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''A UNITED NATIONS RENAISSANCE'
ADDRESS BY
RT. HON. P. J. PATTERSON, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
PRIME MINISTER OF JAMAICA
TO THE
55TH SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2001
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Mr. President,
I am delighted to join in the chorus of warm congratulations
expressed before this Assembly to the Secretary-General of
our Organisation, His Excellency Kofi Annan, and to the
United Nations itself, on the joint award of this year's Nobel
Peace Prize.
We also join in this proud salute to those who have fallen in
the line of duty and recognise those who continue to serve in
areas of danger and all for the cause of peace.
It is a fitting tribute that this Prize, dedicated to the cause of
peace and so richly earned by our Secretary-General in his
own right and by the UN Organisation in its collectivity, has
been conferred on them this year.
No one doubts that the accolades are deserving. They are
most fitting at a time when the entire world is in upheaval.
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The catastrophic attacks, cynically perpetrated on
International Peace Day in the City that is host to the United
Nations and elsewhere, have in their wanton slaughter of
innocents and awesome destructiveness, sent shockwaves
around the world. The messiahs of terror have, by the sheer
magnitude and horror of their unprecedented crime against
humanity unified nations and people in the determination to
remove the spectre of terrorism in all its many forms
wherever it is manifested.
Mr. President,
Jamaica stands firmly with the international community on
Resolution 1373 of the Security Council against Terrorism.
As a member of the Council, we assert with particular
emphasis and deliberation our unwavering commitment to the
cause of ending this pernicious evil.
To defeat the forces of terror, our collective action must be
firm, decisive, and broad-based.
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International Laws must become a binding framework for the
defeat of terrorism.
Jamaica welcomes the ongoing efforts to elaborate the draft
Comprehensive Convention Against Terrorism. We hope that
the momentum will be seized, during this General Assembly,
to achieve measurable progress in this critical area. At the
same time, the international community needs to take action
towards the universality of the existing Conventions and other
Instruments against terrorism.
Jamaica is accelerating domestic action to achieve those
objectives and I will be pleased to sign, tomorrow, the
International Convention Against the Suppression of Terrorist
Financing.
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Mr. President,
For the past two years, Jamaica has worked with other
members of the Council to make peace-keeping operations
more efficient; to create strategies for sustained peacebuilding;
bring warring factions to the peace table and
beyond that, promote compliance with resulting accords; put
in place mechanisms for protecting those most affected by
situations of conflict, especially the women and children
among them.
We are pleased with the work already undertaken in respect
of the Brahimi Report on Peacekeeping Operations.
Through a number of Tribunals, we have demonstrated that
the U.N. will act to end · impunity. Despite sustained
international efforts, several flashpoints still remain.
Jamaica is deeply concerned by the continuing cycle of
violence and reprisal in the Middle East. Efforts to achieve
a durable cease-fire have been thwarted at every turn.
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Numerous resolutions by the Security Council have been
ignored. We recognise the positive efforts of some
Permanent Members to influence a return to the peace
process, but the Security Council should not be marginalized
in these initiatives.
Jamaica again urges the Government of Israel and the
Palestinian Authority to spare no effort in complying with
agreements already reached. We call on both parties to
remain engaged in the quest for a durable peace.
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Mr. President,
We dare not neglect the millions of children worldwide who
suffer from hunger, disease and ignorance. In situations of
conflict, children are the most vulnerable victims.
We have all been horrified by their exploitation as child
soldiers, by the trafficking and sexual abuse that numerous
children have suffered. We have to remember that they
constitute the generation of tomorrow, in whose hands will
rest the future for international peace and security.
Nor must we forget the importance of humanitarian
assistance to the innocent people in conflict-torn areas of the
world; to refugees and displaced persons, as well as to those
who are victims of natural and man-made disasters. For
them, the U.N. must become a beacon of hope for the peace
and stability which will enable them to lead normal and
productive lives.
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Mr. President,
Military strikes cannot by themselves eradicate terrorism. In
our response, we need to be mindful that the time has come
for us to inaugurate a new era of peace; not simply through
preventing war, but by eliminating the causes that give rise to
strife and violence.
And so, I come to this podium, today, to call for a United
Nations renaissance, for a rebirth of this Organisation, which
will not just permit it to be the harbinger of peace, but
empowers it to foster the climate that ushers in a new age of
global development and a dynamic partnership for human
prosperity.
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We are in a time of fear, not just in this country or here in this
City, but worldwide. Fear for the lives of people; fear for the
state of economies, national and global; fear that our
propensity for wanton destruction may impair the capacity of
the planet itself to sustain life. These fears are compounded
by other blights: of disease, of ignorance, of bigotry, of
ethnicity, of religion and of gender; the blights of cruel and
autocratic governance and, most pervasive of all, the blight of
poverty.
The expansion of the global economy in the last four decades,
has not eliminated gross poverty or even reduced its
prevalence.
A sophisticated, globalised, increasingly affluent world,
currently co-exists globally and within countries, with a
marginalized underclass.
The hungry, the homeless, the destitute are less impassioned
about the physical insecurities of terrorist repression or the
damaging consequences of military warfare.
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The unemployed, those who are ill without healthcare; those
who are cold without heating; those who are old without social
support; for these victims, 'security' is a meal, a roof, a job,
medicines, warmth and relief from poverty in general.
But these needs are as real and insistent - and represent for
them the most immediate denial of their rights as human
beings.
During the last decade, the process of globalisation,
deregulation and privatisation has swept the world.
It is incontrovertible, that it has not been a golden age for a
large proportion of the world's people. Not just for the
1.3 billion of the absolute poor in developing countries whom
the benefits of globalisation seem to have bypassed, but for
many millions in industrial countries also.
We delude ourselves if we believe that all those engaged in
street protests, whether in Seattle, Washington, Prague,
Quebec City or Rome are simply anarchists.
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International institutions must not only be accountable: they
must be subject to democratic governance.
It is becoming more widely recognised that a new global
institutional architecture is needed to establish
representative superintendence of the global economy,
directed towards enlargement of social and economic justice
worldwide, targeted to a sharp redirection of the numbers
mired in gross poverty and deprivation.
Some of the desired progress may be possible through
existing institutions.
required.
More radical reform may also be
Democratic superintendence of the global economy, has to
be a central feature of the fresh global architecture we seek
to fashion during this decade.
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..
· The new global architecture must incorporate appropriate
arrangements for a start to be made in raising global
resources for global purposes - in ways that do not generate
alarm.
The persistence of gross poverty, the long list of
environmental abuses, the disturbing reduction in
development aid and the vagaries of foreign private
investment make the case for global revenues compelling.
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Mr. President, the world faces crucial choices. We have to
identify and follow a guiding principle if humanity is to make
an enlightened response to the challenge.
We can hardly return to the principles of a feudal world in
which military power and economic strength are
concentrated in the hands of a few, while we indulge in an
illusion of order through the marginalisation of the many.
In our interdependent, interconnected world, this is no longer
a credible option.
Our only way forward lies here in the United Nations; from the
vision that propelled the generation of 1945 to pursue the path
of collective responsibility for peace and human progress
through a regime of multilateral action, anchored by the
United Nations.
Mr. President, it was a coterie of governments, in a rare
moment of collective wisdom and creativity, that settled the
United Nations Charter. It was not without flaws in its
inception and some have remained to hobble its capacity to
initiate the renaissance we need.
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A•
- It is within this context that the demand for the reform of the
Security Council becomes even more urgent, since its present
design and functioning weaken its capacity to fulfill its
mandate.
We must remove existing constraints on the UN's capacity.
Even as we work to improve it, to reform it, we must proclaim
the UN to be the temple in which we can all worship.
We, the People - must be made a reality to thus fulfill the
commitment made in their name in the Charter of 1945.
Today, our greatest hope lies in people; in people of all
races, of all genders, of all faiths; people of all continents
and oceans, people of all ages·, the 'ordinary' people of the
world and those who hold themselves of higher station. All
the world's people are affected by the calamities that loom; all
must be involved in turning humanity away from gloom and to
finding the light.
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- The Charter does not set out the principal organs of the
United Nations in a hierarchical order, but the General
Assembly is the only 'principal organ' under a Charter that
embraces of all the members on a 'one member, one vote'
basis. It is the symbol of the UN as a universal organisation
in the democratic tradition.
I believe it is within this General Assembly that the true
renaissance of the United Nations must begin.
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...
The special value of the General Assembly is its universality,
its capacity to be a forum in which the voice of every Member
State can be raised. It provides the opportunity for
countries to ventilate issues, bring complaints to the floor in
the General Debate, and suggest new ideas in Committees.
But the assumption surely is valid that deliberation should
inform action.
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.I•
High among the changes that should mark the UN's
renaissance is the revitalization of the General Assembly as
a universal forum of the world's states. Even with a reformed
and somewhat enlarged Security Council, many Member
States with a capacity to contribute significantly to the
policies and programmes of the UN and to global governance
will have to remain on the sidelines. A General Assembly
that occupies more of the stage and reorders its work to make
it more focused, more result oriented, will allow each of us a
meaningful role in world governance through our work in the
Assembly.
It is in the interest of the world community to have a more
vigorous and effective General Assembly. It can and should
play a vital legitimating role in the UN, consonant with the
universality of its membership.
Here in this General Assembly, we are the practitioners of
international affairs. At the heart of the conduct of those
affairs lies a sense of realism. I, too, am conscious that the
accumulated baggage of decades cannot be shed in a single
heave.
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That is why I do not speak for reform; but advocate instead a
renaissance - a rebirth which offers the chance of facing the
21 st century with sound values, no longer predicated on a
world of adversarial states, but on an interactive world of
people that has espoused neighbourhood values: of respect
for life and liberty, for justice and equity, for tolerance and
caring; values that balance rights with responsibilities - that
elevates the democratic ethic at both the national and global
levels.
Mr. President,
We are a long way from that consummation, however
devoutly we may wish it. But we are sufficiently frightened by
the prospects that confront us to recognise the need for
humanity to take the path 'less travelled by'.
There are enough good people in all our societies - who
together are the silent majority of the world's people - to
ensure that by choosing this new path, we can indeed make
a real difference.
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' ..
.. We have to find a better way than the one a divided world has
been pursuing. That way has to lie through the United
Nations as an Organisation; but a United Nations revitalised;
its agencies repaired, reformed and responsive to a culture
of new values appropriate to our time.
Mr. President,
This new era of global relations demands bolder and more
ingenious approaches to confidence building and to
development as a prerequisite for international peace and
security. An equitable framework to finance national and
global development, to fuel expansion of international trade
and foster sustainable development must be placed on the
front burner, whether we gather in Qatar, Mexico or South
Africa.
If these three global Conferences are to succeed, Member
States must be guided by full recognition that this new era of
global relations demands more ingenious approaches to
confidence building and to development as a prerequisite for
international peace and security.
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•
In closing, Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to
congratulate you on your Chairmanship of this General
Assembly and to commit Jamaica's total support for the
attainment of our common goals in the service of mankind.
Whatever may be our colour, culture or creed, we belong to
a single race - the human race; occupying a single planet,
which has more than enough to enable each and every nation
to enjoy the abundance which Mother Earth has to offer and
for all its people to dwell together in harmony.
Now more than at any time in its history, the United Nations is
the best vehicle to procure global peace and to foster
international cooperation.
Let this General Assembly proclaim that the renaissance of
the United Nations has indeed begun.
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