{Mr. President,
I thank you for convening this ninth (9) wrap-up session of the year, which is an increase of 50%, compared to the six (6) wrap-up sessions organized by Council members last year. I thank Pakistan for reintroducing these stock-taking meetings in January 2013, and we hope that the current format of public briefings, introduced by Rwanda in its presidency of July this year, will encourage more UN member states to participate in these important sessions dedicated to the assessment of the activities of the Council, including on its progress, challenges and effectiveness.
Rwanda congratulates you, Mr. President, for your demonstrated talent in presiding over this Council during this month of December. We extend our congratulations to H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Chad, who chaired meetings on the two main topics you proposed to mark your presidency; namely UN-AU partnerships in peace operations and terrorism and transnational organized crime, both sanctioned by Council’s products, a PRST and a resolution, respectively. Our appreciation also goes to Bante Mangaral, Deputy Permanent Representative; Gombo Tchouli, Political Coordinator; Madeleine Alingue, Alternate Political Coordinator, and to your whole Security Council Team, which did a tremendous job during the first ever presidency of Chad in the Security Council.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Ambassador Christian Barros Melet of Chile for assuming, in few days, the presidency of the Security Council for the month of January 2015. Rwanda pledges full support to Chile and we will contribute, as much as we can, to the activities of the Council in January and in the months and years to come.
Mr President,
As this wrap-up session is our last, as non-permanent member of the Security Council in the current term, allow me to make a general assessment of Rwanda’s contribution to the work of this Council for the term 2013-2014. During the campaign for this prestigious seat in 2012, we issued this booklet entitled “Rwanda I Values I Peace” sent to all UN member states, in which we made seven specific commitments.
The first commitment was to “contribute meaningfully to the prevention of conflict and the consolidation of peace and stability in Africa and globally”. In this regard, you may recall that Rwanda was, in 2013, chair of Ad Hoc Working Group on prevention and resolution of conflicts in Africa and organized, in that capacity, several thematic debates to achieve this goal. Furthermore, during our first presidency in April 2013, we convened a high-level briefing on prevention of conflicts in Africa by addressing its root causes, during which a PRST was adopted. Nonetheless, much more needs to be done by this Council in conflict prevention. We believe that the Security Council has to go beyond discussing this issue as a thematic debate and considers actual threats to international peace and security.
The second commitment was to “enhance partnerships between the African Union, other regional and sub-regional organisations and the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security”. As chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on prevention and resolution of conflicts in Africa, this was our priority. And Rwanda played a leading role in preparing the 7th Annual Consultative meeting between the UN Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, held in October 2013 in Addis Ababa, and in the drafting of its joint communiqué. Moreover, resolution 2167 on regional partnerships in peacekeeping, introduced by Rwanda during its second presidency of July 2014, was another instrument to enhance UN-AU cooperation. We hope that the Security Council will pursue its efforts and strengthen its cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations, including by providing the necessary support that includes predictable funding to AU-led peace operations.
The third commitment of Rwanda was to “improve the working methods of the Security Council to ensure a more inclusive, transparent and effective Council”. This is what we tried to achieve during our term, pending the necessary expansion of this Council in both categories. We introduced an open format of the wrap-up session, advocated for co-penholdership in favour of African members of the Security Council, contributed to more focused, interactive and result-oriented consultations within the Council and supported the French proposal of a code of conduct between permanent members to refrain from using the veto in case of mass atrocities.
The fourth commitment was to “work towards a more responsive Security Council including through the implementation of the Responsibility to protect doctrine”. As co-chair of the Group of Friends on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) since its creation ten years ago, Rwanda consistently advocated for R2P in this Council. In April 2014, we introduced a draft, co-sponsored by all 15-members, which became resolution 2150 on prevention of genocide, adopted on the occasion of the 20th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The resolution reaffirmed paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document on the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and underscored the importance of taking into account lessons learned from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, during which Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed.
The fifth commitment was to “end sexual violence and impunity”. Although this commitment was a little bit ambitious, Rwanda was consistent in pleading for global commitment for the end of sexual violence in conflict, especially violence perpetrated on a daily basis by the genocidal movement named the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in eastern DRC. In an open debate that H.E. Louise Mushikiwabo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Rwanda, chaired on 17 April 2013, as President of the Security Council, she called upon all of us “to move beyond expressions of outrage and, instead, to make concrete and measurable progress towards a world where the bodies of women are no longer considered a battlefield”. In addition, Rwanda demonstrated its attachment to the fight against impunity in all its statements and contributions to Council’s decisions, including the vote on the draft resolution S/2014/348 of 22 May 2014, related to Syria, and the letter of 5 December 2014 we co-signed to request that the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is formally placed on the agenda of the Security Council.
The sixth commitment of Rwanda in the Security Council was to “advance the role of women in conflict resolution and peacebuilding”. In this respect, Rwanda, which has made tremendous progress since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, shared its twenty-year experience in various open debates on “Women and peace and security” as well as in the briefing on post-conflict peacebuilding organized by the then President of the Council, Ambassador Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg. I take this opportunity to commend the most assiduous Minister of Foreign Affairs in this Council, Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, who attended almost every high-level meeting in this Council, and pay tribute to Ambassador Lucas and her team for the efficient, consistent and perseverant manner with which Luxembourg pleaded for the wellbeing of children in armed conflict.
Lastly, the seventh commitment of Rwanda was to “ensure sustainable transitions from peacekeeping to nation-building in countries emerging from conflicts”. We believe that this is the ultimate objective of peacekeeping missions and the raison d’être of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). In both our presidencies of April 2013 and July 2014, we organized briefings on the post-conflict peacebuilding, followed by interactive dialogues with countries on the PBC agenda, as well as PBC configurations chairs. It is worth noting that since June 2013, Rwanda was also coordinating an expert-level group, gathering members of the Council and the PBC Organizational Committee, aimed at enhancing the advisory function of the PBC to the Security Council and ensuring a smooth transition from peacekeeping to nation-building.
Let me conclude, Mr. President, by wishing all the best for the five incoming members in the Council – Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain and Venezuela – and thanking the other outgoing members – Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg and the Republic of Korea – for their achievements. We thank all those who have supported Rwanda in its two-year term in the Security Council: the African Union, for the endorsement of Rwanda’s candidacy in January 2012; UN member states, for electing Rwanda in October of the same year; the 19 Council members who served with Rwanda in 2013 and 2014, for their invaluable support; as well as the Security Council Affairs Division, headed by Director Movses Abelian, for its assistance to our delegation from day one. A particular thank to the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the UN, to the UK’s Centre for Political and Diplomatic Studies, and to Sir Emyr Jones Parry for the comprehensive two-day training they provided, in February 2013, to our newly-appointed staff in the Security Council.
I thank you.}
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