Jerry John Rawlings 1998

Collective security and a selective Security Council

President Rawlings warned the General Assembly that internal conflicts posed severe threats to the security of states and regions, and that the tardiness and selectivity of the international community's response had been deeply disturbing.

The United Nations Charter gives the Security Council "primary responsibility" for international peace and security and calls for "prompt and effective" action. He asked where that action had been when Rwanda was on fire, when Liberia was in turmoil and when the people of Sierra Leone suffered under a brutal dictatorship. Faced with this reluctance, Africa had been forced to rely on its own meagre resources and on subregional efforts, such as ECOWAS and its ECOMOG force, to contain conflict and restore order.

Human rights and global inequality

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the President said women's rights must be at the core of the Declaration, and urged member states to stay committed to promoting and protecting human rights worldwide. He set out the scale of deprivation:

• 12 million children under five died each year from preventable diseases.
• 200 million children under five were undernourished.
• 110 million children were denied primary education.
• 800 million people lacked access to basic health care.
• 1.3 billion people lived in abject poverty.

An inequitable economic order and the debt burden

This deprivation persisted, he said, because of an unfair international economic system that discriminated against developing countries, and Africa in particular. Crippling external debt and debt-service payments drained capital from development, starved health and education of funds, and left countries unable to compete in global markets. Sustainable growth, he argued, was impossible without fairness in relations between North and South. Of the wealthy nations' response, he said:

"Instead, we received sermons on the truths, realities and moralities of life and countries and peoples were victimized if they were shown not to have lived up to expectations."

Sanctions and unilateral measures

The President said the international atmosphere was poisoned by unilateral economic, trade and financial sanctions, some with extraterritorial reach. Such measures had undermined Cuba's socio-economic progress, and a peaceful, negotiated settlement between the United States and Cuba would benefit the whole international community. He expressed concern over the Security Council sanctions on Libya, and urged the Council and the Secretary-General to persist in their efforts on Western Sahara.

Ghana's peacekeeping record and the UN's finances

Rawlings reaffirmed Ghana's commitment to the United Nations. Ghana was then the fourth-largest contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping, with personnel in eight missions across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He was alarmed by the Organization's financial crisis, its depleted reserves and the large arrears owed by member states. Those arrears, he warned, put the United Nations at risk just when reform was most needed; support for the Organization had to be shown not in pious proclamations but in prompt payment of Charter obligations.