SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES YOUNG PARTICIPANTS IN NATIONAL MODEL UN CONFERENCE

30 March 1999

Press Release
SG/SM/6943

SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES YOUNG PARTICIPANTS IN NATIONAL MODEL UN CONFERENCE

19990330 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY Says Your Commitment, Imagination, Idealism Will Make Difference Between Success and Failure in All Challenges Facing Twenty-First Century

Following is the statement by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the National Model United Nations Conference, in New York today:

Thank you for inviting me to this truly inspiring event. It is wonderful to see so much talent and enthusiasm gathered in one place at one time.

For nearly 50 years this chamber where we are gathered has been the place where the nations of the world meet. They meet to discuss global issues and events, to affirm their national interests and above all to understand each other better. Here they seek to avoid the devastating mistakes of the past, and to build a better, more peaceful and prosperous future for the human race.

That is an ambitious task, and they have not always been successful. But think where we would be if we didn't have the United Nations.

Looking back on the last 50 years there is much to regret -- much that reminds us of the evils of human nature. But there is also much to be proud of.

We have survived -- we the human race, and we the United Nations. Neither of us could take it for granted, in 1945, that we would be here to celebrate the millennium.

Since 1945, the human race has lived in the shadow of two holocausts -- one that had just happened, and one that always might.

I mean, of course, the mass exterminations of the Second World War, and the fear of a third world war fought with nuclear weapons.

So far we have avoided the latter. Have we avoided repeating the former? In Cambodia, in the 1970s, up to 2 million people were killed by Pol Pot's regime -- perhaps a quarter of the country's population. And in this decade, from Bosnia to Rwanda, we have again seen thousand upon thousand of human beings massacred, purely because of their ethnic origin. All the signs are that it is happening once more, right now, in Kosovo.

The United Nations too has lived under a shadow -- the shadow of its predecessor, the League of Nations, founded with such high hopes in 1919, only to be engulfed in the Second World War barely 20 years later.

One reason for the League's failure was that the United States never joined it. If the United Nations is still here, after 54 years, a major reason is that the United States was a founder member and has always played a central role. American energy and commitment are always vital to our success.

We cannot yet claim victory, but we are still fighting the evils which threaten humankind.

We have banned some of the most horrible weapons, and limited the use of others. We have set up tribunals to judge and punish the organizers of genocide and ethnic killing. And now we are well on the way to having a permanent International Criminal Court for that purpose.

In many countries torn by conflict we have helped bring about political settlements, enabling the warring parties to lay aside their weapons and rebuild their lives in peace.

We have saved countless lives by providing impartial peacekeepers, in conflicts where the parties agreed to cease fire. And we must have saved many more through preventive action.

Throughout the world we are struggling to bring hope to people imprisoned by poverty and disease. We have worked hard to win agreement on common standards in such areas as human rights, labour relations and respect for the environment.

We do this because we know that all human beings are entitled to these things.

We believe it is wrong for some people to monopolize the earth's resources at the expense of others, and wrong also for one generation to exploit them at the expense of its successors.

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That is why we work for human development, from which all can benefit, and for sustainable development, which must leave the world a better place for future generations to enjoy.

When I say "we", I don't mean just the people who work here in the Secretariat.

I don't even mean just the people working all around the world for the various funds and programmes and agencies that make up the United Nations family.

The United Nations is broader than that. It includes all its 185 Member States -- their governments, their peoples and the thousands of voluntary groups in every country which are working to make the world a better place. I see all these as part of the United Nations.

Above all I see you as part of it -- you here in this hall, and the generation you represent, in America and around the world. It is your commitment, your imagination, your idealism that in the end will make the difference between success and failure, in all the enormous challenges the world faces as we begin the twenty-first century.

We have only one world, and it is our world. Each of us can do something to make it a better place, and each of us has a duty to make the most of his or her opportunities.

There are so many ways you can contribute: through teaching, through medicine, through law, through diplomacy, or as a member of the business community. Whichever walk of life you choose, I hope you will find the United Nations a valued partner and a useful instrument in your efforts to improve the human condition.

Thank you very much. I wish you all a most successful conference -- and I can feel already that you are going to have one.

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