UNITED NATIONS-GERMANY: Boutros-Ghali Praises Bonn's Contribution
BONN, Jan 19 (IPS) - Germany, which took a two-year seat on the Security Council beginning of the year, was "well-placed to play a major and positive role" in the United Nations (U.N.), Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said Thursday.
"Germany brings years of experience in development work, and its leadership in the world economy. As such, Germany could help strengthen understanding of the link between peace and development," explained Boutros-Ghali, currently on a four-day visit here until Friday.
Germany could help ensure that peace and development were seen together as an integrated pursuit. After all, it was one of the largest donors to the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UNICEF.
"Even in today's harsh economic climate, your determination to help has never weakened," the U.N. Secretary General added, addressing chief editors and high-level officials at a seminar organised by the 'Federal College for Security Policy Studies'.
These remarks would come as an encouragement to advocates of Germany's increased involvement in development, said aid cooperation policy spokesman of the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD), Prof. Ingomar Hauchler.
A motion tabled by Hauchler in the federal parliament, 'Bundestag', Thursday, urged the Bonn government to keep on increasing its aid commitments to the developing countries by 10 percent a year until Germany's official development assistance (ODA) had been raised to 0.7 percent of its Gross National Product (GNP).
Hauchler said this would mean a near doubling of the ODA from its present level. "But then this is the assurance Chancellor Helmut Kohl had given at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992," he told IPS.
The SPD motion further urges Germany's government "to see to it that along with fulfilling its security policy tasks it may also discharge its global responsibility toward development and environment issues".
In particular, the UNDP proposals for larger investment in human development, job creation and social security deserved support, said Hauchler alluding to the 1994 Human Development Report.
The U.N. was the only global forum and as "more and more global problems" cropped up, global solutions were required, Boutros-Ghali told reporters Thursday at a joint press conference with Germany's Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel.
"We need a new United Nations in the post-cold war era for a world of tomorrow," he said, adding that this year is the 50th anniversary of the world body would be an appropriate point in time to work towards a new U.N. which "our children will need more than we from the older generation".
Boutros-Ghali welcomed Germany's involvement in working for a new U.N. Chancellor Kohl was the 95th head of government who had told him that he would be attending the World Social Summit next March in Copenhagen.
The U.N. Secretary General also welcomed Germany's support for his concept of preventive diplomacy and peace-making as well as peace-keeping, which was affirmed in talks with Foreign Minister Kinkel and Chancellor Kohl Thursday.
Preventive diplomacy is action to prevent disputes and conflicts from breaking out.
Or it can be action to prevent their escalation when they occur. It requires measures to build confidence, needs early warning based on information gathering and fact-finding. It may also involve what Boutros-Ghali termed as "preventive deployment or demilitarised zones".
Peace-making is action to bring hostile parties to agreeement. "In essence, it is negotiation. It uses peaceful means...like preventive diplomacy, it requires information and an analytical capacity," he explained.
The instrument of peace-keeping had been invented by the U.N. as "a practical response to real problems" involving a neutral and lightly-armed force. The peace-keepers were welcomed by all parties to the conflict and their task was to monitor an agreed ceasefire, already in place.
Essential to the success of peacekeeping were various practical considerations. One of these was that troop contingents from different countries must function together as an integrated whole. And member states must match mandates with the troops and equipment necessary to do the job.
In this respect, the U.N. Secertary General said, difficulties were becoming "more severe". Stand-by arrangements had proved to be no guarantee that member states would provide troops for a specific operation.
For that reason a rapid reaction force for peace-keeping purposes needed to be seriously considered. Of the troops that do arrive in the field, many are ill-equipped. A U.N. reserve stock of standard peace-keeping equipment also needed serious consideration.
Kohl and Kinkel assured Boutros-Ghali that Germany would contribute its share to the stand-by arrangements. "However this would have to be on a case-by-case basis," Kinkel told reporters Thursday.
Apparently irritated at the emphasis laid on case-by-case by his German hosts, the U.N. Secretary General insisted that every member state had the right to decide when, where, what and how much it wished to contribute.
What was important was that there were some 40-50 countries which had the troops trained for deployment by the U.N., possessed proper technical equipment and could be in place within "four to five days and four to five months". Some of such countries could then come up with the troops in a particular situation.
Replying to a question, Kinkel said while the government had decided to back standy-by arrangements, the restructuring of the federal armed forces, 'Bundeswehr' underway, might stand in the way for some time.
However, Germany was willing to assist through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in a possible U.N. withdrawal from the former Yugoslavia.
Boutros-Ghali said this would not be a "new developnment". Germany had provided specialised units to multiple peace-keeping operations. Those medical, civilian and logistics units had performed essential tasks.
At present, German police monitors were serving in the Western Sahara under MINURSO. A German national was serving as the police commissioner in that mission, Boutros-Ghali told editors and high- level officials Thursday.
A German medical team and military observers were part of the United Nations observer mission underway in Georgia. To U.N. troops serving in the former Yugoslavia, Germany had generously donated armoured personnel carriers and other equipment. On Wednesday, Kinkel announced that Bonn will be contributing an additional 100 such carriers.
Boutros-Ghali expressed "delight" at the news he received Wednesday of Germany's contribution of nine civilian police to the U.N. operation in Rwanda.
"These contributions are significant. But they are only part of a wider German effort to work for peace though the United Nations," the U.N. Secretary General said.
He added: "Through development, Germany has contributed years of effort to the search for lasting peace. Germany has been a strong advocate and generous provider of international development assistance. Germany has shown a consistent commitment to a strong United Nations role in development."
And remember, he told reporters in the 'World Hall' of the Bonn Foreign Office, 30 percent of the U.N. activity is peace-keeping and 70 percent is in social, economic and political development, environment, democratisation, and for election assistance.
© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service