 |
Vienna International
Centre PO BOX 500, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Tel: (+43-1) 26060 4666 Fax: (+43-1) 26060 5899 Email: UNIS@unvienna.org http://www.unis.unvienna.org/ |
| Vienna, 20 September 2002 |
VIENNA, 20 September (UN Information Service) - The work of the United Nations Vienna programmes in building and maintaining international peace was discussed at a symposium held in Vienna today to mark the first United Nations Global Cease-Fire Day (International Day of Peace - 21 September).
In his opening address to the symposium the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), Antonio Maria Costa, stressed that for the United Nations peace is much more than the absence of war or the lack of hostilities. He said: "For us in ODCCP there is no peace unless we can limit the consequences of drug trafficking, crime and terrorism. The lack of crime, narcotics and terrorism is part of the process of creating and maintaining peace."
Mr. Costa spoke about how crime, drugs and terrorism are able to flourish in situations where governments or established democracies have collapsed. He gave the examples of Afghanistan, Colombia, parts of Africa such as Sierra Leone and Somalia and the Balkans in Europe. Crime and drugs were the most sinister aspects of society, Mr. Costa said, and when government's collapsed they tended to spread and further destabilize the situation.
Ms. Nasra Hassan, the Chief of Inter-Agency Relations and Fund Raising Branch at ODCCP and former Chief of the United Nations Peacekeeping Best Practices Unit, spoke about how peace and development were inextricably inter-linked. As part of peacekeeping she said there had to be work on development issues such as drugs and crime otherwise it would not be possible to have a sustainable peace. Ms. Hassan said that cease-fires which were a message of hope to people, were a temporary solution which offered the time and space for an enduring peace to be negotiated and implemented.
How the drug control and crime prevention work of ODCCP linked to peacekeeping and peacebuilding was discussed by two other speakers from ODCCP. Ms. Catherine Volz, Chief of the Treaty, Legal Affairs and Commission Secretariat Branch said that drug trafficking generated around 250 billion dollars and these profits are used to fuel conflict. Ms. Voltz also mentioned how non-combatants often resort to drug abuse to cope with conflict situations and child soldiers are often given drugs to give them a false sense of bravery. There is also an issue of making licit drugs available in conflict situations.
Mr. Jan Van Dijk, the Chief of the Crime Reduction and Analysis Branch at the Centre for International Crime Prevention (CICP) said that organized crime which is one of the Centre's priorities, was the number one security threat in Kosovo. Mr. Van Dijk spoke about the situation in Afghanistan from where he has recently returned from a mission. The justice system is a shambles and has to be completely rebuilt - there are not many qualified judges, a lack of lawyers, no courthouses outside Kabul and no prison in the whole country. Re-establishing the rule of law was important he said but it cannot be done without the necessary infrastructure otherwise it would be like asking to perform open-heart surgery when there's no hospital and no nurses.
The symposium which was organized by UNIS was attended by close to 100 UN staff, representatives of NGOs, Permanent Missions, the media and students.
* *** *