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Change Your Life! |
The creativity of Arias, Dole, Heath and Kaunda |
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August 20, 2000
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A Latin American Nobel laureate, a former U.S. presidential candidate, an African independence leader and a former British prime minister offered ideas about subjects ranging from poverty to war for more than 150 world leaders meeting at the United Nations next month. The Millennium Summit from Sept. 6-8 - billed as the largest gathering of heads of state and government in history - will focus on the role of the United Nations in the 21st century. At a conference Friday attended by more than 300 representatives from more than 100 countries, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias urged the world's most powerful democracies to focus on "human security" - combating poverty, illiteracy, inequality, repression and disease - instead of "national security." Singling out the United States and Europe, the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize winner warned, "unless you let down the walls around your marketplace and allow the exports of poor countries to be sold at competitive prices, your border walls will continue to be breached by hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year from these same poor countries. "Unless you stop selling arms to ruthless dictators and genocidal regimes, your countries will continue to overflow with refugees and those displaced by the territorial conflicts you do little to stop," he said. "Unless you begin to direct your foreign aid according to the needs of poor countries rather than according to your strategic interests, there will never be peace in the world," Arias said. Former U.S. Sen. Robert Dole, who ran for the presidency but was defeated by President Bill Clinton in 1996, called the war in Bosnia "the single biggest failure of the Western powers and of the United Nations in decades." The lesson, he said, is that the world must deal with "black holes" so they don't become "quagmires," and the United Nations must "take sides" when its principles and treaties are broken. "It has to stand with the victims and the oppressed. It has to stand against tyranny and aggression. It has to stand for liberty, the rule of law, and human rights," he said. "In the 21st century, the United Nations will be effective and relevant only to the extent that it learns these lessons and embraces the triumph and promise of democracy." But Dole said despite the mass killings in the Balkans, he remains skeptical. "Can we contribute to the peace and security of other nations? Can we work and even sacrifice to extend the rule of law to others? Can we stand up to tyranny, aggression, ultranationalism, and other threats to freedom in the 21st century?" he asked. "Sadly, I remain unconvinced that the United Nations and its member states can answer these questions entirely in the affirmative. I remain unconvinced that we have learned sufficiently from the debacle of Bosnia," he said. Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath said current leaders must recognize that the United States is not the world's only superpower. "We have a five-power world, and those five powers will do more and more to dominate the world, and the question is how they can be accommodated within the United Nations," he said. Heath identified the five powers as the United States, Russia, Japan, China and a unified Europe. Kenneth Kaunda, who led Zambia to independence in 1964 and ruled for nearly three decades, said the United Nations must be equipped to deal with the challenges in Africa, which despite abundant resources is languishing "in abject poverty." "We need a U.N. which can effectively direct the abundant financial, academic, spiritual and technical resources being provided," he said.
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