AKEL on United Nations Day
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 24 October 2018, Nicosia
The founding Charter of the United Nations was adopted today on 24 October 1945 The necessity of creating an international organization that would fulfill those hopes, goals and policies embodied in the epoch-making phrase “We the peoples” was born and established on the ruins and devastation of two World Wars and Hitler-Fascism. These hopes, goals and policies are none other than the safeguarding of world peace, the creation of conditions of prosperity for all people regardless of colour, race, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, for the respect for all the social and political rights that people everywhere are entitled to enjoy.
Today, the need to reaffirm the importance of the founding principles and values of the United Nations remains imperative. At the same time, we know that the hardships and obstacles to which the UN Secretary-General himself refers to, namely poverty, inequality, climate change, human rights violations and armed conflicts, can only be addressed if people are really put at the centre of the policies of the world’s mighty; if in the sharing of the world’s wealth and if in the chessboard of geostrategic games, the dominant protagonist changes and the peoples themselves become the main protagonists, every woman, man and child. These are the very people suffering from malnutrition and with no access to drinking water when the few and often foreign powers are benefiting from their countries’ natural wealth; the people dying or being maimed so that foreign powers are ravaging their countries and the arms industry is maintained, no matter how many people are uprooted as refugees or forced to migrate in order to survive.
This is therefore the duty that unfortunately decades afterwards remains unchanged: the duty to save humanity from those who adventurously and dangerously prioritize their “interest” and choose politics. This is the purpose of the functioning of the United Nations. This is the reason for its existence and the continuing role that we attribute to it.
All the more so, since as the Republic of Cyprus and the Cypriot people, we have first-hand experience from the international organization’s contribution to the effort to bring peace in our country, which remains of timeless importance. This contribution is manifested in many ways through the offering of the UN Secretary-General’s good offices and the presence of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, but also through numerous resolutions that guarantee Bicommunal, Bizonal Federation as the basis of the Cyprus problem with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship which is guiding the Greek Cypriot side’s policy for decades. A basis which we hope will not be abandoned, at least not with our own side at fault.
