United Kingdom, 2001

Please allow me

warmly to congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption of

the presidency of the fifty-sixth session of the General

Assembly.

This day, 11 November, is the anniversary of the

Armistice which ended the slaughter of the First World

War and is a day of remembrance here in the United

States, in the United Kingdom and across much of the

world. It is a day when all of us remember the sacrifice

of those who, over the last century, gave their lives that

others might live in freedom.

For our parents and grandparents, the end of the

Second World War stood as a turning point, a moment

to establish a new world order. Their vision was

inscribed at the very beginning of the Charter of the

United Nations:

“We the peoples of the United Nations,

determined to save succeeding generations from

the scourge of war”.

With these words, they founded the international

community.

For some of us, the subsequent half-century has

been the most peaceful era of our history. Yet we know

that no one’s freedom can be secure while others suffer.

On this Remembrance Day, we remember

something else — the thousands who died just two

months ago, on 11 September. A third of the nations

represented here in the General Assembly lost citizens

at the World Trade Center. But just as our predecessors

saw hope in the midst of despair, so we now face the

task of building a new and better world.

It is fitting that it was here at the United Nations,

on 12 September, that the world began to fight back

against the terrorist threat. We showed our joint

resolve, in the Security Council and in the General

Assembly, when we adopted resolutions demanding

that terrorists and those who harbour them be held to

account for their evil actions.

I applaud Security Council resolution 1373

(2001), which established the Counter-terrorism

Committee and which requires all Member States to

respond to the global terrorist threat.

21

We do surely have to take every effective

measure against international terrorist networks, whose

malign influence is felt in every part of the globe, not

least by adopting a comprehensive convention on

terrorism and the draft Nuclear Terrorism Convention.

We also have to confront an unpalatable truth:

that we still face a real and immediate danger. The

murderous groups who plotted the terrible events of 11

September could strike again at any time. Thus our first

duty, to our citizens and to each other, is to defend

ourselves against that threat.

When the nations of the world agreed the United

Nations Charter, they recognized the right of self-

defence in Article 51. It is in exercise of this right that

the military coalition is now engaged in action against

Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime which harbours them.

Taking military action is always a tough decision.

But here it truly was unavoidable, and we all owe a

debt of gratitude to President Bush for the steadfast and

careful manner in which the United States proceeded.

But in defending the world from terror, we have

to do our utmost to spare innocent Afghan people

further suffering. For decades, the Afghans have seen

their country exploited by outside powers and riven by

conflict. In five years, their society has been

systematically destroyed by one of the most brutal

regimes the world has ever known.

But at last today, the international community is

united in its efforts to feed and shelter the millions of

refugees through this harsh winter, and it is determined

to help build a new Afghanistan.

For the first time in decades, there is consensus in

the Security Council as a whole, and among

Afghanistan’s neighbours, that there should be a broad-

based government in Kabul, reflecting Afghanistan’s

rich ethnic diversity, and that the future of Afghanistan

must be put into the hands of the Afghan people. There

must be no more Great Games with Afghan people as

the pawns, and no more regional rivalries, with Afghan

people as the victims.

We know that the one institution in the world

which can deliver this better future is here now: the

United Nations. We should all give Ambassador

Brahimi every support in planning a future that leads to

Afghanistan retaking its place as a fully fledged

member of the international community, able to protect

and promote the interests of all of its people.

That nations have come so closely together to

fight terrorism shows how the world is changing.

However, we have to build a deeper and wider

consensus to tackle the other great issues which we

face. It is not just the Afghan people who have been

excluded from the values on which the United Nations

was founded.

Conflict, poverty, discrimination and injustice

still blight the lives of millions in every part of the

globe. Individuals’ rights, especially women’s rights,

are ignored with impunity, and then the very structure

of communities collapses. Where this happens, where

societies disintegrate or States fail, we put at risk the

basis of global society itself.

If 11 September teaches us anything, it is surely

this: that if we ignore our moral responsibilities to each

other, we will be forced later to face painful

consequences.

Nowhere is the need for action now more obvious

than in Africa. Yes, there has been some progress there.

International work on the ground to resolve conflict has

brought hope to Sierra Leone and to the Great Lakes

region. Responsible Governments working across the

continent in partnership with effective international

donors have succeeded in reducing poverty. But we

should not delude ourselves about the scale of the task

that remains in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa average

income today is much lower than it was 30 years ago.

The New Partnership for African Development

therefore requires the support of the whole community

of nations. Africa deserves the same opportunities that

we in the West take for granted. We in the West must

acknowledge that while removing barriers to global

trade and to finance, we have not always dismantled

barriers to dignity and equality. In theory, global free

trade should have created the conditions for every

economy to exploit its comparative advantage in the

world marketplace. In practice, protectionist barriers

still survive, especially against trade in agriculture,

damaging Africa’s interests today, and all our interests

tomorrow.

As we meet here in New York, our colleagues at

the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha have

the opportunity to begin to put these injustices right.

Launching a new trade round would be the clearest

possible signal of the world’s determination to spread

the benefits of wealth and of prosperity more fairly.

22

Our predecessors gave us the United Nations. In

the succeeding years, it developed expertise in

peacekeeping, in conflict prevention, in human rights

and in reconstruction, to consolidate the gains of 1945.

My message today is that our generation faces as

daunting a task, but a different one. That task is to

defeat international terrorism. But to do that we have to

combine the agenda of 10 September with the agenda

of 11 September, as the Secretary-General emphasized

in his powerful speech yesterday. And we must take not

only military action, but also diplomatic action to

reduce tensions that terrorists exploit.

Nowhere are those tensions greater than in the

Middle East. The path to a settlement there is plain. It

has to be based on a political process that implements

United Nations resolutions. It must deliver security for

Israel within recognized borders while at the same time

creating a viable Palestinian State. We should give the

parties every help to reach a settlement. But our efforts

will be wasted unless the parties themselves show the

political will to bring violence to a halt, and the

political courage to make a deal.

We have seen, in the most graphic and brutal way

possible, that chaos in one part of the world can

undermine security in all parts of the world. Against

that chaos we must set our vision of peaceful

cooperation among stable nations. Achieving that

vision has now taken on a new urgency. Indeed, we are

at a moment of strategic opportunity, which comes no

more than once to any generation. We owe it to those

who founded the international community to seize this

moment. Most of all, we owe it to those who will come

after us.

Today we remember with sorrow the sacrifices

that earlier generations made. We remember with pride

the brave decisions that they took to build a better

world for us, and we salute the reconciliation and

recovery that followed. My hope is that our children

and our grandchildren will look back on this period

with no less pride, and that future generations will be

able to say that we here faced up to a great evil; we did

not duck the decisions we had to take; we established

peace in Afghanistan, constructive coexistence in the

Middle East and sustained development in Africa. We

made the necessary endeavour in the finest tradition of

the United Nations.

The United Nations stands for everything the

terrorist seeks to destroy. My hope is that our

successors will look back on this era and say that we

saved succeeding generations from the scourge of

terrorism as well as from the scourge of war.