Failed Syrian ceasefire in UN focus
Other issues raised at world leaders’ summit included the refugee crisis, climate change
THE failed attempt by the US and Russia to revive a ceasefire in Syria stole the spotlight at the annual UN gathering of world leaders but every other global hotspot had its moment – and there were some chuckles as well, including a message to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to be ready to receive his gift of a “white bull” from South Sudan.
With the final speeches of the six-day gabfest delivered on Monday, there were also a few high points.
Last December’s Paris climate agreement got 31 more ratifications at a high-level event hosted by Ban, topping the 55 countries required and just over 7% short of the 55% of global emissions needed for the deal to enter into force.
It is expected to reach that magic number before the next UN conference on climate change in November in Morocco.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called the agreement a “historic achievement” that would never have happened if the world’s nations hadn’t shifted course to preserve life on Earth.
“There might be a Plan B in life but there certainly is no Planet B,” Eliasson said on Monday in wrapping up the General Assembly’s annual General Debate which was attended by more than 135 heads of state and government and more than 50 ministers.
The high-level meetings began with the first-ever UN summit on refugees and migrants called to tackle one of the most contentious issues facing the world: millions of people fleeing conflict and poverty – and not many countries willing to accept them.
World leaders approved the New York Declaration aimed at providing a more co-ordinated and humane response to the largest refugee crisis since World War II, and President Barack Obama secured thousands of new resettlement places and billions of dollars in pledges to help the refugees at a summit the following day.
Eliasson said both events gave “new structure to the work on refugees and migration which will be very useful”.
“But above all I hope we shall make sure that this organisation sends the signal of everybody’s equal value, and that we need to work in such a way that we prevent the xenophobic tendencies to prevail which are still strong in today’s world,” he said.
Prime Minister Allen Chastanet of the Caribbean island nation of St Lucia, population 183 000, told the 193-member General Assembly that “as a small island state within this body, our voice is meant to be equal, but long experience and realpolitik prove the contrary”.
Chastanet also questioned the format of the so-called General Debate where leaders deliver speeches from 9am often until after 8pm. “While many speak, few stay around to listen; far less respond,” he said. “Then we wonder how and why this entity is so negatively perceived…”
One of the UN’s great failures has been its inability to end the five-and-a-half-year Syrian conflict, which has claimed more than 300 000 lives.
During the ministerial meeting, not only did lengthy US-Russian negotiations fail to restore a ceasefire, but the Syrian government announced a new offensive to retake Aleppo, unleashing some of the heaviest bombing of the war.
Other conflicts had opposing sides attacking each other.
India and Pakistan squabbled over Kashmir. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted that Israel would have a bright future at the UN and invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to address Israel’s parliament – an offer Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour dismissed as “a new gimmick.”
And the United Arab Emirates accused Iran of sponsoring “terrorism”, a claim Tehran denies.
In almost every speech, leaders called for global action against radical extremist groups which have spread from Syria and Iran to North Africa, Europe and the US.
There were no speeches about the search for a successor to Ban, whose second term as secretary-general ends on December 31. But there was plenty of behindthe-scenes chatter about the nine candidates vying to replace him and whether the winner would be front-runner Antonio Guterres, the former Portuguese prime minister or someone from Eastern Europe which has never held the post that by tradition rotates by region, or the first woman.
One of the lighter moments came in the speech of Taban Deng Gai, first vice-president of war-ravaged South Sudan, who paid tribute to Ban and recalled that President Salva Kiir gave the UN chief a “white bull” as a sign of peace.“It has grown and is ready to be delivered to his excellency.”