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September 17, 2001 GNG Board of Director Member and Former UN Humanitarian Coordinator to Iraq Responds to Major News Agencies about the World Trade Center Tragedy Geneva (September 17, 2001) -- The following article by H.C. Graf Sponeck is quoted in its entirety. Sadness, Anger and Reflection The omni-presence of media in our world has made it possible for people around the world to have become "virtual witnesses" to last week's atrocious acts of terrorism in New York and Washington . The sheer physical ability to organize and conduct in cold blood such a complex operation as was necessary to succeed with such carnage frightens. One has to wonder how this mass savagery was possible in a country so well endowed with surveillance resources.Much more frightening, however, is that hatred and opposition to a country and its people could reach such unsurpassed levels of motivation and determination. In this period of humiliation, severe pain over such brutal loss of life and the struggle and hope for survivors, it is not appropriate to find words other than those which express compassion and sympathy. The US Administration, first and foremost President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have re-assured their nation and the outside world that they will not relent until the perpetrators are hunted down and justice has prevailed. The US Government has made it clear that it will not take punitive action until there is certainty about the identities of the terrorists and their locations.These are important and re-asuring words. This is political maturity. It must not be threatened by war-mongering and conjecture which reflects hate and bias of another kind towards the Muslim world to which some of the suspects belong. But there is evidence already to this effect on websites in the US, the very country in which the majority of its citizens are in a state of mourning and shock . Small groups of sick and mis-directed people on both sides of the political divide must not be allowed to determine a course of action which could throw our world into a major confrontation resulting in new and equally innocent casualties. The US President has spoken of 'unity against terror'. There can be no alternative to such a unity . At the same time, however, there must be another unity among nations through a 'compact for change' in the conduct of international relations. Hard and uncompromising questions about the causes of hate and terrorism, its extremest manifestation, will have to be asked with a sense of urgency, particularly among the leaders of the G8. There can be no room for excuses. Nor will high-spirited rhetoric suffice. The world has heard enough about good intentions and seen so pitifully little action in addressing poverty, improving education and providing basic health services for all. The resources are there and political commitment must make them available. The industrialized nations have to show much more generosity combined with genuine and honest concerns for the welfare of the less fortunate global neighbours. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reminds year after year how inadequate contributions from industrialized countries for international cooperation have become. Human rights must not remain laws which one can arbitrarily apply when it is expedient and ignore when it is not. Double standards in the design and use of the global road map ultimately do not pay off ,as we have seen over and over again. Such double standards are ethically in any case not acceptable. The most powerful governments must accept that investment in people globally not just in their own countries is the best guarantee for political stability and the most effective defence shield against hideous crimes of the kind we have just witnessed. |
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