YouSaid · the spoken record

Thabo Mbeki,

lines on the record: 142
first: 1999-09-24
most recent: 2007-09-24
sittings or episodes: 8
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Together, rich and poor, developed and developing, North and South, we can and must truly hold hands and address the challenges of climate change and sustainable development, work together to defeat poverty and underdevelopment and ensure that every human being is saved from the indecencies and humiliations that are inseparable from poverty. But to do that, we need first and foremost to implement the decisions that we have adopted freely in this eminent house of the representatives of the global community. And so, let our actions speak louder than our words.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“The question we should ask is, why is there an absence of the same resolve to assist poor nations today? The global village to which we constantly refer should encourage us to expand human solidarity. Thus, we would build a durable bridge over the river dividing our common global village and regrettably ensuring that one human being lives a fulfilling life while another experiences a miserable existence. Representing the citizens of the world, we have set for ourselves programmes requiring that all of us work together to create better living conditions for humanity and ensure that we achieve that which is necessary for our mutual prosperity.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“In that regard, given Africa’s specific and dire challenges, we believe it is important to enter into a partnership with Africa using the African Union’s programme the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which the Assembly has adopted, so that the measures that the continent has undertaken, with limited resources, for the regeneration of all the African countries can be strengthened by support from the international community, guided by the programmes of the United Nations. As history teaches us, it was because of the massive resource transfers in the aftermath of the Second World War that Western Europe recovered and was set on its development path. A similar intervention helped to put a number of Asian countries on their own development trajectory.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Many developing countries especially those of my own continent, Africa do not have the material base from which to address and attain the MDGs on their own. Accordingly, there is an urgent need for massive resource transfers through development assistance, investment, trade, technology transfers and human resource development to these poor countries if we are to achieve the MDGs and successfully adapt to the devastating impacts of climate change. If we do not succeed in building a climate change regime that balances adaptation and mitigation, underpinned by the transfer of technology and financial resources, we will place an unmanageable burden on future generations.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“The two economies one developed and globally connected and the other localized and informal display many features of a global system of apartheid. As South Africans, we have sought to strengthen the first economy and to use it as a base for the transfer of resources to strengthen and modernize the second economy, and thus embark on the process of changing the lives of those who subsist in the second economy. Indeed, without the requisite resource transfers, it will not be possible to achieve the MDGs, because our second economy cannot on its own generate the resources needed to bring a better life to millions of poor South Africans. I mention this because, as we all accept, central to the global attainment of the MDGs is the critical matter of resource transfers from the rich countries of the North to the poor countries of the South.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Indeed, until the ideals of freedom, justice and equality characterize this premier world body itself, the dominant will forever dictate to the dominated, and the interests of the dominated which are those of the majority of humanity will be deferred in perpetuity. Thus, noble statements will continue to be uttered on all matters facing the majority of the people of the world, such as the need to successfully conclude the Doha Development Round, while little is done to implement the many critical agreements necessary to pull the poor out of the morass of poverty and underdevelopment. We in my own country are of the firm belief that we will achieve the MDGs. Having emerged from more than three centuries of colonialism and apartheid, we inherited two interlinked economies, which we characterize as the first and second economies.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“At the same time, the poor will continue to strive for improvement of their wretched conditions. They therefore see the United Nations as a natural instrument for helping to accelerate the process of change for the better. Hence, they correctly see implementation of all United Nations programmes as being central to the efforts relating to climate change and the struggle against poverty and underdevelopment. Yet the cold reality is that it will be difficult for the United Nations, in its present form, to fully implement its own decisions and therefore to help the poor to swiftly achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Accordingly, the skewed distribution of world power political, economic, military, technological and social replicates itself in multilateral institutions, much to the disadvantage of the majority of the poor people of the world. Indeed, even as we agree on the important programmes that should bring a better life to the billions of poor, the rich and the powerful have consistently sought to ensure that, whatever happens, the existing power relations are not altered and therefore that the status quo remains. The results of that situation are that the United Nations can and does correctly identify problems and appropriate solutions necessary for making the world a better place for all of humanity. Naturally, the dominant and the powerful very often respond positively to agreed programmes if these would advance their own narrow interests.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“However, this Organization, which should pride itself on visible actions and results in the fight against climate change and poverty, finds it difficult to demonstrate decisive progress in that regard. The reasons for that are not hard to find. Although the concepts of freedom, justice and equality are universal and fully embraced by the United Nations, this global Organization has not itself transformed and designed necessary institutions of governance that are consistent with the noble ideals that drive modern democratic societies. Because the nations of the world are defined by the dominant and the dominated, the dominant have always become the decision-makers in the important global forums, including at this seat of global governance.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Indeed, this collective asserted, in paragraph 11 of the Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2): “We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty. ... We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want.” Yet the poor, whose hopes have been raised many times as we have made declaration after declaration against poverty and underdevelopment and as we are doing now on climate change can be forgiven for thinking that this important global leadership often sounds like an empty vessel. That this collective is able to express, always eloquently, the dire circumstances characterizing poverty is without doubt.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“As this conclave knows very well, the many lofty agreements include, among others, those adopted at the Rio Earth Summit, the Copenhagen Social Summit, the Millennium Summit, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development. At all these summits and others, we have adopted declarations using moving and solemn words that express our profound understanding of the gravity of the challenges facing the modern world and have unequivocally committed ourselves to defeating any and all of the miserable and dehumanizing conditions facing large parts of humanity.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Gathered here as representatives of the peoples of the world, we know very well that climate change, poverty and underdevelopment are not acts of God but human-made. Clearly, the starting point for a future climate regime must be equity. A core balance between sustainable development and climate imperatives will have to be the basis of any agreement on a strengthened climate regime. Any deal on fair use of the ecological space will have to be balanced by a deal giving all countries a fair chance in the development space. Under the aegis of the United Nations, but also within our regional bodies, we have adopted many programmes and declarations, with clear implementation targets aimed at addressing the challenges of climate change, poverty and underdevelopment.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“The World Summit on Sustainable Development correctly reaffirmed sustainable development as a central element of the global action against poverty and the protection of the environment and identified important linkages between poverty, the environment and the use of natural resources. These linkages are real to billions of the poor; the combination of their empty stomachs, their degraded environment and their exploited natural resources, for which they benefit nothing, defines hopelessness and a heart-wrenching existence. Many of these wretched of the Earth know from their bitter experience how their resource-rich areas were transformed into arid, uninhabitable and desolate areas forcing migration to better-endowed regions, thus exacerbating conflicts and the struggle for scarce resources.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Yet the pace of climate change negotiations is out of step with the urgency indicated by science. I would therefore urge that we collectively aim for a significant advance in the multilateral negotiations when our negotiators meet in Bali in December this year. Together, we must ensure that we build a fair, effective, flexible and inclusive climate regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, and we must agree to this as a matter of urgency. Though we have different responsibilities, and developed countries clearly have an obligation to take the lead, we all have a common duty to do more and act within our respective capabilities and in accordance with our national circumstances.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“We meet here today, under the theme of responding to climate change, at this session, which marks the half-way point in the freely agreed period during which the nations of the world committed themselves to work, individually and collectively, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Billions of the people of the world know as a matter of fact that the consequences of climate change be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and extreme weather patterns undermine our common efforts to achieve the MDGs. Today, we all understand that the costs of doing nothing about climate change far outweigh those of taking concrete measures to address this challenge. It is clear that delaying action on this matter of climate change will hit poor countries and communities hardest.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Let me begin by adding my voice to the many salutations directed to Mr. Ban Ki-moon on being elected as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. I wish him a fruitful tenure of office, trusting that through his work the poor of the world will have good reason to increase their confidence in this Organization of the nations of the world. Again, I reiterate the many thanks to Her Excellency Ms. Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, for the good work she did as the President of the General Assembly at its sixty-first session. Equally, my congratulations go to Mr. Srgjan Kerim on his election as the President of the General Assembly at its sixty-second session.”
2007-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 62 (2007)
“Madam President, we pledge to do whatever is necessary to make your work easier, so that through your efforts, the poor can regain full confidence in the ability of the United Nations to improve their conditions of life. Every day the masses cry out in pain, frustration and anger. Every day they ask whether there is anybody who stops to hear their voices, anybody who listens and who is ready to respond to their heartfelt plea for the restoration of their dignity.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Because we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, we have the responsibility to end the rhetoric and implement programmes that ensure that all human beings live decent, humane and prosperous lives. On behalf of the Group of 77 and China, as well as my own country, South Africa, I take this opportunity to thank His Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson, for the great work he did in steering this Organization during this past year as President of the General Assembly. We are honoured to welcome Her Excellency Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-first session, and we wish her well in her important work.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“All of us, individually and collectively and as Members of the United Nations, must do whatever is necessary to develop and implement policies and strategies aimed at the achievement of sustainable development. It is important that international organizations such as the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and others should, without any equivocation, seriously embark on the implementation of all the commitments that we have made as the international community. This Organization of the peoples of the world cannot merely note the unacceptable situation that Africa will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. We need further programmes, focused and concrete, to accelerate development in Africa and avoid the possibility of that continent sinking further into the morass of poverty and underdevelopment.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Clearly, for the United Nations to continue occupying its moral high ground, it has to reform itself urgently and lead by practical example, showing what it means to be democratic. Even as we face the cold reality of the indifference of many among the rich and powerful, this Organization of the peoples of the world has continued to offer hope and the possibility of the fulfilment of the aspirations of the majority of the peoples of the world. All of us, including those who hesitate to implement the commonly agreed positions, agree that this Organization has entrenched the correct understanding that development is a right and is central to the advancement of humanity.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Something is indeed wrong when all these people, whose fault is merely the fact that their lives are defined by poverty, try desperately to reach countries where they believe the conditions of their existence could improve, only to meet hostile, and at times, barbaric and inhuman receptions. In part, the United Nations is unable to fulfil some of the objectives set by the founders in San Francisco because, in truth, it does not reflect the expansion of the global family of free nations. Because this Organization of the peoples of the world has grown to encompass the entire world, many had 06-52731 14 thought that it would be logical that this custodian of global democracy would itself serve as a beacon in our continuing quest for democracy in all our countries.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“As the divide between the rich and the poor widens and becomes a serious global crisis, we see an increase in the concentration of economic, military, technological, media and other power. Something is seriously wrong when people risk life and limb travelling in suffocating containers to Western Europe in search of a better life. Something is wrong when many Africans traverse, on foot, the harsh, hot and hostile Sahara Desert to reach European shores. Something is wrong when walls are built to prevent poor neighbours from entering those countries where they seek better opportunities.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than 28 or 30 years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good check-up at the Mayo Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.” The majority of the human race is entitled to ask the question whether the rich respond the way they do because further impoverishment of the poor is to the advantage of the rich, giving meaning to the old observation that the rich get richer as the poor get poorer.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Although the rich and powerful know the miserable life circumstances of the poor and have solemnly committed themselves to the collective effort to reverse those conditions, their attitude and response resembles that of the Biblical Cain, who, after he killed his brother, Abel, and the Lord asked him “Where is Abel, your brother?”, replied: “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Perhaps, all of us, especially the rich, should heed the words of one of the great sons of the United States of America, who perished because of his belief in equality and justice for all human beings and whose civil rights movement is currently marking its golden jubilee. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Those who coined the slogan: “I’m alright, Jack!” were communicating, whether consciously or not, a message and an attitude that said “I don’t care about my neighbour as long as my family and I eat well and sleep peacefully” and that “It is not my responsibility to ensure that my poor neighbour also eats well and sleeps peacefully.” Today, the attitude among some of the rich also communicates the same message to the rest of the world, namely, “I’m alright, Jack!”, even when they are acutely aware that many in their neighbourhood are dying from hunger, preventable diseases and abject poverty. This happens also in the cruelly ironic situation where resources flow from those who have little to those who have plenty.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Among other things, we have recently seen an outbreak of great social instability across Europe and other reactions of the poor to their miserable conditions in different parts of the world, which calls into question the image of a seemingly harmonious well- woven tapestry of diverse groups, because we continue to fail to implement our own decisions as taken at the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Indeed, because the rich implicitly invoked the slogan of an over-confident European political party of the 1960s, and directed this uncaring declaration to the poor of today — “I’m alright, Jack!” — we have not implemented the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development, thus making it difficult for the majority of the developing countries, especially those in Africa, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and we have reduced the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation to an insignificant, and perhaps forgotten, piece of paper. Part of the problem with this unequal relationship is the imposition of conditions on developing countries and the constant shifting of the goalposts, whenever the poor adhere to each and every one of those conditions.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Those who are capable of listening should take note of what that great son of India and South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi, said on this matter: “The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance. Cooperation which needs consideration is a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional cooperation is like adulterated cement which does not bind.” 13 06-52731 Precisely because of the absence of a global partnership for development, the Doha Development Round has almost collapsed.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“We who represent the poor know as a matter of fact that these billions of poor people are increasingly becoming impatient, because every year they hear us adopt declaration after declaration and yet nothing practical is done to assuage the hunger pains that keep them awake at night. Only few and selected agreements are implemented, with outcomes that are clearly insufficient to alleviate the excruciating pain of their children who cannot cry anymore because to do so is to invite more pain. Those of us who were at the 14th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana heard this message very clearly emanating from all the countries and organizations that spoke.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Thus, Madam President, when you correctly urge us to implement a global partnership for development, we, the members of the Group of 77 and China, who represent the poor people of the world, understand you to be communicating a message that we should give substance to the common commitments we solemnly made at this supreme Organization of the nations of the world. Yet, this common commitment for a global partnership for development cannot be transformed into reality when the rich and powerful insist on an unequal relationship with the poor. A global partnership for development is impossible in the absence of a pact of mutual responsibility between the giver and the recipient. It is impossible when the rich unilaterally demand the right to set the agenda and conditions for the implementation of commonly agreed programmes.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“However, six years into the twenty-first century, dispassionate observers might well challenge us to achieve our noble and lofty objectives, pointing to the terrorists’ acts that welcomed us into the new century. They might emphasize the unilateralism that threatens to negate the democratic advances of the last decades of the twentieth century and draw attention to renewed conflicts and wars that seem to compete with the destructive fury of the conflicts of the last century. They would remind us that for a decade and more, some of the developed nations have consistently refused to implement the outcomes and agreements of this world body that would help to alleviate the wretchedness of the poor.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“It is a century that billions of citizens of the developing world and other poor and marginalized people want to transform into a century for all humanity. If the wishes of the majority of the world could turn into reality, this would be a century free of wars, free of internecine conflicts, free of hunger, free of preventable disease, free of want, free of environmental degradation and free of greed and corruption. Indeed, we began the century with great hopes for a better, peaceful and more humane world. Together, we crafted comprehensive plans and bold declarations to defeat the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment. Together, we committed ourselves, with what seemed like renewed vigour, to transform the United Nations to reflect the modern reality that is defined by free, sovereign and equal nations.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“In the midst of increasing poverty and underdevelopment during an era of unprecedented wealth accumulation and technological advances, and as the river that divides the rich and the poor zones of the metaphorical global village ever widened, the Secretary-General never lost focus on the imperatives of our time. We thank him for never losing sight of the fact that poverty and underdevelopment remain the biggest threats to the progress that has been achieved, and that equality among nations big and small is central to the survival, relevance and credibility of this global Organization. We are only six years into the twenty-first century. Those who populate the poorest of the regions of the world — that is, Africa — have boldly declared that it will be an African century.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Once again, we have convened at this seat of the Organization of the peoples of the world, representing the whole of humanity and coming from all corners of the world. Our pilgrimage this year is tinged with sadness, because we are also paying 06-52731 12 homage to one of the most outstanding servants of the United Nations, a native son of Africa, Kofi Annan, whose term of office will soon come to an end. The Group of 77 and China, as well as my own country, South Africa, sincerely thanks the Secretary- General for the selfless and dedicated work he carried out during one of the most challenging periods in the history of this Organization.”
2006-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 61 (2006)
“Experience over the last 60 years has shown that, to address the criticism levelled against the Organization by religious leaders ó that there has been a triumph of principle and a failure in practice ó we must be ready to engage in a sustained struggle to ensure that the vision contained in the United Nations Charter is actually translated into reality. As we engage in this struggle, we should say, as did the religious leaders who met at the Washington National Cathedral, that we are united in a common concern for those of us living in poverty: "We see their faces; we hear their voices; they are a part of us, and we are a part of them." Let me close by reiterating our deepest sympathies and condolences to the Government and the people of the United States in the wake of the death and destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“And yet, the painful paradox we face is that it seems obvious that, over the years, there has been a continuous erosion of the authority and prestige of the United Nations and a sustained drift towards its marginalization in terms of playing its rightful role, as so clearly defined in the United Nations Charter. At its sixtieth session, the General Assembly has the heavy responsibility to reassert the critical need for the United Nations to discharge its responsibilities as spelled out in that Charter.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Similarly, the interconnectedness of the issues of peace, security, development and human rights has never been more pronounced than it is today. All this means that the imperatives that made it necessary and correct to establish the United Nations as part of a desirable system of global governance are that much more compelling today, and that the necessary reform of the Organization must take place to ensure that it reflects the new global realities since it was formed and that it is empowered to respond effectively to the urgent challenges that face all humanity.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“12 The United Nations has adopted many decisions intended to help address the various global challenges that have persisted over the 60 years of its existence. Accordingly, we have the necessary policies to address the social, economic, political and other problems facing humanity. We have also adopted comprehensive and clear programmes to give effect to those policies and have identified the resources required for their implementation. The questions we must answer are: why have we not implemented these programmes, and what must be done to correct the situation? The process of globalization means that our common world is more integrated today than it was when the United Nations was formed 60 years ago.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“In the midst of an increasingly prosperous global economy, 10.7 million children every year do not live to see their fifth birthday, and more than 1 billion people survive in abject poverty on less than a $1 a day." Accordingly, if we pause and scan the road travelled to judge whether we have succeeded in saving the world from the scourge of war; whether we have built a world that has reaffirmed faith in fundamental human rights; whether we have created a world that has restored the dignity and worth of the human person - a world that has entrenched equal rights for men and women and for nations, large and small - the answer from the majority of the people of the world may very well be a resounding "No".”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“It states that in 1990 the average American was 38 times richer than the average Tanzanian, while today the average American is 61 times richer. The same report states, on page 3, "In 2003, 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million people registered lower scores on the human development index (HDI) than in 1990 - an unprecedented reversal.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“None of us could justly claim that our failure as the United Nations to take specific decisions on these matters served to enhance global security in the face of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. With regard to the issue of Iran, we firmly believe that negotiations should resume and that the matter be settled within the framework of the provisions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and with the full participation of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The gap between the rich and the poor is becoming worse within and between countries, as observed by the United Nations Development Programmeís 2005 Human Development Report, which states that the gap between the average citizen in the richest and in the poorest countries is wide and is getting wider.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“We have all recognized the serious and urgent threat posed by international terrorism to all our nations. We have all accepted the reality that we need a multilateral response to that common threat. Yet we have still not succeeded in arriving at a common definition of that threat or identified its fundamental causes. The issues of non-proliferation and the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction are matters of critical concern to all nations, both large and small. Yet we failed to address those matters in the outcome document adopted at the review summit last night, even as the issue of nuclear weapons and their non-proliferation is among the most prominent items in world news and on the international agenda.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Those who were exposed to the savagery would be fully justified in concluding that the United Nations had betrayed its commitment to the peoples of the world. I am certain that all of us are impatient to see an end to the conflicts in the Middle East, including Iraq, and in particular the restoration of the rights of the people of Palestine, in the context of the successful implementation of the road map. While we welcome recent positive developments in this regard, we must accept the reality that every day that passes without the full implementation of the road map only serves to point an accusing finger at us, the United Nations, accusing us of not having done everything we could to help secure the just and lasting peace that is the right of the Palestinian, the Israeli and the Arab peoples.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Even as we speak, the United Nations is faced with the urgent task of taking the necessary action in CÙte díIvoire to help to bring a lasting peace to that important African country, opening the way to its reunification, the holding of democratic elections and the promotion of social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, to use the words of the Charter. A similar challenge faces this Organization with regard to the restoration of lasting peace in Darfur in the Sudan, building on the historic conclusion and implementation of the Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in Nairobi, Kenya, earlier this year. Only 11 years ago, we experienced a terrible genocide in Rwanda, and thousands were killed in the internecine conflict that took place in the Balkans.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Although the United Nations has adopted important decisions on that matter, and convened the necessary conferences to unite the peoples of the world against racism, those who continue to fall victim to that crime against humanity would find it difficult to cite the instances when the United Nations came to their aid. Sixty years after the United Nations was formed, the indecencies of war and violent conflict continue to afflict innocent people, evidently because we, the 11 United Nations, lack the will to live up to the commitment that was made when this Organization was established. Africans, who have been exposed to many violent conflicts since the United Nations was formed, are particularly keen for this Organization to live up to its obligation to save succeeding African generations from the scourge of war.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“We must ask ourselves how well prepared the United Nations is today, 60 years after it was established, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; to protect and advance the fundamental human rights of all; to protect and advance the dignity and worth of each human person; to ensure equal rights between men and women; to ensure equal rights between nations large and small; and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. We must ask - and answer honestly - whether what we do as the United Nations is properly described as a triumph of principle but a failure in practice, as the religious leaders put it. The reality is that, 60 years after the United Nations was formed as a response to the appalling and ghastly results of the crime of racism, we are still confronted by the cancer of racism.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Responding to the universal demand for human and peoples' rights, the founders declared that they were forming the United Nations "to reaffirm faith in the fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small" and to "promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom". As we gather here, in part to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of an international Organization established to bring hope to the peoples of the world, we cannot avoid asking some hard questions. That is necessary if we are to live up to our obligation to ensure that the United Nations discharges its responsibilities, described by the religious leaders who met at the Washington National Cathedral as peacemaking, global reconciliation and the eradication of poverty.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“Accordingly, I believe that we must view with the greatest seriousness their conclusion that five years have passed since we adopted the Millennium Declaration and that, 'despite this triumph of principle, there has been a failure in practice'. Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the destructive fury of the Second World War and the villainous genocide committed during that war, the United Nations was formed, in the words of the Charter, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind".”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“In particular, we support the goal of a global partnership for development, and believe that the Churches can make a unique contribution to that partnership." If nothing else, the fact that the religious leaders who issued that call gathered from many parts of the world to agree on a message to our summit Meeting must remind us that the masses - the people who elected us - entertain high expectations about the United Nations. They see this Organization as their pre-eminent partner in the continuing struggle to build a better and humane world. They challenge those of us who have the privilege to represent our States in the United Nations to build, strengthen and direct this world Organization so that it can, indeed, play its role as a pre-eminent partner of the peoples of the world in constructing a better and more humane world.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)
“In this communique, we offer our partnership to the leaders gathered at the World Summit at the United Nations in building a global movement to make real the promises of the Millennium Development Goals as a crucial step towards a more just world for all God's children. We believe that God calls us to place people struggling with poverty at the centre of our concern. Globalization has brought unprecedented economic growth. At the same time, one sixth of the world's people still fight daily for survival under the crushing burden of extreme poverty. The increasing concentration of wealth in our world, while so many suffer, is a scandal that impoverishes us all. "We believe that the spirit of partnership between rich and poor, exemplified in the MDGs, is a way the world can address poverty in all its dimensions.”
2005-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 60 (2005)