Recommendations to the United Nations
From Never Again
Recommendations from the Youth of the Great Lakes region to the United Nations and its member states.
Submission to the GA Informal Interactive Hearings with representatives of NGOs, civil society organizations and the private sector in preparation for the 14-16 September 2005 High-level Plenary Meeting of UN General Assembly.
Never Again
Founded at the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution’s 2001 Symposium at The Hague, Never Again is an international youth network that aims to provoke ideas and action for peace.
Never Again works to create space and opportunity for discussion, debate and the creation of a range of projects that promote independent, critical thinking and connectivity amongst students and recent graduates from both developed and developing countries. Our network is based on the connections established between a group of international members and their Rwandan counterparts during a visit to Rwanda in 2002. The creation of multiple connections is our foundation, our methodology and our aim. Fruitful connectivity emerges when an individual, out of a self-reflective sense of identity, recognises and welcomes the difference in others. Connectivity in this sense should be the foundation for all conflict prevention.
Never Again has worked with dignitaries, experts and academics including Lieutenant-General Dallaire, Patrick Mazimpaka of the African Union, investigative journalist Linda Melvern, Robert Cooper Director General for external and politico-military affairs for the Council of Ministers of the European Union, Professor Theodore Zeldin University of Oxford, the Imperial War Museum, Ibrahima Fall UN Secretary General’s special envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch, Lord Janner of Braunstone QC. Material from Never Again’s Rwanda Forum 2004 at the Imperial War Museum London is being used by the UN Peace University in their course on "Media and the Rwandan Genocide".
The Global Youth Genocide Prevention Forum
The Global Youth Genocide Prevention Forum commemorated the 11th anniversary of the genocide. The Forum gathered young people from the Great Lakes Region and a number of other participants from across the world to reflect on the past, exchange ideas and work together for the future.
Together young people can be a force to prevent genocide and violent conflict. The conference aimed to allow the participants to design ideas for projects that would enhance critical thinking among young people so they will never again be manipulated or apathetic in the face of irresponsible leadership. By facilitating an exchange between those who have lived through genocide and those who have not, the conference also aimed to improve understanding of genocide and provide a space for participants to develop recommendations for conflict prevention and peace building.
At the conference we discussed the problems of teaching the history of the genocide, the difficulties of reconciliation and justice after genocide, the process of democratization and development in Rwanda, conflict prevention in the Great Lakes Region, the importance of critical thinking for young people, in the media and in education. During group discussions the youth of the Great Lakes Region formulated recommendations to be submitted to the UN, their governments and to citizens of the world. Topics discussed included: ’What is the International Community’s role in conflict prevention and civilian protection?’; ’Overcoming Barriers to Critical Thinking Among Youth’; ‘Connecting Futures: Building Global Youth Partnerships; ’How can the youth create a sustainable way to prevent genocide?’ and ‘Beyond Identity - Talking across boundaries’.
What follows is a summary of our recommendations with reference to the UN Secretary General’s report “In Larger Freedom” and a special recommendation on the role of global youth partnerships in the future of conflict prevention.
With reference to the UN Secretary General's Report "In Larger Freedom"
While the international community keeps repeating the words ‘never again’ they need to move beyond the sentiment and look at the specific conditions that have led to large scale atrocities happening again and again.
I. Freedom from Want
Poverty Alleviation - the first step to peace
People living in poverty are unable to be immunized against ideologies of hatred. Poverty alleviation is the foundation for peace in conflict or post conflict societies and is the responsibility of the world.
Abandoned again
International organisations or nations which stood by and did not act to prevent or to halt grave abuses of human rights should not further abandon victims of these abuses by failing to help citizens and societies to recover from the legacies of humanitarian crises. Legacies including HIV/Aids, poverty, lack of shelter and food, illiteracy often perpetuate cycles of conflict. The United Nations should be involved in administering and paying reparations to victims of conflict so that people no longer suffer from these legacies.
II. Freedom from Fear
A society that has experienced genocide must have the freedom from fear that it will ever happen again.
Freedom of Expression
People must not be afraid to speak out against manipulative leadership and they must feel able to communicate freely with each other. Post-conflict reconstruction support should include helping to build civil society with access to free participatory media channels, help for societies facing collective trauma and supporting reconciliation processes in a culturally sensitive way that responds and listens to the needs of people.
Arresting the Spread of Rumors
High illiteracy levels mean that fear can be caused by rumours, making reliable and accessible information sources important.
Critical Thinking
We must prioritise the development of critical thinking among young people. We must invite young people to cultivate a critical and analytical mind in order to rise above the manipulations to which we have been prone. We should learn lessons from history not to revenge but to build peace. Parents do not talk about some subjects to their children because they fear they are taboo. We should work to abolish the culture of silence between parents and children. The teaching of critical, independent thinking should be prioritized in education. Young people should be encouraged to come together across boundaries to share dialogue and discussion.
Monitoring Access to Weapons
The international community also has a duty to ensure that degenerating governments have no access to weapons, including small arms or any other implement, that may be used to intimidate, repress or harm citizens.
III. Freedom to Live with Dignity
Impartiality
One participant quoted Abraham Lincoln saying that ‘where there is interest there is always energy’ and expressed his fear that ‘we will keep on shouting to the end and keep suffering’. The UN Security Council needs to find compensating methods to address the fact that the suffering of some peoples is always ignored until it is too late and often even after that. This will require not only establishing agreed criteria for intervention, but also ensuring that the right voices are heard when decision-making takes place; that decision-making takes place quickly and flexibly; and that decision-makers cannot use ‘lack of information’ as an excuse for inaction. People in the region feel they are treated as second-class citizens in the world and that there is no objectivity or impartiality about decisions to intervene.
Deliberating Intervention
Slow deliberations over humanitarian interventions have taken place while atrocities have proceeded uninterrupted. The conditions set out in the ‘responsibility to protect’ should not be used as an excuse for delay on the part of the major powers but should be seen as a framework for making rapid decisions; the UN Security Council needs to be prepared to act quickly and flexibly. A well-resourced special commission should be in place to assess and swiftly recommend action on the basis of the ‘responsibility to protect’ criteria for intervention, compensating for the partial views adopted by the individual member states.
Efficiency
The UN needs to improve the efficiency with which it helps to prevent conflict and build peace. The UN needs to have networks in place in regions of conflict, post conflict and trouble spots. These networks should include people on the ground that speak the local languages and gather information so that they can understand the citizens.
Universal Responsibility
The idea of universal responsibility needs to be strengthened. Responsibility should not come about through economic inequalities or economic favors - it should be universal and everyone should have the right to be protected by the international community.
Responsibility
Placing ‘the responsibility to protect’ on the international community should not mean that individuals and states don’t recognise their own responsibilities; ‘the failures of the international community’ are the failures of a range of different actors both for their action and inaction. The ‘responsibility to protect’ should imply universal protection and a universal sense of responsibility. Since willingness to intervene so far outside borders has proved so limited, this process would also be aided by giving stronger support to regional forces so that they have the capacity to act when the rest of the world is unwilling.
Peace enforcement and peacekeeping capability
Decision makers high up the UN hierarchy need to listen to the advice and recommendations of peacekeepers on the ground. As we know from history, sometimes peacekeepers may want to change their mandate, but the highest level decision makers in the UN have not listened to them.
Post-Conflict Peacebuilding
To prevent violent conflict and genocide young people need to be educated to think critically. Once people have been alleviated of poverty they need to be educated to think independently and critically so that they will not fall victim to political manipulators. People all around the world need to be made aware of their democratic rights and responsibilities.
IV. The Imperative for Collective Action: Strengthening the United Nations
Re-establishing trust
The international community and the UN needs to gain back its credibility among African nations so that African states will call on the UN for assistance with internal or regional problems. Many African states have lost faith in the UN system; few people or countries here in the Great Lakes now have any faith that they can rely on anyone but themselves.
The UN and the major powers should launch a collective public diplomacy campaign in the region, reinforced through action, to rebuild trust if they want to strengthen people’s faith in multilateral solutions to the problems here rather than the current shared sense that everyone has to fend for themselves. This includes giving stronger mandates to peacekeepers, so that people’s experience of the UN is not in watching blue helmets stand by powerlessly while atrocities are committed. The United Nations can gain back its credibility by listening to people who need the help of the UN and responding efficiently.
"Voice of the voiceless"
The UNSC needs to take the right voices into account when making its decisions. Decisions have too often been reached without listening properly to people on the ground; the UN needs to ensure that it has better channels in place beyond governments, which often have a clear stake in concealing or distorting information about atrocities taking place in their country. However, it also needs to listen to and understand the difficulties facing governments themselves and strengthen their capacity to represent people effectively. Peoples and governments in certain regions of the world often have less capacity to communicate effectively with the world and act as advocates for their cause. The UN needs to provide support for them so that their voices can be heard rather than have them depending on outside observers or decision-makers sitting thousands of miles away. The UN needs to listen to different voices in countries suffering form conflict. As well as listening to governments, and local factions, the UN needs to listen to civil society organisations such as Never Again.
"But we didn’t know…"
Individual member states who do not already have their own early warning systems, should ensure that they put these in place. Those who have the best access to information about developments on the ground should commit to sharing it expeditiously. A ‘responsibility to inform’ is required if all member states are going to be able to deliberate action effectively, along with a collective commitment to gathering the critical information required to ensure that atrocities can be prevented at the earliest possible stage. With the resources and technology available, nowhere in the world should be able to pass ‘under the radar’.
Listening
Ignorance of language must never again be used as an excuse by the international community for missing factors on the ground. It is vital that local labour be employed in every field situation to connect international work to the population on the ground.
Regional Integration
The economic community of countries in the Great Lakes region (CPGL) should be reinforced.
Special Recommendation on the role of global youth partnerships in the future of conflict prevention
"Never Again has been said many times, but it is rarely put into practice" (Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank addressing the Youth of the Great Lakes Region at the Global Youth Genocide Prevention Forum, Kigali, 16 June 2005). We believe that building global youth partnerships is an important step towards making 'never again' a reality. Global youth partnerships should encourage critical thinking and exchange among young people in order to create change and work together for peace.
Global challenges must be addressed by a global youth partnership. Young people need to share experiences, information and opinions across the world. Connecting the futures of young people will increase the relevance of the UN and internalize the concept of responsibility to protect for future generations of leaders and citizens. Global Youth partnerships require the support and the encouragement of the UN and its member states.
Critical thinking
We must prioritise the development of critical thinking among young people. We must ensure that everyone has access to the resources necessary to develop critical thinking including education, technology, a free media and accessible democratic processes.
Inclusivity
Global youth partnerships should embrace difference while adopting a willingness to find shared visions for peace. We should be more open and exchange opinions with other young people because many conflicts are based on the politics of exclusion. If we can all feel like people belonging to the same planet there would be stronger prospects for peace.
Communicating across boundaries
Opportunities for young people to get together and talk to each other as individuals should be encouraged so that reciprocal relationships of understanding and learning can develop across national and ethnic boundaries.
Youth empowerment
Global youth partnerships will help youth to create their own employment opportunities by designing projects that are relevant to the needs of society.
Connecting Futures
We should foster dialogue between different groups in regions of conflict. A Congolese delegate suggested that forums like this Global Youth Genocide Prevention Forum should be organised in different countries in the Great Lakes region. We should increase the influence of different global youth organisations such as Never Again. We should banish hate culture and promote peace culture and we should advocate that the political authorities put in place the recommendations taken by the youth today.
