Your Excellency Lok Bahadur Thapa, President of ECOSOC,

Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,

Eighty years ago, the 91茄子 was forged from the wreckage of war.

Our founders had two goals: to prevent future conflict, and to confront the legacies of the past.

And few legacies were as bitter, or as pervasive, as colonialism.

When we enshrined the principle of self-determination in the UN Charter, we made a radical break from history.

We declared that the era of ruling people without their consent was over.

In doing so, we lit a path to freedom for more than 750 million people – a third of the world’s population – who, in 1945, were still living under the shadow of foreign rule, including across more than fifty African countries that would go on to achieve independence in the decades that followed.

Think of what this meant on the ground, in societies where generation after generation had never known what it meant to be governed by their own people.

For a young person coming of age in New Delhi, Accra, or Jakarta, this promise marked a profound turning point.

They could look forward to something their parents or grandparents may have had only dreamed of: a future shaped by their own choices, not by a distant capital.

For a young person in Kingston, Port of Spain, or Suva, independence stopped being an abstract dream and became a horizon within reach.

That expectation—shared across oceans—marked a global turning point.

To turn that hope into reality, in 1960, this Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

This text did more than affirm the rights of nations large and small.

It spoke of dignity.

It spoke of social progress.

And it placed decolonization firmly where it belongs: as a shared responsibility of the whole international community.

I was reminded myself of the weight of that responsibility last year while reflecting on what marked 140 years since the Berlin Conference of 1884, when European powers, including my own country, violently divided an entire continent without the presence or consent of its peoples.

As I said at the time, “We cannot undo what happened in the past. But we can work together to build a better future. To do so, it is crucial to identify and acknowledge injustice.”

For that injustice did not end with the closing of that conference over a hundred years ago.

It shaped borders, divided whole communities, fueled conflicts, and entrenched inequalities whose consequences remain with us today.

And therefore, we have a common responsibility to address these consequences together.

Today’s meeting, following General Assembly resolution 80/106, which proclaimed 14 December as the International Day against Colonialism in All Its Forms and Manifestations, honours the Declaration we committed to sixty-five years ago.

By doing so, we are underlining our shared responsibility to carry forward the work the Declaration set in motion.

That responsibility is especially urgent in light of the fact that some global challenges, like climate change, economic fragility, and limited access to finance, place additional strain on some of the former colonised societies.

These issues also remain relevant for those non-self governing territories who remain on the agenda of the Special Committee on Decolonization.

Excellencies,

As I said, we cannot undo what we did in the past but we can work together to build a better future.
The eradication of colonialism in all its forms 65 years ago was this promise – by the common Declaration.

Realizing that promise remains our enduring responsibility.

Thank you.

 

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