Sam Kutesa's media address in New York

Sep 22, 2014

We are looking at revitalizing the UN as a whole. We are going to review its efficiency and effectiveness.

Immediately after opening the 69th Session of the General Assembly on September 16 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kahamba Kutesa, now the President of the United Nations General Assembly addressed the international media on several issues. SEBIDDE KIRYOWA attended and captured the proceedings.

Q. South African Broadcasting Corporation: You mentioned the security reforms in the United Nations. What have you identified as some of the bottlenecks of the inter-governmental negotiations?

Answer: There are different views from different groups in the United Nations regarding reforms in the Security Council. A lot of work has been going on. It may not appear as spectacular as we would all have wanted it but some progress has been made.

But my view is that I need to take it a step further. I want to come out with a negotiated text based on issues to be tackled. That is the come out I am seeking.

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Mathew Lee (Intercity Press): Right after you were elected, I asked you about how you would specifically handle the issue of the war in South Sudan. At the time things were looking better (in South Sudan) than they are now.

You said that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD - an eight-country trade bloc in Eastern Africa) was involved. How does this relate to what you said about the Security Council working with regional organisations?

Do you feel there has been sufficient interplay between the UN, IGAD and the African Union on this issue and how can you use your presidency of the General Assembly to bring about a greater collaboration in resolving conflicts?

Answer: When you interviewed me in June, I was optimistic that some progress would be made quickly. Unfortunately, that has not happened. But IGAD remains on top of the issues in Southern Sudan.

It had a Summit Meeting a week ago in Addis Abba and a decision was made that if the two (warring) parties in South Sudan cease fire and begin negotiations, the region would intervene. We will impose sanctions and also take necessary action to ensure that they comply with what they have agreed upon.

So, I think that the UN is working, IGAD is working and now more pressure has been put on both parties in South Sudan to ensure that they implement the cessation of hostilities agreement.

Mathew Carpenter (Japanese press): You said you want to build consensus and multi-literalism in the UN. But with the crises going on in the world right now, it is clear those are the things specially lacking in the world. How big a challenge, do you think it will be for you to build multi-literalism in the UN and how do you intend to achieve this?

Answer: It is true that there are a lot of conflicts going on in the world but I am delighted to see that there is an attempt by the actors to try and build coalitions rather than acting unilaterally. I have heard that US President, Barack Obama intends to seek the UN Security Council resolution to enable him forge a coalition in the Middle East against ISIS. It is now beginning to return to what it was.

Unilateralism has always caused more problems; but when you act with the UN and the backing of the international community, you will always attain greater success. I think we should be able to return to this and this is what I am going to try and bring about in this (69th) session

George Palm Garden, international correspondent for various International newspapers: You come from a continent where conflicts seem to be springing up from everywhere. As Foreign Minister in Uganda for some years, I am sure you have been involved in some of the mediations. Do you think there are lessons from yours, your country and continent’s experience that you think you can bring to bear during your incumbency as president of the General Assembly?

Yes I think so. But let me also tackle this from another point of view. I think that the continent of Africa is more peace now than it was in the 1960s and the 1970s. We have more democratic governments all over the continent. It is true that conflicts continue to come up and that indeed the UN Security Council deals more with conflicts in Africa than anywhere else at the moment.

Our experience is that when we have worked with regional organisations and the international community has not imposed a solution but worked with these regional organisations, we have had better successes.

A good example is Burundi; with the greatest respect that I have for the (former US president) Jimmy Carter Centre, at the beginning it was suggested that the Carter Center mediate the conflict that was in Burundi. The late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere joked that at the time that it would take Jimmy Carter five years to learn how to pronounce Kirundi names.

True to his assertion, when he (Nyerere) and subsequently the late Nelson Mandela and my own president (Yoweri Museveni) took over, the conflict in Burundi has been resolved. This is basically because the regional organisations have more intimate knowledge of the causes of these conflicts. That is the first lesson.

The second lesson is that we should reduce the gap between conflict resolution and peace-building.

When you get into a conflict and you do not make an effort to show the dividends of peace, the possibility of relapsing into conflicts is very high.

Normally my experience is that peace-building and conflict resolution should be pursued concurrently. These are some of the lessons I have learnt. That is why I am talking about strengthening the relationship between the UN and regional organisations. If I can bring this ideology to the UN within my one year window of opportunity, we will be better positioned to solve the conflicts in Africa and the world.

Carol Este (Global Research): There is a great deal of talk about inequality both within nations and globally; both inter and intra. It is predicted that the situation is going to get much worse which will most likely increase conflict. This is an unsustainable situation. To what extent will you be addressing this directly?

The post-2015 development agenda has a number of tenets in it; 1. The agenda must be transformative.2. It has been to be all-inclusive. That is what you are taking about; that there’s a lot of inequity – sometimes between nations and regions, or within nations. But I will push for development and growth that seeks to have inclusive particularly for women and youth.

We keep saying that the future belongs to the youth; if indeed it does, then let us start to involve them now in the dialogue about their future. Women are half of the world’s population (and they produce the other half) so we cannot ignore them in development planning.

I will push for inclusion both at the point of conceiving and implementing the development agenda. That is how we shall reduce the inequality between and among societies.

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Canada Free Press: I wonder to what exact you are going to focus on managerial reforms within the United Nations Secretariat and other parts of the UN. There have been proposals of streamlining operations and avoiding duplication of roles with in the UN. There are overlaps. Related to that, do you have any plans to streamline the budget process to make it more orderly rather than a last minute scurrying around to reach consensus?

To start with the last part of your question, I am a very fortunate man because my predecessor (outgoing president of the UN Assembly John Ashe), dealt with the budget issues. You see they are bi-annual so he solved that problem for me for the last year.

But, that does not mean that we should not address the issue of the budget coming at the tail end of the session.

We are looking at revitalizing the UN as a whole. We are going to review its efficiency and effectiveness.

We already have a resolution to revitalize the UN. We are putting together a team of UN Ambassadors who are going to make proposals.

I am going to put more emphasis on its systems. I do not think I will have time to review all the administration issues particularly of the Secretariat but let me deal with UN Assembly first; to ensure that it performs effectively and efficiently then we can set up the group to review the operations of the secretariat.

Shawna McGhee (Kyota News): This is about UN reforms. You said you wanted to put a text on the table what concrete text do you have in doing what and what will be your first order of business. Secondly, what do you feel the highlight of the General Assembly next week will be? There will be many events. How do you think they will differ from what is going on at the Security Council discussions on Ebola and ISIS?

Well, next week we have the indigenous people’s conference. Then the Summit at which 140 Heads of state (include US President Barrack Obama and my own president) have indicated they are coming.

The session will give special attention to climate change to give it the impetus. I think this will feed in well with the meetings in Peru and Paris at the end of the year.

We also have a conference on population by the UN here.

How are these different from the Security Council? The latter largely talks about peace and security but the others are talking population and how to manage it in our respective societies; climate change and its effects etc. These are different areas of society.

About Ebola; I am glad that the Secretary General has taken up this matter very seriously.

Other countries have also joined in the coalition to try and assist the people there.

I saw on the news that the United States has sent about 3,000 medical volunteers to go and help.

The biggest challenge has been training those who can handle the patients. I think there is a greater realization about how to deal with Ebola now.

So, I am personally happy that this issue is being pushed and the secretary general has taken keen interest.

Shawna McGhee (Kyota News): About the UN reforms? How do you intend to go about those?

As you know, there are a number of groups at the UN. There are the P5s – the members of the Security Council; then there is another group called the G4. Then you have the African countries. Then there is a group called L69.

My first step will be to talk to these groups and see what it is that divides them with a view to bringing their positions closer.

Once we agree on the principles and we narrow the gaps between these groups, my hope is that we have a develop a text for negotiations which should tackle issues such as democratizing of these institutions and bringing more people on board.

BBC Africa Radio: You talk about gender equality knowing that in your country Uganda, there is a lot of fight against homosexuality. How will you handle this now that you are at the UN. Also several NGO reports have spoken about on-going violation of human rights in Uganda. How will you address all this within the international community as President of the UN General Assembly?

First of all, let me reiterate that I am the President of the UN General Assembly not the President of the Republic of Uganda although I hail from Uganda and proudly so. The UN has a position about the rights of different people including sexual minorities. As President of the UN General Assembly, I am bound by the regulations of the UN.

But even in Uganda, I will bring you up to speed. The anti-homosexuality law started with Private Members motion against homosexuality that was brought to the Parliament of Uganda. The Bill was passed and accented into law.

But since then, that very Act has been challenged in the Courts of Law which ruled it out as unconstitutional.

This is evidence that the rule of law in Uganda is operational and the courts are independent.

I do not think the NGO reports about human rights abuses in Uganda are accurate though. We come from a background of Idi Amin, a terrible dictator who butchered thousands of people in Uganda.

We have since undertaken so many reforms. We have since written a new constitution guaranteeing civil liberties.

The very NGOs you are talking about work freely in Uganda. We have an open multi-party system.

We are functioning democracy with an independent judiciary.

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Salient points in Kuteesa's address

• Formulating the Post-2015 development agenda: we have a historic opportunity ahead of us. I will actively support this process and will work closely with Member States on an ambitious and transformative Post-2015 agenda at the 2015 Summit;

• Advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women: during this session, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking Beijing Declaration, which laid a roadmap for promoting women’s rights. While we have seen significant progress over the last two decades, a lot remains to be done.

• Climate change: There is urgent need to reach a fair and effective agreement in 2015 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) that incorporates the legitimate aspirations of all countries- rich and poor, North and South.

• Strengthening multilateralism and advancing the reform of United Nations, in particular the revitalization of the General Assembly and the reform of the Security Council.

• Strengthening the cooperation between the UN and regional and subregional organisations: experience has shown that this is an effective model to address common challenges.

• Peaceful settlement of disputes, peacekeeping, peace building and reconstruction.

• Africa –the continent where I hail from- still evokes, in the minds of many, a mix of disease, war and poverty. However Africa is rising and it will emerge from the crisis stronger than most people think.

• As reiterated by African leaders at the recent Summit of the African Union which I had the honour and privilege to attend, Africa recognizes that the responsibility for peace and security lies primarily with African countries and stresses the need for further meaningful support of the International Community and the United Nations by strengthening the African Union's capacity and its architecture for peace and security.

• The situation in Somalia, Darfur, Central African Republic, DRC and Mali need further sustained attention and commitment from the international community and the United Nations. I pay respect to the courage of those UN civilian and military peacekeepers for their commitment and sacrifice. I am appreciative of the important role several countries, including mine [Uganda] have played and continue to play in contributing to or the maintenance of peace in a number of conflicts.

• Enhancing the role of the Alliance of Civilizations: It is critical to counter the threat of extremist ideology that fuels violence, terrorism and conflicts. I will support and foster the Dialogue among civilizations to promote a culture of peace and tolerance.

• Human Rights is one of the three pillars of the United Nations, together with Development, and Peace and Security. Universality, objectivity and non-selectivity are important principles when considering human rights issues. We must address human rights violations wherever they occur and eliminate double standards.

• Throughout my tenure as President of the General Assembly, I will obviously fulfil my obligations, abide by and promote the Charter of the United Nations which stipulates that our Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

Sam Kutesa elected UN President

Who is Sam Kahamba Kutesa?