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L.R. da Silva: Address to World Summit 2020
Written by Hon. Luis Roberto da Silva, vice president, National Parliament, Timor-Leste
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Address to World Summit 2020, Seoul, Korea, February 3-8, 2020
Your excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: First of all, I would like to thank the chairman of the Universal Peace Federation for inviting me and the Timor-Leste delegation to participate in this important forum, World Summit 2020, in the beautiful city of Seoul.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: In line with the theme for this year’s World Summit on "Peace, Security and Human Development," allow me to speak about Timor-Leste's role in promoting peace and security in the world. Timor-Leste is one of the founding members of g7+, an intergovernmental organization that brings together 20 conflict-affected countries. Our members are coming from different regions, including Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands in the Pacific, Afghanistan and Yemen in the Middle East, Haiti in the Caribbean, and Timor-Leste in Asia, while a majority of our members, a total of 14 countries, are in the Africa region.
The group was established in 2010 in Timor-Leste with three main missions:
(1) To advocate for country-led peace and state building to be at the core of any humanitarian and development engagement.
(2) To promote for peace through national dialogue and reconciliation.
(3) To facilitate a platform for peer-learning and sharing of experiences of good practices and promoting cooperation among member states.
Our member countries have been at the center of attention in international agenda that includes peacekeeping, humanitarian and development engagement. However, we continue to lag behind in social and economic development. Most of the international assistance has not been as effective as needed to produce the required result, such as stability, resilience and development. We had been passive to international policies of humanitarian and development actors founded by principles of neoliberalism. We were overwhelmed by challenges such as conflicts, natural disasters, poverty and lack of sufficient resources.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: Timor-Leste has been scoring very well in the international indexes that measure the quality of our freedom and democracy. In the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index of 2018, Timor-Leste ranked number one among the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries. The country, in these respects, represents a stronghold of democratic freedom in the region. In the 2019 Democracy Index, Timor-Leste is ranked the highest in Southeast Asia, scoring 7.19, while achieving the 41st global position for democracy.
Timor-Leste is a country that has valuable experience to be used as a reference for solving world problems, especially for newly independent countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia Pacific.
Timor-Leste's experience in resolving internal conflicts resulting from the civil war, Timor-Leste's conflict with Indonesia and resolving internal crises experienced in 2006, and the particular role and contribution of Timor-Leste for promoting democracy in Guinea-Bissau should be noted in the conference as a reference in resolving international conflicts and assisting in resolving world problems.
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: Timor-Leste is consistent that all the problems facing the world today can be solved only through dialogue. Therefore, Timor-Leste believes that genuine dialogue between the parties involved can contribute to enhancing mutual trust, thereby decreasing the tension and paving the way for a peaceful solution.
As a representative of the people in the national parliament of Timor-Leste, I invite all countries, international organizations and non-state actors to contribute to world peace by starting with our respective countries.
I thank you.
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