2024 is a crucial year, demanding courage
and responses to match
Victor Ângelo
I spent decades leading United Nations
political, peace and development missions. It was at the UN that I grew
professionally and learned how to resolve conflicts, some quite serious, in
which death and pain lurked behind every dune, tree or rock. I thus gained a
broader view of the international system and the way in which the relationship
with the Security Council should be carried out. Then, for years, I worked as a
civilian mentor at NATO, preparing future heads of military operations,
repeatedly highlighting the need to obtain the support of populations and
humanitarian organizations in these operations.
Experience taught me the paramount importance
that must be given to safeguarding people's lives. When I addressed generals,
police force commanders and UN security agents, the priority was to emphasize
the value of life. That of ours, who were part of the mission, as well as
protecting the lives of others, simple citizens, whether or not suspected of
collaborating with the insurgents, and even the lives of enemies.
Nothing can be resolved in a sustainable way
if there is not deep respect for the civilian populations living on either side
of the barricades, if others are treated as worthless people, to whom access to
vital goods, such as mere animals, can be cut off. to slaughter without mercy
or mercy. Killing does not resolve any conflict. For every death today, new
fighters emerge tomorrow, with even stronger feelings of revenge. The
fundamental thing is to create the conditions for peace, open the doors to negotiations
and understanding. A retaliatory war is a mistake. It is a retaliatory
response, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, inspired by an ancient legal
order. Or, in a more current hypothesis, it is a war directed by political
leaders who lack common sense and foresight.
I also had in mind, in my guidelines, the
wisdom of the brilliant Charlie Chaplin, in the moving character of the clown
Calvero. In his film Highlights (1952), Chaplin at one point makes the clown
Calvero say that “life is a beautiful, magnificent thing, even for a
jellyfish”. Yes, even for a jellyfish, a gelatinous invertebrate for whom
few will have any sympathy. I have always thought that this phrase, so simple,
should occupy a top place in our way of facing conflicts. Politics only makes
sense when it allows everyone to live in freedom and safety.
One of the great challenges of 2024 is to be
able to explain this understanding to the medusa, the life and work of the
United Nations in a language that certain leaders are able or forced to
understand. How can we say this in the perverse and sophistry patois that is
said in the Kremlin? How can we express this wisdom in progressive Hebrew or
Arabic with accents of peace? How can we make the speech of reconciliation
heard by people responsible for conflicts in other regions of the world, taking
into account that 2023 was a year of acceleration in multiple expressions of
hatred and radicalism?
We have two issues here that will need to be
clarified and resolved as quickly as possible.
First, anyone who doesn't understand Charlie
Chaplin and the value of life should not be at the head of a nation. The place
of war criminals is in The Hague or before a special court created for that
purpose, as happened in Yugoslavia or Rwanda. I say this, and I emphasize it,
so that there is no doubt, in my capacity as someone who was at the forefront
of the founding of the Arusha Court, in Tanzania, established to judge those
mainly responsible for the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. The precedents
exist and those responsible for the massacres in Ukraine and the Middle East
know them. As criminals always fantasize, they may even think that they will
escape these trials. At the speed at which things are changing, they should not
be calm.
Second, the Secretary-General of the United
Nations must go far beyond humanitarian issues. Humanitarian assistance is
essential, without a doubt, and cannot be forgotten. But this is something
short-term and precarious, as there are many situations of need, tragedies are
enormous in various parts of the world, and resources are always scarce. The UN
Charter is above all about political solutions. The Secretary-General must
maintain tireless dialogue with the parties and present without further delay a
peace plan for Ukraine and another for Palestine. Plans that address the roots
of the problems, that are based on international law and that courageously
point out the political steps that the Security Council must consider.
We have to rise to the very serious challenges
that lie ahead, in what has everything to be a crucial year in contemporary
history.
Published in Portuguese in today's edition of Diário de Notícias, Lisbon, 5 January 2024.
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