UN still needed to tackle global problems: Gus Dur
UN still needed to tackle global problems: Gus Dur
NEW YORK (JP): Despite criticism over its inability to resolve
emergencies around the world, President Abdurrahman Wahid said
here on Friday morning that the United Nations remains an
institution powerful enough to tackle global problems.
"The United Nations has developed into an institution which is
powerful enough to tackle the problems of the globe," Abdurrahman
said before the UN Millennium Summit.
"Of course some people say that the UN is obsolete, but I
believe that in due time, the improvement will come," said Gus
Dur, as the President is also called.
Abdurrahman said that he hoped the UN "can develop into a more
powerful body which will represent all of us in many things".
"There are many incidents and occurrences (in the world) that
have to be taken care of and taken over by the UN as an
international body," the President said.
"Because of this, being an optimist, I will look forward to
better cooperation in the next millennium," he added.
Abdurrahman's statement came as UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan told leaders of the world powers on Thursday that the UN
Security Council was facing a "crisis of credibility" in
responding to emergencies around the world, particularly in
Africa.
Opening a meeting of the 15-member Security Council on how to
boost the UN's uneven peacekeeping efforts, Annan said "no amount
of resolutions or statements" could change the fact that many
people in need around the world hesitated to ask the UN for help.
He said the council had to show it could respond to crises
effectively, halt conflicts and restore peace in areas where the
United Nations needed to respond, either before a war broke out
or afterward.
World leaders on the Security Council voted on Thursday to
overhaul UN peacekeeping operations in order to provide better
trained troops that would respond faster.
At issue is an understaffed and underfinanced UN peacekeeping
organization, which in the last year has had difficulty
recruiting, directing and supplying basic equipment for troops
and police in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Congo or Eritrea and
Ethiopia.
Abdurrahman on Friday also called for better coordination
between the UN and other international organizations.
"The institutions of course can support each other in their
efforts to develop our respective countries. With the assistance
of the UN, the continental groups as well as regional
associations will be able to achieve this kind of solidarity,"
said Abdurrahman, who received a standing ovation at the end of
his speech.
The Summit, which was attended by some 150 heads of state, had
been overshadowed by an attack on UN humanitarian workers in
Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday, which left three UN
workers killed. (prb/byg)