Posted on 09/11/2002 7:37:32 PM PDT by GaryMontana
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The world must act together against terrorism or put at risk everything the United Nations ( news - web sites) stands for, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ( news - web sites) said on Wednesday, a year after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"There could be no greater affront to the spirit and purpose of the United Nations than the terrorist attacks of September 11," he told a solemn ceremony marking the anniversary, held in a garden at U.N. headquarters.
"Everything that we work for -- peace, development, health, freedom -- is damaged by this horror. Everything that we believe in -- respect for human life, justice, tolerance, pluralism and democracy -- is threatened by it. It must be defeated -- and it must be defeated by the world acting as one," he said.
Annan later was to address a special meeting of senior officials of the Security Council's 15 member-nations, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell ( news - web sites).
That meeting was to culminate in the adoption of a statement praising New York's determination "not to give in to terrorism" and vowing to "remain steadfast against the threat that endangers all that has been achieved (by the United Nations) and all that remains to be achieved."
"The world saw terrorists use civilian aircraft for mass murder. They struck at the ideals embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. The attacks challenged each member to rise to the task of defeating terrorism," a draft of the statement said.
Last year's hijack attack on the World Trade Center, only a few miles south of U.N. headquarters, fell just hours before the planned opening of the U.N. General Assembly's 56th annual session.
The session was promptly canceled and the compound -- home to the 190-nation assembly -- was evacuated shortly after the attacks and again the next day after officials received unidentified security threats.
Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites), blamed by Washington for masterminding the Sept. 11 carnage, later singled out the United Nations in a videotaped message, blaming the world body for the 1948 creation of Israel and for pressuring Muslim Indonesia to give up largely Roman Catholic East Timor ( news - web sites).
Bin Laden in the tape called Annan a "criminal" and branded Muslims who cooperated with the world body as "infidels."
The U.N. compound was sealed off by New York police for months after the attacks, with sand-filled dump trucks blocking every access road to fend off car bombings.
Even today, trucks are barred from driving by the compound, although police enforcement of the dictum is not apparent.
Annan reminded U.N. staff that citizens of more than 90 nations lost their lives in the attacks on the World Trade Center in which about 2,800 people died.
He said the ceremony demonstrated that the world body, like its New York home, was not an isolated enclave.
"Today we come together as a world community because we were attacked as a world community," he said. "May the memory of those who perished on September 11th serve to inspire a better, more just, more peaceful world for all
Let me translate: "Oops, it looks like the US if forming its own coalition, and will go around me or through me to do the right thing, so I better say, 'Yeah, me too!' Otherwise my U.N. will be exposed again as the worthless, impotent, parasitic travesty that it is."
Such a precedent! And next time? And if we disagree?
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