SPEECHES

2000/33 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

NOTES FOR AN ADDRESS BY

THE HONOURABLE LLOYD AXWORTHY

MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

AT THE OPENING OF

THE MINISTERIAL-LEVEL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WAR-AFFECTED CHILDREN

WINNIPEG, Manitoba

September 16, 2000

(6:30 p.m. EDT)

The Cree nation, who have made their home on this prairie for centuries, have a saying: "A child is a gift from the great spirit -- a sacred gift that we must treat with dignity and respect."

It is my pleasure to welcome those of you who arrived here last night to this conference. Winnipeg is the place where I grew up. I was fortunate to spend my youth in such a safe and secure environment.

Many of you may not realize that you are currently at the geographic centre of North America. Being centred is important. It helps you know what is essential and identify what is peripheral. The fact is, the safety and well-being of the world's children are essential. The rhetoric that we so often use to mask our inaction is what is peripheral.

This conference in Winnipeg is like the final leg of a long relay race. This is not a bad comparison as the world focusses its attention on Sydney, where youth from around the world are celebrating the Olympic ideal and striving to be better than even the best.

But the baton in this race is nothing less than the future and it has been handed to us by the world's children -- tens of millions of them.

These children, suffering the ravages of war, have challenged us to break the old records and to set a new standard for international behaviour, action and compassion in dealing with war-affected children.

Of course, people have been around this track before and the route is well marked -- even better so after Graça Machel's report of yesterday.

But this lap is for us -- the senior political leaders and ministers -- to run. The course is clear: from Winnipeg in September 2000 to New York and the UN General Assembly's Special Session on Children in 2001. We cannot drop this baton. We cannot lose this opportunity. We cannot let the ideals and the hopes that are focussed on our effort here become victim to fatigue or complacency. There is simply too much at stake.

The past six days have been a steady crescendo of activity, building dynamic partnerships between youth, experts and officials toward the common goal of action.

There has not been a lot of understatement around this room in the past week. War-affected children were clear about what needs to be done. Non-governmental organizations doing program delivery in the field, operating in complex and often horrific humanitarian environments, know what must be done. Now it is time for us to take what has come out of these meetings and do our job by turning that into public policy.

Our task here is to develop and discuss a bold and realistic framework for action:

• Most immediately, we need to undertake efforts to gain the release of war-abducted children and child soldiers. Our duty in government is to use our resources, our reputation and our reach to achieve freedom for these children. We can lead and support efforts to free child abductees. This includes living up to our own national obligations, taking determined and ongoing bilateral and multilateral initiatives.
• We should commit to strengthening our international obligations and work through our bilateral relationships and multilateral institutions to achieve the 120 signatures and 60 ratifications to the Rome Statute of the ICC [International Criminal Court] before December. And in time for the Special Session in 2001, we should build on the 69 signatures and 3 ratifications of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. This includes funding a ratification campaign, as Canada has done.

• As donors, we can fund programs on child advocacy and protection, like those Canada has, where we tap our nationals -- their skills and experience -- to work overseas promoting children's safety and development.

• We should commit to improving the capacity of our international institutions, especially the UN, to deal with crises such as those affecting children. Utilizing the UN is a wise decision, especially if we give it the capacity it requires. It is a natural fit given the new spirit to deal with these sorts of issues, which seems to be infusing the organization.

This is not an exhaustive list but an important place from which to start.

If this conference -- this movement for children -- is to be a success, we must assume our place at the fore of this agenda. This means holding individuals accountable for their actions. Ending impunity is what we can do that no one else can. We have the influence and the tools to make those who violate basic human decency accountable for their actions.

We can also begin taking greater responsibility for children's rights. This means starting to come to terms with some of the most difficult issues on the international agenda and rethinking the concepts that we had taken as givens for so long -- even the notion of unquestioned sovereignty.

Frances Deng, the UNSR [UN Special Representative] on Displaced People, has said that sovereignty is responsibility. We must examine that statement in terms of intervention, taking the difficult decisions on what we must do if we are going to address massive violations of human rights and crimes against humanity.

There are important items coming out of Winnipeg. We must take these issues to the cabinet table; we must fight for the resources to implement these commitments; we must instruct our officials to take positions in international forums that advance the agenda for children; and we must better help the UN manage our new global agenda.

Our duty as governments in this new global reality is to put people at the centre of everything we do.

It is crucial that we take bold action to fulfil the hopes of the children who were here this week and those they represent.

Our policies should be aimed at easing the suffering and inhumanity that pollutes and destroys the lives of children in times of conflict, and long after conflicts have ended.

Our challenge is to work at home, bilaterally and multilaterally, so that we arrive in New York next September with a bold and substantive action plan -- with better records ourselves and commitments and undertakings that we will end abductions, and that make children an international priority.

If we take these actions, the world's children will be closer to the security we have long promised them with our words. If we do this, then we will have done our part as those in the best position to ensure the safety and security of the next generation.

The baton has been passed to us, and the final sprint to the finish line has begun in order to live up to the Cree commitment to treat children with respect and dignity.

Thank you.