LITHUANIA

Mr. President,

I would like to say that I have a special pleasure in seeing you preside over this Millennium Assembly session. I wish to assure you of my delegations' full support in all your endeavours. As one of vice-chairmen of the past session, I want to convey my special appreciation' to my colleague and your predecessor, Foreign Minister Theo Ben Gurirab.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the Secretary General for presenting his report "We the Peoples" to the World community.

Allow me also convey my delegation's warm welcome to Tuvalu as a new member of the United Nations.

Mr. President,

It is both remarkable and profoundly logical that in the beginning of the new millennium high representatives of almost two hundred nations have gathered for one sole purpose - to comprehend challenges of the contemporary world.

The fact that we all have gathered here, representing all regions of the world, cultures and religions, means that we all share the belief in value, viability and potential of the United Nations. Heads of State and Governments, during the course of the Millennium Summit, have guided us to strengthen the United Nations, including its central role in peacekeeping and poverty eradication. Our task now is to act upon their guidance.

Globalisation, digital revolution, triumph of free trade have transformed the world into a vibrant world-economy. Interdependence within the world-economy emphasizes collective problems and solutions. Thus, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organisation and many other international organisations have become indispensable mechanisms if we are to achieve stable peace, to assist in shaping the course of development, and to ensure that the world-economy provides benefits for all.

Never has the world been so well-off. Yet, never has it been confronted with so many problems of the global scale. The nature of threats have entirely changed. The phenomena are so complex that they defy easy generalisation: extreme poverty and marginalisation of entire communities; gross violations of human rights; ethnic conflicts and genocide; proliferation of arms; terrorism; environmental degradation.

Mr. President,

No effort should be spared to free people from dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty. The goals adopted at the Millennium Summit are challenging. Assistance, new trade arrangements, and debt relief will hardly be a panacea unless necessary and strong commitments to poverty reduction, economic equality, combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and supporting education are reflected, first and foremost, in national policies of individual states and concurrently on agendas of international organisations. Good health, literacy, and education are critical assets for economic development. Human capital combined with high level of economic equality, good governance, and abidance by the rule of law can really make a difference. This is the course we strongly uphold if we aim at reducing by half the level of extreme poverty by 2015 and achieving sustainable development

The realities are that most of the economic thinking and ruling is being done within the Bretton

Woods institutions, WTO or OECD. And a fully coordinated approach to problems of peace and

development should be sought between these international institutions and the UN.

Mr. President,

We have yet to learn how to manage the spin-offs of globalisation and how best to make use of international mechanisms to address new forms of threats. Better yet, a prevention is preferable to a cure. For a really effective prevention a broader definition of security is vital, the one encompassing pressing economic and social problems. The root causes of conflicts should be addressed as a fundamental part of efforts to establish and secure peace and stability.

Should preventative strategies yield no results the United Nations must have a truly effective peacekeeping capacity at its disposal. Lithuania will support every effort to fix structural deficiencies within the UN, adequately stuff and finance relevant departments. We are ready to pull our weight. Provided the determination, resources, capacity and willingness are there, I believe, humanitarian catastrophes and crises may be averted. Proposals to improve the UN peacekeeping capacity and performance, especially those contained in the Brahimi report were widely endorsed by our leaders. Now we have to work on it with a view to shifting the historically prevailing conception of peacekeeping as an ad hoc job to one of the core functions of the United Nations.

Great challenges to the new international way of containing and resolving ethnic conflicts await in Africa. A perspective strategy could be to encourage and assist regional organisations, especially the Organisation of African Unity and ECOWAS; involve the civil society and business community; and, most notably, enhance the UN, especially the Security Council's capacity to act well in advance, before a crisis gets out of hand.

Pledges to contribute to a safer world add up to nothing if mounting demands for adequately trained and equipped peacekeepers and civilian policemen, judges and administrators fall on deaf ears. East Timorese, Kosovars, Sierra Leoneans are pinning their hopes on us. Failure to respond to them would mean in the end that we do no more that celebrate our own individual security.

Mr. President,

Lithuania has always been and remains committed to building collective security.

On the international level, Lithuania emphasises active participation in international organisations and substantial contribution to peace-keeping efforts, such as participation in the UN Standby Arrangements system, or from the very beginning of international engagement in the Balkans, making our civilian policemen and military available to missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. Moreover, additional commitments will promptly follow as more highly trained policemen and troops become available. In this regard, I wish to voice our strong efforts to place a Lithuanian part of the joint Lithuanian‑Polish peace-keeping battalion under the UN stand-by arrangements with a view to joining the SHIRBRIG.

On the regional level, we made membership in alliances of democratic nations - European Union and NATO - our top priority. We regard the OSCE principles, including a country's right to choose its own security arrangements, to be of fundamental value to ensuring peace and security. We believe that by taking this way we will meet our economic, cultural, social and other concerns and enhance European security as a whole.

On the sub‑regional level, we stress practical co‑operative efforts to uphold democratic and economic transformation throughout the region. Over the last decade our engagement with Poland turned into close partnership which has already produced remarkable results. Good bilateral relations with the neighbouring states of Latvia and Estonia have grown into a dynamic trilateral Baltic co‑operation, what has subsequently expanded into a broader Baltic-Nordic cooperation. We also seek to further develop mutually beneficial good neighbourly relations with Russia. Joint Lithuanian-Russian projects on cooperation with the Kaliningrad region is a good example of our pursuance of policy of friendly relations, what also fully coincides with the EU Northern Dimension policies endorsed at the Feira European Union Summit this June.

Mr. President,

Co‑operation requires wisdom and patience. Yet, all too often guns have been a choice of cure for ethnic strife, social or economic downfall. Vigorous and urgent efforts are needed to curtail proliferation of small arms. We deem it is vital for the 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons to address critical issues in the field of transparency, legitimate transfers, accountability, enforcement of sanctions, and observance of moratoria. A commitment to elimination of land-mines should now be coupled with an effort toward putting small arms off-limits to belligerent cause.

Against the background of gains in disarmament, a number of setbacks make the picture less encouraging. We share the profound concerns posed by the abundance of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation of missiles. And I fail to see any other way to a safer world rather than reducing, eliminating and outlawing weapons of mass destruction. In the wake of the successful outcome of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, Lithuania will work with other committed nations to have unequivocal commitment to nuclear disarmament materialised.

Mr. President,

Certain fundamental values are essential to international relations. Such are human responsibility and human rights. At the Millennium Summit President of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus spoke about his belief that "in the face of globalized tomorrow, the United Nations would increase the scope of its human dimension activities. Human rights should become a cornerstone of the emerging world structure". The concept of human dimension must be at the centre of all UN activities.

If we are to address the root causes of conflicts we have to admit that respect for human rights, protection of minority rights and institution of political arrangements in which all groups are represented are vital. For my region, it is of particular interest how the international community can promote the rights of people coping with post-communist transition.

The limits of human rights applicability are being constantly questioned. The United Nations should advance in search for new and more effective instruments to fend off the challengers of human rights. Persons responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes as well as for the crimes of aggression should be brought to justice. And if that is a goal the international community is after, an effective International Criminal Court should start working as soon as possible. On its part, Lithuania will make good on its commitment to ratify the Rome Statute by the end of this year.

Mr. President,

From experience of my own country, I wish to stress that increasing the equality of social, economic, educational, and political benefits across gender has a positive impact on economic development. These issues have been at the forefront on the agendas of all Lithuanian governments since regaining independence, which started working actively to help solve the question of equal rights and other problems which women face. One of our achievements is adoption of the Law on Equal Opportunities, which is the first law of this kind in Central and Eastern Europe. Being a signatory state to the Second Optional Protocol of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, I call on its early entry into force.

Mr. President,

Attainment of freedom, security and welfare for people is only feasible by embracing the effects of globalisation and not defying it. We have a global instrument readily available for that purpose. Yet, we keep arriving at the same conclusion: we need the UN with greater capacity and better performance. A number of measures have been carried out. Outstanding efforts by the Secretary General can not be overestimated. Lithuania supports Secretary General's greater emphasis on the UN as a results-based organisation. We also share the stress on better management, mobilisation of new resources, and new forms of partnership.

There needs to be a sharper sense of over-arching UN identity. The Security Council should play its part in this regard. Lessons drawn from the Secretary General reports on Srebrenica and Rwanda have to be paid more than lip service.

Within the complex of measured design for the revitalisation of the United Nations, our efforts to reform the Security Council occupy a prominent place. The Security Council would only win, if acquired a new power and authority base, and I would like to reiterate Lithuania's position that the Security Council should be increased both in permanent and non permanent membership categories, and that the Eastern European Group should be given one additional non-permanent membership seat. In turn, even with a revitalised Council, cooperation with regional organisations should be strengthened.

The reforms, no matter how far-flung, may remain a partial success so long as the UN is not given necessary resources. The organisation needs sound and predictable financial footing. Therefore, Lithuania strongly supports a comprehensive review of both the regular-budget scale and the scale of assessment for peace-keeping operations. In the latter case, an ad hoc arrangement of 1973 has lost its touch with present day economic realities. We need to adjust the UN's peacekeeping scale of assessment methodology to better reflect the current economic conditions of all member states. I hope the revision will enjoy support by all countries of the UN and will be carried out in an expeditious manner.

Mr. President,

The United Nations symbolises and guards the humankind hope for better future. Let's make it happen!