Mr. President

Honorable Ministers and Heads of Delegations

Ladies and Gentlemen

The irony of destiny has made this historic Conference be held in Rome, the Civitas of Gaius and Justiano and many other great thinkers who were and are still the illuminated architects of solid principles that have given shape to current law of our global and globalizing Universe.

Mr. President in congratulating you for having been elected by acclamation to preside over our deliberations. we similarly are paying tribute to the Roman thinkers of yesterday and today for their unmeasurable contribution to a more and more fair justice and law.

We will be failing our duty if we don't recall the unforgettable contribution of Mr. Adrian Bos, one of the men who fought more to shorten our way to Rome. We wish him a quick recovery.

Indeed, we are called upon to write down here, in Rome, what shall be a law in a domain in which for about a century a consensus had never been achieved notwithstanding the frightfull spectacle of massacres, genocides and other serious crimes glooming our daily life.

In nowadays we are witnessing an increase of an agressiveness because it had settled in the minds of criminals that with the help of time, isolation and silence, and why not, with the conivence of some interests or states, they would smoothly recommence their lives somewhere, mainly when they own large amounts of financial resources.

We are in an extremely dangerous and unpredictable footway. It looks as if we were prisioners of crime cult and of a demoniac ideology of massive crime that promote collective extermination.

Within such background we came to Rome to lay. down the foundations of the legal system which shall be a complementary, adequate and sufficiently persuasive instrument. so that the perpetrators of the crimes typified in the Statutes to be adopted at the conclusion of our deliberations may not continue unpunished.

My delegation believes that we have the moral and politically will to creat here in Rome the International Criminal Court which will be permanent, independent, universal and efficient in punishing serious crimes against international law. As Africans, we would like to say that we will be honoured that this Court be established during our mandate at this Conference.

Mr. President Ladies and Gentlemen,

We do recognize the sacrosanct nature of sovereignty and non interference and also the need for the prior consent of a state to confer jurisdiction to an international court like the one we are creating.

For us the ICC is a complementary mechanism to national courts in dealing with serious crimes of international law, and we mean genocides, war crimes, crimes against humanity and agression, that need to be clear defined as part of the jurisdiction of the Court we are here establishing.

Mr. President, the UN Security Council has a paramount responsability in respect to peace and security, but we understand that it is the duty of a Tribunal to try in accordance with most elementary rules of democracy and justice. In this context it is necessary to have a clear coordination and cooperation between the coming ICC and the UN, particularly with its Security Council, aiming to enhance international law and respect of the universal human rights.

Like other previous speakers we do support the principle that the U.N. should fund the ICC at beginning while its own resources are insufficient. However my delegation believes that it cannot be in exchange of the essencial character of the independence and efficiency of the Court and its organs - the judge and prosecutors.

Recognizing the universality of democracy in our days we also believe that a well defined and balanced regional representation of member's states in every organ of the Court is a must- justice oblige.

Mr. President, at eve of the third millenium, let us all reaffirm our global committment for a world of more punishment of the offenders and less crimes against humanity, a world of more justice and less instability, a world of more peace and less unjustifiable fear.

Ruanda, Bosnia Herzegovina and other recent examples of war crimes and heinous offenses should not be repeated never, never again Mr. President. Enough is enough.

In this historic city of Rome let us all make modern history in leaving as legacy an International Criminal Court, with seat in Hague, that will last as the history of Rome.

This is, Mr. President and Honourable Delegates, the Mozambique's commitment and availability before this Conference of Plenipotentiaries.