United Nations Radio

On UN Day, October 24th, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict explained to a group of high school students why they should care about the United Nations:

Radhika:How many of you in this room know that today is United Nations Day? About 5. How many of you care..that it's United Nations Day? Even less.

Narrator:So began Rhadika Coomeraswamy's address to a group of high school students at Boys and Girl's High School in Brooklyn, New York. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict chose to observe United Nations Day, October 24th, with the students so that she could familiarize more young people with the work of the United Nations.

Radhika:My duty today is to make you care; to see that this is as important to you as it is to me.

Narrator:Ms. Coomaraswamy explained to the students that the UN came into being after the carnage of World War II. Nations were determined, she said, to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Their efforts were based on three pillars:

Radhika:Just some group of people imagined a place where people could come and talk and dialogue and discuss and not kill each other when they had problems. The issue of security and peace would be resolved through dialogue. That is the first idea. And that's the first pillar of the United Nations. It's called peace and security.

Narrator:Ms. Coomaraswamy identified development as the second pillar on which the UN is built:

Radhika:That the poor countries and the poor people of the world could come to a place that could help and guide them to develop infrastructure, their people and have them live with dignity. That's the second pillar of the United Nations - development.

Narrator:The third pillar of the United Nations, says the Special Representative, is human rights:

Radhika:A place in which the word "human" was the most important word - not whether you're black or white or American - I'm Sri Lankan and she's from Kyrgyzstan - SEGUE and the idea is that the most important category is the word "human". And that is why the UN was the founder of the concept of human rights as the pillar of its existence.

Narrator:These three pillars - peace and security, development and human rights - are lofty ideals the UN has sought to attain since its inception:

Radhika:But what happens when these beautiful ideas can't meet reality, the reality of power, of brutality, of ignorance? Well, that's the real history - the ideal history and then there's the real history. And it's the gap between the ideal and the real that is the true history of the United Nations.

Narrator:One student described what he knew about the "real history" conflict that took place in Rwanda in 1994 and the more recent Darfur crisis:

Student:In Rwanda as well as in Darfur, genocide is occurring where millions are being killed. Certain regimes, like the Baath party was in Iraq, are committing acts of genocide. They killed off a people at a time -acid dives, shootings. As it is, we are the world police, the UN. They send troops over there to try and regulate and in some cases we haven't been successful.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. Reporting for UN Radio, I'm Gerry Adams.

(duration: 4'53")