THE SECRETARY-GENERAL - ADDRESS TO THE BUNDESTAG - Building Sustainable Peace
Mr. Chancellor, President,
Honourable Members,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a very great honour for me to address this august assembly
– especially as I understand I am one of very few non-Germans
to be invited to do so, and only the third since you moved into
this magnificently restored home in Germany’s historic
capital.
It is also a great pleasure for me to speak to you, since Germany
sets an admirable example as a global citizen and member of the
United Nations. Ever since I became Secretary-General, and indeed
before that, I have enjoyed a close working relationship with the
German government and people.
Your constructive and generous approach to the United Nations does
you all the more credit when one recalls that Germany was once
considered an “enemy state”, and that, because of the
cold war division of Germany, the Federal Republic had to wait more
than 20 years for admission to UN membership.
This city, and indeed this building, have carefully preserved some
traces of the terrible ravages of war, as a warning to future
generations. Few peoples, I believe, are more deeply committed to
the cause of peace than is the German people today – and few,
if any, have better historical reasons to be so.
One thing that has impressed me, over the twelve years since you
achieved unity through self-determination, has been the way you
have risen above historical inhibitions about your role in the
world, including the deployment of military force, and accepted
your share of responsibility for the maintenance of international
peace and security.
I know this transformation was not easy. It required both courage
and ingenuity on the part of your political leaders, and of the
elected representatives gathered in this assembly.
But of course that is only one of many ways that the Federal
Republic has contributed to peace and stability, in Europe and
further afield. Your commitment to constructing the European Union,
your work to combine political stability and cooperation with
economic progress and monetary union, and your emphasis on the
strengthening of democratic institutions is testimony to your
understanding that peace is a very complex structure, which has to
be built on many foundations at once.
Your role in consolidating peace in the Balkans has been
particularly important – and I am very pleased now to have
Michael Steiner as my Special Representative in Kosovo.
But I am glad to say you are not limiting your activities to
Europe, or even to its immediate neighbourhood. Germany was one of
the few countries that paid serious attention to the problems of
Afghanistan even before the events of 11 September. And since then
you have stepped up your contribution to security there – in
particular by accepting the lead role in coordinating international
efforts to help Afghans build, or rebuild, an effective and
professional police force.
There can be no more vital contribution to the work of building a
lasting peace in that country, on which – after a long and
regrettable period of neglect – the whole world’s
attention is now focused.
It is on that subject of peace building, in its broadest sense,
ladies and gentlemen, that I wish to speak to you today.
Afghanistan is not the first country where the United Nations has
been asked to help with this process, in partnership with other
organisations. And it is unlikely to be the last.
More and more it seems that this is one of the key tasks that the
international community assigns to us.
In many countries emerging from war we are also expected to keep
the peace, by deploying troops under UN command, who wear the
famous blue helmets. And Mr. Speaker, thank you for your kind words
about the Blue helments.
In other words, in cases – such as Kosovo, and now
Afghanistan – this military task is seen to require heavily
armed forces with very robust rules of engagement. Member States
then prefer to undertake it directly – in so-called
“coalitions of the willing”, authorised by the Security
Council, of course – while leaving the UN itself to
co-ordinate the multiple civilian tasks that the international
community undertakes to help a country in that situation.
But even where we do have military forces under UN command,
nowadays they are often integrated with civilian elements in a
larger mission, whose mandate goes beyond traditional peacekeeping.
That mandate, in essence, is to lay foundations for a more lasting
peace.
In the past, UN peacekeepers were deployed to preserve a ceasefire
while the parties worked on a political settlement – and too
often they stayed onfor many years because no settlement was
reached. But since the end of the cold war, it has been much more
common for them to be deployed under the terms of a political
settlement already agreed, to help the parties put it into
effect.
They are no longer a static element, which cannot be removed
without destroying a precarious military balance and precipitating
a renewal of the conflict. Instead they are expected to play a
dynamic role, as part of complex operations involving numerous
actors seeking to solidify and build a peace which can sustain
itself once they have withdrawn.
Peace-building is a noble mission, and a necessary one. Yet the
United Nations can only hope to succeed in it if two things are
clearly understood:
First, that it is a very complex process, combining many different
tasks – success or failure in each of which has an
inescapable impact on the others.
And secondly, that it is a long and delicate process, in which
there are no quick fixes. Whoever embarks on it must be prepared
for the long haul.
As an example of the first point, take the training and monitoring
of local police forces – an example which should be of
interest to you, in view of the role you are about to undertake in
Afghanistan.
This work is of little value without an honest and effective
judiciary, a decent prison system, and some institutions that
promote human rights.
After all, what is the good of building an efficient police force,
if when you arrest criminals you have no jail to put them in, or
only one that is run in a way that is offensive to human
decency?
Come to that, what is the good of arresting criminals at all, if
they cannot be tried within a reasonable time, by a tribunal that
conforms to the minimum international standards, or if you lack the
resources to collect the evidence sufficient to secure their
conviction?
To take another example, what use are elections, even with the most
immaculate voting procedures, if candidates are not free to
campaign, or the media to cover them; if the losers are not ready
to accept the result, or if the winners treat their victory as a
licence to ignore everyone else's views?
We cannot bring peace to a country through elections unless we also
help it to build democratic institutions, and allow its people at
least a glimpse of a solution to their social problems.
Or again, what good does it do to rebuild houses for refugees, if
we are unable to persuade them that their safety will be guaranteed
when they return?
By the same token, what good does it do to disarm and demobilise
armed factions, if the young men and boys who come out of them find
no decent schools or civilian jobs to keep them occupied?
All these tasks – humanitarian, military, political, social
and economic – are interconnected, and the people engaged in
them need to work closely together. We cannot expect lasting
success in any of them unless we pursue all of them at once, as
part of a single, coherent strategy. If the resources are lacking
for any one of them, all the others may turn out to have been
pursued in vain.
And the uncomfortable truth is that, as matters stand, the United
Nations and other institutions are still poorly equipped to devise
such a comprehensive strategy, and even less well equipped to carry
it out. Yet the UN is often asked to do both.
Our system is at present too compartmentalised. I believe we have
had some success in overcoming this within the UN Secretariat, and
I have been working hard to coordinate the work of our Funds and
Programmes, such as UNICEF, UNDP, the World Food Programme and the
High Commissioners for Refugees and Human Rights. We are also
trying to bring greater coherence to the work of the United Nations
family as a whole, which of course includes the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund.
But the key decisions are taken by national governments, either
individually or in intergovernmental organs such as the Security
Council, the General Assembly and its various committees, and also
– since the UN is seldom alone in these operations – in
the corresponding bodies in other organisations such as NATO and
OSCE.
To complicate matters further, the various entities in the UN
system respond to different constituencies within national
governments, leading to potentially conflicting priorities in
capitals and mixed signals at the other end. For example, UNICEF is
likely to appeal to and interact with quite a different sector in a
Member State than is the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations.
Too often the result is a fragmented approach, which is the exact
opposite of what we need. The mandates given to the United Nations
and other organisations frequently exceed their capacities. And
often we end up with too little money; or with money which is not
available for the most urgent priorities, because it is earmarked
for something different; or with a prolonged gap between the money
pledged and the money disbursed.
The gap between pledge and disbursement is already of particular
concern to me in the case of Afghanistan. Although considerable
amounts have been promised, not enough has been received there as
yet. Peace-building in Afghanistan needs the momentum of early
reconstruction. Urgent priorities at this stage include paying
teachers’ salaries, making seeds available for the new
planting season, and creating jobs both in the cities and in the
countryside. Such quick impact projects can make a crucial
difference in the early stages of a peace-building operation
– particularly in establishing its credibility in the eyes of
local people.
And that brings me to my second point – the need to stay
engaged for the long haul.
I began by saying that Afghanistan is now the centre of the
world’s attention, after a long and shameful period of
neglect.
Unhappily that neglect is what typically happens in war-torn
countries, once they slip out of the headlines.
And yet I’m sure we all agree that it would have been much
better, not only for the Afghan people but for the world, if
Afghanistan had received sustained attention after the Soviet
withdrawal in 1989. Instead we allowed it to sink into
anarchy.
There have been other cases, too – in Angola, for instance
– where peace agreements have fallen apart, and war and
anarchy have resumed, prolonging the agony and devastation of a
people and dashing hopes that had been raised. In Rwanda, the
international community thought a peace agreement was being
implemented, when in fact a full-scale genocide was being
prepared.
No doubt in such cases the heaviest responsibility lies with the
parties that broke their agreements and resorted to violence. But
often a share also lies with the international community, which
underestimated the legacy of mistrust and hatred that a conflict
can leave, or the strength of the incentive to resume fighting when
young men and boys have no other outlet for their energies.
The UN has learned from these experiences that just as conflict
never occurs in a vacuum, neither is peace just a matter of signing
agreements or treaties. It always has to be built from the ground
up – as is the case in Afghanistan today.
I am not suggesting that peacekeeping missions should remain
indefinitely in countries emerging from conflict. On the contrary,
it is very important to wean countries away from dependency.
Peacekeepers and peace-builders should always be supporting
national efforts and promoting self-reliance, not substituting
themselves for local leaders and administrators. And peacekeepers
should leave as soon as they can, once they have helped create the
conditions under which a country can maintain stability.
But they should never be withdrawn abruptly or prematurely –
which is why I very much hope the present International Security
Force in Afghanistan can be extended beyond its present
mandate.
A seamless transition is needed, which must be carefully timed and
planned, in close cooperation with the other agencies –
bilateral and multilateral, governmental and non-governmental,
humanitarian and developmental – whose work must continue
long after the peacekeeping operation has been withdrawn. The
closer all these partners are associated with each other, and with
the peacekeeping operation throughout its presence, the better
their chance of carrying the peace-building process forward after
the others have left.
It is with this in mind that I am increasingly seeking to appoint
the United Nations Resident Coordinator in a country as deputy head
of the peacekeeping mission. That way, he or she can ensure that
development programmes get under way early in the peace-building
process, and also that there is a smooth handover to the regular UN
team when the peacekeeping mission leaves. I am also trying to
ensure correspondingly close links at Headquarters, between the
development and the peace-and-security sides of the house.
But this can only work if Member States, who supply the funds and
the personnel for all these operations, are willing to co-ordinate
the work of their own departments and services in the same
way.
Member States that contribute troops to a peacekeeping operation
are always, and rightly, concerned to know what is the “exit
strategy”. When do the boys and girls come home? No State
wants to leave its soldiers stationed indefinitely in a foreign
land, with no political outcome in sight.
In response to this question, we at the United Nations have coined
a slogan of our own, in reference to the transition to a new phase:
“no exit without strategy”. Once we commit ourselves to
helping a people or peoples rebuild peace, after a war that has
laid waste their land and left them deeply mistrustful of each
other, we believe we must be prepared to stay the course, and to
leave behind structures that will help them continue the
process.
Otherwise, all our work will have been in vain, and those who have
worked hard to keep peace, often at the risk of their lives, will
have the deeply dispiriting experience of seeing their work
destroyed after they have left.
I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the aim must always be
to create a sustainable peace, just as we aim to achieve
sustainable development – and indeed sustainable development
itself is one of the conditions for lasting peace.
You Germans, who rebuilt your own country so magnificently after
the second world war, with the help of your friends and allies in
the international community, are perhaps better placed than any
other people to understand what I mean.
German history could have been very different if the western allies
had pulled out two or three years after 1945, or if they had not
assisted you in building your own Federal Republic, as well as
rebuilding your country.
No one disputes that these are above all German achievements, of
which you can be justly proud. But I believe they also stand as
shining example of what can be achieved when outsiders, committed
to a peaceful future, work with the people of a country to help it
overcome the bitter legacy of war.
I know that Germans share that view, and that is why Germany is
taking a more and more prominent role in efforts to heal the wounds
of war and rebuild peace in countries that have suffered more
recently.
On that score, let me commend you for being one of the
world’s top donors of official development assistance in
absolute terms – while hoping that you can do even better, by
raising the amount as a percentage of your gross domestic
product.
Let me also salute you for your contributing generously to faraway
war-torn countries with no direct link to your own, as you are
doing now in Afghanistan and you have already done in Sierra Leone
for example – ensuring, in the eloquent words of your Federal
President, that there is no zones of indifference.
[And let me congratulate you on ratifying the Statute of the
International Criminal Court. Within the next few weeks we should
reach the total of sixty ratifications needed to bring the Statute
into force. We have learnt from bitter experience that true peace
cannot be built on impunity. It requires justice and deterrence, as
well as magnanimity and
reconciliation.] *
Ladies and gentlemen, in the months and years to come Germany will
certainly be called upon to do more, for both sustainable
development and sustainable peace. As parliamentarians, you have a
crucial role to play. You form the institutional bridge between the
State and civil society, and the indispensable link between the
local and the global. You are thus uniquely placed to work for a
United Nations that is more effective and more responsive to the
needs and aspirations of the people you represent.
I applaud you for what you have already done, and I look forward to
working with the Government and the people of Germany more closely
in the future and for our common future.
Meine Freunde, Vielen Dank
* This paragraph has been modified to reflect what the
Secretary-General intended to say.
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