"THIS UNIVERSAL ORGANIZATION" THE PRIDE OF ALL HUMANKIND SAYS GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT AT UN DAY CONCERT

Press Release
GA/SM/113

‘THIS UNIVERSAL ORGANIZATION’ THE PRIDE OF ALL HUMANKIND SAYS GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT AT UN DAY CONCERT

Following is the statement of the President of the General Assembly, Theo Ben-Gurirab (Namibia), delivered at the United Nations Day Concert in New York on 22 October:

We welcome you all, our honoured guests, to the United Nations and invite you to enjoy a wonderful evening of music and fellowship. Our United Nations is celebrating today -– twenty-fourth October, actually –- its magnificent and triumphant fifty-fourth birthday anniversary in this great People’s Assembly Hall. The United Nations is doing so with a confident gaze across the horizons into a promising yet challenging future, emboldened by its readiness to serve humanity even better in the twenty-first century.

This universal Organization is, indeed, the pride of all humankind. It was born in 1945, out of the enmity, horrors and pain of the most destructive and divisive of all wars that caused millions of deaths and untold suffering of peoples and communities in the world. In spite of these unforgettable tragedies and their hard consequences, the United Nations has remained steadfast in the pursuit of the principles and objectives of its Charter, sustained by indomitable human spirit to preserving life and promoting social progress at all levels of the society.

The United Nations Charter, complemented by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is the Magna Carta of the twentieth century. The Member States have an enduring duty towards future generations to ensure the continued survival of the Organization and strengthen it in a way to serve as the highest court of conscience to the world, as well as a driving force behind the struggle of the world’s poor and the needy.

Whatever is today pernicious in human relations or objectionable in interstate dealings could be even more intolerable had it not been for the United Nations restraining ethos and its insistence on peaceful coexistence, fairness and dialogue among nations, governments and peoples of the world.

- 2 - Press Release GA/SM/113 25 October 1999

Our United Nations needs goodwill, yes. But, it needs resources more for people-driven social development and, indeed, child protection. So, let us all stretch out our hands, in a warm embrace, around the United Nations and breathe fresh life into its vital organs and mandates. In this way, we will be able to assure world peace, brotherhood and prosperity now and in the future for all of God’s children. And meet the twenty-first century head-on.

Long live the United Nations. Education and happiness to the world’s children.

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