Costa Rica Calls On UN Security Council to
"Make Good On The Promise" For Peace
Costa Rica on Thursday called on the UN
Security Council to "make good on the
promise" for peace, saying that the
15-nation body "fails in its historic
mission every day that it turns a blind eye
to the rampant arms race."
Addressing the UN Security Council Summit on
Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Nuclear
Disarmament, which opened here on Thursday
morning, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias
said: "The world spends 3.5 billion dollars
every day on weapons and soldiers. Each
year, more than 42 billion dollars of
conventional arms are sold to developing
nations, where weak or nonexistent
democracies are incapable of satisfying the
most basic needs of their peoples."
"Even in Latin America, which has never been
more peaceful or more democratic, this year
nearly 60 billion dollars will be assigned
to military spending -- this in a region
with an average of seven years of schooling
for its populations, and poverty that
affects more than 200 million inhabitants,"
he said.
Stating that the United Nations Charter was
"founded on the promise that we would be
able to sleep peacefully during the most
abominable wars," Arias stressed Article 26
of the UN Charter to "maintain international
peace and security."
The Thursday Council session was chaired by
U.S. President Barack Obama, the first U.S.
president to lead a Council meeting, where
members unanimously passed a resolution, to
stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons
for a safer world in compliance with the
goals of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
"It doesn't seem plausible to speak of a
safer world, as long as the proliferation of
another kind of weapons stays in its
perennial position, second place on our
international agenda," said the president,
also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. "This
Council fails in its historic mission every
day that it turns a blind eye to the rampant
arms race."
Thanking Obama for the opportunity to
discuss the issue, Arias stressed that
"nevertheless, it does not seem plausible to
discuss disarmament as long as existing
agreements are not even being honored." |
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