João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, President of Angola, speaking also as Chairperson of the African Union, said uncertain conditions in today’s world invite Member States to “reflect on the profound meaning” of the Assembly President’s call to renew multilateralism and support the Secretary-General’s Initiative80 road map.  World powers that previously played a crucial role in liberating Europe and Europeans from the clutches of Nazism and fascism and liberating Africa and Africans from South Africa’s apartheid regime, cannot act differently ”by attacking other countries, invading and annexing foreign territories, or even financing and organizing upheavals that can lead to the overthrow of legitimate Governments, as we currently witness on our own continent,” he said.  “With such a dangerous precedent, no regional, continental, or global institution will henceforth have the moral authority to call to order any State to reason when it breaches principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter and international law.”

Africans, as countries colonized for centuries, understand better than anyone the importance of peace, as they face daily struggles for food, drinking water, health, education and other essential goods.  Knowing the harmful impact of insecurity and instability on development objectives, Angola has worked to resolve conflicts in the Sahel region, Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  This latter conflict and many others are largely the consequence of Member States’ passivity “in the face of invasions of third-party territories and interference in the internal order of sovereign countries”.  In the Middle East, the systematic non-compliance with relevant Security Council resolutions on the creation of the State of Palestine has perpetrated a conflict that worsens daily and seems far from resolution.  The failure to guarantee the Palestinian Authority President’s presence at the Assembly “sends a highly negative signal”, as it encourages the genocide to continue with impunity.

He called for the unconditional lifting of the unjust and prolonged embargo against Cuba, which has gravely impacted the country’s economy and its people.  Cuba, which played an important role in African peoples’ struggle to end the apartheid regime in South Africa, “cannot arbitrarily and unilaterally be considered a State sponsor of terrorism in light of the relevant United Nations resolutions”, he said.  Actions by a small group of countries, incompatible with minimally acceptable global coexistence standards, lie at the origin of the unilateral sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe and Venezuela.  They produce “no other result than the suffering of their populations”, he said.  The Organization’s authority, whose foundations lie in the United Nations Charter and international law, must urgently be restored, “without narratives that highlight a logic of double standards”.

In its current form, the United Nations is the only organization with the capacity to act on behalf of all countries seeking a global consensus for peace and “with the legitimacy to call to order Member States that distort its founding principles through their conduct in the international arena”, he said.  He supported Council reform, in line with the African common position enshrined in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration, adopted twenty years ago.  That proposal calls for two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for Africa in an enlarged Council — one that is more representative and aligned with contemporary geopolitical reality.  “Without this essential step, whose delay is increasingly unjustifiable, we cannot ensure the implementation of the Pact for the Future adopted last year, which recognized the urgent need to endow the United Nations with a more democratic and balanced Security Council,” he added.  The Pact is a major opportunity to revitalize multilateralism and make it a broad-based platform to discuss sensitive contemporary issues, including financing for development and the climate challenge.