on nuclear weapons since they constitute the greatest danger to international peace and security. The most important requirement is the elimination of these weapons and indeed all weapons of mass destruction. Their manufacture, acquisition and use must be prohibited. We must also face the fact that one country is trying to acquire the largest possible number of nuclear weapons. My country has drawn attention to this fact in an official document, distributed by the United Nations under the symbol S/l994/l386. My delegation also associates itself with the Secretary-General's desire to see the 1995 Conference of States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons crowned with success. My delegation emphasizes that the objective of the Conference must be the extension of that Treaty. This objective is linked to some other questions that must be dealt with - in the first place, the questions of providing credible security safeguards for non-nuclear countries and guaranteeing global adherence to the non-proliferation Treaty. My country attaches the greatest importance to this matter because the region in which we are situated suffers from a disequilibrium in the security sphere because Israel possesses nuclear weapons and refuses to accede to the non-proliferation Treaty and to subject its nuclear installations to International Atomic Energy Agency's control and safeguards. The Supplement to An Agenda for Peace deals very frankly and objectively with a large number of issues. The fact is that the Libyan Arab J amahiriya has repeatedly drawn attention to a number of those issues. My delegation does not intend to repeat what we have already said on this subject, but we wish to comment on two questions that are important to us. First, we believe that the Secretary-General is entirely correct when he refers to the difficulties caused by the vagueness of the purposes of certain Security Council resolutions. We are raising this matter because my country has had practical experience with it. We have taken practical steps; we have accepted a number of initiatives; we have displayed a great deal of flexibility. We reacted positively to the clear demands contained in Security Council resolution 731 (1992). Some non-governmental organizations and a number of countries, including some members of the Security Council, have recognized that a sufficient number of measures have been taken to justify the lifting of sanctions. But certain countries members of the Security Council have refused to recognize this and, invoking their own interpretation of the resolution, persist in refusing to lift or even alleviate some of the sanctions imposed under resolutions 748 (1992) and 883 (1993). This policy has gone so far that my country is convinced that the purpose of the sanctions is simply to inflict the greatest possible damage on the Libyan people. We have pointed out in many forums, including this Council, the magnitude of the wrong that has been done to us. We have set forth the facts in official documents, the latest having been distributed under the symbol S/ 1994/921. I need only cite here, as an example of the damage caused by the sanctions, the crash of a Libyan civil aircraft in 1992, when 157 persons were killed - a crash resulting from the ban on providing Libya with spare parts for its aircraft. Moreover, 1,622 people have been killed in road accidents, and 350 people - most of them children, women and handicapped persons - have died because they could not be sent abroad for treatment. Great economic damage has also been caused by these sanctions. The figure has been estimated to be more than $4.5 billion. This shows the real purpose of the sanctions imposed on Libya. It should be noted that the position of one country has made it impossible to send sick persons abroad for treatment. My delegation shares the Secretary-General's View that sanctions are incompatible with the achievement of development objectives. If the letter and the spirit of the Charter are observed, the situation will necessarily worsen if sanctions take the form of vengeance-seeking and punishment, particularly when it is absolutely clear that the purpose of the sanctions is to serve certain political interests, to the detriment of the Libyan people, who have committed no act endangering international peace and security. The proposals for peaceful solutions have been turned down by the countries that insisted that these sanctions be imposed. Why were they in such a hurry to invoke Chapter VII of the Charter - and in a way incompatible with international norms and rules? My country has asked that account be taken of international norms and rules, and we have called upon the organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council, to try to convince the other parties to adhere to the principles of justice and serve the interests of all parties. In conclusion, this discussion has made it possible for us to state our views in general terms. In due course, we will spell out our position on the other proposals contained in the "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace". We support the suggestion made by the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement that the General Assembly set up an open-ended working group to study this Supplement in more detail and to submit its comments and its recommendations. The President (interpretation from Spanish): The next speaker is the representative of Sierra Leone. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Bangura (Sierra Leone): Mr. President, my delegation is happy to see you, a worthy son of fraternal Argentina, directing the Security Council's deliberations during this first month of 1995. We are confident that the Council's work will benefit immensely from your proven diplomatic skill and ability. May I also extend, through you, our appreciation to your predecessor, Ambassador Bakuramutsa, Permanent Representative of Rwanda, for the efficient manner in which he conducted the Council's business last month. In a similar vein, my delegation takes this opportunity to welcome the new members of the Security Council while expressing our confidence in the contribution they will make to the work of the Council, to the benefit of this Organization's membership. It is my sad duty to convey, through you, Mr. President, the deepest condolences of the Government and people of the Republic of Sierra Leone to the Government and people of Japan on the untold destruction and human suffering brought upon them by the catastrophic earthquake that struck their country last Tuesday. We express our wishes for their speedy healing and recovery. My delegation appreciates this opportunity to share its thoughts with members of the Security Council on the position paper submitted by the Secretary-General as a supplement to "An Agenda for Peace". Suffice it to say that we are in agreement with the views so eloquently expressed by the Permanent Representative of Indonesia, speaking on behalf of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement. This paper, as would be expected, raises a range of interesting issues, some of which, given their complexity, will require from Member States a careful and detailed study from which a consensus approach could be forged. This being the case, my remarks today will be of a preliminary nature and confined to three areas explored by the Secretary-General: sanctions, preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, and post-conflict peace-building. Few of us would question the efficacy of sanctions imposed by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter as a means of dealing with situations that pose a threat to international peace and security. Similarly, there is no disagreement that the provisions of Article 41 impose an obligation on Member States to comply with such a sanctions regime. However, the unintended consequences of sanctions, as demonstrated by recent experience, call for an in-depth examination of their application. We believe that the overall objective of any sanctions regime should not be one that would be compromised by the emergence of long- term factors that were not planned for. Of importance is the need to guard against creating in the target State conditions that lead to a hostile attitude being fomented and exploited in the general population against the international community. This can easily set in when vulnerable groups are exposed to unrelenting hardship for which no remedy has been put in place. The Secretary-General's observation on this issue is quite pertinent: that a systemic approach should be considered in place of the current ad hoc arrangement. My delegation understands from this that what the Security Council would be called upon to take into account would be much more thorough planning, into which would go such elements as the objectives of the particular sanctions regime; a way of determining when these had been achieved; making provisions for humanitarian assistance to cushion the impact on vulnerable groups within the target State; and bringing the sanctions to an end when the original conditions requiring their imposition had been met. A corollary, and no less important, is the need for the Security Council to now give serious thought to putting in place a mechanism to alleviate the adverse economic consequences of sanctions on third States. My delegation has consistently maintained that the provisions of Article 50 carry with them an expectation that goes beyond mere consultation with the Council - namely, that of a remedy. It stands to reason that measures designed to restore international peace and security, which, by their nature, are a collective responsibility of the United Nations, should be formulated within a dynamic framework whereby the commitment of individual Member States would not be undercut by the jeopardizing, in the long run, of their own economic well- being. We note with satisfaction, therefore, the Secretary- General's suggestion for the establishment of a mechanism that would take a comprehensive View of the impact on the target State, the potential effects on third States, and how best the objective of the sanctions could be achieved to the maximum advantage of the international community. We are hopeful that, given the overwhelming opinion in favour of such a mechanism, the Security Council will give timely consideration to the modalities for its establishment. On the issue of preventive diplomacy and peacemaking, we recognize the difficulties inherent in encouraging greater involvement by the Secretary-General through the use of good offices in conflict situations, thus creating a climate of good will in which possible solutions can be found. We could not agree more that a new ethos needs to be developed within the international community that would lead to a gradual shedding of the reluctance that Member States now have to acquiesce to the offer of preventive and peacemaking services by the United Nations, be it in inter-State or internal conflict situations. My delegation believes that making such an ethos a reality requires of each of us the realization that we stand to expend fewer resources, both human and material, in accepting United Nations efforts than in securing costly military victories. Indeed, this truism underlies my delegation's proposal already before the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization. But, beyond this, caught as my country is in the throes of an internal situation which, as the international community knows, has its origins in the Liberian civil war, we, as a nation, have taken the step of requesting the assistance of the Organization, through the good offices of the Secretary- General, to bring peace to our country. Our love of peace and our concern for the security and prosperity of our nation are greater than the false perceptions which an inviolable State sovereignty may dictate. It is in this context also that my Government is actively considering the various options open to it, not the least of which is the presence of a small field mission of the type referred to in paragraph 31 of the Secretary- General's position paper. We will continue to work closely with the Secretary-General on this matter so that in due course we can draw upon the accumulated experience and expertise of the Organization to bring peace to our country. Let me now turn to the issue of post-conflict peace- building, which is of particular concern to us also, in the light of our own present situation. Undoubtedly, the restoration of peace can be greatly enhanced by the rebuilding of structures and institutions devastated by conflict. Building trust among the different factions, pursuing aggressive disarmament timetables, reintegrating former combatants into the civilian sector and crafting long- term political and socio-economic programmes are all activities that will guarantee durable peace at both the national and regional levels. Bringing this about should therefore be seen as a common venture and a responsibility to be shared by the State or States concerned and the United Nations, in the interest of safeguarding international peace and security. This should be seen as an investment that the concerned parties and the international community must make to forestall a relapse and encourage prospects for long-term peace and stability. Even in this, prudence and opportunity-cost can dictate no other choice. What I have attempted to show is that the problems that the Organization and its Members have had to confront since the end of the cold war are not isolated elements in our world picture. They are interconnected in ways some of us may be unwilling to admit. They are as much a legacy of a past era as they are an opportunity to forge new linkages for the future. Thus, as we move forward in the coming months to consider these issues that the Secretary-General has raised, we should not forget that the pillars for peace and security which we must construct in this period of transition must rest equally on political and economic foundations. I can only conclude by echoing the Secretary-General's statement that the face of conflict in our time requires of us a deeper commitment to cooperation and genuine multilateralism than we have achieved before. It is therefore auspicious that we have recently embarked on fashioning "An Agenda for Development", which, it goes without saying, could establish a new ethos of multilateralism leading to global peace and security. We are convinced that, together, the Agenda for Peace and the Agenda for Development provide us with the keys to reaching that goal.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Sierra Leone for the kind words he addressed to me. The next speaker is the representative of Norway. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Biarn Lian (Norway): Allow me first to congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of January. I am convinced that the skill you display in the performance of your duties will enable the Council to deal with the important matters before it in a businesslike and expeditious manner. Norway joins others in welcoming the Secretary- General's position paper at the opening of the United Nations fiftieth anniversary year. The Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace" is an important and valuable contribution to the ongoing process of strengthening the United Nations activities in the field of peace and security. The Secretary-General has concisely drawn our attention to the most urgent issues facing the United Nations, drawing on the experience gained since his report "An Agenda for Peace" was issued in June 1992. I would like, as others have done, to comment in a preliminary manner on some of the issues that are of particular importance to my authorities. We believe preventive diplomacy and peacemaking are challenging tasks in which the United Nations is well placed to play an important role through a variety of instruments, such as mediation, conflict resolution and the Secretary-General's good offices. We should all do our utmost to allow future United Nations activities for peace and security increasingly to be focused on efforts that can solve problems before they are allowed to deepen into crisis or conflict. At a time when a multitude of demands are being put on the Organization and resources are scarce, focused preventive action will be the most efficient way in which the United Nations can seek to meet tomorrow's challenges to collective security. Effective preventive action requires early action. Our experience is that international assistance can preserve peace, save lives and protect human rights and democracy if it reaches vulnerable communities in time. We have too often been passive observers of unique opportunities being lost, because we, as individual nations or as United Nations Members, did not mobilize resources in time. Too often our response mechanisms have proved to be inadequate for the early needs of embattled democracies, peace initiatives or disaster-prone and vulnerable communities. Norway has tried to meet these challenges by establishing the Norwegian Emergency Preparedness System and the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights. At the request of United Nations agencies, newborn democracies and parties to armed conflicts, more than 500 relief workers, human rights advisers and peace mediators and observers were dispatched last year to more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. These stand-by arrangements have made it possible for us to play an active role as facilitator in relation to four separate peace processes: in the Middle East, in Guatemala, in the former Yugoslavia and, most recently, in Sri Lanka. In all of these peace efforts, our role is either supportive of, complementary to or preparatory for, the United Nations. As pointed out by the Secretary-General, solutions need to be found to the practical problems of finding persons with the necessary qualifications and seniority to act as special representative or special envoy of the Secretary-General, and of providing the resources needed for establishing small field missions for preventive diplomacy and peacemaking. In this connection, I would like to point to the instrument of preventive deployment. The deployment of forces with a clear preventive mandate was for the first time initiated in The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with a joint Nordic force. So far this operation must be described as successful and it therefore, we feel, stands out as an example to be followed in other potential conflict areas. The first main obstacle to a strategy of preventive deployment is the lack of resources. Secondly, and perhaps most important, the formal authorities in conflict- prone countries often resist United Nations or other international involvement. The Secretary-General, therefore, underscores that we must create a climate of opinion in which the norm would be for Member States to accept an offer of United Nations good offices or for themselves to invite such an offer from the United Nations. Similar attitudes should be promoted amongst Member States with regard to preventive deployment. The concept of peace-keeping operations should be further developed to meet the new challenges. Norway has been and still is a staunch supporter of United Nations peace-keeping operations. We have contributed to a large number of them and have been active in the development of their concepts - the creation of training manuals and the establishment of stand-by forces. In particular, the strengthening of United Nations command and control capabilities has been a concern of ours for a long time. Suffice it to mention the Nordic initiative at the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly and the informal working group on command and control that was set up under the chairmanship of Norway, also as a follow-up to the informal Ottawa meeting on peace- keeping operations. The Secretary-General has now issued a separate report regarding this issue which we will have the opportunity to discuss in further detail in the Special Committee on Peace-keeping Operations later this spring. Let me just emphasize the importance we attach to clear lines of command and a common understanding of operational control. We see the principle of unity of command as a prerequisite for a successful peace-keeping operation. Norway fully shares the Secretary-General's concern that a peace-keeping operation should not be asked to use force when its existing composition, armament, logistics support and deployment deny it the capacity to do so. The viability of the operation and the danger to the personnel must be the main priorities. We furthermore support the Secretary-General's call that before the Security Council takes a decision on a new or expanded peace-keeping operation the United Nations should be assured that the necessary personnel and equipment will be forthcoming. In this connection, Norway welcomes the improvement we have witnessed in the procedures for consultations between troop-contributing countries, members of the Security Council and the Secretary-General. We firmly believe that an enhanced dialogue with the Security Council and increased transparency in these matters will be of crucial importance for maintaining broad political support for United Nations peace-keeping operations in the Member States. The consultations with troop-contributing countries should be structured, focused on areas of particular concern and take place on a regular basis as well as when extensions and/or modifications of existing mandates are being considered. The Security Council should, whenever possible, consult with potential troop-contributing countries also before a decision is taken by the Security Council to launch a new peace-keeping operation. The new tasks of the United Nations peace-keeping operations are manifold. What is now needed is consideration of new proposals in relation to the new tasks of peace-keeping operations. The Secretary-General's forward-looking ideas regarding a rapid reaction force, a reserve stock of standard peace-keeping equipment, and partnerships between Governments that need equipment and those Governments ready to provide it all merit further study and deliberation. These proposals are intended to respond to present and future requirements that can already now be foreseen, and therefore deserve our full attention. We share many of the Secretary-General's comments in the area of post-conflict peace building. The transition from a peace-keeping operation to longer-term humanitarian and development efforts needs careful management, and the question of coordination and responsibility needs to be closely considered in each individual case. With regard to the issue of anti-personnel mines, my delegation believes that we are off to a good start, thanks to initiatives by the European Union and the United States, both of which were firmly supported by my Government. We will continue to be actively engaged in these issues and in follow-up activities. Sanctions will continue to be an important instrument in United Nations efforts to foster peace and security. The Security Council should, in connection with the imposition and use of sanctions, assess the consequences of sanctions on third countries and explore ways of assisting third countries that are adversely affected by sanctions. In fact, similar proposals were presented by the Nordic countries in their document "Shaping the peace: the United Nations in the 1990s", which was circulated in October 1991. It is important that the instrument of sanctions not be weakened in any way. The Secretary-General voices his concern regarding the consequences of using force, other than for self- defence, in a peace-keeping context. While we agree with those who point out that the use of coercive measures cannot be ruled out, we feel that the issue of the use of force or peace enforcement should be approached with caution. Recent experience shows that it is difficult to foresee the full consequences of peace enforcement operations. Few crises lend themselves readily to this type of approach, and many countries tend to be reluctant to put their soldiers under United Nations command for operations that are perceived as risky or uncertain. The limited resources of the United Nations impede peace- enforcement actions. In the cases where the Security Council mandates such actions, they may have to be delegated to Member States or other arrangements which have the necessary capacity to implement them. The issue of coordination is crucial, be it within the Secretariat, between the various United Nations agencies and bodies or between Headquarters and the field, and also in Governments' positions in various bodies. The objective must be to solve the tasks at the right level and by the relevant organs in close cooperation. We believe that more work is required in order to improve the practical coordination of all aspects of a comprehensive peace-keeping operation, including humanitarian efforts, particularly in the field. Here again, the role of the special representative of the Secretary-General, the role of the force commander and the chain of command need to be absolutely clear. In conclusion, I should like to point to the critical financial situation of the United Nations with respect to peace-keeping. The resources of the United Nations are stretched to the limit, as are those of many troop- contributing countries. The United Nations is faced with a serious financial situation, which is adversely affecting peace-keeping operations. These problems need urgently to be solved on a permanent basis. As the Secretary-General himself has said, the ability of the United Nations to perform the tasks for which it was created is in peril, and this is no longer simply a financial question but an urgent political question. Norway fully agrees with this analysis and fully supports the introduction of the financial incentives, sanctions and reforms that the Secretary-General has suggested, as a political measure to meet the threats we perceive to the Organization. In our View, reforms are necessary to maintain and renew multilateralism.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): The next speaker is the representative of Egypt. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Elaraby (Egypt): Allow me, at the outset, to express our condolences and to convey a message of sympathy and support to the delegation of Japan and to the Japanese people following the tragic earthquake. Once more, Mr. President, I should like to express the appreciation of the delegation of Egypt for your very able leadership of the Council. The timing of our discussion today under your presidency is no coincidence. Not long ago we met in this Chamber to express our support for a joint proposal, initiated by Argentina and New Zealand, on strengthening the arrangements for consultations between troop-contributing countries, members of the Security Council and the Secretary-General. We are confident that the Security Council, under your wise leadership, will give the important subject under discussion today the consideration it deserves. We listened to the Ambassador of Indonesia speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement. We fully support the views expressed in his statement, and I should like to add some comments that the Egyptian Government wants to put on record. I should like to start by welcoming the timely introduction of the Supplement to "An Agenda for Peace". The Secretary-General was indeed able to capture the attention of the entire international community by highlighting problem areas where the United Nations is encountering difficulties in fulfilling the mandate entrusted to it and where Member States are called upon to make "hard decisions". More than two years after the submission of "An Agenda for Peace", one has to recognize the fundamental changes in the international environment and their bearing on the performance and efficacy of the United Nations. The Secretary-General has reminded us - and rightly so - that we are still in a time of transition after the end of the cold war. There are, however, justifiable doubts that "the new spirit of commonality that had emerged, of which the 1992 Summit was a clear manifestation" (S/J995/1, para. 2) is still prevailing. When measured against the determination and unity of the international community demonstrated during the last war in the Gulf, the lack of international resolve to deter and repel aggression in places like Bosnia can only reinforce these doubts. The issue of prevention has emerged in recent years as one of the essential tools of international diplomacy in confronting potential or existing conflict situations. Added importance and value are given to preventive action if we bear in mind the limited resources of the international community working through the United Nations and its various organs or through regional arrangements or agencies, whether intergovernmental or non- governmental. My delegation therefore agrees with the Secretary- General's assertion that only sustained efforts to resolve underlying socio-economic, cultural and humanitarian problems can place an achieved peace on a durable foundation. It is evidently better to prevent conflicts through early warning, quiet diplomacy and the active engagement of the United Nations than to have to undertake major politico-military efforts to resolve them after they have broken out. The Secretary-General has made several suggestions to enhance United Nations capability in the field of prevention. We should embark on an in-depth examination of the feasibility of implementing his proposals. The role of regional organizations and arrangements, in accordance with Chapter VIII of the Charter, could be crucial to the success of preventive diplomacy measures. The United Nations is called upon to help regional efforts to develop preventive mechanisms for regional conflicts. In this context, the Government of Egypt has decided to establish in Cairo a training centre for conflict resolution and peace-keeping in Africa. We are confident that this newly established centre will receive substantial assistance from the United Nations and countries with long experience in peace-keeping training. The nature of peace-keeping has evolved rapidly and expanded beyond the traditional peace-keeping and military observation missions. The Secretary-General reaffirms in his report that the last few years have confirmed that respect for certain basic principles of peace-keeping is essential to its success. His analysis of recent successes and failures shows that in all the successes the principles to which he referred were respected, and that in most of the less successful operations one or other of them was not. Some existing peace-keeping operations were given additional mandates that required the use of force and therefore could not be combined with existing mandates requiring the consent of the parties, impartiality and the non-use of force. Unfortunately, these operations were mandated with such expanded missions when their existing composition, armament, logistic support and deployment denied them the necessary capacity. The logic of peace-keeping flows from political and military premises that are quite distinct from those of enforcement. When the Council authorizes an operation under Chapter VII of the Charter it should be clear in everyone's mind that we are departing from traditional peace-keeping, which is based on the consent of the parties. The report has accurately cited the difficulties facing enforcement by the United Nations or by a group of Member States entrusted by the Security Council to implement such actions. When adopting enforcement measures the Council should strictly follow the Charter's provisions under Chapter VII. Expanding the definition of what may constitute a threat to international peace and security, and consequently justify enforcement measures, could have a negative impact on the Organization's stature and on its credibility. The same is true when the political will to enforce peace is missing while an abusive aggression is being witnessed by the whole world. The Secretary-General' s report contains very ambitious plans to make troops and equipment available to mandated peace-keeping operations. What the Secretary-General calls a rapid reaction force may be a far-reaching proposal inspired by the idea of a United Nations army. In our View, any such arrangements should, however, be set up according to the Charter's provisions and following wide consultations. While we support the principle of the unity of command and the necessity for a peace-keeping operation to function as an integrated whole, it is equally important to consult with the troop-contributing countries. Such consultations should be undertaken in accordance with the spirit of the provisions of Article 44 of the Charter by institutionalizing the consultations with troop-contributing countries as an integral part of the decision-making process on any peace-keeping operation. The debate that preceded the adoption of the Security Council presidential statement on strengthening the arrangements for consultations is a good indication of how strongly Member States feel about this issue. At the Security Council summit meeting in 1992, the Council underscored the interest in and concern for disarmament, arms control and non-proliferation, with special reference to weapons of mass destruction, the most devastating of which are the nuclear weapons. The Secretary-General, however, was not able to report any tangible achievements in the field of nuclear non- proliferation and nuclear disarmament, an issue which has enjoyed unanimous international support and the highest priority since the adoption of the Final Document of the first special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament, held in 1978. Regrettably, some States continue to decline to adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which is due for review and extension this year. Egypt has repeatedly advocated the universality of the NPT - the only way to guarantee its viability and its credibility in the future. We therefore call on all parties, especially the five permanent members of the Security Council, to spare no effort to attain this goal, thereby strengthening international as well as regional security and facilitating the possibilities of extending the NPT. The Secretary-General has referred in his report to the possible ramifications of sanctions. He has rightly emphasized the need to examine this important issue, which directly affects other countries neighbouring the targeted country - if one can call a country a targeted country - and, in particular, the vulnerable sectors of the population of these countries. He has suggested that a mechanism be established for assessing, monitoring and measuring the effects of sanctions, that ways be explored of assisting Member States that are suffering collateral damage, and that the sanctions be lifted as soon as they have achieved their intended purposes. We welcome the Secretary-General's suggestions in this regard. Egypt has long called for the full implementation of Article 50 of the Charter. We strongly believe that the responsibility of the Security Council does not stop at imposing sanctions. The Council should have prior consultations with countries that may be affected by the sanctions and must be able to review and assess the desired political impact of the sanctions and to minimize their collateral damage. We believe that the General Assembly should address this issue and consider adopting appropriate measures to alleviate the negative effects that have afflicted many countries. In conclusion, we share the Secretary-General's call for fresh thinking, for striving together and creating new ways to overcome crises. The world that emerged after the end the cold war may still be in transition. The new age, however, holds great promise for both peace and development and we should exert every effort to fulfil that promise.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): I thank the representative of Egypt for his kind words addressed to me. The final speaker is the representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I invite him to take a place at the Council table and to make his statement.

Mr. Misic (Bosnia and Herzegovina): Let me begin by expressing, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, our most sincere condolences to the Government of Japan and to the families of the victims of the earthquake that struck Kobe. We are confident, though, that with resolve and perseverance the people of Japan will overcome the tragedy that has befallen them. It is indeed reassuring to see Ambassador Cardenas at the helm of this ship, and we are confident that he will guide it with skill and diligence. Allow me at the outset to express our appreciation to the Secretary-General for his ongoing efforts and study concerning the ways to strengthen international peace and security, as expressed in his "Agenda for Peace" and its supplement. The original "Agenda for Peace" was one of several appropriate channels through which this Organization began to address the post-cold-war challenges. It offered some enlightening analyses and many ideas that can benefit the pursuits of the United Nations. The "Supplement to An Agenda for Peace" is no less valuable a document in its acknowledgment that the international community continues to be in transition, and that at this moment there can be no absolute theories or methods. The situation in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the first challenges encountered by the international community and this Organization, and it remains a challenge. Barely three months after the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina had started, the Secretary-General delivered "An Agenda for Peace", emphasizing the objective of achieving "a United Nations capable of maintaining international peace and security, of securing justice and human rights and of promoting, in the words of the Charter, 'social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom'." (S/24II], para. 3) Since then, the United Nations has been through both success and failure, and has been given numerous lessons which, as the Secretary-General rightly states in paragraph 6 of the Supplement, we must learn if we are to attain the objectives of the Charter. It is in this context of first hand experience that we will make our statement today. First and foremost, we would like to fully associate ourselves with paragraph 16 of the Supplement. We are indeed of the view that the personnel of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), particularly those outside the top command circles, have performed with great courage, commitment and bravery under incredibly harsh and frustrating circumstances. As for chapter II of the Supplement, "Quantitative and Qualitative Changes," we concur with the finding that most post-cold-war conflicts are of an intra-State nature, "though some of them, especially in the former Yugoslavia, have some inter-State dimensions also". (S/Z995/J, para. 11) The Bosnian experience has provided one of the most clear-cut examples of the Supplement's finding that "civilians are the main victims and often the main targets" (ibid., para. 12) of such conflicts. The Supplement also rightly points out - and our situation offers an example - that humanitarian endeavours are hampered. "because the relief of a particular population is contrary to the war aims of one or other of the parties". (ibid., para. 18) That is why today the Karadzic Serbs continue to block Sarajevo's blue route, and why they do not allow wood shipments to the city. As was confirmed Tuesday by United Nations spokesman Chris Janowski, "They just want to keep people cold and miserable". The temperature in Sarajevo yesterday was minus 20 degrees Celsius; today it is even lower. The creation of the Department of Political Affairs and its ability to "follow political developments worldwide" (ibid., para. 26) are most welcome and, if it does this with diligence, it can greatly reduce the number of conflicts and the burden of the Department of Peace-Keeping. Regional organizations like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and others, can contribute to the success of the Department by regularly providing it with information, while the Organization as a whole must improve its credibility so that individual Member States will be more forthcoming in providing as well as asking for necessary assistance. We would concur with the assessment of the Supplement that the resolution of conflicts "requires patient diplomacy and the establishment of a political process that permits, over a period of time, the building of confidence and negotiated solutions to long-standing differences". (S/1995/1, para. 36) But it would be careless to accept such an assessment on absolute terms. Our case has demonstrated that political processes can be used as a cover for prolonging aggression. As for the time required, it must not be indefinite, and those involved in negotiations must, if necessary, be ready to swallow their pride, admit failure and pursue action that may be dramatically different to the failed process. Furthermore, those who are mediating must have an understanding of the background; they must understand exactly who the parties to a conflict are and their motives for fighting. Are their motives consistent with the Charter? What policies have they pursued? To what extent are they legitimate or illegitimate? These and other questions must be answered before one can decide whether or not impartiality should be applied. The finding in chapter III, section A, "Preventive diplomacy and peacemaking", that impartiality is essential to peace-keeping operations, is at least deserving of scrutiny and in no way deserves to be treated as an absolute. The United Nations must be careful as to what it judges to be a peace-keeping operation and the assumptions under which it will decide to work. It is widely agreed that all conflicts have their peculiar characteristics, which the United Nations has often found itself to be ignorant of, thus pursuing an approach that has little impact on the conflict - or even a negative impact. As for the application of impartiality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it has very often served to undermine Security Council mandates, especially with respect to the protection of safe areas and the delivery of humanitarian aid. In a situation such as that in Bosnia, where mandates have been pronounced in reaction to "ethnic cleansing" and siege, impartiality is incompatible with the fulfilment of the safe area and aid delivery mandates, especially when, as pronounced by the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Abuses in the Former Yugoslavia, "ethnic cleansing" and siege are practised as policy by the Serbian forces. This has led to a gross inconsistency in the pursuance of agreed policies and measures necessary for the implementation of Council mandates. In total disregard of the situation on the ground, a zealousness in diminishing the range and spirit of mandates has come to characterize the policy of some involved in UNPROFOR's chain of command. Impartiality cannot lead to progress if it means accepting the blocking of humanitarian convoys and of the delivery of fuel and other aid, in order to benefit the aims of conquest and siege, being resigned to entire units of UNPROFOR being taken hostage and informing those who have shelled hospitals in safe areas when and where the "cosmetic" or "proportionate" airstrike against an offending tank will take place. It is absolutely unacceptable that Security Council mandates are perverted to benefit those whose only international persona is that of international pariah and who reject peace in favour of a war inspired by an appetite for the territory and resources of a sovereign Member State as well as by xenophobic hatred. The Secretary-General's assessment that none of the instruments available to maintain international peace and security can be used unless adequate resources are made available is one which I believe every Member State can agree with. But there is also the question of how finances made available are being spent. It is widely acknowledged, for example, that UNPROFOR in Zagreb has an excess of Land Rovers, regularly seen on the streets of the city. This money could have gone to a better end, such as defensive equipment for Bangladeshi peace-keepers in Bihac. As with any administrative organ, spending errors do take place and need to be corrected. There have been too many instances in Bosnia alone, not to mention other peace-keeping or peacemaking missions, that necessitate an in-depth study as to how to ensure that individuals entrusted with mandates by this Organization do not deviate from them or from the principles of the Charter, standard ethical behaviour and common sense. For examples of such poor behaviour, we could go back as far as mid-summer 1992, yet we need only go back to this past Monday, when it was reported and confirmed that the Commander of UNPROFOR in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was ready to hand over flight plans of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the Karadzic Serbs. This action would directly threaten NATO pilots, reduce the NATO alliance to a bargaining chip and further set back what security mechanisms there are for the populations of the safe areas and the peace-keepers. The folly of this action is even more glaring when one considers the following excerpt from "An Agenda for Peace": "The fault [for unresolved conflicts] lies first in the lack of political will to seek a solution and second, in the lack of leverage at the disposal of a third party". (S/24111, para. 34) Despite the fact that in Bosnia only the Karadzic Serbs, in their rejection of the Contact Group peace plan, can be associated with the first fault, it was considered to neutralize further what little leverage - namely, NATO - was at the disposal of the UNPROFOR Commander in Bosnia. Bosnia has seen numerous cases of abuse by what is most probably only a small group of individuals. These cases include: Neglect for fact in an effort to equate legal Governments and criminal gangs, as evidenced by a 76-page report entitled "Who's Who of Former Yugoslavia", put out in June 1994 by the Department of United Nations Military Information in Zagreb, which was later admitted by United Nations officials to be factually marred. Suppression of fact in order to exonerate and protect those who have violated a safe area, as was the case in Gorazde, and to exonerate and protect those who have violated both safe area and international border, the so-called Knin Serbs. Disregard for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a Member State and a Security Council mandate, as was done by the Co-Chairmen of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia in their approval of illicit fuel shipments to the so-called Croatian Serbs, in violation of resolution 820 (1993). Failure to report and act on crimes against humanity, as was the case in mid-summer 1992, when UNPROFOR reports confirming the existence of concentration camps, where tens of thousands of men, women and children had been starved, tortured, raped and murdered, had been kept confidential. All of these actions in and of themselves warrant a serious inquiry into the individuals responsible for them. As they are only examples of a greater pattern, it is high time to create and develop mechanisms for accountability. This issue of accountability is as critical to the functioning of the United Nations as the issue of finances, because without accountability there is no credibility, without which the United Nations cannot function. My last point is that important bases for the development of policy and the formulation of important decisions and their successful implementation include a proper understanding of events, calling things by their proper names and ensuring the speedy provision of timely and exact information. This has been rightly emphasized by many speakers, particularly eloquently by the Ambassador of Ireland and, yesterday, by the representative of the United Kingdom. Regrettably, however, we have far too often witnessed the manipulation of information in various ways, including the suppression of accurate information, while unverified - or very difficult to verify - information is supplied. In this fashion, dealing with such individuals, who are certainly easily recognizable, it will be impossible rationally to resolve international crises or to enhance the credibility of the United Nations. It will also be difficult to pursue the new world order, which should promote peace and prosperity for all countries. It is certainly a success that this planet Earth has remained in its orbit, despite all that has been done to it in this century. and we recognize that this Organization deserves a great deal of credit for this success. But we must be courageous, face the truth and acknowledge that this world could be in a healthier and more fortunate phase had greater responsibility been exercised, had principles been abided by, and had there been greater respect for the existing norms and principles upon which this Organization is based. which should be defended rather than arbitrarily interpreted by various bodies or individuals. It is our sincere hope and belief that this debate and the many contributions made to it by Member States will revitalize the Organization's approach to strengthening intemational peace and security in the future.

The President (interpretation from Spanish): There are no further speakers inscribed on my list. The Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its consideration of the item on the agenda. The meeting rose at 2.20 pm.