EDITORIAL: Ukraine's initiative (09/24/00)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine's initiative

The three-day United Nations Millennium Summit made an impact in New York where leaders of almost all of the world's countries converged on the East Side of Manhattan and made news for days, but appeared to be "just another event" or even a non-event for most of the world.

To be sure, the slow-moving and formal world of diplomacy offers little zip - even if it is the largest, and most powerful, gathering of heads of state. And the fact that the entire event - which involved phenomenal coordination of people and events, and incredible security precautions - went off completely without a hitch gave most media outlets no opportunity to provide viewers and readers anything lively.

Nonetheless, within the United Nations the summit is being viewed as an unqualified success. The United Nations was mired in a post-Cold War nether world; the opportunities offered by the largest gathering of heads of state gave the international organization a jump-start into the 21st century. As U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated, a sign of the importance with which the world's leaders feel the obligation to work together was the fact that more than 150 of them felt honor-bound to attend this summit.

The summit drew attention away from the issues that dominated the latter half of the 20th century - the stand-off between superpowers - and forced a focus on regional relations that included a greater emphasis on improving the well-being of the world's 6 billion people. As President Bill Clinton noted in his statement: "We must continue to respect [state] sovereignty and territorial integrity, but still find a way to protect people ... Until we confront the iron link between deprivation, disease and war, we will never be able to create the peace of which the founders of the United Nations dreamed."

Ukraine can justifiably be proud of several contributions to this summit. On September 7 the Security Council held a special session of the heads of state of the Security Council members to discuss the role of the major peacekeeping organ of the United Nations. At this meeting the decision was made to revamp the U.N. peacekeeping forces and missions in order to better respond to the regional and civil wars throughout the world that cause local misery and international instability. Agreeing to strengthen the U.N. forces is a major tactical and strategic move for the international organization, one that recognizes the increased interdependence of the world's nations and one that will require ever more cooperation among them.

Though not a widely known fact, the suggestion to hold a special session of Security Council heads of state came from Ukraine. Ukraine, which has been a non-permanent member of the Security Council since the beginning of this year, introduced the idea only this past spring, a few months after being admitted to the council. Since plans for the Millennium Summit were well under way, there was resistance to the idea of holding a special session that would require a major shift in plans. Nonetheless, Ukraine and its allies prevailed. Despite initial opposition, this special meeting of the Security Council now is considered to be one of the Millennium Summit's high points and, also to Ukraine's credit, most of the text of the final declaration that was accepted at the Security Council session was drafted by Ukraine's specialists.

So, while world diplomacy offers little flash, it does offer a venue through which needs of nations and people can be channeled and developed. And thus far, in the arena of world diplomacy, Ukraine has conducted itself admirably.

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