Ensure food, education, healthcare and security of the children. My urge to the conscience of the world-stop the arms race, stop the war and sanctions.
People are deprived of food, shelter, healthcare and education. Its impact does not remain confined to one country, rather it puts the lives and livelihoods of the people of all nations in greater risk, and infringes their human rights. Due to sanctions and counter-sanctions … the entire mankind, including women and children, is punished. “We want the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh told the Assembly, Others described the economic impacts already depriving their people of food and basic necessities, and called on all sides, including Ukraine’s Western backers, to return to the negotiating table before the war’s impacts escalate into multiple humanitarian disasters across the Global South. “… The war in Ukraine not only undermines the nuclear non-proliferation regime, but also presents us with the danger of nuclear devastation, either through escalation or accident … To avoid a nuclear disaster, it is vital that there be serious engagement to find a peaceful outcome to the conflict.” The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, warned, Many leaders called urgently for an end to the war in Ukraine before it escalates into a nuclear war that would kill billions of people and end human civilization as we know it. Our public opinion does not see the Ukraine war the same way it is seen in the North.” As countries in the Global South, we see double standards. The response to our beloved Secretary-General’s cries for help in these situations have not met with equal compassion. “They should pause for a moment to reflect on the glaring contrast in their response to the wars elsewhere where women and children have died by the thousands from wars and starvation. President Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste directly challenged the West’s double standards, telling Western countries, Global South leaders lamented the breakdown of the UN system, not just in the war in Ukraine but throughout decades of war and economic coercion by the United States and its allies.
“Articles 2 and 33 of the UN Charter are unambiguous in binding Member States to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state and to negotiate and settle all international disputes by peaceful means.…We therefore call upon all parties involved to immediately end the conflict in Ukraine, by undertaking immediate negotiations to permanently settle all disputes in accordance with the principles of the United Nations.” Philip Pierre, the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, a small island state in the Caribbean, told the General Assembly, The peace caucus also includes many of the small countries that have the most to lose from the failure of the UN system revealed by recent wars in Ukraine and West Asia, and who have the most to gain by strengthening the UN and enforcing the UN Charter to protect the weak and restrain the powerful. leaders have actively undermined them, five European countries- Hungary, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and the Vatican-joined the calls for peace at the General Assembly. While NATO and EU countries have rejected peace negotiations, and U.S. The 66 nations that called for peace in Ukraine make up more than a third of the countries in the world, and they represent most of the Earth’s population, including India, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Brazil and Mexico. We have compiled excerpts from the speeches of all 66 countries to show the breadth and depth of their appeals, and we highlight a few of them here.Īfrican leaders echoed one of the first speakers, Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, who also spoke in his capacity as the current chairman of the African Union when he said, “We call for de-escalation and a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, as well as for a negotiated solution, to avoid the catastrophic risk of a potentially global conflict.” Most of them condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN Charter and a serious setback for the peaceful world order that is the UN’s founding and defining principle.īut what has not been reported in the United States is that leaders from 66 countries, mainly from the Global South, also used their General Assembly speeches to call urgently for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine through peaceful negotiations, as the UN Charter requires. We have spent the past week reading and listening to speeches by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York. Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ analysis.
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