The 38th floor.

The 38th Floor

The following excerpts from statements by Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, made between 1 April and 30 June 1986, reflect the variety of activities he undertakes in pursuit of the goals of the organization.

To the Congress of Bolivia in La Paz, 7 April:

Bolivia's experience in recent years could be said to epitomize the distressing struggle of many developing countries which are caught between the Scylla of the policies of adjustment which the prevailing economic conditions demand and the Charybdis of their equally ineluctable political and moral commitment to satisfying their people's just hopes for a better life. Clearly the situation goes beyond the purely economic and financial and acquires a political and social significance of incalculable dimensions.

How to resolve this profound dichotomy between debt and development in a democratic framework is one of the most difficult problems of our time and it calls for a significant change in the pattern of international economic relations. For this reason an appeal to the international organization is justified. For this reason it is imperative that we seek new paths.

At the opening meeting of the fortieth anniversary session of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in New York, 14 April:

The working of UNICEF over these 40 years constitutes a record of achievement and aspiration for building a better future for humanity. All who contributed to its efforts can indeed be proud of it. The challenge before this body has not diminished; on the contrary, it is larger than ever. I, therefore, come before you in support of your determination that the fortieth anniversary of UNICEF be marked by action flowing from a strengthened commitment to the needs of children.

From a message to ECA African ministers responsible for economic development and planning, Yaounde, Cameroon, 17 April:

This time last year, Africa was in the grip of a human tragedy of unprecedented proportions. Famine and related scourges of malnutrition and disease were threatening millions of people and putting the very survival of countries at risk. There are still areas of need, especially of people who remain displaced and destitute. It is estimated that $1 billion is needed to cover emergency requirements and we must continue our efforts to ensure that these needs are met. But today, one can safely say that the worst of the drought-related emergency is over. I am pleased that the United Nations was able to play a central and crucial role in sensitizing the world to the problem and in mobilizing and facilitating the co-ordination of assistance from Governments, multilateral and bilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations and private individuals. The United Nations demonstrated that it is possible to forge a world-wide partnership to face a common cause. It is this partnership, this convincing expression of human solidarity, characterizing the response to the drought-related emergency, that must now be put at the service of Africa's more long-term development needs.

To the Panel of Eminent Personalities on the Relationship between Disarmament and Development, New York, 18 April:

Relating disarmament to development in a meaningful way constitutes a major intellectual, moral and political challenge of our age. It is a cruel paradox that precisely in an era when science has opened up historically unprecedented opportunities to harness and use natural and human resources for the enhancement of life, the world's talent and treasure are being expended as never before on the weapons and technology of destruction. It is also a moral affront that well over two thirds of the world's population continues to subsist on less than one third of the world's resources. The supreme challenge for policy-makers is to conceive and pursue policies which respond to the equally urgent demands of national security, human welfare and international interdependence.

At the commencement exercises at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, 3 May:

Ours is an age of unparalleled and increasing complexity. We are caught in demographic, technological, economic and political change that has already altered to a dramatic degree the equations of power at the national and international levels and has ramifications in every area of human activity. International relations will certainly feel the impact of the vast changes now under way.

However, precisely when nations should focus on the limitless possibilities in diverse spheres of human existence which are latent in multilateral co-operation, the machinery needed to realize this potential is often by-passed, rebuffed or disdained. There are disturbing signs of a disregard by States of their obligations under the United Nations Charter. This weakens the whole multilateral approach to dealing with global problems. Further, it ignores the basic lesson driven home so brutally by two world wars: that international co-operation is a functional response to the complex interdependence of the modern world. To treat it as an optional matter is a deadly mistake.

In a message to the opening meeting of the Commission on Human Settlements in Istanbul, 5 May:

This session of the Commission will be the last before the observance of the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless of 1987. Millions of the homeless poor and disadvantaged continue to wait anxiously for a chance to obtain decent living conditions for themselves and their families.

This is a basic fact of the current social situation in large parts of the world and I have no doubt that a keen awareness of it will inspire your deliberations and invest them with a guiding significance for Governments and others involved in the provision of shelter for the poor.

To the Welsh Centre for International Affairs, Cardiff, Wales, 12 May:

In the real world in which it has functioned--the world of great-Power tensions, the arms race, collisions of national interests, resentements born of past violations or neglect, economic disparities, cultural differences, poverty and drought and famine--the United Nations has done as well as it was permitted to do and, in many ways, better than what could have been anticipated at the time it was founded. The world of today is not a tidy world but few can doubt that it would have been more disorderly and much less manageable without the United Nations. The world Organization has kept pace with the dynamics of the human situation and embraced in its agenda the multiplicity of concerns which have emerged during the last four decades. The universal political awakening which has created a new consciousness of rights, the explosion in population in large areas of the world, the interpenetration of national economies, the crisis which gave rise to concern about protection of the environment, the technological developments which have vastly enlarged human capacities and also underlined human vulnerability--none of these could have been predicted in 1945. All have created problems of adjustment which no nation, however strong and resourceful, can solve by itself. The United Nations has furnished the means by which nations can jointly engage their attention and effort for their solution.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has before him the picture of what, without exaggeration, can be called the total international reality: the serious problems, political or economic, the diverging viewpoints of Governments or groups of Governments, the resentments and the frustrations of peoples as well as the common longing of all for a more secure future. Looking at it with as much impartiality as my office demands, I am convinced that no good end can be served by turning away from the international co-operation to which the United Nations provides a system and structure.

From the Cyril Foster Lecture at Oxford University, United Kingdom, on "The Role of the Secretary-General', 13 May.

Anyone who has the honour to be cast as Secretary-General has to avoid two extremes in playing his, or her, role. On one side is the Scylla of trying to inflate the role through too liberal a reading of the text: of succumbing, that is, to vanity and wishful thinking. On the other is the Charybdis of trying to limit the role to only those responsibilities which are explicitly conferred by the Charter and are impossible to escape: that is, succumbing to modesty, to the instinct of self-effacement and to the desire to avoid controversy. There are, thus, temptations on both sides. Both are equally damaging to the vitality of the institution. No Secretary-General should give way to either of them. The Secretary-General must not only be impartial but must be perceived to be so. He must not allow his independence of judgment to be impaired or distorted by pressures from Governments. He should have no part in any diplomatic deal or undertaking which ignores the principles of the Charter or the relevant pronouncements of the competent organs of the United Nations. However, moral concern must not become moral hubris. The Secretary-General must not allow himself to be influenced by his own judgement of the moral worth of either party's position or, for that matter, by what the leaders or media of one country glibly say about the position of the other. Subjective attitudes must not be allowed to hinder progress towards mutual understanding between the parties.

On the occasion of the opening for signature of the International Convention against Apartheid in Sports, New York, 16 May:

Since the adoption of that Declaration, the Government of South Africa has relaxed the laws and regulations governing sport in order to permit combined black and white teams and to allow mixed black and white audiences to witness sports events. This can be considered a partial gain for the United Nations efforts to isolate apartheid in sports. However, the fact remains that such mixed-race events remain an exception. For the great majority of the black population, the sports field is no different from other spheres of activity, which continue to be governed by the injustices and indignities of racial discrimination. Even the black sportsman allowed to play alongside whites or to go abroad in South African teams must, when the game is over, return to the world of apartheid. Token mixing of blacks and whites cannot conceal the fact that a society based on apartheid and racism is an abnormal society in which there can be no sport in the true sense of the word.

In a message on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City, 31 May:

Millions of people of every race, of every ideology and from every part of the world are preparing at this very moment to share the emotions of the 1986 World Cup of Football. By a happy coincidence, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed this year as the International Year of Peace.

(The motto of the competition is "Football for peace'.) The achievement of peace is the raison d'etre of the United Nations and the noblest aspiration of the human race. Although we have averted a new world war in the 40 years in which the Organization has been in existence, conflicts, tension points and outbreaks of violence continue to exist in the world, which underscores the need for countries to use the machinery of the Organization to achieve peace and to maintain it. In a world in which an unbridled arms race coexists with conditions of injustice, hunger and want, you, the peoples of the United Nations in whose name the Organization was founded, must constantly remind your leaders of the absolute need for co-operation in the pursuit of peace.

At the 1986 National United Nations Day Inaugural Dinner of the United Nations Association of the USA in New York, 3 June:

Can you dispense with the United Nations in seeking to organize international life on a rational basis, in stabilizing peace, in enhancing security, in establishing justice in international relations, in solving the world's problems? The answer is clearly, no. The world's problems are diverse. Take any of them--take the scourge of terrorism, take the menace of the illicit drug traffic, the danger of nuclear contamination, the widespread misery caused by natural calamities in Africa, the denial of human rights in various parts of the world and the strife that is the result of the lack of economic opportunities in many developing countries, take the tensions which are the result of unsolved disputes and, lastly, take the fear that gives rise to a deadly arms race-- none of these problems can be solved except through broadly based international co-operation.

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June:

Throughout history, nations and peoples have been drawn into conflicts over natural resources. Wars have been fought for territorial expansion, for access to mineral wealth and for control of water. Today, in a world of growing population and proliferating technologies, competition over limited resources can become more fierce without a rational and equitable management of the natural resource base of our planet. More than ever before, it has become an imperative of human survival and progress that these resources be used in a sustainable manner so as to enhance the well-being of peoples around the globe.