DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL PRAISES SWITZERLAND'S GLOBAL CONTRIBUTION TO PEACEFUL CHANGE AT CELEBRATION OF 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF SWISS FEDERATION

5 June 1998

Press Release
DSG/SM/7

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL PRAISES SWITZERLAND'S GLOBAL CONTRIBUTION TO PEACEFUL CHANGE AT CELEBRATION OF 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF SWISS FEDERATION

19980605 Louise Frechette Says Switzerland Demonstrate That Pluralist Societies not Only Thrive on Their Own, but Enrich and Enlighten Entire World

Following is the statement of Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Swiss Federation, in Bern on 4 June:

It is a special pleasure for me to join you today in commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Swiss Federation. On behalf of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, allow me to congratulate the Swiss nation on this occasion and say how much we share in your joy on this day. Switzerland has been a friend and a home to the United Nations for as long as our Organization has existed. May the next 150 years hold as much promise and prosperity as the last.

The Swiss people can rightly look back on the past century and a half with pride and satisfaction, for it marks a historic achievement in civic cooperation and national progress. Switzerland represents to the world a model of multilingual cooperation and cultural identity, of humanitarian conscience and global engagement.

For the United Nations, this engagement has meant that we have been able to work under the best of conditions in the service of those in the worst of conditions. We have been able to devote our energies entirely to alleviating the plight of refugees, the deprivation of the poor and the suffering of the victims of war and violence. You have in a very real way made possible the mission of the United Nations.

But you know equally that our mission is not over. You are equally willing to enable our work of the future.

Tomorrow, I will have the honour of thanking the Government of Switzerland for providing the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights with a new home at the Palais Wilson in Geneva. In this fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there could be no higher tribute to its lasting value than Switzerland's generous gift of the Palais.

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In that historic building, your nation's concern for human rights will be joined with our revitalized commitment to make human rights real for those who need them most -- the poor, the vulnerable, the oppressed and the silenced.

Of course, Switzerland has a long history of sharing its wealth and experience with those less fortunate, less able to seize the promise of pluralism, less equipped to provide the economic foundations for peaceful coexistence. Through your membership of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, you are making a global impact.

You will not be surprised to hear me say that membership in the United Nations provides an even greater canvas for the pursuit of a people's interests in what is the greatest global concert in history. As we confront tomorrow's threats, whether they be drugs or transnational crime, we know they must be met in concert.

Only in concert can we ensure that one nation's effort to secure and promote its interests are complemented, and not contradicted, by those of another nation. Only in concert can we successfully meet the dangers that no borders can contain on their own. Only in concert have the United Nations and the international community -- to the extent that we have -- succeeded in constructing a global architecture of peaceful change.

Switzerland's global contribution to peaceful change -- whether through humanitarian action or economic engagement -- has showed the world that pluralist societies not only thrive on their own, but enrich and enlighten the entire world.

On behalf of the United Nations, I offer my warmest congratulations for this achievement.

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