SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR EXTRA EFFORT TO END AFRICA'S WARS, UNLEASH ITS RICH POTENTIAL, AS HE ACCEPTS 1999 BLACK HISTORY MAKERS AWARD
Press Release
SG/SM/6886
SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR EXTRA EFFORT TO END AFRICA'S WARS, UNLEASH ITS RICH POTENTIAL, AS HE ACCEPTS 1999 BLACK HISTORY MAKERS AWARD
19990203 Following are the remarks of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Associated Black Charities upon receiving the 1999 Black History Makers Award in New York on February:Thank you, Don, for those kind and very generous words of introduction. I am deeply honoured to receive the Black History Makers Award this evening. I would also like to join in the tribute to my fellow award-winners, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Gordon Parks. I am indeed in very special company tonight.
We are all humbled to follow in the footsteps of past winners, such as Justice Thurgood Marshall, Jessye Norman, Arthur Ashe, and General Colin Powell. But, I also know that this award usually is reserved for African- Americans. Let me, therefore, express my deep sense of gratitude at being recognized tonight as an African among Americans. Thank you.
It is a special pleasure for me to be introduced by Ambassador McHenry, a friend and colleague of many years, and a past winner of this award. Though we have met across the table many times at the United Nations -- he representing the United States, and I representing the United Nations -- we are united by our heritage.
As Africans and African-Americans, we are joined in our debt to a Black pioneer of peacekeeping at the United Nations, Ralph Bunche. As Don can tell you, I always kept a picture of Mr. Bunche on my wall during my years as head of United Nations peacekeeping, knowing that he was looking down on me, hoping to gain inspiration and initiative from his life and work. I am, therefore, particularly touched to receive this award in his memory.
Indeed, I believe Mr. Bunche's extraordinary accomplishments are one of the great untold stories of African-American history-making in our century. From his days as a star at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to his Ph.D. at Harvard to his pioneering work as a researcher in race studies and civil rights at Howard, Mr. Bunche was destined for greatness.
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What no one could have predicted was that he would put his extraordinary abilities at the service of world peace. From Cyprus to Kashmir to the Congo and to the Middle East, Mr. Bunche exemplified the highest values of the United Nations Charter, which he helped draft at the United States State Department. But it was in the Middle East that he made perhaps his greatest contribution, drafting the partition plan, and succeeding the assassinated Count Bernadotte as the United Nations chief mediator.
It was for this historic role that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. Characteristically, Bunche at first balked at accepting the award. He said that he had simply done his job. Only upon the insistence of Secretary-General Trygve Lie did he finally go to receive it.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Bunche declared that "the United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace, but also to make change -- even radical change -- possible without violent upheaval". From his work in civil rights in America to his efforts for peace around the world, Mr. Bunche knew that radical change was both needed and possible.
Nowhere is this change more urgent than in our common home, the continent of Africa. I have made peace and progress in Africa a priority of my tenure as Secretary-General. Whether in speaking the truth about Africa's challenges, or seeking to mediate disputes that all too often have become deadly wars, I have always said that, for too long, conflict in Africa has been seen as inevitable or intractable, or both. It is neither.
Conflict in Africa, as everywhere, is caused by human action, and can be ended by human action. This is the reality that shames us for every conflict that we allow to persist. It is the reality that must make us go the extra mile to end Africas wars, so that the rich potential of its peoples can be unleashed.
As I stand before you tonight, I know that you share this belief, and I hope that together we can help bring about the Africa that Africa deserves. To succeed, we must think and act as Africans, as African-Americans, and as citizens of one world -- ours.
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