SG/SM/6042
PKO/50

SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR FOCUS ON PREVENTIVE ACTION IN PEACEMAKING/ PEACE-KEEPING, IN INAUGURAL REMARKS FOR PEACE ACADEMY SEMINAR SERIES

I am honoured to be among you today, at the launch of the International Peace Academy Seminar on Peacemaking and Peace-keeping. This is an excellent initiative, and one that will have both immediate and long-term effect. Starting with this year's seminar, I expect a higher level of understanding, and greater expertise among United Nations staff and members of national missions accredited to the United Nations. In the urgency and bustle of dealing with emergencies, we seldom have time to reflect on the changing nature of peacemaking and peace-keeping. We all feel the need to stand back, and examine this evolving field from more theoretical perspectives.

In the long term, I hope the IPA Seminar will contribute to creating a community of scholars, of practitioners, and of policy-makers more effectively engaged in peacemaking and peace-keeping exercises.

I would like, if you will allow me, to add a third focus to your reflections: preventive action, both through diplomacy and, if necessary, through deployment. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of preventive action, there is too little prevention and too much cure. I attribute this lacuna in peace operations to three factors.

First, we lack a culture of prevention. This is a culture where the protagonists are willing to accept international mediation, or judicial settlement -- whether or not through the United Nations -- and are prepared to act upon the results of such measures. Very often, international mediation, or even action, is accepted by the protagonists after the situation has passed a critical threshold. This leads to greater human and material losses, as well as a considerably more difficult task for negotiators.

Second, we lack diplomats qualified for prevention. We need a greater number of diplomats with the training, with the experience, and with the moral authority, to undertake preventive work on behalf of the United Nations. When such diplomats do exist, they are not always available to spend long months,

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possibly even years, in delicate negotiations. It is easy to find diplomats or statesmen who will undertake missions of a few days. It is more difficult to find men and women with the skills, the commitment and the time, to undertake the longer negotiations that effective prevention may require.

Third, we lack political will. It is recognized that prevention is less costly, in terms of human and material resources, than cure. But we now see an emerging pattern of unwillingness to prevent, control or stop a wide range of conflicts, followed by a readiness to step in after the killing is over and the carnage has subsided. I recall, here, the Chinese proverb that it is difficult to find money for medicine, but easy to find it for a coffin.

Preventive action still needs to come into its own, as a major focus of multilateral diplomacy. I hope that the seminars of the International Peace Academy will promote a greater acceptance and understanding of preventive action. The result we need is a new cadre of diplomats and negotiators trained in preventive action -- and of policy-makers convinced of the value of prevention and determined to employ it.

There would be more, much more to say on the value of preventive action. I hope it will be among the topics discussed by the International Peace Academy as it embarks on this new seminar series. I fully support the Academy in this new venture. And I look forward to your success, not only intellectually, but in concrete results -- in peace.

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United Nations