SECRETARY-GENERAL'S STATEMENT AT UNVEILING OF PLAQUE MARKING FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION
Press Release
SG/SM/5867
SECRETARY-GENERAL'S STATEMENT AT UNVEILING OF PLAQUE MARKING FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION
19960110 ADVANCE TEXT Following is the text of a statement to be delivered by Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on the occasion of the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in Westminster, London:On 10 January 1946 -- 50 years ago to the day -- the General Assembly of the United Nations met here for the first time. It was the first session of the first of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The work of the United Nations had begun.
Today, we honour the pioneering efforts of those who made history here on this day 50 years ago. We also celebrate a half-century of achievement. The United Nations has solved disputes, and helped to bring peace, development and democracy, in every continent. The United Nations oversaw, successfully and with relatively little bloodshed, the decolonization agenda. The protection of human rights has been immeasurably enhanced through the United Nations. The struggle against apartheid, the case for the Palestinians, and the debate about development, have been forcefully articulated, and accepted by the world, in the halls of the United Nations.
United Nations peace-keeping has had a distinguished record. Recent peace-keeping operations, in such countries as Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique and Angola, have successfully carried out multidimensional mandates.
The challenge today is to apply the will and determination of those early days, with imagination and flexibility, to the problems of the 1990s. This afternoon, we pay tribute to the political will, determination and idealism of the founders of our Organization. And we resolve to emulate them, and to re-kindle today the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations.
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