YouSaid · the spoken record

Otunnu

lines on the record: 204
first: 1998-06-29
most recent: 2005-02-23
sittings or episodes: 17
sources: un-security-council

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

“We must undertake concrete initiatives to prevent or mitigate the suffering of children who are actually caught up in ongoing conflict. In other words, we must translate the concept of "Children as a Zone of Peace" into practical arrangements and measures on the ground. In my recent visits to several countries, parties in conflict have committed themselves to some of the following measures: not to interfere with access to populations in distress or with the distribution of relief supplies, to observe humanitarian ceasefires, not to attack schools or hospitals, not to use landmines and not to recruit children as child soldiers. But the international community must steadfastly hold the parties in conflicts to these commitments.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“In most societies distinctions always existed between acceptable and unacceptable practices even in times of war, with taboos and injunctions proscribing the targeting of civilian populations, especially women and children. But today in so many conflicts around the world, we see a free-for-all. I am reminded of the observation made by a Kenyan elder from El Das recently. He said quite simply: "In our tradition, men fight men. But now they are targeting women, children and the elderly." We must mobilize all our resources - especially parents, extended family, elders, teachers, schools, religious institutions - to reclaim and reassert those values and taboos that have traditionally been instrumental in protecting children and women in times of conflict. T hirdly, there is the concept of children as a zone of peace.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“Over the past 50 years, the nations of the world have developed a truly impressive body of international humanitarian and human rights instruments. But the impact of these instruments remains woefully thin on the ground. We must therefore shift our energies from the juridical project of the elaboration of norms to the political project of ensuring their application and respect on the ground. This can be accomplished if the international community is prepared to employ its considerable collective influence to this end. My second recommendation concerns reinforcing traditional value systems. We must not cast aside local traditional value systems that have traditionally provided ethical bearings to many of our societies.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“They are going on today in some 30 locations of conflict. It is against this background that today we estimate that up to 90 per cent of casualties in ongoing conflicts around the world are civilians, and the vast majority are children and women. There is a danger that we in the international community may be exposed so much that we could come to regard as normal a phenomenon that in fact represents a radical departure from the fundamental norms of conduct acceptable to any of our societies. We must not allow this to happen. We can and must reverse this trend of abomination. In this context, I wish to put forward some concrete proposals for the Council's consideration. First, let us resolve, on the eve of the new millennium, to launch an era of application, the application of international norms and standards.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“The magnitude of what we are witnessing attests to a new phenomenon. There has been a qualitative shift in the nature and conduct of warfare. Several developments mark this transformation. Almost all the major armed conflicts in the world today are civil wars. They are being fought among brother enemies and sister enemies. They are marked by widespread social breakdown and lawlessness, the proliferation of weapons, the involvement of multiple armed groups and the massive use of children as child soldiers. A key feature of this struggle is the demonization of the so-called enemy community. In this setting the village has become the battlefield and civilian populations the primary target. This is soldier-on-civilian violence on an unprecedented scale. The excesses are no longer exceptional. They are widespread around the globe.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“Yet today, we are witnessing unspeakable abominations directed against children in situations of conflict: children being killed; children being made orphans; children being maimed; children being uprooted from their homes; children being raped and sexually abused; children being deprived quite simply of their education and health; children being exploited as child soldiers; and children being left with deep emotional scars and trauma. As we meet here today, in approximately 50 countries around the world, children are suffering from the effects of conflict and its aftermath. Today, there are over 20 million children who have been displaced by war within and outside their countries. Some 300,000 young persons under the age of 18 are currently being exploited as child soldiers.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“I am very grateful for their cooperation and support, and I look forward to our continuing and very close collaboration. Children are innocent and especially vulnerable. Children are less equipped to adapt or respond to conflict. They bear no responsibility for conflict, yet suffer disproportionately from its excesses. All non-combatants are entitled to protection, but children deserve special attention and require special protection. Moreover, children represent the hopes and future of every society; destroy them and you have destroyed a society.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“The front-line work of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the European Union - these particularly - strongly supported by the community of international and local non-governmental organizations, together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have been crucial in translating our common agenda into practical realities that can make a difference for children on the ground.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“I wish the Government and the people of Namibia great success in their admirable endeavours to consolidate unity and democracy at home while contributing actively to building peace and security in the world. I should like here to pay a very special tribute to a remarkable leader. I refer to Madam Graca Machel of Mozambique and South Africa. Her ground-breaking work, which provided the first comprehensive and compelling account of the ways in which children are being abused and brutalized in situations of conflict, provided the strong foundation on which we are building today.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“Mr. Otunnu: Mr. President, you are not a newcomer to this Chamber. For over two decades, the South West Africa People's Organization knocked at the door of the Council and you sat at this corner of the table, pleading the cause of freedom and independence for the people of Namibia. Today, Namibia is free. It is not only a Member of the United Nations, but an active member of the Security Council. We rejoice with the people of Namibia on this happy turn of events. And today, you, Sir, are the President of the Security Council; in a few weeks you will assume the presidency of the General Assembly; for several years now, you have been the dean of Foreign Ministers hailing from Africa. I congratulate you, Mr. President, on these very impressive achievements.”
1999-08-25 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4037 (1999) · source
“There is some urgency about developing an agreed framework more systematically to provide protection to this especially affected category of vulnerable persons. In conclusion, let me just say how much I appreciate this initiative, your personal presence here today, Sir, and the very important commitment and leadership which Canada, your country, and you personally have been providing in this area. I look forward to working very closely with you to try to translate some of these ideas into concrete measures on the ground that might make a small difference to the protection of civilians, especially children and women.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“In my own work, I have made it my obligation to engage all entities in situations of conflict whose actions have an impact on children, for better or for worse, without prejudice to their political or juridical status, but with a view to getting them to take measures that can provide the broadest possible protection to children. Thus, in Sri Lanka, I did make contact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam; in Sudan, I made contact with the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement and will do so again in a few weeks; in Sierra Leone, with the Civil Defence Forces, a paramilitary group in that country. Finally, let me say again that the situation of internally displaced persons is grave. It is an important challenge to the international community.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“I also agree very much with the point that has been made that it is so important that humanitarian action not be politicized, in the sense of not being exploited for political purposes independent of the protection of the civilian population. This would give humanitarian action a very bad name and in the long term would jeopardize the protection precisely of those around whom we seek to build a wall of protection. Where do non-State actors come into the picture? The question was asked by the representatives of the Netherlands and Gambia.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“I also hope very much that this in fact might constitute one element that can help to concretize the Secretary-General's very important appeal, made a few days, for a compact between the United Nations and the business community. Fourthly, the question was asked about my position on the imposition of sanctions. Well, the impact of sanctions on children is very much an integral part of my mandate and, indeed, my Views have been well expressed elsewhere. I did not want to repeat them here, but indeed I am very much concerned about the impact of sanctions on children. I have been deeply engaged with Mwalimu Nyerere in the context of Burundi. I am delighted the sanctions have been lifted and have some ideas about other sanctions situations.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Thirdly, the point was made quite rightly when I called for engaging the business community and encouraging it to develop a voluntary code of conduct. First, it has to be voluntary. No suggestion is being made here to impose or to regulate the activities of business entities. Secondly, this is not entirely unprecedented; there are other areas in which an industry has begun to self- regulate and to have some codes of conduct. My suggestion would be to encourage this in the particular context of particularly unacceptable abuses in situations of conflict, where the activities of the business community provides a certain machinery and fuels the abuse against civilian populations.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Mr. Otunnu: First of all, the representative of the Russian Federation made the point that some of the ideas I put on the table go beyond the responsibility of the Security Council. He is entirely right. I presented a broad menu of ideas and possible initiatives, hoping very much that the Council will provide the critical leadership, but acknowledging that there are other actors within and outside the United Nations whose own responsibilities and mandates will necessarily be engaged. Secondly, I very much agree with the observation made that, in our advocacy work, in our undertaking of initiatives, humanitarian action should necessarily be consistent with the principles and the provisions of the United Nations Charter. That is the spirit in which I am conducting my own work.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“I hope that the commitment represented in those initiatives will inform the ongoing business of the Council, and will especially inform the work of the Council when it decides on specific crisis situations and elaborates specific mandates. I am at the Council's disposal to help it move forward with this project.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“The era we are entering must be one of application. A child in Sierra Leone is not impressed by all the instruments we cite here, unless the application of those instruments and values makes a difference to his or her life on the ground. I hope the Security Council collectively and Members represented within the United Nations will invest their influence in that direction. Finally, I very much hope that the Security Council will undertake to follow up systematically on the commitments made in the discussion of a few weeks ago, the discussion today, and the most important initiative taken by the Council last June and the presidential statement on the impact of war on children.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“I am talking of Sierra Leone, I am talking of Angola, I am talking of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of the Sudan - theatres where we especially see the worst manifestation of victimization of civilian populations. Is it possible to encourage the business community to have a serious dialogue around this issue, to perhaps develop voluntary codes of conduct within their own industry that can address their contribution, however indirect, to fuelling the machine that victimizes and violates women and children? Let me say, in conclusion, that I believe two things are very important for the Council as it looks at this issue. One, the era now ending has been an era of the elaboration of international instruments. A very impressive body is in place, and many of those instruments have been referred to.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“On these two pillars we must build our claim for the protection of women and children. Ninth, it is very clear that the ground is often prepared for the massive violation of civilians through the demonization of the other community, through hate campaigns, political rallies and political tracts, on radio, and on television. These signs are visible and audible. The international community must make a more concerted, systematic effort to repudiate these signs when they begin to appear. Finally, tenth, there is dialogue with the business community, because we have seen that in some of the worst theatres of conflict where children and women are being targeted there are active business dealings going on, in timber, in gold, in diamonds, in the sale of light weapons. I am not talking of all theatres of conflict.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“But there is a second pillar, about which we hear less, though I hope we might hear more. In many societies facing the challenge we are describing, there are values, there are norms that have germinated in the local soil, that speak to the protection of civilian populations, and especially of women, children and the elderly. I am reminded of the words of a Kenyan elder who, observing the atrocities committed in situations such as those we are describing, said, "In our tradition, men fight men. But now they are targeting women, children, and the elderly." This was the lament of a Kenyan elder. So we must work to promote this other pillar and, where that pillar has been undermined, and in some cases collapsed, work to help local communities and elders resuscitate that pillar.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“The international community has a challenge, an urgent challenge: as we speak, there are more people displaced internally, within their countries, than those who have crossed borders and have become refugees. A framework must emerge for the protection of this most vulnerable of groups. Eighth, there is the issue of the importance of local value systems. There are two pillars on which we must fasten our claim for the protection of civilian populations. One pillar has been referred to already by my colleagues: international humanitarian and human rights instruments, such as the Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the recently adopted Statute of the International Criminal Court, and so on. That is an important, probably the primary pillar.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Seventh, I have been quite struck in my Visits to many countries by the fact that the single most vulnerable group consists of those who are displaced within the borders of their country, and by the fact that there is, as of now, no agreed framework for providing protection for these people. Yes, there are arrangements for providing relief, and that is most welcome, but there is no framework for providing protection to these populations. I have been discussing this with both the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and with my very good friend Mr. Francis Deng, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Internally Displaced Persons.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Secondly, it is important for the international community to mobilize a movement, a movement of pressure, that can lean on parties in conflict and that can help protect children in present theatres of conflict where children are being abused. That is essentially a political project, as distinct from the juridical project of raising the age limit. Thirdly, and this is equally important, we know that there are social, economic and political factors that create the conditions that facilitate the exploitation of children in this fashion. We must address those economic and social factors as well. These three elements together will help us in moving to eradicate the use and abuse of children in this way.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“My office has begun some preliminary discussions in the context of both Burundi and Colombia, and we hope that with the Council's support and the support of other friends of Burundi and Colombia it might be possible to incorporate the issue of the protection and the needs of children in these two situations where children have suffered especially badly. Sixth, we have the recruitment and use of children, and there are three elements involved in this. The overall strategy must be to eradicate the use of children in conflict situations. But there are three elements that are important in achieving that strategy. One is obviously the raising of the age limit for recruitment and participation from 15 to 18, and I remain most active in promoting a consensus on this issue. But that is not sufficient.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Fifth, I could not agree more with the observation that has been made by my colleagues that one of the striking features of peace agreements up to now is the conspicuous absence of any mention of the needs and protection of children. And yet we know, as I have indicated, that children suffer disproportionately in the midst of conflict. In the aftermath of conflict it is they who are the most dominant presence within a society, children who need to be taken care of. I therefore hope that every effort will be made, in a more systematic way, to encourage parties in conflict and to promote the incorporation of the issue of the protection and the needs of children in peace agendas, meaning, at the stage when negotiations are taking place.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“It is impossible to protect civilian populations, especially children, exclusively within national boundaries. We must therefore identify certain neighbourhoods - neighbouring countries - and take initiatives that will bring about commitments on the part of neighbouring countries, as well as insurgency groups active within those zones, to forgo some of their activities and to take certain measures that provide for the protection of children. With my colleagues within the United Nations, including UNICEF, we are already exploring how we might initiate such initiatives in the neighbourhood of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in eastern Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia and, certainly, in the neighbourhood of the war theatre in Kosovo.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“In an interdependent world, I believe that no party in conflict can remain indifferent if concerned Governments and the Security Council make a concerted effort for them to know that it matters whether or not they honour the commitments that they have made. Fourth, we must explore how the initiatives that are now taken within countries can be translated into neighbourhood initiatives. What do I mean by this? I have been to a number of countries in the course of the past year and I have tried to undertake some commitments and initiatives on the ground. But I have also been increasingly struck by certain cross-border activities: the recruitment, abduction and transfer of children across borders; the illegal flow of arms, especially light weapons; the flow of landmines; and also the flow of displaced persons to and fro.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“They have made commitments not to recruit and use children, not to interfere with access to relief supplies by populations within their zones of control and not to target civilian populations. The challenge now is how to ensure that these parties in conflict are encouraged and given incentives to honour these commitments. There is a collective role for the Security Council in that context, and there are individual roles for Governments represented within the Security Council and within the United Nations in this regard. What can Governments do? Governments have very important lines of communication to parties in conflict, including non-State actors. Governments have influence that really matters on the ground.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“But, secondly, it also means that even if we may not in particular situations be able to bring war to an end, we should at least promote the idea of humanitarian ceasefires and of a break in hostilities to allow for inoculations and evacuations and to allow for children to be given special protection. The ideas that are now being explored in this context with colleagues in the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization in the context of the Congo are something that I hope the Council will strongly support. Third, there are situations where - in the midst of ongoing conflict - parties in conflict, including non-State actors, have made commitments to take certain measures that can increase the space of protection for children.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“When communities are cut off from the outside world and are isolated, that is when they are most vulnerable and when abuses take place and multiply. So the international community must insist on access by humanitarian agencies to bear witness, quite simply, to provide succour to those who are in need and to monitor the real application of both the international and local standards that apply to the conduct of war. Second, we have to promote the concept of children as a zone of peace. In practical terms this implies two kinds of measures. The first is that the locales where children predominate, such as schools, hospitals and playgrounds, should be regarded as battle-free zones. In this context, I am very pleased that the Statute of the International Criminal Court now makes it a war crime to target or violate those locales.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“More than 800 children are estimated to be killed or maimed every month by landmines; and, indeed, the worst forms of trauma and violation - rape and other forms of sexual violence - are routinely committed against women, especially young women, in situations of conflict. These are the reasons why we must especially focus on the particularly vulnerable situations of children. I wish to devote the rest of my remarks to what can be done, what measures the international community might explore to reverse this trend of abomination. The first measure, on which my colleague Sergio Vieira de Mello briefed the Council only a few weeks ago, is the absolute imperative of having access to populations in distress.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“In the course of the last decade, as the Council knows, more than 2 million children have been killed in situations of conflict, more than 1 million have been orphaned, more than 6 million have been permanently or seriously injured, 12 million have been made homeless and more than 10 million are estimated to be suffering from grave psychological and emotional trauma. But even as we speak now, more than 300,000 children in over 30 conflict situations in the world are serving as child soldiers. More than half the total population of displaced persons - both those displaced within their national borders and those who have crossed their national borders - are children.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“Mr. Otunnu: I thank the Security Council very much for asking me to join in this briefing. All civilians deserve and need the protection of the international community, but children deserve particular attention because they are the most innocent and powerless sector of vulnerable populations and because destroying children in this context is destroying the future of our society; but also simply because children suffer disproportionately in these situations. Just witness these figures.”
1999-02-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3977 (1999) · source
“I would hope that, beginning with the message that the Council will send forth today, we may resolve as we enter the new millennium, regardless of our cultural traditions, religious affiliation, political ideologies, to agree on a common project: to make our world one that is safe for children - all of our children. I wish to thank you, Mr. President and members of the Council for your commitment and concern about the plight of children affected by war all over the world.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“In addition to these specific areas, I would request that when the Council considers the imposition of sanctions it especially take into account the needs of children, their impact on children and how best to protect them in those circumstances. I would also hope that whenever the Security Council considers peacemaking efforts, peacekeeping mandates and peace-building plans, the central needs of children will be there from the outset and will inform the plans and the way. In conclusion, let me say that I have a deep fear, a nightmare scenario, that we may be exposed to so much that we are in danger of accepting as normal what in fact represents a radical departure from any acceptable norms at both the local and the international level.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“This means addressing the very conditions that give rise to conflicts in the first place: political exclusion and gross disparities in the distribution of resources between different regions and different sectors of the same country. We must work to transform these distorted relationships. Both international and national actors need to take political, economic and social measures that can generate within communities a sense of hope in place of despair, a sense of inclusion and participation instead of exclusion, a sense of belonging instead of alienation, a sense of one country instead of centre and periphery.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“This is the reason why any plans for post-conflict peace-building should make the needs of children a central concern from the outset, not merely an afterthought after the fact. In this context, some of the issues requiring concerted action by national Governments, as well as the international community, should include the demobilization and reintegration of child combatants; the treatment of psychological trauma; the return and resettlement of displaced and refugee children; mine clearance and the development and rehabilitation of children affected by mines; and the provision and rehabilitation of basic medical and educational services, including vocational training. These are some of the areas requiring concerted action. Lastly, a fifth area of engagement concerns the need for taking preventive action.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“When war is over, it is not really over for the children for whom the culture of violence has become a way of life; nor for the children left carrying deep scars in their hearts and minds; nor for the children who have simply lost out altogether on their education and youth. In the aftermath of conflict, we must work to heal these wounds. Healing is important to restore spiritual, emotional and physical health. Healing is necessary to facilitate reintegration into society. But healing is also critical, because without it, it is difficult to break the cycle of violence. Without healing, the victims of today's abuse may become the abusers of tomorrow; without healing, the wounded children of today could become the channel for transmitting violence from one generation to the next.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Similarly, greater effort must be made to prevent the supply and use of landmines in such theatres of conflict. We now live in a world in which interdependence has become a central fact of international life. The various armed groups also depend in no small measure on the goodwill of the wider international community, from which they seek political legitimacy and diplomatic recognition and on which they depend for the flow of arms and money to prosecute their war efforts. In our interdependent world, no group, no Government and no entity could ignore concerted international pressure in favour of the protection of children. A fourth area of engagement concerns the needs of children after conflict has ended.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“The international community must also insist that facilities normally reserved for children or which have a significant presence of children - facilities such as schools, hospitals, children's playgrounds and school buses - should be considered battle-free zones. With regard to the recruitment and participation of children in hostilities, children simply have no role in warfare. The international community should insist on this fundamental principle and therefore seek firm commitments from belligerents neither to recruit nor to use children in hostilities. Finally, there is a need to monitor and control more carefully the flow of arms - especially small arms - into theatres of conflict where children are being systematically brutalized and abused.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“A third area of engagement has to do with exploring concrete initiatives to prevent or mitigate the suffering of children who are actually caught up in the midst of ongoing violence. First, with regard to access to populations in distress, when communities are cutoff from the outside world, when they are out of sight, they are entirely at the mercy of the belligerents. That is when they are the most vulnerable; that is when gross abuse and atrocities are likely to occur and multiply. For this reason, the international community must insist on having access to such communities. Humanitarian relief agencies and human rights organizations must be given access to populations in distress, to provide relief and succour, to bear impartial witness and to draw attention to rules and norms applicable to the conduct of war.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Tragically, many societies that have experienced prolonged periods of conflict have seen their local value systems collapse under its pressure. I believe that such a society must, in the first place, draw from the deep well of its own tradition a renewed sense of ethical rootedness. This can then be related and linked with the norms that have been developed at the international level. We must ensure, in that context, that the institutions that traditionally inculcate values - parents, the extended family, elders, teachers, schools and religious institutions - are strengthened. It is only in this way that a society caught in the throes of a deep moral crisis can regain its moral bearings.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Therefore, in prosecuting a war effort one took great care to avoid Violating taboos and committing acts of humiliation that would destroy forever the basis for future coexistence between erstwhile enemy communities. There are many examples of such a value system in many other societies around the world. But today, to paraphrase the poet William Butler Yeats, things have fallen apart; the moral centre is no longer holding. In so many conflicts today, anything goes. Children, women, the elderly, granary stores, crops and livestock - all are fair game in the single-minded struggle for power, in the attempt not just to prevail but to humiliate, not just to subdue but to annihilate the enemy community altogether. This is the phenomenon of total war.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Before declaring war, the elders would carefully examine their lapir to be sure that their community had a deep and well-founded grievance against the other side. If this was established to be the case, war might be declared, but never lightly. But in order to preserve the original lapir, strict injunctions would be issued to regulate the actual conduct of war. One did not attack children, women or the elderly; one did not destroy crops, granary stores or livestock, for to violate such taboos would be to soil one's lapir, with the consequence that one would forfeit the blessings of the ancestors and thereby risk losing the war itself. Moreover, in declaring war there was always the presumption of coexistence in the post-conflict period.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Secondly, at a very fundamental level, I believe that perhaps the most damaging and disorienting loss a society can suffer is the collapse of its own local value system. In most societies, even in times of war, fundamental values and rules mattered. Distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable practices were maintained, with taboos and injunctions proscribing indiscriminate targeting of civilian populations, especially women and children. For example, I grew up in a society where the concept of lapir was very strong. Among the Acholi people, lapir denotes the cleanliness of one's claim, which then attracts the blessing of the ancestors in recognition and support of that claim.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Today, the gap between these norms and the situation on the ground remains unacceptably wide, and it is growing. Words on paper cannot save children in peril. To bridge this gap, the international community must be prepared to demonstrate its commitment, determination and readiness to use its collective influence and weight to ensure the observance of these norms and, therefore, the protection of children. The Security Council can lead the way by sending forth a clear message that the targeting, use and abuse of children are simply unacceptable. A message needs to go out that it cannot be "business as usual" when atrocities and abuses are systematically committed against children.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“The first area of engagement concerns the wide gap which currently exists between the existence of international norms and their non-observance on the ground. Over the past 50 years, the nations of the world have developed an impressive repertoire of international humanitarian and human rights instruments. Several of these address the rights, protection and welfare of children. The most pertinent in this regard are the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Geneva Conventions, along with their additional Protocols. Together, these instruments contain a number of provisions designed to ensure the protection and welfare of children in situations of international as well as internal armed conflict. But the value of these provisions is limited to the extent to which they are applied.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“This is the world upside down. This abomination is due in large measure to a crisis of values, both at the international and the local level. The traditional limits on the conduct of warfare - international instruments as well as local injunctions and taboos - are being cast aside. This has given rise to an ethical vacuum, a setting in which international standards are ignored with impunity and where local value systems have lost their sway. To reverse this trend of abomination, we must take concerted measures at both the national and the international level. In this connection, I wish to propose a number of measures and areas of engagement, in the light of which we can move towards prevention, protection and recovery.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source
“Moreover, the indiscriminate use of anti-personnel landmines and the proliferation of light weapons have underscored the particular vulnerability of children in these situations. Civil wars are fought among those who know each other well, among enemy brothers and enemy sisters. They pit compatriot against compatriot, neighbour against neighbour. A key feature of these struggles is a demonization of the so-called enemy community, often defined in religious, ethnic, racial or regional terms. In the intense and intimate setting of today's internecine warfare, the village has become the battlefield and civilian populations its primary target. It is against this background that today up to 90 per cent of casualties in ongoing conflicts around the world are civilians, the vast majority of whom are women and children.”
1998-06-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3896 (1998) · source