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ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT ROBINSON TO UN DEPT OF PUBLIC INFO/NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS CONFERENCE

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT ROBINSON TO THE 47TH ANNUAL UN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION/NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS CONFERENCE

I am very honoured to have been invited to participate in this broadbased conference on the challenge to all of us of peace building.

I want to begin here with an analogy which might appear to be far-fetched, but has something do with both commodities and criticism - two concerns I will be reflecting on today.  I grew up in Ballina, a town in the west of Ireland through which - although I may be prejudiced - runs one of the loveliest rivers in Europe.  The river is called the Moy and I could see it from my bedroom window as a child.  It was always rich in wildlife, particularly salmon.  My memory is that the river was clear and sparkling, I could see the salmon leaping and it was peaceful.

Therefore my first impressions of water were of its clarity, its productiveness and its endless luxurious availability.  I have to say, to reproach myself, that even when I graduated and became a human rights lawyer, even when I had started to question many of the structures and inequities I saw around me, I still did not question my first impression - my first complacent impression - of one of the treasures of this planet.

But I question it now.  It is not only that in Somalia I saw at first hand its cruel unavailability.  Water is the most vital commodity for life, but contrary to my first impressions it is one of the commodities which is least available and which - for that reason - we need to think about creatively.   And I do not think we can do so until we confront the dark statistics that every day some 25,000 children die of diseases associated with unsafe water and poor sanitation.

I raise this here because at the heart of this conference is the theme:  we the peoples building peace.  We the peoples would not exist without water.   We the peoples cannot build peace until we define it.   If conferences such as this, with all the talent and goodwill which is harnessed here, are to be truly effective then I think we need to be candid that peace is poorly defined, is more often an abstract phrase than a workable programme.  That we need to be scrupulous, painstaking and accurate in its use.

The harsh truth is that there is an enormous inequity of distribution of even the most basic resources.  And therefore how we build a peace must in turn take into account the fact that many of the peoples on this planet have not even the strength to build. They have barely the strength to survive.

And so we must look squarely at the notion "we the peoples".  This choice of words in the 1945 Preamble, with its implication that it was peoples rather than governments which drafted the Charter, was hardly more than a rhetorical device at the time.  But just as this century witnessed the adoption world-wide of the sovereign territorial State, based on the principle of the self determination of peoples, it also saw the growing acceptance -

reflected in the Charter itself - that State sovereignty cannot be absolute.  And there have been other shifts in our consciousness.  We are aware of the globalisation of markets, with a parallel weakening of the influence over them by individual governments, but there has also been a globalisation of humanitarian concern, reflected in the collective energies and resources which you represent.  You, in a sense, have reclaimed for us - the peoples - a significant participation in peace making, peace keeping and peace building.

This people participation is also evident at national level.  On the island of Ireland, for example, where we have witnessed significant political developments in peace making in recent months, the backdrop against which this has occurred is a web of modest initiatives at grassroots level:  the quiet, publicity-shy activities of peace and reconciliation groups;  the reaching out by women's groups, young people, voluntary organisations through networking across the sectarian divide.  Clearly, all of those cross-community efforts need to intensify and deepen if genuine fears and anxieties are to be eased, and trust built up.

But returning now to the contribution made by NGOs to peace building at the international level, one crude measure to gauge its significance would be to contemplate the immediate effects of an instant withdrawal of all services.  Think of it. It would be devastating.  But somehow the logical linkages between the NGO community and the established institutions of peace building do not seem to have been forged to underpin the significance of that contribution.

If this sounds critical, then I think we are in a forum of criticism and also a time of rapid change.  We have nothing to fear from the critical process, provided we turn it inwards as well as outwards.  Reflection on the weaknesses and failures of one structure is of little use if there is not a rigorous accountability in the structure which is making that criticism.   I am aware of the criticisms made of the United Nations and its agencies, and that many of these criticisms have gathered impetus and focus with the approach of the 50th anniversary.  And many of them are reflective and well-grounded.  But criticism of itself will not build peace.  If I present a challenge today to that process of criticism it is an entirely respectful one.  I am deeply aware of the enormous vitality and necessity of criticising institutions.  But there is something more urgent than criticism. And it is that practical, concentrated building of a peace, which grasps at any constructive partnership, which uses every opportunity to maximise awareness and which gives to compassion and help an emergency status.  If criticism assists that process then it is good;  but if it retards it with argument and reproach then it is not.

Let us start with what can be criticised.  And here I want to select not the cause but the effect.  So many of the disasters of the past few years have come to us not as complex information but as images.  But do we really want to allow our sense of humanity and its ordeals to be image-led?   The truth is, to take just one example, that the situation in Rwanda did not get the attention it deserved - although it was both predictable and might be thought to have been predicted - until it became a series of images on our television screens, disrupting our privileged repose with grotesque pictures of death and need.  And yet we all know here that we cannot assign such a complicated and urgent reality to the unstable attention span of our television viewing.  What is it therefore that has failed, when a situation like this is at its most real only when it is at its most simplified?

I know that the answers to this are too complex for any of us to address quickly or completely.  But the question persists.    I think it could be argued at least that we are allowing ourselves to be wooed by the simplest version of events because it is also the least demanding one.  It is the one we are able to switch off, to turn away from.  And yet another system of information - more reliable and more permanent in its effect is not only possible, but I believe can work together with technology rather than be pre-empted by it.  I was glad to see, therefore, that this conference emphasised your role as catalysts for information and public understanding.   The gathering, assessing and dissemination of detailed factual information in a more structured way, using the resources of modern information technology, form part of the building bricks of peace which you are uniquely placed to contribute.

I was also greatly encouraged to hear that one of the themes of your discussion yesterday was "the UN tuning into NGOs".  It is not enough to simply allow NGO representatives to be present.  You must be empowered by being listened to.  It is significant that your voices have been heard in the formulation of positions on major issues such as the environment at Rio, human rights last year in Vienna, and most recently of all, in Cairo.  This has allowed in those viewpoints and perspectives which are under-represented in the corridors of power, particularly the voices of women and of the large constituency of the poor and dispossessed.  It may prove more difficult to continue to be heard on the implementation of strategies and policies afterwards, although, if anything, this is even more vital.  And you must have been encouraged by the clear signal from the Secretary General, at the opening of this conference, that he needs  the mobilising power of non-governmental organisations.

But of course we all know - I as a Head of State am particularly conscious of this - that listening is a two-way process.  You must also in turn be accountable to the communities you speak for and serve. And if that speech and that service is to be as fully effective as it deserves to be I believe you must work in partnership with the priorities and programmes of their governments.  

I am certain that listening approach can be achieved.  I believe that NGOs are especially well-placed to achieve it, and therefore to play a significant role in the three areas identified in the "Agenda for Peace" as the deepest causes of conflict - economic despair, social injustice and political oppression.  You have been able to fine-tune your development programmes to meet local conditions, so that they do not damage fragile ecologies or temperaments.  You have learned to see with the eyes of the people you serve, learned to speak  with their vocabulary, learned to hear with their ears. 

You have many other strengths.  Your size and structure ensure a flexibility of response which individual donor governments and the United Nations cannot easily match, especially in emergency humanitarian situations.  Above all, your experience in the field  gives you the authority to warn donor countries and the agencies of this organisation when you believe that they are not directing their resources or energies in the right way or at the right time or with enough urgency or sensitivity.

Of course theory is one thing and practice is another. As I give this speech today I have a poignant and very clear sense of the difference between theory and practice.  In just a few days I will be paying State visits to Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.  I look forward to seeing past the statistics and beyond the headlines, to listening to the priorities and viewpoints of the leadership in each state, not only on their individual country but on their wider region and on Africa as a whole.  I expect to be influenced by this dialogue.  I also look forward to learning at first hand -through my visits to local enterprises, schools, health care projects, water purification programmes - that most elusive part of this whole subject:  how ideas and people work together. 

I think the standard of excellence in this regard is less the inherent brilliance of any one idea than what it offers in the way of participation and inclusion and sustenance of the cultural values it discovers in the process.  I can say with pride that what I have read and heard about some of the Irish aided projects in those countries makes me hope and expect to see that sensitive combination of people and ideas which I believe is necessary.

I then hope to pay a humanitarian visit to Rwanda to gain some insights into the steps needed to encourage more of its people to return home.  I know I will certainly leave Rwanda, as I did Somalia, with an urgent sense that the work of all the relevant participants - NGOs, bilateral donors and international agencies - should be co-ordinated to the utmost degree possible.  What we are slowly - too slowly - discerning, is that we must find solutions by developing a more complete, one might say holistic, approach to the building of lasting peace in conflict situations.  The UN family of agencies and involved regional organisations must work from the outset of a crisis, and preferably well before it emerges, with the NGO community. 

We must all follow through on the logic of the recognition that peace keeping operations are now multi-faceted undertakings and that humanitarian aid has to be followed by real development if crises are not to endlessly repeat themselves.

Nor should we underestimate the value in areas of terrible conflict of making the necessary investment to put in place an effective system of monitoring and adjudicating on human rights violations, with the healing effect this can have.  I firmly believe that at the very core of our commitment is the way we value the individual human lives lost through violence, the women violated, the trauma created for children who have witnessed what no child should see.  Effective human rights protection is part of the infrastructure of a global ethical system which puts the individual human being at its centre.

If there is or should be, as I believe there should be, a global ethic, a fundamental consensus, then a vital part of it must be a discourse of compassion:  a way of discussing the human values which bind the strong to the weak on this planet.  It may not be a tidy or easy discourse.  But one of the best effects of such a global ethic would be the invitation it holds out to us to see the world as a single whole;  to relate the destiny of the human race to that of the natural world.  To put back together, in other words, in some visionary and instinctive way all those perceptions and understandings we have been protecting ourselves from with statistics and reports and jargon.   Unless our ideas and actions are rooted in a global ethic then I truly believe our criticisms of what is wrong in the structures which affect peace should turn into self-criticism.

Without that rootedness, that connectedness then the haunting feeling that our efforts are piecemeal will continue. And without that sense of a global ethic our efforts for peace cannot truly succeed.  And I come back again to that image of the river - of water and peace as being interlinked and life-enhancing,  symbols of the links between peace and development.  Conferences such as this seem to me to have the special responsibility of not simply defining a future, but also defining the ethic which will guide it, and then engaging in the assistance, mobilisation and democratisation activities which will help make it happen.

My hope for each of you, and for the organisations you represent, is that through this conference you have been invigorated, energised, nourished and strengthened in your commitment to the process of building and sustaining peace.