9 September 1996 SG/SM/6044
PKO/51
SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES HUMAN FACTOR IN ADDRESS AT PEACE-KEEPING EXHIBITION 19960909Following is the text of an address by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at the Peace-keeping exhibition at Madison Square Garden in New York, on 9 September:We have just witnessed an impressive array of equipment and of material. I find it a matter of considerable pride that the ingenuity and skills of workers and engineers should be directed from the production of weapons of war to instruments of peace. These instruments will allow us to undertake our work for peace more efficiently, more safely, and more completely. Yet, the increasing sophistication of technology cannot replace the one irreplaceable factor: human beings. It is human beings who, thousands of years before the United Nations existed, before even the existence of its oldest States, first fought over land and property. It is human beings who fight today's wars and civil conflicts. It is human beings who suffer, who are uprooted and who die. But it is also human beings who decide that a conflict must be stopped. Human beings who undertake a tremendous act of solidarity in travelling to distant lands to bring peace, to separate the conflicting parties, to clear land-mines and rid the fields of unexploded ordnance. It is human beings who, sitting in the world's deliberative councils, decide where the world's peace- keeping resources will be allocated -- where peace-keepers will be asked to go. And it is human beings, mired in their conflicts, who decide to cooperate with peace-keepers, who accept the helping hand of the international community, or reject it. When peace-keepers are attacked, wounded or killed, or taken hostage, it is too easy to succumb to despair, to become despondent, or to negate the value of peace-keeping. Yet, we know the value of peace-keeping in saving lives, in restoring war-torn societies, in allowing the political process to continue. As we look into the future, let us keep that point of reference. I thank you for showing me this impressive array of equipment. I ask you to always remember that the focus of our attention, the ultimate goal of all our work is the welfare and peace of human beings. * *** *
United Nations
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