YouSaid · the spoken record

Power

lines on the record: 1,841
first: 2013-08-06
most recent: 2019-07-09
sittings or episodes: 165
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

“I would like to make a final point about how we can push ourselves to use our capabilities as the Security Council in order to promote peace. We have to look for ways to hear from the actual people whose lives our decisions affect. Here in the Council, or over at the General Assembly, it is still out of the ordinary to hear a voice that is not that of a diplomat or bureaucrat. So our discussions become sterile. We lose sight of the human stakes that should drive our work. One might think that the unprecedented number of trips that the Security Council has taken in recent years would help us understand what actual people are facing - and they do help. But during those trips, believe it or not, we spend too much time sitting in formal, scripted conversations in conference room after conference room.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“We were all very concerned when UNMISS personnel were either incapable of or unwilling to respond to calls for help after South Sudanese soldiers attacked the Terrain compound in July. If, however, we demand more from the United Nations in sustaining peace, we must respect the Secretary-General's decisions - including his personnel decisions - to strengthen systems that fall short. The United States claims no special exemption here when it comes to empowering the Secretary-General. We supported the selection of Antonio Guterres precisely because he was independent-minded and prepared to stand up for the principles of the United Nations Charter and against bullying and lawlessness among Member States.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“That is an issue where we ought to agree that the Secretary-General must be able to do everything possible to stamp out this scourge, including by repatriating the units responsible for widespread and systematic abuses. Resolution 2272 (2016), adopted last year, endorsed the then-Secretary- General's decision to use that authority. But we should remember that during those negotiations, several Council members focused instead on how to limit the Secretary-General's powers to send troops home. We should think about that - countries that responded to the issue of sexual exploitation by trying to tie the Secretary-General's hands. That was their focus, not the protection of potential victims. A similar principle should apply for holding peacekeepers accountable for implementing their mandates.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“Thirdly, we as Member States should empower the Secretary-General and his team to do theirjobs. Part of that means encouraging the Secretary-General to bring issues to the Council's attention, and the United States therefore strongly supports the Secretary-General's use of Article 99 of the Charter, so that he can more actively warn the Council, early and often, when he believes it is warranted. Of course, that means that the Secretary- General deserves respect for the decisions he takes in order to manage the Organization. Let us consider the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse in peacekeeping missions, which Secretary- General Guterres has already made a top priority through the creation of a new task force.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“The resolution was adopted at the very end of a merciless military assault on Aleppo by Russia and the Al-Assad regime, after Russia had twice used its veto to block calls for a ceasefire that would have saved countless lives. I want to be clear today that we are rooting wholeheartedly for the efforts that Russia and Turkey are making to achieve a ceasefire, and we agree with Russia that we in the Council should do what we can to support that effort. Anything that could save lives or reduce violence is something that we should look at and offer to support. But again, consensus is not the measure of our success. That measure is our impact and whether, given the articulation of a ceasefire, the Al-Assad regime has in fact stopped bombing civilian areas, notably the Damascus suburbs and Idlib, where such attacks continue as we sit here.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“There was a similar negotiation process with China on the toughest-ever sanctions imposed on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea after the Kim Jong Un regime conducted two nuclear tests this year (resolution 2321 (2016)). But in both cases the resolutions were valuable, not only because the Council adopted them unanimously but because of their impact - attributing responsibility for chemical-weapons use in Syria and cutting off sources of revenue to the nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We can contrast that with the recent Council resolution 2336 (2016), on Syria, aimed at monitoring evacuations from eastern Aleppo. We can trumpet reaching consensus on that resolution, but we have to be careful not to miss the point.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“But that is precisely the reason to speak up, because all Member States are collectively more secure in a world where big and small Governments alike are held accountable for their actions. Similarly, many on the Council focus on the importance of consensus. Again, for diplomats that is an understandable impulse and, as I said at the outset, we are so much stronger when we are united. But if our only goal is consensus, the risk is a lowest- common-denominator solution. That balance is tricky. In November, for example, when the Council renewed the mandate of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria (see S/PV.7815), the United States spent weeks in painstaking negotiations with Russia on the terms.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“We resort to lines such as "There is no military solution", rather than identifying the actors who are pursuing a military solution. Of course, words alone are not enough to stop suffering on the ground, but identifying who is responsible for abuses and violations of the Charter of the United Nations, in public, in the Council, is at least a modest form of accountability and an antidote to impunity. It may have some deterrent effect. It at least puts those responsible for violence on notice that we are watching. Now, I acknowledge that naming names can be harder for some countries than it is for a permanent member of the Security Council such as the United States. I completely understand those countries that say that they are afraid of retribution if they call out a larger, more powerful country for its actions.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“We as diplomats have developed a lexicon of bureaucratic jargon that allows us to sidestep the issues that we are supposed to be tackling. Our statements in the Council fill up with empty phrases at the moments that demand the greatest precision and clarity. The result is that we often leave Security Council meetings without even knowing what each of us stands for. I recall all the times that our statements in the Council have used the passive voice. We say that dialogue must be pursued, violence must be ended, a ceasefire must be respected. How? By whom? Who has to do what? Let us be precise. We convene emergency meetings of the Council to discuss attacks by one party on another, but instead of doing the obvious - telling that party to stop - we dodge. We use the phrase "all parties" when we actually mean "one party".”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“As President Obama made clear when he took office, the United States strives to lead by example. Sometimes we still fall short of what we could achieve through deeper multilateral cooperation. Indeed, we have a long-standing debate in our Congress about international human rights treaties, in which some argue that sovereignty precludes ratifying treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, even when United States law already enshrines the treaty's standards. We strongly believe that we are better off - and better - when we strengthen the rule-based international order, and that means living by the norms that protect all of our common security and common humanity. Secondly, if we are to sustain peace we first have to tell things as they are.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“And the Government routinely blocks UNMISS patrols, to a point where UNMISS had to ask its permission to evacuate Chinese peacekeepers - permission that was not forthcoming, although the soldiers' lives hung in the balance. That was sovereignty ofa perverse kind being exercised when one of our own peacekeepers was in grave jeopardy. Yet there has been no further action by the Council showing South Sudan's leaders that such obstruction has consequences. I would like to anticipate the rebuttal to what I am saying. Some will accuse the United States of also invoking sovereignty when it is convenient. And in the past, the United States has on occasion taken actions that contradicted the principle that people should be able to choose their own path.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“We are supposed to deploy Blue Helmets to help people, but in some cases Council members have suggested that peacekeepers should not do anything without checking first with the Governments that are responsible for harming their citizens, thereby warranting the deployment of peacekeepers in the first place. In South Sudan, the Council authorized the urgent deployment of the Regional Protection Force (RPF) for the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) last August to help restore security in the capital. The Government accepted the force. Five months later, not a single RPF soldier has been deployed, even as Government forces have continued killing civilians, used sexual violence as a systematic weapon of war, and positioned themselves to carry out large-scale mass atrocities.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“In 2014, Russia violated the sovereignty of another State Member of the United Nations and current member of the Security Council, Ukraine, by invading and then attempting to annex Crimea, which Russia holds to this day. Yet Russia has suggested in the Chamber - and probably will again today - that failure to respect State sovereignty is the main driver of conflict, even as Russia has used its veto to insulate itself from consequences in the Council for trampling on Ukraine's sovereignty. The perversion of sovereignty undermines our work in less obvious ways. Let us take peacekeeping. We generally authorize peacekeepers only when members of the Council see an imminent risk of mass violence - too often, as has been noted, after attacks have started.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“The United States aspires to a world of States that, as the Charter of the United Nations States, should "live together in peace with one another as good neighbours". Countries must respect one another. It is a very simple proposition. But sovereignty cannot be a shield to prevent outside scrutiny over actions taken in defiance of the principles in the Charter of the United Nations. We have seen too many countries invoking State sovereignty as a means of securing full impunity for themselves - impunity to do what they want to their own people, in defiance of the Charter, and impunity to do what they want to do, ironically, to their neighbours, in defiance of the Charter.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“The question becomes this: When we have the tools, the authority and such a strong partner in the Secretary-General, what is holding us back? Why are we not delivering more? I want to make four points to explain how we, as members of the Security Council, can show leadership to narrow the gap between what this institution can achieve and where it has fallen short, particularly as it relates to prevention. First, if we are serious about preventing conflict, the important principle of State sovereignty cannot be a straitjacket to keep the Security Council and the Secretary-General from taking necessary action to respond to urgent, life-threatening crises. No Member of the United Nations would suggest that we dispense with respect for State sovereignty or that it is not an essential bedrock of the international order. It is.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“The Council matters because we make international law, we set standards, we authorize the use of force, we enable the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid, and we impose financial sanctions and arms embargoes to address threats to international peace and security. We help set the rules for how States should behave. The Council matters because when we come together, as others have noted, we can respond to crises in ways no other institutions can. But let us compare those capabilities with the reality of the world around us - the reality of suffering in places like Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Nigeria and Mali. It is obvious that we, as the Council, can do better.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“This debate is also timely for me personally, as it will be one of the last times that I have the honour of representing the United States in the Chamber. For the past eight years since he took office, President Barack Obama has been committed to showing United States leadership here at the United Nations. The United Nations matters as the only global institution dedicated to finding solutions to transnational threats and challenges that all of us face. The Security Council remains at the forefront. The Council matters because 100,000 troops and police are deployed worldwide on the basis of our resolutions and our words.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“I thank you, Madam President, for taking up this important cause, as you have done throughout your career. Let me also take this occasion to welcome our new members: Sweden, Italy, Bolivia, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. We look forward to working with each of them. I welcome Secretary-General Guterres for his first briefing to the Security Council. We knew he would hit the ground running, but I am not sure that we knew that he would be doing so at an Olympic pace, so we congratulate him on his energy and the ambitious vision that he has brought to the cause of conflict prevention, conflict response and, as he put it, the cause of sustaining peace. I think that it is really important that he has wasted no time reforming the capacity of the United Nation to be more nimble in the face of the crises that confront us.”
2017-01-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7857 (2017) · source
“We continue to believe that that solution is the only viable path to provide peace and security for the State of Israel and freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people. We continue to believe that the parties concerned can still pursue that path if both sides are honest about the choices and have the courage to take steps that will be politically difficult. While we can encourage them, it is ultimately up to the parties to choose this path, as it always has been. We sincerely hope that they will begin to make those choices before it is too late.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Our commitment to that security has never wavered and it never will. Even with the financial crisis and budget deficits, we repeatedly increase funding to support Israel's military. In September, the Obama Administration signed a memorandum of understanding to provide $38 billion in security assistance to Israel over the next 10 years - the largest single pledge of military assistance in the history of the United States to any country. As the Israeli Prime Minister himself has noted, our military and intelligence cooperation is unprecedented. We believe, however, that continued settlement building seriously undermines Israel's security. Some may cast the vote of the United States as a sign that we have finally given up on a two-State solution. Nothing could be further from the truth. None of us can give up on a two-State solution.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“And while President Abbas and his party's leaders have made clear their opposition to violence, terrorism and extremism, they have too often failed to condemn specific attacks or condemn the praise heaped upon the perpetrators. Our vote today does not in any way diminish the United States' steadfast and unparalleled commitment to the security of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. We would not have let the resolution pass had it not also addressed counterproductive actions by Palestinians. We have to recognize that Israel faces very serious threats in a very tough neighbourhood. Israelis are rightly concerned about making sure that there is not a terrorist haven next door. President Obama and this Administration have shown an unprecedented commitment to Israel's security because that is what we believe in.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Yet, it is one that is too often overlooked by members of the United Nations and by members of the Council. For Palestinian leaders, that means recognizing the obvious fact that in addition to taking innocent lives, the incitement to violence, the glorification of terrorists and the growth of violent extremism erode prospects for peace, as the resolution makes crystal clear. The most recent wave of Palestinian violence has seen terrorists commit hundreds of attacks, including driving cars into crowds of innocent civilians and stabbing mothers in front of their children. Yet rather than condemn those attacks, Hamas, other radical factions and even certain members of Fatah have held up the terrorists as heroes and used social media to incite others to follow in their murderous footsteps.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Moreover, unlike in 2011, today's resolution condemns violence, terrorism and incitement, which also pose extremely grave risks to the two-State solution. Today's resolution reflects trends that will permanently destroy the hope of a two- State solution if they continue on their current course. The United States has not taken the step of voting in support of the resolution because it is too narrowly focused on settlements, when we all know - or should know - that many other factors contribute significantly to the tensions thatperpetuate the conflict. Let us be clear. Even if every single settlement were to be dismantled tomorrow, peace still would not be attainable without both sides acknowledging uncomfortable truths and making difficult choices. That is an indisputable fact.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“One has to make a choice between settlements and separation. In 2011, the United States vetoed a draft resolution that focused exclusively on settlements, as if settlements were the only factor harming the prospects of a two- State solution. The circumstances have changed dramatically. Since 2011, settlement growth has only accelerated. Since 2011, multiple efforts to pursue peace through negotiations have failed. And since 2011, President Obama and Secretary Kerry have repeatedly warned - publicly and privately - that the absence of progress towards peace and continued settlement expansion were going to put the two-State solution at risk and threaten Israel's stated objective to remain both a Jewish State and a democracy.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Yet rather than dismantling those and other settler outposts, which are illegal even under Israeli law, now there is new legislation advancing in the Israeli Knesset that would legalize most of the outposts - a factor that propelled the decision of the resolution's sponsors to bring it before the Council. The Israeli Prime Minister recently described his Government as "more committed to settlements than any in Israel's history", and one of his leading coalition partners recently declared that "the era of the two-State solution is over". At the same time, the Prime Minister has said that he is still committed to pursuing a two- State solution. But those statements are irreconcilable. One cannot simultaneously champion expanding Israeli settlements and champion a viable two-State solution that would end the conflict.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Since the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords - which launched efforts that made a comprehensive and lasting peace possible - the number of settlers has increased by 355,000. The total settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem now exceeds 590,000. Nearly 90,000 settlers are living east of the separation barrier that was created by Israel itself. And just since July 2016 - when the Middle East Quartet issued a report highlighting international concern about a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalizations - Israel has advanced plans for more than 2,600 new settlement units.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Unlike some on the Security Council, we do not believe that outside parties can impose a solution that has not been negotiated by the two parties, nor can we unilaterally recognize a future Palestinian State. But it is precisely our commitment to Israel's security that makes the United States believe that we cannot stand in the way of the resolution as we seek to preserve a chance of attaining our long-standing objective - two States living side by side, in peace and security. Let me briefly explain why. The settlement problem has gotten so much worse that it is now putting at risk the very viability of that two-State solution. The number of settlers in the roughly 150 authorized Israeli settlements east of the 1967 lines has increased dramatically.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“But it is because the resolution reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with United States policy across Republican and Democratic administrations throughout the history of the State of Israel that the United States did not veto it. The United States has consistently said that it would block any resolution that it thought would undermine Israel's security or would seek to impose a resolution to the conflict. We would not have let the resolution pass had it not addressed counterproductive actions by the Palestinians, such as terrorism and incitement to violence, which we have repeatedly condemned and raised with the Palestinian leadership - and which of course must be stopped.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Earlier this month, the Council could not muster the will to adopt the simplest of resolutions, calling for a seven- day pause in the savage bombardment of innocent civilians, hospitals and schools in Aleppo, yet when a resolution on Israel comes before the Council, members suddenly summon the will to act. It is because this forum too often continues to be biased against Israel, because there are important issues that are not sufficiently addressed in the resolution and because the United States does not agree with every word in this text that the United States did not vote in favour of the resolution.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“For those States that passionately denounce the closures of crossings in Gaza as exacerbating the humanitarian situation but say nothing of the resources diverted from helping Gaza's residents to dig tunnels into Israeli territory, so that terrorists can attack Israelis in their homes, what will they do to end the double standard that undermines the legitimacy of this institution? Member States should also ask themselves about the double standards when it comes to the Council taking action. Just this morning, we came together as a Council and we were unable to muster the will to act to stop the flow weapons going to killers in South Sudan who are perpetrating mass atrocities that the United Nations has said could lead to genocide. We could not come together even to curb the flow of arms.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“The practice of treating Israel differently at the United Nations matters for votes like this one, for even if one believes that today's resolution is justified or even more, necessitated, by events on the ground, one cannot completely separate the vote from the venue. Member States that say that they are for the two- State solution must ask themselves some difficult questions. For those States that are quick to promote resolutions condemning Israel but refuse to recognize when innocent Israelis are the victims of terrorism, what steps will they take to stop treating Israel differently?”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Like United States Administrations before it, the Obama Administration has worked tirelessly to fight for Israel's right simply to be treated just like any other country - from advocating for Israel to finally be granted membership to a United Nations regional body, something no other United Nations Member State has been denied; to fighting to ensure that Israeli non-governmental organizations are not denied United Nations accreditation, simply because they are Israeli; to getting Yom Kippur finally recognized as a United Nations holiday; to pressing the Council to break its indefensible silence in response to terrorist attacks on Israelis. As the United States has said repeatedly, such unequal treatment not only hurts Israel, it undermines the legitimacy of the United Nations itself.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“That has been true not only in decades past, such as the infamous resolution that the General Assembly adopted in 1975 with the support of the majority of member States, officially determining that Zionism was a form of racism, but also in 2016, this year. One need only look at the 18 resolutions against Israel adopted during the General Assembly in September or the 12 Israel- specific resolutions adopted this year in the Human Rights Council - more than those focused on Syria, North Korea, Iran and South Sudan put together - to see that in 2016 Israel continues to be treated differently from other Member States.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Given the consistency of this position across United States Administrations, one would think that it would be a routine vote for the United States to allow the passage of a resolution with the elements in resolution 2334 (2016), thereby reaffirming the long- standing position of the United States on settlements, condemning violence and incitement and calling for the parties to start taking constructive steps to reverse current trends on the ground. These are familiar, well- articulated components of United States policy. But in reality this vote was not straightforward for us because of where it is taking place - at the United Nations. For the simple truth is that for as long as Israel has been a member ofthis institution, it has been treated differently from other nations at the United Nations.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“The United States has been sending the message that the settlements must stop privately and publicly for nearly five decades through the Administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and currently Barak Obama, Indeed, since 1967, the only President who had not had at least one Israeli-Palestinian-related resolution adopted during his tenure is Barak Obama. Our vote today, therefore, is fully in line with the bipartisan history of how American Presidents have approached both the issue and the role of this body.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“First, it is because they underscore the United States' deep and long-standing commitment to achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That has been the policy of every Administration, Republican and Democrat, since before President Reagan to the present day. Secondly, it because President Reagan's words highlight the United States' long-standing position that Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 undermines Israel's security, harms the viability of a negotiated two-State outcome and erodes prospects for peace and stability in the region. Today the Security Council reaffirmed its established consensus that settlements have no legal validity.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“Let me begin with aquote, "The United States will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements during the transitional period. Indeed, the immediate adoption of a settlements freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks. Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be free and fairly negotiated." This was said in 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. He was speaking about a new proposal that he was launching to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While ultimately, of course, President Reagan's proposal was not realized, his words are still illuminating in at least two respects.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7853 (2016) · source
“We will continue to be relentless in demanding accountability, and we will be ready to return to the Council to vote again on the proposed arms embargo and targeted sanctions as soon as those who did not support action today come to understand the human costs of imposing no cost for attacking civilians, for importing massive amounts of arms instead of feeding one's people and for not pursuing the cause of peace. All of us have the opportunity to make an explanation of vote today. I would be very grateful to those who abstained in the voting to clarify what it will take and what they are for that we have not already tried.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“The next time that soldiers and armed groups fire on civilians, the next time that the Government prevents peacekeepers from going on patrol, which has probably already happened during the time that I have been speaking, and the next time that a village goes hungry because the Government withholds permission for an aid delivery, each of us will need to find a way to justify our response. The leaders of South Sudan should not misinterpret this vote. All of us will be watching closely what happens on the ground. The abuses will continue to be publicized. We will continue to hear appeals from the United Nations about what it feels it needs in order to reduce violence on the ground.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“We debated it deep into the night because having a draft resolution that is not adopted, of course, is not how one wants to spend one's day. I believe that the South Sudanese people were watching for the outcome of this vote, and we knew the signal that this would send. At a certain point, drifting along and internalizing the constraints imposed by those Council members who do not want to take action in the face of the violence, that is not an option. We learned that from Rwanda, Srebrenica and chapters past.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“We know that there are people of good will who would like to change course, but, unfortunately, not least because of the actions oftwo of the people whom we designated in the Government, that has proven to be something that the Government is not prepared to do. Do we just then sit on our hands until the Government calls off the militia and stop some of the most significant sexual violence that he have seen in any conflict in our life times? The Council members who did not support this draft resolution are taking a big gamble that South Sudan's leaders will not instigate a catastrophe. Ifthose Council members are wrong - and every report that we have heard in this Chamber suggests that they are - it is the people of South Sudan who will pay an unbearable price. It was not an easy decision for us to propose this draft resolution.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“The answer is no, but does sending a signal and message of impunity - as we have doing every day that we have not voted on those designations, even though we know the record of the individuals involved ~ do so? A record of impunity and that inability to impose a cost as a Council is a green light, and that is a green light with which everyone who abstained in the voting of this draft resolution is going to have to live. What is the alternative? I know people on the Council care a lot about South Sudan. Many of us travelled together to the region a couple of times over the past year. Is the alternative just to trust that South Sudan's leaders are going to change course? There are some really principled people in the South Sudanese Government, and they are outnumbered or outranked. There are such individuals. We all talked to them.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“Many of them have soldiers who are on the ground in South Sudan. Those soldiers are more vulnerable because of the threats and the caricatures that those individuals have put out concerning UNMISS, while conveying that the Mission is just a tool of the opposition. That is a vulnerability for all of our people who are present on the ground whether they be aid workers, diplomats, private citizens or peacekeepers. The adoption of the draft resolution would have shown that, at least when it came to the people who were doing the most to stoke the atrocities and the violence, there would have been costs. Would the designations have changed the world?”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“Of course, there would have been smuggling, but we would have significantly reduced arms sales by United Nations Member States to a fellow United Nations Member State that, instead of feeding its people, is amping and arming up for a conflict that is becoming increasingly ethnic in nature. The individual sanctions targeted three individuals Paul Malong, Riek Machar and Michael Makuei with asset freezes and travel bans. People asked what good would asset freezes and travel bans really do? Those are three leaders with lengthy resumes for fuelling violence. They have stoked ethnic conflicts, unleashed violence against civilians and, especially in the cases of Mr. Malong and Mr. Makuei, attempted to portray UNMISS as a party to the conflict. Members of the Council have all seen the rhetoric.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“With 3,000 people fleeing every day and fearing for their lives, that is why we felt that we had to bring this draft resolution to a vote. It has been hanging around. We have tried to solicit textual input and changes and said that we are flexible while, again, we heard nothing in reply. Had it been adopted, this draft resolution would not have been a panacea. We are not naive. It would have not solved the underlying political crisis at the heart of what has divided South Sudan, but the arms embargo would have had some significant effects. It would have made it impossible for the Government of South Sudan to continue to use the precious resources at its disposal to buy heavy weapons armaments. Would their have been smuggling - an issue I heard raised by a lot of Council members?”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“The Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Head of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan and the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide all issued their warnings. They came here, and the lights flashed red - not yellow and certainly not green. It does not happen in the Security Council very often when a string of United Nations officials comes and describes the gravity ofwhat lies ahead. The Secretary- General used his last appearance here (see S/PV.7846) on the subject of South Sudan to appeal to us to take heed of his warning and that of all of his team. Three thousand people on average have fled South Sudan into Uganda every single day this month. Is that because the situation is getting better or is stable?”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“We authorized the immediate deployment of a new UNMISS regional protection force to help improve security around the capital. The Government failed to comply. The situation then grew worse on our watch, and we regularly received briefings from United Nations folks who were doing their best to sound the alarm. We heard on television, radio and online sources a dramatic increase in vile rhetoric wherein people were inciting ethnic tensions, as Government officials did little to stop it, despite muzzling the media in a whole series of other respects. Soldiers began preparing in very overt ways for large-scale attacks, including, at least, 4,000 militia recently staged in the Equatorias.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“Some 1,830,000 people are internally displaced in South Sudan, and approximately 4.8 million people - more than half the country - are severely food insecure. When we made those demands, and the Government of South Sudan failed to comply. We demanded that the Government of South Sudan stop blocking peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) from carrying out their mandate. We saw in person and heard from contingent commanders and troops that they needed written permission 48 hours in advance to be able to move in convoys to protect people, even though they had a civilian-protection mandate. We therefore demanded that the movement be improved and increased with freedom of movement. The Government of South Sudan failed to comply.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“Not one of them came forward despite repeated pleas from me personally and everybody who is part of the United States Mission and is working on this issue. No one came forward to say, "Okay, do not do this, but let us do this instead. Here is an idea. Here is something that we can rally behind". Instead what the abstainers have rallied behind is treading water, and it does in fact constitute the definition of insanity, which is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. The road to how we got here, I believe, illustrates that. After another serious outbreak of violence in July, the Security Council made a set of demands (see S/PV.7730). We demanded unfettered access for all people in South Sudan.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source
“We told every abstaining country - all eight abstainers on the arms embargo and the designations - that we were completely open to doing a clearn arms embargo or clean designations to try to get at the culture of impunity and the leading architects of theviolence. In response, we were told that a change of that nature would not earn us a single vote. We engaged every member who abstained in the voting. Let nobody say, in retrospect, "Had only the Americans put forward half of what they included in that draft resolution, we would have been fine". That is false. Secondly, some have said * and this is a memorable quote for me - "We need actions not sanctions". That is an exact quote. But the representative who said that and all the other abstainers proposed no actions.”
2016-12-23 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7850 (2016) · source