U.N. Opens its Millennium Summit
Clinton Calls
for Resources for U.N. Peacekeepers
U.S. President
Bill Clinton addresses the United Nations General
Assembly during
the Millennium Summit at the United Nations in New
York today. (Ray
Stubblebine/Reuters)
N E W Y O R K,
Sept. 6 An unprecedented gathering of world leaders
opened today to chart
the course of the United Nations in the 21st century
particularly its efforts
to forge peace.
The meeting was clouded by a faraway reminder of the challenges
facing the international body: the
killings of three U.N. aid workers in
West Timor.
President Clinton said he was deeply saddened to learn
of the
brutal slaying of the three workers and told the the U.N. Millennium
Summit, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders, that the United
Nations must be better prepared to confront such hostilities.
Increasingly, the United Nations has been called into situations
where
brave people seek reconciliation but where the enemies seek to
undermine
it, Clinton said, citing U.N. peacekeeping operations in East
Timor and
Sierra Leone.
But in both cases, the U.N. did not have the tools to
finish the
job. We must provide those tools, with peacekeepers who can
be rapidly
deployed with the right training and equipment, missions well-defined
and
well-led, with the necessary civilian police, Clinton said.
He specifically called on the Indonesian authorities to put a stop
to these abuses. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was in the
audience.
Minute of Silence Observed
At the urging of the U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, the leaders held a
minute of silence at the start of the meeting
to commemorate the deaths of
the three aid workers slain today after an
angry pro-Indonesian mob and
militiamen attacked and burned the office
of the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees in West Timor.
Annan announced the attack to the summit, telling leaders it was a
somber
reminder of the dangers U.N. staff face every day.
Even before rioters
overwhelmed the U.N. refugee agency in the
Indonesian-controlled territory,
there were no illusions that the
three-day summit in New York would in
itself change the world and cure it
of its ills.
The problems
seem huge, Annan said, listing poverty, the AIDS
epidemic, wars and environmental
degradation. But in today’s world, given
the technology and the resources
around, we have the means to tackle them.
If we have the will, we can deal
with them.
Push for Mideast Peace
His right arm stretched
out for emphasis, Israel’s prime minister today
asked Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat to join him in making painful
concessions for peace, saying
a historic opportunity must not be missed.
We are at the Rubicon and
no one of us can cross it alone, Ehud
Barak told the summit as Arafat listened
impassively, his face grim.
The Palestinian leader gave no sign in
his speech that he would
yield. Stabbing his index finger into the air,
Arafat insisted on full
Palestinian sovereignty over traditionally Arab
east Jerusalem, a demand
Israel rejects. The coming days, he said, may
be the ultimate chance for
the present peace process.
The
two leaders spoke just hours before U.S. President Bill Clinton
was to
meet them separately in perhaps a final effort to reach a peace
treaty.
Clinton said time was running short. They [Israelis and
Palestinians]
have the chance to do it, Clinton told the summit, but
like all life’s
chances, it is fleeting and about to pass. There is not a
moment to lose.
Arafat has said he would unilaterally declare a Palestinian state on
Sept. 13.
Israel and the Palestinian were pessimistic about Clinton’s
chances
of resolving the thorniest dispute, over who will be sovereign
at holy
shrines in Jerusalem, the city claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians
as a capital.
In addition to the main proceedings at the
United Nations, world
leaders are expected to hold bilateral talks. Experts
believe the most
challenging of these will be President Clinton’s separate
meetings with
Arafat and Barak
Meanwhile, heads of state
are expected to use the three days of
speeches, discussions and meetings
to push their own agendas including
those critical to the United States.
Putin Calls for Halt in Arms Race
Russian President Vladimir
Putin today offered to host an international
conference next year on preventing
the militarization of space.
Putin, who has frequently spoken against
U.S. proposals to develop
new missile systems, told more than 150 leaders
gathered at the U.N.
Millennium Summit that proposals to use space for
military purposes were
particularly alarming.
Moscow, he
said, would be a natural choice to discuss such issues 40
years after Soviet
cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on
April 12, 1961.
We are suggesting the organization on that date under the aegis of
the United Nations of an international conference on the prevention of the
militarization of outer space, Putin said. If you, distinguished
colleagues,
agree, then the place for holding that conference could be
Moscow.
President Clinton’s announcement last week that he would leave it to
the next administration to decide whether and when to deploy such a system
will be welcomed by many leaders who have criticized the U.S. plans as a
threat to 30 years of arms control treaties.
President Clinton
had a meeting with Putin today where the two
leaders discussed the national
nuclear missile defense system. Speaking to
reporters after the meeting,
President Clinton said his decision to
postpone the development of the
national nuclear defense missile system,
creates an opportunity for the
Russians and the next American president
to reach an agreement on the issue.
Street Protests
Chinese President Jiang Zemin is also
expected to rally international
support against U.S. national missile defense
plans.
But Jiang will have his own controversies to deal with, as members
of
the Falun Gong spiritual movement stage continuous demonstrations against
the Chinese leader for Beijing’s crackdown on the sect part of the 91
demonstrations planned this week.
Other protests have been aimed
at Iranian President Mohammad Khatami,
including a demonstration Tuesday
outside Iran’s U.N. mission by a
coalition of Jewish groups protesting
the prison sentences handed down to
10 Iranian Jews convicted of espionage.
There were extraordinary security precautions outside the United
Nations today due to the number of heads of state attending the summit and
increasing worry over terrorism threats. Only high-ranking officials are
allowed to enter the compound within two blocks of the main entrance.
Parks and parking areas were barricaded and the press was detoured
several block away to go through a large tented security area where dozens
of officers checked them with handheld metal detectors.
When the
hoopla of the summit ends, Annan wants the United Nations to
monitor how
every world leader is implementing the lofty goals in the
summit declaration.
The declaration expected to be adopted Friday asks the General
Assembly to review on a regular basis the progress made in implementing
its provisions. And it asks Annan to issue periodic reports for
consideration
by the General Assembly.
I am telling the world leaders not only to
come here and approve a
plan of action, but that I would expect each and
every one of them to go
back home and begin to do something about it, he
said.
ABCNEWS' Tamara Lipper, Rebecca Cooper and The Associated Press
and
Reuters contributed to this report.
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