SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF FINANCIAL, POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS
Press Release
SG/SM/6532
SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF FINANCIAL, POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS
19980421 ADVANCE TEXT Addresses Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Town Hall Los Angeles, on 'The Humanitarian Challenge Today'Following is the text of an address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on "The Humanitarian Challenge Today", to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and Town Hall Los Angeles on 21 April:
I am pleased to be with you today and to participate in this important forum. I know of your long tradition of dialogue on the central issues of our times, both domestic and international. And in the course of this brief visit to California, I have had a strong sense of the dynamic interplay between past and future, and between the United States and its Pacific rim neighbours, that has made this state such a vibrant presence on the American and international scenes. So I am grateful for this opportunity to share my thoughts with you.
I have just returned from a deeply moving trip overseas.
In the Middle East, where I visited Israel and its neighbours, I saw a yearning for peace, a longing on the part of all peoples in the region to lead secure, stable lives -- lives free of fear and upheaval.
In Geneva, where I attended the opening of the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, I heard still more eloquent statements of hope for the future -- hope that we can do more, in this year marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to fulfil the Declaration's enduring vision of dignity and equality for all people.
The press of these and literally thousands of other voices is among the most startling aspects of my work as Secretary-General. Throughout the world, people look to the United Nations for support, for guidance, for a simple hearing. Especially since February, when conflict in Iraq was averted through peaceful means, expectations have risen still further about what a unified United Nations can achieve. Naturally, I wish the international community to bring to the other issues on the United Nations agenda the same will and urgency that was brought to resolving, at least for now, the crisis with Iraq.
The United Nations also has a voice -- it is the voice of the weak, the poor, the defenceless and insecure. I know from long experience in the United Nations that among the most vulnerable people on earth are those stricken by war, by natural disaster, or worse, by both. That is why I want to talk to you today about the United Nations humanitarian imperative.
The end of the cold war seemed to herald a new era of peace and security, but these hopes were quickly dashed. Ethnic conflict and political upheavals led to a series of massive humanitarian tragedies, unprecedented not only in scale but in the rapidity with which they occurred.
Californians are no strangers to disasters or emergencies. From earthquakes to this year's battering by "El Nino", you know the tragedy of lost homes, lost jobs, lost lives. But imagine you live in a developing country lacking infrastructure and expertise to deal with natural or man-made disasters. Many such emergencies reach our television screens, such as the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina or the genocide in Rwanda. Many others do not. The fact is that humanitarian tragedies occur daily in all corners of the globe.
Many parts of the United Nations system with which you are familiar play a part in responding to these emergencies -- the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to name just a few.
Our partners include the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and the full range of non-governmental organizations, including organizations such as CARE. In addition, people from all over the world, from all walks of life, frequently leave the security of their homes for the often perilous life of a United Nations international relief worker.
Let us take the experience of a typical worker serving the United Nations World Food Programme in Lokichoggio, Kenya, helping to bring international relief to the people of Sudan.
The humanitarian emergency in Sudan is as complex and daunting as it gets. A civil war has dragged on for 14 years, with neither a military victory nor a political solution. Drought has added to the misery, displacing people from their homes when they should be planting or harvesting.
The lack of paved roads and other infrastructure is only one impediment to the delivery of aid. Both sides have used the denial of humanitarian assistance as an instrument of war; they have limited access to areas where people are suffering; they have banned humanitarian aircraft, including essential cargo planes; and they have attacked refugee camps, truck convoys and relief workers.
- 3 - Press Release SG/SM/6532 21 April 1998
As with many other prolonged conflicts, compassion fatigue seems to set in, and the international community's attention appears to wane. Where once funding was enough to meet 75 per cent of Sudan's needs, today we can provide only 5 per cent. More than a million people have died; more than a million more are vulnerable to famine and starvation; but Sudan is in jeopardy of falling off the screen. It has become one of the world's "forgotten emergencies".
The United Nations Operation Lifeline Sudan was established in 1989. The job of the United Nations aid workers is to make sure that food ends up in the mouths of the most vulnerable. They meet the food at established drop zones and join local workers in stacking and counting the bags. Then come the tough decisions. Sometimes there are 300 people sitting and waiting, but only 100 bags of food. Sometimes people have walked for days in search of food, only to find they must wait days or even weeks.
A key part of the job is to ensure that outside help does not discourage local agricultural production. That is why aid consists not just of food but also of crop seeds and farm tools. This link between emergency relief and long-term development is crucial. A gap often exists; we must close it wherever possible.
It is the contributions of each individual United Nations worker that make the United Nations response possible. In Sudan and elsewhere, humanitarian staff -- from truck drivers to boat operators, from nurses to veterinarians -- face a remarkable array of challenges.
Another forgotten emergency is Afghanistan, where a deadly mix of war, poverty and natural disaster has created a situation that rivals Sudan's in both complexity and suffering.
In February, an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale hit a remote mountainous province. To spread news of the disaster, men had to be sent on a day's journey by foot and donkeys to reach the nearest town with radio communications. Owing to security concerns, many Governments and commercial contractors were reluctant to provide planes or helicopters. So the heaviest burden was borne by trucks.
Amid landslides and aftershocks, in dense fog that often prevented aid from being brought in by airdrop, vehicles moved at a snail's pace across difficult roads that ended in deep mud and snow. Donkeys continued the journey, bringing in tents, sheeting, blankets and food. Each delivery that crossed factional and political borders required negotiations with official and traditional leaders. Despite such constraints, the United Nations and its partners managed to distribute more than 700 tons of relief supplies to the victims within one month of the earthquake.
- 4 - Press Release SG/SM/6532 21 April 1998
Humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan are also struggling in the face of chronic insecurity, looting and robbery in one part of the country, and a harsh human rights regime in the other. In areas under the control of the Taliban, women cannot work except in narrowly defined circumstances; girls have little chance of receiving an education; and access to health care for both women and girls has been curtailed.
Last month, the Taliban made humanitarian work even more difficult when it decreed that all non-Afghan Muslim women could travel in the country only in the company of a close male relative. My colleague Carol Bellamy, once head of the Peace Corps and now Executive Director of UNICEF, spoke for all United Nations humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan when she told the Taliban that this edict was unacceptable and should be repealed. Moreover, she said that negotiations on equal access to education and health care should be resumed, and stressed the need to adhere to basic rights and standards.
Other painful dilemmas confronted the humanitarian community in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. When in August 1994 hundreds of thousands of Rwandans fled in a matter of days to what was then Zaire, those seeking safety included women and children, but also many members of the former Rwandan Army and of the extremist political and paramilitary groups responsible for the genocide. The humanitarian agencies present, foremost among them UNHCR, were powerless to separate the innocent from the guilty. They had no choice but to distribute food, medicine, blankets and shelter materials to all.
This led to allegations that humanitarian agencies were fuelling further insecurity in the region, since the food aid bolstered the extremist groups. But what else could have been done?
My predecessor sought assistance from Member States to separate the combatants from non-combatants, those guilty of crimes from the innocent. But despite repeated appeals they proved unwilling to do so. Could we then have let hundreds and thousands of women and children die, people who were in effect being held hostage by those responsible for the genocide?
At such times, the humanitarian imperative to save lives had to take precedence. As with so much else concerning Rwanda and the Great Lakes region, we have paid a terrible price for the political tragedy that engulfed so many.
The nature of warfare has changed. Most wars are now internal struggles. The dividing line between combatants and civilians has become less clear cut. Ninety per cent of victims are civilians, whereas during the First World War the comparable figure was 5 per cent, and even that was considered
- 5 - Press Release SG/SM/6532 21 April 1998
unacceptable. There are more lethal weapons available to a greater number of people than at any other time in history. Many are in the hands of the estimated 250,000 child soldiers, as young as 10 or 12.
As humanitarian aid has grown in recent years, so have doubts about its effectiveness. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, aid was alleged to have served as a surrogate for more forceful political or military action that might have addressed root causes of the conflict and brought a quicker settlement. In Africa and elsewhere, it is said that humanitarian aid drains scarce resources that should have been used for development projects.
Millions of lives have been saved by the action of United Nations humanitarian organizations and their governmental and non-governmental partners. But humanitarian action does not purport to do more than save lives and alleviate suffering. It cannot address underlying causes, but it can create space for politicians to do so. Disasters rarely, if ever, have purely humanitarian origins, and even more rarely are the solutions solely humanitarian.
If a society does not secure basic fundamental human rights and protect minorities, if it does not ensure at least some prospect of sustainable political, economic and social development, there is a potential for a humanitarian crisis. As we respond with aid, we must remember that humanitarian action is no substitute for political will or military action aimed at lasting cures.
The United Nations plays a unique role in this respect. The Organization possesses political, military, economic and development expertise and capacity. But to resolve conflicts, to help countries recover the path of development, to help establish or re-establish democracy, all the arms of the Organization must act in unison. This is the great challenge of my job. But I cannot succeed in this alone; the backing of Member States is essential.
Too often, humanitarian agencies are left alone at the front line because there is no political will by Member States to intervene or because they are divided on what political or military action to take. Sometimes we see a dangerous tendency towards isolationism. But in today's interdependent world, yesterday's distant crisis is tomorrow at our doorstep. The lack of peace in Afghanistan affects the price of drugs on the streets in Los Angeles and terrorist attacks around the globe.
Financial support is as important as political support. The United States is one of the world's leading contributors to United Nations appeals for emergency assistance. United Nations humanitarian agencies are dependent on voluntary contributions and could not complete their work without the generous support of the United States.
- 6 - Press Release SG/SM/6532 21 April 1998
This generosity does not, however, relieve the United States of its obligation to pay its debt to the United Nations. Until then, since all parts of the United Nations need to act in harmony if crises are to be resolved or prevented before they occur, our humanitarian work will be affected.
The essence of the United Nations work is about establishing human security where it is no longer present, where it is under threat, or where it never existed. I am talking about security for individuals, which is the basis of State security; security not just in military terms, but security that encompasses human rights and democracy, development and the rule of law; security not just in spirit, but in our homes. This is our humanitarian imperative.
Paradoxically, at a moment when the greatest threat to world peace in our lifetime -- super-Power confrontation -- has been removed, more people than ever before seem to find themselves in insecure, life-threatening situations. Your help is needed now more than ever. Please join us in this work.
* *** *