February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“Today, the light of that new dawn is obscured by the dark clouds of war, terror, ethnic violence and continuing abuse of human rights,” Cowen said in delivering Ireland’s address to the annual gathering of world leaders.
“We cannot afford to postpone action. More and more citizens of the world are questioning whether the UN has the capacity, or even the will, to prevent conflict and protect the vulnerable from injustice,” Cowen said.
“They are becoming increasingly disillusioned with an organization which either cannot take decisions, or whose decisions are ignored with impunity.”
In what is expected to be his last UN speech as foreign affairs minister, Cowen said that the composition of the UN Security Council no longer accurately reflected global geopolitical realities. In Ireland’s view, a modest and regionally balanced increase in its membership, both permanent and non-permanent, was justified. There was also a need for a change of attitude. States sitting on the Security Council, Cowen said, had a responsibility to rise above national or regional interests and act in the wider interests of mankind.
In ranging over a number of global concerns, Cowen paid particular attention to the crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
“Whatever political difficulties may have arisen in Darfur, the people of Darfur did not deserve to suffer massacre, rape and famine, or to see their villages and crops destroyed and their livestock driven off,” he said.
“When the depredations of the ruthless militias were unleashed upon them, they looked in vain for the even-handed protection of their government.”
Cowen paid particular tribute in his address to relief organizations, including Irish agencies such as GOAL, Concern and Tr