In progress at UNHQ

SG/SM/6637

SECRETARY-GENERAL COMMENDS BRAZIL FOR ITS LOYAL SUPPORT OF UNITED NATIONS, RESOLVE TO MEET DOMESTIC CHALLENGES

13 July 1998


Press Release
SG/SM/6637


SECRETARY-GENERAL COMMENDS BRAZIL FOR ITS LOYAL SUPPORT OF UNITED NATIONS, RESOLVE TO MEET DOMESTIC CHALLENGES

19980713 `Culture of Peace' Statement in Brasilia also Notes Fine Comportment in World Cup -- `Elevating Football to a Thing of Beauty'

This is the text of a statement by Secretary-General Kofi Annan today at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Brasilia, Brazil, on "The Culture of Peace":

On this first visit to your capital as Secretary-General, I am mindful of the words of Lucio Costa, your countryman who passed away only last month. The great urban planner and architect, whose vision of humankind living in harmony with his tropical surroundings we see reflected in this city today, admonished: "Don't bother visiting Brasilia if you've already formed opinions and have preconceived ideas. Stay where you are."

Yet here I am. You may conclude from that I have come with an open mind. I would even venture that Brazil is too vast, too varied a nation to allow the visitor any hard and fast opinions even after a prolonged visit -- let alone beforehand.

How many times have we not read that Brazil is a continent within a continent? Yet how true it is. As every schoolchild knows, if you superimpose a map of Europe, excluding Russia, on a map of Brazil, you will find that all of Europe is smaller than this country. Your country shares a border with all but two of South America's nations. You have succeeded in drawing each of those boundaries not through costly wars of conquest, as has all too often happened and continues to happen elsewhere, but through diplomatic means. For 120 years, you have maintained peaceful and cooperative relations with all of your 10 neighbours. Brazil has, in short, built up and lived by a culture of peace.

It is an achievement that deserves all our appreciation and admiration. You have shown a preference for peaceful solution and negotiation that should serve as an inspiration not only to the region, but to the world. And I am pleased to note that Brazil's comportment in the World Cup was no exception.

You have not only elevated football to a thing of beauty -- you have done it with a sense of fair play throughout.

That preference for peaceful solution is also reflected in your active engagement in the United Nations. Throughout the history of the Organization, Brazil has been a firm and loyal friend. Your public and your media take an active interest in the work of the Organization that I wish were true of all Member States. You have made an outstanding contribution to our peacekeeping operations. Until a few years ago, you were our fourth biggest contributor of troops. I am confident we will see your peacekeeping role restored to that impressive rank.

You have supported actively the peace processes in Angola and Mozambique. You have played an important role in regional security as a guarantor of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol concerning the Ecuador-Peru border. Through MERCOSUR, your commitment to regional cooperation has contributed greatly to the economic prosperity of the region. And you have played a pioneering role in South-South cooperation worldwide.

With the rest of the region, you have taken a lead in disarmament. This morning, I was privileged to witness the signing by President Cardoso of the Ratification Instruments for Brazil's adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. I welcome wholeheartedly this development.

But let us not forget that Brazil's commitment to disarmament dates back several decades. Last year we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the landmark Tlatelolco Treaty that prohibits the testing, use, manufacture, production or acquisition of nuclear weapons over a vast geographic region that is home to tens of millions of people. Just as significantly, the Treaty has served as a guidepost for the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones in other parts of the world. In the South Pacific, in Southeast Asia, in Africa. Though each of these zones has its own regional characteristics and concerns, their creators drew heavily from the experience and example of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. More than 110 United Nations Member States are party to these agreements. With Antarctica included, they form a nuclear-weapon-free mantle over a vast, densely populated area of the southern hemisphere.

Your exemplar has recently taken on renewed and momentous significance. At a time when events in South Asia have resurrected the prospect of the nuclear arms race, Brazil and other major Powers of the region have rightly been held up as beacons of maturity for abstaining from vying for membership of the nuclear club.

I believe that where others learned the hard way, Brazil has consistently resisted falling for a number of myths. You have recognized that a hostile foreign policy does not provide a unifying theme for the country.

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You have demonstrated that military rule does not create a stable form of government for the country. You have understood that war does not give a robust economy to the country.

But there is more than one dimension to peace. Even in 1945, the founders of the United Nations recognized the need to fight on two fronts to win the battle for enduring peace: on the security front, where victory spells freedom from fear; and on the economic and social front, where victory spells freedom from want.

And so development is peace by another name. Brazil has taken extraordinary strides since the Real Plan was introduced under the able stewardship of President Cardoso and others, including Rubens Ricupero, whom we are now privileged to have as Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. You have achieved stability. You have reduced your inflation rate from 80 per cent to 10 per cent.

But you also recognize that painful inequalities remain. Sao Paulo, which I will have the pleasure of visiting tomorrow, would be the world's twentieth biggest economy if it were a nation in its own right. Yet the favela I visited in Rio two days ago might as well be in a different country. The street children know nothing of the glittering skyscrapers where immense wealth is being created every day. And there are conditions in the northeast of Brazil that are on a par with the poorer parts of Africa. Your President has made it clear Brazil must address these inequalities. I know that your culture of peace compels you to confront them head on. And I pledge that the United Nations will assist you on the path to development and social justice.

Peace on a global level, too, will depend not only on the management of armed conflict but on the achievement of social and economic progress for peoples everywhere. It will depend on our ability to promote and safeguard all aspects of human security.

We are now 18 months away from the new millennium. We live in a world where change must be seen as an essential condition of life; where globalization brings new realities every day; where the forces of good and bad travel with equal freedom and with equal speed.

Tens of millions of refugees; environmental destruction; a drug trade twice the size of the motor vehicles industry; nuclear arms proliferation; an AIDS epidemic that has exposed tragic gaps between rich and poor -- these are just some of the problems the world faces on the eve of the twenty-first century.

They are problems without passports. And they require blueprints without borders. They require all the resourcefulness of the United Nations and its membership. For when the time comes to write the history of civilization, we will be judged as much or more by our ability to address

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those challenges, as by our achievements in conflict resolution and peacemaking.

I have a vision of a United Nations which enters the twenty-first century well-equipped to come up with those blueprints. They require a multilateral framework and Brazil, to its credit, has recognized that. We hope that this country, and the rest of Latin America, will be engaged fully in seeking to develop these blueprints, and to keep working on them. Brazil's commitment to that process was plain for the world to see when it played host to the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio six years ago.

I know that your country is ready to play its part to the full. Over the past year, you have given invaluable support to our efforts to reform the Organization, to take it through the process of renewal necessary to make it more relevant in the twenty-first century. One of your concerns is the membership of the United Nations Security Council. Although this is an issue for Member States to decide, permit me to say that there is consensus that the current make-up of the Council reflects the world of 1945, not today. It must be brought into line with today's political and economic realities.

It often seems that the world we live in has change as the only constant. But there is another constant that has been with us since time immemorial: the perpetual search for better standards of life in larger freedom. Whether we are seeking to free humanity from the menace of weapons of mass destruction, drugs, poverty or pandemics -- that is the constant that gives us purpose. That is where I hope I can count on the resourcefulness of this vast and varied nation. Your culture of peace, your gift for peaceful solution to disputes, your commitment to multilateralism will be an invaluable asset as we seek to build a United Nations for the twenty-first century.

To end where I started, I would like to return to the words of Lucio Costa -- a man credited with seeking to establish a connection between a world in permanent transition and enduring human values. I think we can all take comfort from his motto. And I quote: "When all else changes for you, nature remains the same, and the same sun rises on your days."

I hope that Brazil's enduring culture of peace will help to illuminate all our days. Povo do Brasil, creio que posso contar convosco. Obrigado. [People of Brazil, I know that I can count on you. Thank you.]

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For information media. Not an official record.