Speaking to the Press outside the Security Council on 5 February 2008 Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke of the crises in Kenya (post-election violence); Chad (Sudan-supported rebel forces threaten the French-supported government); Darfur (slow progress on deploying a hybrid UN-African Union force); and the appointment of an Algerian diplomat as chair of the panel reviewing arrangements for UN staff security (an artful dodge to get around Algerian objections to an independent inquiry into the bombing of the UN office in Algiers that killed 17 staffers in January). Other issues were raised during questioning.
The unofficial transcript:
SG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I have just briefed the Security Council on the serious developments in Africa. Over the past month, I have been deeply engaged in the evolving situation in Kenya. As I warned at the African Union summit last week, ethnic clashes threaten to escalate out of control. During my visit, I told Kenya’s leaders, President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, that they bear a particular political responsibility for the future of Kenya. I stressed to all the Kenyan leaders the need to stop the unacceptable violence and killings and to resolve their differences through dialogue and the democratic process. I also appealed to all the political leaders to think beyond their individual interests or party lines, and to look to the future of Kenya as one country. I reiterate my support to the mediation efforts of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities led by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When I met him in Nairobi, we discussed in depth his roadmap for the talks.
The parties are now talking and discussing practical measures to stop the spiral of violence, to address the humanitarian crisis, and to restore fundamental human rights and liberties. I have assigned several members of my staff to provide necessary assistance to Mr. Annan’s team, and we have established a UNDP trust fund to support this. With our partners, we have been able to meet the initial basic needs of displaced populations, totaling around 310,000 IDPs spread over 192 sites in the western and central provinces, and I am going to dispatch Mr. John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to look after these issues. Needless to say, much more needs to be done. I urge donors to provide additional funding to address this grave emergency.
Turning to the situation in Chad, I am alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in the capital, N’Djamena, and elsewhere. We can no longer guarantee the safety and security of UN staff in Chad and we have evacuated, with the help of the French Government, most of the personnel into neighbouring countries, in Cameroon and Gabon. However, a small number of personnel from MINURCAT in N’Djamena, and some other UN agencies, some essential members, are still remaining. We will take necessary measures in close cooperation with the French Government when it is necessary. The United Nations will do its utmost to help resolve the crisis. I welcome the initiative of the African Union to have designated leaders of Libya and the Republic of Congo to mediate this issue. I urged the Council to act swiftly to help bring this terrible crisis to an end. It has devastating consequences not only for the people of Chad and Darfurian refugees seeking shelter there, but also for Darfur itself.
The situation in Darfur is no less troubling. Insecurity continues to severely restrict humanitarian access to civilians in need of assistance. UNAMID troop contributors must speed up their preparations. We need our forces in the theatre of operations as soon as possible. UNAMID still lacks required aviation and ground transportation—chiefly helicopters. Additional troops will not make up for this shortfall. Countries that called for intervention in Darfur are under a special obligation to deliver on their promises. On the margins of the AU Summit, I discussed the major outstanding UNAMID issues with President [Omar al-]Bashir of Sudan. I am pleased to report that we are making good progress on the Status of Forces Agreement. The Government has indicated that we can expect the signing to take place this week. However, the deployment of UNAMID will only be as effective as the political process it is mandated to support. My special envoys will therefore continue their efforts to bring the government of Sudan and the movements to the negotiating table.
Before concluding, let me say a few words about the security and safety of United Nations staff and premises. Recent events in Kenya, Chad, Darfur and Algeria serve only to underscore this matter’s urgency. I am therefore setting up, as I already announced in Geneva two weeks ago, an Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises. The panel will be chaired by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, who possesses vast experience and knowledge of UN operations. I will also be engaging with Member States in the coming weeks and months to strengthen the security and safety support they are providing to UN staff posted in their countries. Thank you very much.
Q: Mr. Secretary-General, two questions. You said that you urged the Security Council to do more in Chad. Yesterday, the Council adopted a Presidential Statement giving a green light for other countries to support Chad, the Chadian Government. What more did you ask them to do? And in terms of Sudan and Darfur, have you gotten any pledges of helicopters at all, and what more are you doing to try and resolve that issue?
SG: On Chad, it will be up to Member States to provide the necessary assistance, whatever may be possible and available, in accordance with the PRST [Presidential Statement] adopted yesterday. On the helicopters and other critical assets, we have received some offers from at least two countries. I will continue to urge the Member States to provide such critical assets.
Q: Mr. Secretary-General, also on Sudan, does your prediction that there will be a signing of a Status of Forces Agreement mean that you have reached agreement with the Sudanese over the composition of that force, or is the Sudanese government still objecting to some countries participating in that force?
SG: The Status of Forces Agreement is a bit different from a Composition of Forces. Without the legal framework under this Status of Forces Agreement – SOFA - it would be very difficult for the peacekeepers to operate properly. We have agreed to the contents of this Status of Forces Agreement during my meeting with President Bashir, and we will be able to sign during this week. On the composition of forces, again, that was one of the major subjects which I discussed with him, particularly in deploying non-African soldiers. Our understanding is that even though it may have to still be worked out at technical levels, we will first try to deploy African peacekeepers who are readily available, for example, Egyptians or Ethiopians. Then, as this deployment is taking place, we will try to deploy Thailand and Nepalese soldiers.
Q: Mr. Secretary-General, two things on that, just to follow up. You will try to deploy the Thailand and Nepalese soldiers, which means, I am assuming that the Sudanese Government, President Bashir, has not agreed yet to that and you will have to continue discussions on that. And secondly, may we assume from what you said about the SOFA agreement that the UN has gotten Sudan’s agreement to all things that were the sticking points – night flights, landing agreements, possible communications blackout during Sudanese affairs, or advance notice of UN movements – all those things that were sticking points. Have those things been settled in the UN’s favour, or at least in terms of what they need, or feel they need, to conduct the mission appropriately?
SG: For detailed matters, I would like to say that my meeting with President Bashir went reasonably well. I was encouraged by a very constructive meeting with President Bashir. On the composition of forces, as I said, we will first try to have African soldiers deployed. Considering the agreement, and that the nature of this UNAMID is a hybrid – the African Union and the United Nations – then there will have to be some composition of African and non-African. We have already Bangladesh and Chinese engineering units already on the ground. We will work out, in very close consultation with the Sudanese Government, on the Status of Forces Agreement and all other administrative issues, we will continue to consult. However, President Bashir told me that he is forward-looking in addressing all these issues. Therefore, we will have to continue to iron out all these remaining issues.
Q: The situation in Gaza is getting very dire, and the population is under collective punishment. Also, we hear more and more threats that fuel has been stopped there. It has been a year almost that Gaza is under siege. What is your plan, or what initiatives would you follow in order to alleviate the situation there?
SG: On this issue, I share your concern. You have seen how much I have been working hard to address this issue. I have met with President Shimon Peres in the Davos Forum, and I have spoken to Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert on this issue. And the Quartet members had a telephone conference a few days ago to address all these issues. We are still working on that. My message is quite clear that, while I appreciate and understand the security concerns of the Israelis, therefore the rocket firing should be stopped, and at the same time, the Israeli Government should also take the necessary measures to ease these humanitarian difficulties brought by these crossings and crossing this [inaudible] - they should not take this as collective punishment.
Q: There are reports that you intend to appoint Lakhdar Brahimi to head the Algiers commission. Could you confirm that…?
SG: I have announced this.
Q: You just did…Is it okay that a man who is both Algerian and a former UN [official], is he well positioned to be independent? And also, on the Gaza situation, the Israeli Supreme Court just declared Gaza under the control of, not Israel actually, it’s a hostile entity. My question is, can Gaza be still defined as an occupied territory, as it is all across the United Nations?
SG: About Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi taking this very important role as Chair of the Independent Panel, I am sure that everybody will agree on his integrity; even though he is an Algerian, he is more known as a cosmopolitan leader. He has been working on many important agendas in world affairs during the last 10-15 years. Therefore we full confidence and trust. And I have discussed with some key members on his nomination, and I have not received any such concern about his integrity as chair of this independent Panel. I am quite sure that he will lead this independent panel with fairness and objectivity, to bring a very important recommendation for the safety and security of the UN staff.
On this Gaza situation, I again would like to urge the parties concerned first of all to refrain [to] the maximum [extent] from these violent actions, and the Israeli Government should also take necessary measures to look at these humanitarian situations.
Q: That doesn’t answer my question: Is it occupied territory?
SG: I am not in a position to say on these legal matters.
Q: I wanted to ask you if you are satisfied with the percentage of your senior officials who have followed your advice and filed voluntary public financial disclosure. It seems that almost half have not, and some have said that they choose to maintain confidentiality. And also more timely, on this event that is taking place tomorrow night on the North Lawn of the UN. Questions have arisen about whether Gucci has put out [a release] saying that it celebrates the opening of a store on Fifth Avenue, and there’s questions about one of the non-profits that would benefit from it. What are the standards that the UN applies before entering into that kind of an arrangement with a commercial entity?
SG: One of my priorities is to ensure the accountability and transparency of our staff. This is a commitment which we are showing to the Member States. As a part of that commitment, we are now disclosing the financial assets, and yesterday, all the senior managers have signed an individual compact with me. This is a very good commitment we are showing to the Member States. As for the exact numbers of advisors who have disclosed their financial declarations, I hope that remaining people will also follow suit. The registration will begin from March 1st for the year, starting this year, therefore I am expecting that more will follow soon.
On this event which will take place tomorrow, I understand that the proceeds will be used for a proper purpose as agreed between UNICEF and the organizers.
Q: But what about a company saying that a UN event is in celebration of the opening of a store? Who here polices, in there, there’s a logo of UNICEF and Gucci intermingled; who is in charge of policing the integrity of the UN, its logo and its “brand”, so to speak?
SG: You know what kind of humanitarian efforts UNICEF has been carrying out during the last several decades. I understand that the main purpose of this event will raise funds for a humanitarian purpose, and I am sure that the proceeds will go to the purpose of this event.
Q: On Lakhdar Brahimi, was that the only way to get the cooperation of the Algerian Government on that matter?
SG: I have very closely consulted with the Algerian Government. We have thought that Mr. Brahimi would be a very appropriate person to lead this independent panel. This independent panel will be composed of several experts coming from all different countries; therefore, as far as integrity, fairness and objectivity and neutrality of this independent panel, you should have not have any doubt about that.
Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
On Cora Weiss And ....
As I clicked through my daily blitz of email messages last Friday, one brought me up short. It said that the Hague Appeal for Peace was passing the "peace education" torch to another organization. It made it seem as if Cora Weiss, the primary mover in the HAP process, was retiring. However, a call to Cora quickly put me right. No. "There's too much to do for me to retire" she said. "I was just in Costa Rica, speaking at the University for Peace. I think there should be a crisis intervention team sent to Kenya, to work with faculty and students on conflict resolution and reconciliation. And I'm writing a book."
As it usually does with Cora, the conversation took unexpected turns. The book, she said, was about the "African airlift, the one that brought over Barack Obama's father to the United States." What airlift was that? The answer widened the background even more. "It was a vision that Tom M'boya had." [For those too young to remember, M'boya was one of the most dynamic of Africa's anti-colonial leaders, and after Jomo Kenyatta, the unquestioned star of Kenyan politics. He was assassinated in 1969.] "
M'boya wanted a generation of young Kenyan leaders educated here. The Brits were under pressure to leave Kenya, and they were threatening to pull out all the civil servants. So a committee was set up here to make the arrangements, and my husband was president of the American Committee on Africa, one of the groups that came together to form the African American Students Foundation (AASF) I was asked to be the Executive Director and a member of the Board. That's how I first got involved. One newspaper described me as a 'housewife from Bronx.' They thought I was black because the committee was dealing with Africa!"
The committee managed to get some 779 Kenyan students admitted to American colleges, but then the question arose of how to get them here. Jack Kennedy (then a senator), offered to have his family foundation pay for chartered aircraft, but Vice President Nixon had the State Department, which had initially denied the grant request, step in with an offer to pay for the program. The airlift group, AASF, refused the government money after the Kennedy Foundation made its offer. The first batch of students came in 1959, and the program went on till 1963. Of the original committee the only surviving members are Cora and Peter Weiss, Ted Kheel and Harry Belafonte. "I thought I'd better write it up before its entirely forgotten" Cora said.
Cora's speech at the University for Peace in Costa Rica also sums up some history worth remembering. Here are some extracts (with occasional light edits):
"It is an honor and privilege, actually, a thrill, to be in the country I’ve talked about for years. The country where army barracks were transformed into school rooms and where the world’s only University for Peace is located. I dream that you will lead the majority of nations to follow this example. “When we dream alone it is just a dream, but when we dream together it becomes reality.” Dom Helder Camara.
All over the United States today, people, the media, and the candidates for President are celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King, jr. Barack Obama reminds us of King´s phrase, “The fierce urgency of now”. And as I will be talking about the Hague Appeal for Peace and its call for the abolition of war, I remember Dr King´s words, “It is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.” .......
Historians agree that the 20th century was the most bloody in history. The wars and the weapons capped with the most lethal, the use of nuclear bombs, demonstrated the enormous damage that humanity is capable of committing in terms of human life, destruction to the earth, pollution of the atmosphere, and obscene cost in money that is stolen from human security. Of course it was also a remarkable century in so many ways.
The unlimited violence and misuse of national treasuries has resulted in oppression, gross violations of human rights, major contributions to climate change, ethnic cleansing, hatred to say nothing of death and lifelong wounds.
I fear that we have become seduced by war and violence. The media are seduced by violence. Military budgets are sacred cows immune from being reduced or having funds transferred to desperately needed human security.
The United Nations decided that the last decade of the last century was to host 10 summits, among them government meetings on housing, human rights, women, children food, population, environment, etc., and the last was to be on peace. But a certain country´s ambassador declared that there was summit fatigue, that summits were circuses and the UN was asked to drop the peace meeting.
Thus it was left to civil society, which had always been a guest at world summits, never the host, to give peace the last word of the most violent century. Three organizations that had demonstrated their ability to mobilize public opinion, The International Peace Bureau, (IPB) the Int´l Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, (IPPNW) and the Int´l Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) the first two of which are Nobel Peace laureates, came together with the World Federalist Movement and agreed to call a gathering on the 100th anniversary of the world´s first peace congress. .....
The world´s first peace conference met in 1899; it was called by the Tsar of Russia and the 19 year old Queen of the Netherlands. .... Bertha von Suttner, a leading figure for peace who wrote Die Waffen Neider, Lay Down Your Arms, and later became a secretary, housekeeper or girlfriend to Alfred Nobel and pèrsuaded him to turn the profits from his invention of TNT into a peace prize, was an important voice in convening that first conference, and helped persuade reluctant governments to attend. Indeed she was the only woman delegate.
The 1899 conference resulted in the convention for the pacific settlement of disputes; the Permanent Court of Arbitration; the Hague Convention the basis of humanitarian law, and a third agreement on maritime warfare. The conference called for a ban on “throwing projectiles from hot air balloons; use of asphyxiating gasses and dum dum bullets.” There were to be two more conferences one in 1907 and the third in 1915. The second meeting, with strong support from civil society from the US, had an agenda filled with items postponed from the first meeting. Two million women from 20 countries signed a petition in support of the conference hoping for disarmament measures as a result. These meetings led to the League of Nations and then the United Nations.
The third government conference (postponed because of the First World War), was convened in 1999 at The Hague and St Petersburg, but was attended by small numbers of low level government officials and had no public impact. The pressure from and voice of civil society was totally absent. Because of the huge success of the Hague Appeal for Peace conference which had taken place just a week before, the government organizers allowed a few of us, from civil society, to testify at that meeting.
The single most important impact of the Hague Appeal for Peace conference was the significant role that civil society does and must continue to play to be the conscience of the world. Bertha von Suttner, a role model for all, at the turn of the last century said, “Whatever is expressed by the peace movement is not a dream dreamt by people far removed from reality, it is, rather civilization´s drive to sustain itself.” And she said of the world´s first peace congress, “If public opinion did express itself with appropriate vigor, there is nothing the Congress would not try to do. Public opinion is the master, even the god, of the conference.”
Back to 1996, when we decided to give peace the last word of the 20th century and to call for the abolition of war and peace as a human right.
We called the conference for May 1999 and held preparatory meetings in every part of the world in the years leading up so that we could find international agreement on an Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century. We continued the three themes from the 1899 conference, a) Disarmament and Human Security, b) Prevention, Resolution and Transformation of Conflict, c) International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws and Institutions and and added a fourth, Root Causes of War/Culture of Peace.
We planned on a gathering of 3,000 and quickly adjusted when 10,000 people showed up. This may have been largely due to President Clinton´s decision to ask NATO to bomb Serbia and Kosovo in response to ethnic cleansing. The reaction to that bombing nearly broke up our meeting. We received thousands of petitions from both sides asking for us to condemn the bombing and asking to support it. We decided to do neither, and instead set up two microphones in large rooms for people to express their views and organize. .......
The conference was unique because civil society called it, paid for it, and organized it, never done on such a scale before, but also because we invited governments and international non governmental organizations to participate. Traditionally at other summits, civil society ( NGO´s), are kept miles apart from government meetings under their own tents. Our meeting was democratic, huge, totally participatory, integrated with art, music, dance, theater, photography, cinema, panels, round tables, open discussion and only 2 plenary sessions, at the opening and the end, starring a mix of grassroots activists and the world´s leading moral authorities, Nobel Peace laureates and heads of state and foreign ministers. .............
What emerged was, The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century, a 50 point program for moving from a culture of violence to a culture of peace- now a UN document; (A/54/98) a dozen new programs or organizations dedicated to working on small arms, child soldiers, coordinating the campaign to ratify the Int´l Criminal Court, campaigns to abolish nuclear weapons and implement the land mine treaty and the Global Campaign for Peace Education.
Each issue was picked up by a participating organization and the Hague Appeal for Peace, which had been in existence since 1996 for the purpose of organizing this centennial conference, took on the peace education campaign. Why? Because peace does not come with our DNA, we must learn non violence, learn cooperation, learn to make peace and to sustain it. There are universities for war, and I think only the U Peace is exclusively for peace, while today more and more schools and universities are including peace and justice studies and peace education in their curriculum. But teacher education colleges are not yet catching on to the need to integrate peace education methodology into the preparation of educators for a new kind of education needed to meet today´s violence.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “More than an end to war we need an end to the beginning of war.” I believe we need peace education to prevent war, to train generations of children, youth, students, in alternatives to violence and understanding peoples needs and ways to meet them, and an appreciation of cultural differences.
H G Wells in 1921 said that “Human history becomes a race between education and catastrophe.” We were dedicated to education, peace education. And our first publication was a three volume book called Time to Abolish War: teaching for a culture of peace.
Before our conference we were laughed at for calling for the aboilition of war….never, we were told. But look at the institutions in history that have been abolished, or virtually abolished: slavery, colonialism, apartheid, the prohibition of women voting--- why not war?
We published two more books, Peace Lessons from Around the World and Peace and Disarmament Education based on our two year partnership with the United Nations Department for Disarmament Afairs where we worked with local teachers and their schools in Albania, Niger, Cambodia and Peru. These are all available on our web site, www.haguepeace.org, for free.
The HAP has also produced an unusual document written by the Israeli and Palestinian
Co chairs of the GCPE, which is available for all and any negotiators of peace agreements reached from now on. It calls for every peace agreement written after violent conflict to include the integration of peace education and re examination of text books. .......
We could talk about how we go about abolishing the institution of war; about the desperate need to stop the theft of funds from human needs that goes instead to pay for militarism and wars which this year, not including the enormous costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars, came to 1.1 trillion dollars world wide; Iraq and Afghanistan will come to another aggregate cost of over $1trillion.we could talk about the new Peace Building Commission and about the need to run a parallel civilian peace brigade with every peacekeeping operation, and we could talk about the desperate need to implement SC Res 1325 on women peace and security so that equal numbers of good women are at every decision making table everywhere. We could talk about why there is a new generation of women dying to kill. Some are no longer victims of war but perpetrators of war. There are many urgent matters to discuss in this war weary world.
But I would like to raise a Fierce Urgency of Now issue.
..................
I am wondering if U Peace would be interested in first trying to contact Kenyan education authorities and local organizations to see if your skills would be welcome. Then to figure out if you have the capacity to have a few educators and students go to Kenya to do short term crisis training for people who would be gathered by the Ministry and or local organizations or churches…and help them work out their own hatred and other feelings and then work on methods they could use to work with young people. These youngsters would then bring what they have learned into their homes with a domino effect.
This is a very short hand proposal. You have the imagination and experience to know what is probably needed and how it might be done. It shouldn't be too expensive to send 4-6 people and maintain them for a few weeks. "
As it usually does with Cora, the conversation took unexpected turns. The book, she said, was about the "African airlift, the one that brought over Barack Obama's father to the United States." What airlift was that? The answer widened the background even more. "It was a vision that Tom M'boya had." [For those too young to remember, M'boya was one of the most dynamic of Africa's anti-colonial leaders, and after Jomo Kenyatta, the unquestioned star of Kenyan politics. He was assassinated in 1969.] "
M'boya wanted a generation of young Kenyan leaders educated here. The Brits were under pressure to leave Kenya, and they were threatening to pull out all the civil servants. So a committee was set up here to make the arrangements, and my husband was president of the American Committee on Africa, one of the groups that came together to form the African American Students Foundation (AASF) I was asked to be the Executive Director and a member of the Board. That's how I first got involved. One newspaper described me as a 'housewife from Bronx.' They thought I was black because the committee was dealing with Africa!"
The committee managed to get some 779 Kenyan students admitted to American colleges, but then the question arose of how to get them here. Jack Kennedy (then a senator), offered to have his family foundation pay for chartered aircraft, but Vice President Nixon had the State Department, which had initially denied the grant request, step in with an offer to pay for the program. The airlift group, AASF, refused the government money after the Kennedy Foundation made its offer. The first batch of students came in 1959, and the program went on till 1963. Of the original committee the only surviving members are Cora and Peter Weiss, Ted Kheel and Harry Belafonte. "I thought I'd better write it up before its entirely forgotten" Cora said.
Cora's speech at the University for Peace in Costa Rica also sums up some history worth remembering. Here are some extracts (with occasional light edits):
"It is an honor and privilege, actually, a thrill, to be in the country I’ve talked about for years. The country where army barracks were transformed into school rooms and where the world’s only University for Peace is located. I dream that you will lead the majority of nations to follow this example. “When we dream alone it is just a dream, but when we dream together it becomes reality.” Dom Helder Camara.
All over the United States today, people, the media, and the candidates for President are celebrating the birth of Martin Luther King, jr. Barack Obama reminds us of King´s phrase, “The fierce urgency of now”. And as I will be talking about the Hague Appeal for Peace and its call for the abolition of war, I remember Dr King´s words, “It is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.” .......
Historians agree that the 20th century was the most bloody in history. The wars and the weapons capped with the most lethal, the use of nuclear bombs, demonstrated the enormous damage that humanity is capable of committing in terms of human life, destruction to the earth, pollution of the atmosphere, and obscene cost in money that is stolen from human security. Of course it was also a remarkable century in so many ways.
The unlimited violence and misuse of national treasuries has resulted in oppression, gross violations of human rights, major contributions to climate change, ethnic cleansing, hatred to say nothing of death and lifelong wounds.
I fear that we have become seduced by war and violence. The media are seduced by violence. Military budgets are sacred cows immune from being reduced or having funds transferred to desperately needed human security.
The United Nations decided that the last decade of the last century was to host 10 summits, among them government meetings on housing, human rights, women, children food, population, environment, etc., and the last was to be on peace. But a certain country´s ambassador declared that there was summit fatigue, that summits were circuses and the UN was asked to drop the peace meeting.
Thus it was left to civil society, which had always been a guest at world summits, never the host, to give peace the last word of the most violent century. Three organizations that had demonstrated their ability to mobilize public opinion, The International Peace Bureau, (IPB) the Int´l Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, (IPPNW) and the Int´l Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) the first two of which are Nobel Peace laureates, came together with the World Federalist Movement and agreed to call a gathering on the 100th anniversary of the world´s first peace congress. .....
The world´s first peace conference met in 1899; it was called by the Tsar of Russia and the 19 year old Queen of the Netherlands. .... Bertha von Suttner, a leading figure for peace who wrote Die Waffen Neider, Lay Down Your Arms, and later became a secretary, housekeeper or girlfriend to Alfred Nobel and pèrsuaded him to turn the profits from his invention of TNT into a peace prize, was an important voice in convening that first conference, and helped persuade reluctant governments to attend. Indeed she was the only woman delegate.
The 1899 conference resulted in the convention for the pacific settlement of disputes; the Permanent Court of Arbitration; the Hague Convention the basis of humanitarian law, and a third agreement on maritime warfare. The conference called for a ban on “throwing projectiles from hot air balloons; use of asphyxiating gasses and dum dum bullets.” There were to be two more conferences one in 1907 and the third in 1915. The second meeting, with strong support from civil society from the US, had an agenda filled with items postponed from the first meeting. Two million women from 20 countries signed a petition in support of the conference hoping for disarmament measures as a result. These meetings led to the League of Nations and then the United Nations.
The third government conference (postponed because of the First World War), was convened in 1999 at The Hague and St Petersburg, but was attended by small numbers of low level government officials and had no public impact. The pressure from and voice of civil society was totally absent. Because of the huge success of the Hague Appeal for Peace conference which had taken place just a week before, the government organizers allowed a few of us, from civil society, to testify at that meeting.
The single most important impact of the Hague Appeal for Peace conference was the significant role that civil society does and must continue to play to be the conscience of the world. Bertha von Suttner, a role model for all, at the turn of the last century said, “Whatever is expressed by the peace movement is not a dream dreamt by people far removed from reality, it is, rather civilization´s drive to sustain itself.” And she said of the world´s first peace congress, “If public opinion did express itself with appropriate vigor, there is nothing the Congress would not try to do. Public opinion is the master, even the god, of the conference.”
Back to 1996, when we decided to give peace the last word of the 20th century and to call for the abolition of war and peace as a human right.
We called the conference for May 1999 and held preparatory meetings in every part of the world in the years leading up so that we could find international agreement on an Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century. We continued the three themes from the 1899 conference, a) Disarmament and Human Security, b) Prevention, Resolution and Transformation of Conflict, c) International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws and Institutions and and added a fourth, Root Causes of War/Culture of Peace.
We planned on a gathering of 3,000 and quickly adjusted when 10,000 people showed up. This may have been largely due to President Clinton´s decision to ask NATO to bomb Serbia and Kosovo in response to ethnic cleansing. The reaction to that bombing nearly broke up our meeting. We received thousands of petitions from both sides asking for us to condemn the bombing and asking to support it. We decided to do neither, and instead set up two microphones in large rooms for people to express their views and organize. .......
The conference was unique because civil society called it, paid for it, and organized it, never done on such a scale before, but also because we invited governments and international non governmental organizations to participate. Traditionally at other summits, civil society ( NGO´s), are kept miles apart from government meetings under their own tents. Our meeting was democratic, huge, totally participatory, integrated with art, music, dance, theater, photography, cinema, panels, round tables, open discussion and only 2 plenary sessions, at the opening and the end, starring a mix of grassroots activists and the world´s leading moral authorities, Nobel Peace laureates and heads of state and foreign ministers. .............
What emerged was, The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century, a 50 point program for moving from a culture of violence to a culture of peace- now a UN document; (A/54/98) a dozen new programs or organizations dedicated to working on small arms, child soldiers, coordinating the campaign to ratify the Int´l Criminal Court, campaigns to abolish nuclear weapons and implement the land mine treaty and the Global Campaign for Peace Education.
Each issue was picked up by a participating organization and the Hague Appeal for Peace, which had been in existence since 1996 for the purpose of organizing this centennial conference, took on the peace education campaign. Why? Because peace does not come with our DNA, we must learn non violence, learn cooperation, learn to make peace and to sustain it. There are universities for war, and I think only the U Peace is exclusively for peace, while today more and more schools and universities are including peace and justice studies and peace education in their curriculum. But teacher education colleges are not yet catching on to the need to integrate peace education methodology into the preparation of educators for a new kind of education needed to meet today´s violence.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “More than an end to war we need an end to the beginning of war.” I believe we need peace education to prevent war, to train generations of children, youth, students, in alternatives to violence and understanding peoples needs and ways to meet them, and an appreciation of cultural differences.
H G Wells in 1921 said that “Human history becomes a race between education and catastrophe.” We were dedicated to education, peace education. And our first publication was a three volume book called Time to Abolish War: teaching for a culture of peace.
Before our conference we were laughed at for calling for the aboilition of war….never, we were told. But look at the institutions in history that have been abolished, or virtually abolished: slavery, colonialism, apartheid, the prohibition of women voting--- why not war?
We published two more books, Peace Lessons from Around the World and Peace and Disarmament Education based on our two year partnership with the United Nations Department for Disarmament Afairs where we worked with local teachers and their schools in Albania, Niger, Cambodia and Peru. These are all available on our web site, www.haguepeace.org, for free.
The HAP has also produced an unusual document written by the Israeli and Palestinian
Co chairs of the GCPE, which is available for all and any negotiators of peace agreements reached from now on. It calls for every peace agreement written after violent conflict to include the integration of peace education and re examination of text books. .......
We could talk about how we go about abolishing the institution of war; about the desperate need to stop the theft of funds from human needs that goes instead to pay for militarism and wars which this year, not including the enormous costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars, came to 1.1 trillion dollars world wide; Iraq and Afghanistan will come to another aggregate cost of over $1trillion.we could talk about the new Peace Building Commission and about the need to run a parallel civilian peace brigade with every peacekeeping operation, and we could talk about the desperate need to implement SC Res 1325 on women peace and security so that equal numbers of good women are at every decision making table everywhere. We could talk about why there is a new generation of women dying to kill. Some are no longer victims of war but perpetrators of war. There are many urgent matters to discuss in this war weary world.
But I would like to raise a Fierce Urgency of Now issue.
..................
I am wondering if U Peace would be interested in first trying to contact Kenyan education authorities and local organizations to see if your skills would be welcome. Then to figure out if you have the capacity to have a few educators and students go to Kenya to do short term crisis training for people who would be gathered by the Ministry and or local organizations or churches…and help them work out their own hatred and other feelings and then work on methods they could use to work with young people. These youngsters would then bring what they have learned into their homes with a domino effect.
This is a very short hand proposal. You have the imagination and experience to know what is probably needed and how it might be done. It shouldn't be too expensive to send 4-6 people and maintain them for a few weeks. "
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Ban Ki-moon And World Crises
Press Conference, 7 January 2008.
The Secretary-General: I have been in close contact with Kenyan leaders, including President [Mwai] Kibaki and opposition leader [Raila] Odinga, and President [John] Kufuor of Ghana, in his capacity as Chairperson of the African Union, and many other international leaders to, first of all, calm down and stabilize the situation. I urged them strongly to avoid further killings of civilians. That was unacceptable, as I have stated in my two previous statements. I will continue to do that.
The United Nations has been doing our best efforts to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance to many people there who have been unfortunately displaced because of this situation in Kenya. Protecting human rights is very important and paramount for us. We are taking all necessary measures to prevent the further deterioration of the situation.
As for the specific question you raised, that will always be a high priority in my mind. We will try our best to ensure that no further casualties will happen there. And as the leaders of Africa — including President Kufuor, who is expected to have consultations with the Kenyan leadership, as well as some former Presidents who are also expected to visit there — I hope, through those international interventions, the Kenyan leaders will sit down together and resolve this issue in a peaceful manner.
Question: Mr. Secretary-General, both you and the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping last month said that the force going into Darfur would be at risk unless the Sudanese Government agreed to some of the troop assignments that you were requesting, and unless other countries gave you the transportation and logistics you needed. Neither of those two things has happened. You have had a formal change of command in Darfur, which basically is just changing the colour of the helmets. My question is: If this force is, as you say, at risk, how can you deploy them when they don’t have the capacity to protect civilians and don’t have the capacity to protect themselves?
The Secretary-General: That is exactly why I, as Secretary-General, and the United Nations as a whole and the international community — Member States — must ensure a rapid deployment of the Hybrid Operation as agreed, to the level of 26,000, as soon as possible. We now have 9,000 re-hatted soldiers in Darfur. That is not sufficient. That is why we are very much concerned about this ongoing deteriorating situation in Darfur.
I had a long telephone discussion with President [Omar al-] Bashir last Saturday, and we agreed to meet again in Addis Ababa. Before that, before we meet again at Addis Ababa on the occasion of the African Union Summit meeting, we will have a high-level consultation to resolve all these pending issues. There are, as you rightly said, two areas of pending issues, one to be done by the Sudanese Government. There are still many technical or administrative issues, to which the Sudanese Government must commit themselves as agreed, including a status-of-forces agreement and also composition of forces and other technical issues.
Then there are resources to be provided by the Member States in general, including critical assets like helicopters and heavy transport equipment. These are to be done by both sides: by the international community as a whole and the Sudanese Government. I will do my best to expedite this process. In fact, we have made a good framework to resolve these Darfur, as well as Sudanese issues as a whole, including a peace process and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
All those three tracks will move hand in hand. And we are also looking at the possibility of resuming the second peace process. But that may take a little bit of time. My Special Envoy, Mr. Jan Eliasson, and African Union Envoy, Mr. [Salim Ahmed] Salim, they are working very hard. Jan Eliasson is also going to visit Khartoum next week.
Question: Mr. Secretary-General, there have been statements threatening war in the African continent lately. The POLISARIO has been saying that this is the last chance that they give the Moroccans in the Western Sahara; otherwise, the preparation for war is afoot. Also, we have the worrying aspect of Chadian aeroplanes bombing areas of Sudan, Darfur, in chase of Chadian rebels, so they allege. And there are obvious and frank threats from the President of Chad to enter Darfur to chase the Chadian rebels. Your thoughts on both subjects, please.
The Secretary-General: On the Western Sahara issue: As you may know already, I am going to issue a statement this morning that there is going to be another consultation in Manhasset, in Greentree, between the parties concerned. I appreciate all the parties concerned having accepted my invitation. Mr. [Peter van] Walsum is going to organize, as well as facilitate, this dialogue. This is a painstaking and very complex issue, and I hope that this time they will be able to make good progress on these issues.
On the situation in Darfur and, again, the Sudanese relationship, I am going to discuss with African leaders, including President [Idris] Deby of Chad. I have spoken with President Bashir. But I would really urge the leaders and countries concerned to refrain from all these exercises — refrain from using military forces. This will only aggravate the situations in Africa. I am very much concerned about all these ongoing deteriorating situations — not only here but elsewhere, including Kenya, Sudan, Chad and other areas.
I really hope that this new year, 2008, will see bright hope. We have started with gloomy prospects: the situation in Kenya and elsewhere. I really hope that, with active cooperation and dialogue among the leaders of the world, we will see some better world this year. This is my firm commitment as Secretary-General.
Question: But the POLISARIO is saying frankly, and their statements are very clear, that this is the last chance they are giving the Moroccans. Your thoughts on that; are you having any contacts with the POLISARIO? I understand that you hope that they will reach an agreement, but it seems the obstacles are too high and, in the face of these threats, it sounds like dire straits to me.
The Secretary-General: I would not make any comment on such kinds of very definitive declaration by any one of the parties. All the issues, they have their background and very complex nature of the issues. And it needs the parties concerned to be, first of all, patient and persistent and consistent and faithful in resolving this issue through dialogue.
The Spokesperson: The question, for those of you who were not following in French, is about Algeria: the recent bombing in Algeria, and the prospect of…
Question: I am actually talking about the Sahel region as a zone of lawlessness and the smuggling of arms. And a lot of countries and people in the region are worried that those attacks mean that the region may be considered as ground for terrorist groups that may threaten the region. Given the recent attacks in Algiers and also the attacks in Mauritania that led to the cancellation of a major sporting event, the Dakar rally, do you share the views of those who think that this Sahel region is becoming ground for terrorist groups that may threaten the stability in the region?
The Secretary-General: Let me practise my French.
(spoke in French)
Thank you very much for putting that question to me in French. I think you are well aware of my passion for the French language. Now, if you will allow me, I am not fully prepared — but if you will allow me to continue in English. I discussed matters with President [Abdelaziz] Bouteflika when I was in Algiers last month, last year.
(spoke in English)
These are serious issues for any country in the world, including those in the Sahel area. It is not only Algeria. I told President Bouteflika that, while it was a very tragic — and I was so sad and so shocked, and they were also embarrassed very much by not having been able to protect the United Nations staff and United Nations premises — this should be a global issue, not Algeria or any countries in the Sahel area. Therefore, this needs a global, concerted effort to address, fight against international terrorism. I think the international community must do more. Regardless of what their belief may be, there cannot be any justification whatsoever when it comes to terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism and, therefore, that bombing in Algiers really strengthened my resolve to work more. I again express my strong commitment to work for that.
Question: I think the talks start today on the Sahara issue. Don’t you think that this issue is also contributing to this instability, since there is no prospect for a solution? Do you expect a breakthrough in this round, or whether those talks will…?
The Secretary-General: All sorts of grievances coming from these conflict issues may be the source of some elements of terrorism. That is why we must resolve all the conflict issues through peaceful means, through dialogue. I cannot but be general on your questions.
----------------
Meanwhile:
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei was telling reporters in Beirut that he was concerned about the possibility that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could fall into extremist hands. “I fear that chaos... or an extremist regime could take root in that country which has 30 to 40 warheads,” ElBaradei said. He also warned against any attempt to solve the problem of Iran's nuclear program by force. Mr. Elbaradei is set to visit Tehran at the end of this week. “Any attack on Iranian nuclear facilities will only complicate the problem,” he said.
President George W. Bush is also to visit the Middle East this week, and Iran's nuclear program is also on his mind; Washington does not buy Tehran's claim that its program is entirely peaceful.
