YouSaid · the spoken record

Von Boeselager

lines on the record
9
first
2009-11-11
most recent
2009-11-11
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “The Order urges the Council and the international community to take responsible and effective steps to stem the trade in small arms. The Order of Malta pledges to work with other members of the international community to re-establish the protection of civilians in armed conflict, with the goal of ensuring, to the extent possible, that civilians do not become the innocent victims of these struggles.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  2. “The international community must mitigate the danger to civilians stemming from armed conflict by taking additional steps. One is to limit or outlaw the production, distribution and use of weapons that are inherently indiscriminate and that history has shown to pose a massive danger to civilians, especially children. I refer specifically to land mines and cluster munitions. In addition, while the Order of Malta expresses its support for international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the vast majority of civilians killed and injured in the course of armed conflict are the victims of low-level conflicts. The proliferation of small arms, including automatic weapons, is a major source of those deaths and injuries in such conflicts.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  3. “That accountability must include those who personally violate the basic rules of international humanitarian law, as well as those who are responsible for those violations in accordance with settled principles of the international law of command responsibility. The Council should clearly and unambiguously endorse those principles, insist that all combatants observe them, condemn violations of those principles, urge all Member States to take appropriate action to investigate and punish violations, and consider referring to the International Criminal Court any gross violations that Member States are unable to pursue through the ordinary course of their domestic law and procedure. I commend the Council for unanimously adopting this morning resolution 1894 (2009), which deals with some of those issues.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  4. “There can be no question that these kinds of actions violate basic principles of international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, whether or not a particular conflict technically constitutes an international conflict and whether or not the combatant groups or militias are formally parties to the Convention. International humanitarian law has evolved to the point that all combatants must recognize and obey those fundamental precepts of human decency and civilization. In short, these principles and values must be regarded as part of customary international law and, as such, they are universally binding. Equally important, those persons who violate these precepts must be held accountable for their actions.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  5. “They are, first, direct attacks on civilians, including by use of sexual violence, suicide bombings or assaults on facilities for refugees and displaced persons for the purpose of destabilizing society or generating terror for military or political objectives; secondly, the taking of civilian hostages to serve as human shields or the misuse of protected facilities, such as hospitals or aid stations, for the purpose of protecting combatants or combatant facilities or operations; thirdly, the inflicting of incidental or collateral damage upon civilians, including aid workers and medical personnel, as part of military operations that create a high degree of probability that innocent civilians will be killed or injured in pursuing what would otherwise be legitimate military objectives; and fourthly, the targeting of humanitarian facilities or aid workers, such a medical personnel and volunteers, for the purpose of denying civilians refuge, food, shelter or medical care.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  6. “Civilians and humanitarian aid workers, including Order of Malta personnel, have become victims of military raids, most recently in Darfur. Cluster bombs in southern Lebanon are a serious threat to the civilians we treat in our clinics. Our maternity hospital in Bethlehem, Palestine, the birthplace of 44,000 babies since 1990, has been shelled twice in recent years. More than 60 per cent of the attacks on humanitarian workers have occurred in Afghanistan, Somalia and the Sudan. In Afghanistan, the Order of Malta has lost several local staff members in ambushes and shootings. The Order has observed at least four types of violence perpetrated against civilians in the course of armed conflict, and the Council should address each one.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  7. “The systematic use of rape and mutilation of civilians has become a tactic of choice of militia groups and armed forces in several regions, especially in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where sexual violence and rape are part of the military strategy of disruption. Terror is an epidemic. Militiamen and rebels perpetrate many of these outrages, often directed at young women or even little girls and sometimes little boys. The Order is working with victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to prevent or treat sexually transmitted diseases and to provide psychological counselling to them. We have treated and counselled more than 30,000 women in the past four years, and we have also successfully worked with soldiers and rebels in order to try to prevent such crimes in the future.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  8. “As an international sovereign order with a 900-year mission to help, in particular, the victims of natural and man- made disasters and conflicts, the Order of Malta is deeply concerned about this ever-increasing challenge. The use of human shields to provide shelter for combatants exposes civilians to lethal danger. This has come to be the case in asymmetric struggles between Governments and insurgent or terrorist groups. The misuse of protected civilian or religious facilities endangers even the principle of protection of those in situations of armed conflict. We have seen this in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source

  9. “Mr. Von Boeselager: The Sovereign Order of Malta appreciates this opportunity to address the Security Council on the vital subject of the protection of civilians in armed conflict. This is a subject of special concern to my Order, and I extend our thanks to the President for convening this important debate. During the twentieth century, civilians became disproportionately both the targets and the victims of warfare. One hundred years ago, 90 per cent of war victims were military; today, 90 per cent of casualties are civilians. Until now, all the efforts of the international community under the international conventions for the protection of civilians have failed to mitigate this unacceptable tragedy. Current efforts to protect civilians against the various atrocities of contemporary armed conflict must be intensified.”

    2009-11-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6216Resumption1 (2009) · source