No More ‘Never Agains’’ Says Next General Ass
Mei-Ling McNamara - 20.07.2005 07:08
Eliasson, the Swedish Ambassador to the US and the new President of the General Assembly, called on the international community to stop promising an end to conflict and to start taking decisive action.
No More ‘Never Agains’’ Says Next General Assembly President - [19 July 2005]
By Mei-Ling McNamara
Jan Eliasson, the Swedish Ambassador to the US and the new President of the General Assembly, called on the international community to stop promising an end to conflict and to start taking decisive action.
In a moving address to a reception of over 300 delegates on Monday night, Mr. Eliasson drew on his long career as a humanitarian diplomat to ask how the global community can allow repeated acts of genocide to take place.
‘We have said ‘Never Again’ each time after Cambodia, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Sudan. We cannot say this anymore. We must act early.’
Mr. Eliasson has served as an ambassador for the Swedish government and the United Nations in such hotspots as Sudan and Somalia. The fact that he is about to take on the post as the President of the General Assembly raises hopes that the UN will finally take early warning seriously. ‘One of the things I learned from Sudan is that we have to be involved earlier. We will have performed a historic task if we can move from the late stages of conflict to the early stages. We can save millions of lives; we can save billions of dollars; and we can save the reputations of international organizations.’
If anyone was able to mitigate the impact of past genocides, said Mr. Eliasson, it has been civil society. ‘I was in Sudan and Somalia in 1992-1993, a period that left marks on my life, and I saw what the NGO community can do’.
Mr. Eliasson made a strong plea for greater cooperation between civil society and the United Nations. He spotlighted the specialized skills each could contribute in conflict prevention, and emphasized the need for increased exchange across groups. ‘We need to translate The ambassador called on all groups to maintain a broad, global outlook when initiating any peace-building efforts, alluding to the unique feature of the GPPAC conference to bring diverse groups together to share their experiences and successes.
He ended on a quote from the late Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General to the United Nations, with words of encouragement and admonition for the audience. ‘You must have passion,’ Eliasson said, ‘Without passion nothing happens.’ But, Eliasson added, ‘Without compassion, the wrong things happen.’
The event was organized in commemoration of the late Dag Hammarskjold, and was co-hosted by the United Nations Association of Sweden, the World Federation of United Nations Associations and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
 Website: http://www.peoplebuildingpeace.org
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