Subject: Text of Statement by Mary Robinson to
Security Council
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 04:32:31 EDTSTATEMENT BY THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ON THE
PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN ARMED CONFLICT, NEW YORK, 16 SEPTEMBER 1999
STATEMENT BY THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS,
MARY ROBINSON
to the Security Council at the presentation of the report of the United Nations
Secretary-General on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict New York, 16 September
1999
Mr. President
I warmly welcome this opportunity to address members of the Security Council. I wish to
express my appreciation to the Council for having commissioned this report on the
protection of civilians in armed conflict, and thank the Secretary-General for an
excellent, clear and concise document.
I am pleased to be here with you today as the report raises issues close to my heart.
The report accurately reflects the innumerable challenges which the United Nations faces
in its work and so many of the human rights issues which my staff and I address on a daily
basis. My Office is more than willing to play its part in implementing the report's
constructive recommendations on the effective implementation of international human
rights, humanitarian and refugee law, and on the prevention of gross violations of human
rights so crucial to national and regional stability and thus to international peace and
security.
As High Commissioner for Human Rights I have assumed a burden of listening: listening
to the pain and anguish of victims of violations; listening to the anxieties and fears of
human rights defenders. I am glad to share this burden with you today, Members of the
Council, because you have the power and possibilities to alleviate the pain and to prevent
some of the anxieties being realised.
If I refer to East Timor first it is because the terrible events of recent days are so
fresh in my mind. The awful abuses committed in East Timor have shocked the world - and
rightly so, since it would be hard to conceive of a more blatant assault on the rights of
hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The murders, maimings, rapes and countless
other atrocities committed by the militias with the involvement of elements of the
security forces were especially repugnant because they came in the aftermath of the freely
expressed wishes of the East Timorese people about their political future. I saw evidence
of a well-planned and systematic policy of killings, displacement, destruction of property
and intimidation. There must be accountability for the grave violations committed in East
Timor. My recommendation is the establishment of an international commission of enquiry to
gather and analyse evidence of the events in East Timor.
What happened in East Timor is a graphic example of the plight of civilians in conflict
situations. And East Timor is just the latest example. In the Former Yugoslavia, I met
women and girls who had been sexually assaulted, raped and forced into sexual slavery. In
Sierra Leone, I met children whose arms or legs had been brutally cut off during the civil
war. I listened to accounts of children being abducted by rebels and sent to training
centres or directly to the battlefront. Children were forced to attack their own villages
and families and commit the most horrendous atrocities. Many of these child soldiers have
been killed, while others were maimed and psychologically scarred for life. In Colombia
and Cambodia, human rights defenders vividly described the climate of violence in which
they were carrying on their activities at great personal risk. Reports from Angola tell
how rebels provoked a mass movement of displaced persons desperate to reach the relatively
safe haven of provincial capitals.
Mr. President,
It had been expected that the collapse of superpower rivalry would lead to a reduction
in conflict, but the decline in inter-State fighting has been more than made up for in the
growth of vicious internal conflicts, often unpredictable and volatile. These are
conflicts that drag on for years without settlement or that flare up afresh when peace
seemed to be at hand. The village has become the battlefield and the civilian population
the primary target. Girls and women are routinely subjected to sexual abuse and
gender-based violence. Children are recruited and kidnapped to become child soldiers,
forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults.
Both the Secretary General's report and my own experiences bring home the reality:
civilians are no longer just victims of war - today they are regarded as instruments of
war. Starving, terrorising, murdering, raping civilians - all are seen as legitimate. Sex
is no defense nor is age; indeed, it is women, children and the elderly who are often at
greatest risk. That is a strange, terrible state of affairs in the year after we
commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Conflicts almost always lead to massive human rights violations but also erupt because
human rights are violated due to oppression, inequality, discrimination and poverty. These
conditions are exacerbated when the State is too weak or unable to address them
efficiently. Human rights violations are thus both a consequence of and a contributing
factor to instability and further conflict. And, as a result of globalization and
increasing interdependence between States, conflicts which are essentially internal often
have spillover effects beyond national borders.
As so clearly underscored by the Secretary-General in his report, there is an intrinsic
link between systematic and widespread violations of the rights of civilians and the
erosion of international peace and security. For example, in Iraq and the Former
Yugoslavia, the Security Council has recognized that the repression of the civilian
population has led to consequences that threatened peace and security in the region. Human
security has become synonymous with international security. Human security can only be
guaranteed through the full respect of all fundamental rights. This intrinsic link demands
the attention and action of the Security Council in the field of human rights protection
and the prevention of massive and gross violations.
The first need today is not that we write new laws, but that we implement what already
exists in the field, close to the victims and where it really matters. To this end, I wish
to express my support for those recommendations in the report which call on States to
ratify all of the international instruments in the areas of human rights, humanitarian and
refugee law, to withdraw reservations and, most importantly, to comply fully with their
provisions. Could we not also take the concrete step of raising the minimum age for
participation in hostilities to 18 years?
A serious issue which must be addressed is accountability. We are increasingly being
faced with the dilemma of having to stop atrocities being committed and seeking avenues
for the peaceful settlement of conflicts on the one hand, while needing to hold
accountable and punish the perpetrators of human rights violations, on the other. To grant
amnesty to the authors of the most atrocious crimes for the sake of peace and
reconciliation may be tempting but it contradicts the purpose and principles of the UN
Charter as well as internationally observed principles and standards. For these reasons,
the recommendations in the Secretary General's report on enforcing accountability for war
crimes and on measures to deter and contain those guilty of egregious human rights
violations are especially important.
I wish to commend the Security Council for having established the two ad hoc tribunals
for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. I warmly welcome the adoption of the Statute of the
International Criminal Court providing jurisdiction over the three core crimes of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. We must move forward now and ensure that
our collective support for the establishment of an effective International Criminal Court,
will, through the speedy ratification of its Statute, be a significant milestone in the
struggle to strengthen respect for human rights and humanitarian and refugee law.
Mr. President,
The best protection for civilians in armed conflict is prevention. By addressing the
root causes of conflict and seeking to defuse tensions, the atrocities and violations of
fundamental rights committed during armed conflict can be prevented. The major building
blocks for peacebuilding and reconciliation are good governance, the rule of law, respect
for human rights, a strong civil society, and institutions which can guarantee an
environment conducive to stability and peace.
The Security Council has a vital role to play, both at the prevention stage and, should
that fail, in the deployment of peacekeepers to minimise the impact of conflict on
civilians. I welcome the fact that the Security Council is looking to adapt its methods of
work to focus on the goal of better protecting individuals in the face of this formidable
challenge.
After reading the Secretary General's report, and hearing his presentation of today,
nobody could any longer complain that they did not realise how bad the situation facing
civilians in today's armed conflicts was. It should be our collective goal to implement
the recommendations of the report and so develop enforceable mechanisms for the protection
of civilians in armed conflict. This is the only way we will deliver on our promises to
guarantee a life of respect, dignity and human rights for all.
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