SECRETARY-GENERAL PLEADS CASE FOR MULTILATERALISM, SAYS CHOICE BETWEEN NATIONAL SECURITY AND COLLECTIVE SECURITY IS FALSE CHOICE
Press Release
SG/SM/6641
SECRETARY-GENERAL PLEADS CASE FOR MULTILATERALISM, SAYS CHOICE BETWEEN NATIONAL SECURITY AND COLLECTIVE SECURITY IS FALSE CHOICE
19980716 Buenos Aires Address Cites International Cooperation as Only Way To Progress in Meeting Cross-Boundary Challenges in Modern WorldThis is the text of an address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Argentine Council for International Relations in Buenos Aires:
I am honoured to address this distinguished audience in the twentieth anniversary year of this great institution. Over the last two decades, this body has enlightened and educated Argentineans about your nation's importance to the world and the world's importance to you. I stress this particular role because I believe the increased interdependence of nation-States to be the defining trend of our time. How you in Argentina and we in the international community engage this trend will determine the success of our greatest endeavours, whether it is in pursuit of peace, development or human rights.
Already, Argentina has established itself as a model Member of the United Nations, serving the cause of peace with a dedication almost unmatched in United Nations peacekeeping. As a former peacekeeper myself, I have always felt a deep personal gratitude to your nation for offering so many of your brave men and women in uniform to serve the United Nations in our most sacred duty -- preventing armed conflict. In this fiftieth anniversary year of United Nations peacekeeping, we also celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the first Argentinean soldier to serve as a United Nations military observer. Permit me, therefore, to pay tribute to the 11 Argentinean United Nations soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in cause of peace and to the many more who are serving today.
Argentina has assumed this noble role even as you yourselves have witnessed extraordinary transformations -- in your country and on your continent. Having made peace in your region and consolidated civilian, democratic rule at home, your nation is looking abroad with a global vision -- aiding development, enhancing peace and promoting the values of human rights that we know must become reality for all humanity.
These past two decades have also witnessed perhaps the most rapid changes in the structure of the international system that we have seen in this century. The end of the bi-polar system has given way to a multipolarity of powers and States pursuing their interests increasingly through cooperation and not competition. There are, however, still those who believe that national interests are best served outside the arena of international cooperation. There are those who argue that national security is threatened and not enhanced by collective security. There are those who say others'
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problems are not our problems, that we can prosper even as our neighbours suffer. And there are those who claim that a nation's standing in the world is measured by the size or nature of its weapons -- not by its power to bring peace to its neighbours and prosperity to its people.
To all these challenges to international cooperation, Argentina and Latin America have offered a powerful response. You have shown that the choice offered between national security and collective security is a false choice; that a people's interests can be advanced by being pursued in regional and global contexts; that others' problems eventually become ours if they are not confronted collectively; and that a nation's true standing in the world may even be measured by the weapons it declines, not by those it amasses.
Allow me to emphasize today three critical areas of the United Nations mission for peace and security in which Argentina's leadership is helping us meet tomorrow's threats.
Through your nation's active and sustained leadership in United Nations peacekeeping, you have shown the wisdom of preventing conflicts near to home by ending those far away. Why? Because we have learned that the resolute response of the international community to threats to peace and security can prevent a dangerous escalation in the fighting and deter those who might threaten peace in the future, wherever they may be. Because we know that the early containment of a conflict prevents the destabilizing flow of arms and refugees to neighbouring countries.
In the area of humanitarian assistance, Argentina's "White Helmets" initiative is focusing on the need to create a corps ready to provide rapid assistance when disaster strikes. From the Balkans to the Sudan, from Afghanistan to West Africa, the world today is confronted with humanitarian emergencies that seem only to grow in horror.
Wars and natural disasters, often joined in a terrible combination, are causing massive loss of life, tremendous suffering and great dislocations of peoples and groups. The need for effective humanitarian assistance has never been greater. And as we recognize that humanitarian assistance never exists in a vacuum -- that politics even there play a role -- we realize that a "White Helmets" corps can provide the dependability and professionalism that are needed.
In the area of disarmament, your continent has a proud record of exemplary discipline and restraint, realizing that the priority for your peoples, as for all peoples, is economic development and human security -- attributes that no amount of arms and no type of weapon can ever provide. There is, of course, no greater danger to humanity than a nuclear arms race. In the past month, since the deeply regrettable decisions of the governments of India and Pakistan to conduct nuclear weapons tests, I have often spoken of Latin America's brilliant example. The Treaty of Tlatelolco serves as a blueprint of wisdom and foresight. It has provided for the peoples of your continent not a balance of terror, but a balance of peace. I pray that others may see the wisdom of your choice and follow in your footsteps.
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Whether it is ethnic conflict in Africa and Europe, disarmament in Iraq or the threat of nuclear confrontation in South Asia, we know that security must be crafted collectively if it is to be enjoyed collectively. If, in the Balkans, the issue of Kosovo is not resolved peacefully, tensions may spill across a range of borders and create instability -- even war -- elsewhere. If, in Iraq, UNSCOM is not allowed to complete its mandated mission, the Gulf will continue to be threatened by conflict. If, in South Asia, immediate steps are not taken to create confidence-building measures, large populations could be threatened by war.
Collective security, in other words, is not just a slogan or a simplistic expression of faith in mutual interests; it is the very condition for national security. That is not to say that national interests will disappear or always be aligned with the collective interest. Nor is it to argue that disputes should not, where possible, be resolved bilaterally. It is only to say that in the vast majority of cases, nation-States have a better chance of confronting their challenges in concert.
What this means is that when the United Nations decides to intervene to stop a threat to peace or prevent the outbreak of conflict -- as in Bosnia or Guatemala or Cyprus -- it is you, the people of Argentina, who stand alongside the peoples of nations from Denmark to Canada, it is you who intervene in the cause of peace.
Intervention is often understood as an act only an alliance or an army can carry out, often with arms, and sometimes even without the sanction of the international community. I believe, however, that we need to think of intervention in broader terms, to teach our children that intervention is something than even one person can do -- stepping in to alleviate suffering or prevent pain. Allow me, therefore, to conclude by proposing that if defined in those terms, there is no alternative, politically or morally, to each nation intervening in the course of global progress in whatever way it can -- through development assistance, peacekeeping, human rights advocacy, or humanitarian aid.
One of the greatest citizens of the Americas ever to serve the United Nations, Ralph Bunche, said upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 that "the United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace, but also to make change -- even radical change -- possible without violent upheaval". Having achieved this for your own nation, Argentina is now helping others make that change possible. By doing so, you are giving Argentina a global role and position that will earn your nation respect and admiration of this and future generations.
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