[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2127-E2128]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




ADDRESS OF AMBASSADOR MADELEINE ALBRIGHT AT 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF UNITED 
                                NATIONS

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 8, 1995

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, in the past few days, the world has 
celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Those of us who 
are from the San Francisco Bay area are justly proud that the United 
Nations was born in our area at the San Francisco Conference in June 
1945.
  The congressional celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United 
Nations was a reception honoring Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the 
Secretary General of the United Nations, and Ambassador Madeleine 
Albright, the permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations and a 
Member of the President's Cabinet. That event was sponsored by the 
Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which I cochair along with my 
Republican colleague John Porter of Illinois. Other colleagues from the 
House and the Senate joined us in sponsoring this important event.
  There is no question that, as a result of the existence of the United 
Nations, the world is now a better place than it would be otherwise. It 
is also important to realize that U.S. participation in the United 
Nations has been an important positive factor in the constructive 
actions of the United Nations over the past half century. Furthermore, 
the United Nations has been an important element of American foreign 
policy.
  We have been able to accomplish through cooperative and joint efforts 
with the U.N. actions that would have been much more difficult or even 
impossible for the United States to accomplish alone. A careful 
examination of U.S. participation in the United Nations leads 
inescapably to the conclusion that we should continue to participate 
actively and fully in the United Nations.
  It is clear that the United Nations is in need of serious review and 
reform, and it is my hope and expectation that we in the Congress can 
provide impetus and support for U.N. reform. At the same time, however, 
it is important that, in our zeal for reform and our concern with the 
problems of the United Nations, we not lose sight of the vitally 
important role which the United Nations has played during the past half 
century.
  Mr. Speaker, the remarks of Ambassador Madeleine Albright at the 
congressional reception honoring the 50th anniversary of the United 
Nations are particularly appropriate for my colleagues to consider as 
we mark the United Nations' first half-century. I ask that Ambassador 
Albright's excellent assessment of the United Nations be included in 
the Record, and I urge my colleagues to give serious and thoughtful 
consideration to her remarks.

  Remarks of Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, U.N. 50th Anniversary 
                              Celebration

       Good evening fellow multilateralists.
       Now, to some, multilateralism is a sin; sort of like 
     watching PBS or liking art. And it is true that 
     multilateralism is a terrible word; it has too many 
     syllables; there's a little Latin in there; and it ends in i-
     s-m.
       But supposedly, the big rivalry these days is between 
     unilateralists and multilateralists. This is a phony debate. 
     I have been studying, teaching and practicing foreign policy 
     for more than 30 years, and I have yet to come across anyone 
     who has accomplished anything without understanding that 
     there will be times we have to act alone, and times when we 
     can act with others at less cost and risk, and greater 
     effectiveness.
       That isn't unilateralism or multilateralism--it's realism.
       On the things that matter most to our families, from drugs 
     to terrorists to pollution to controlling our borders to 
     creating new jobs, international cooperation isn't just an 
     option, it is a necessity. And the UN is a unique mechanism 
     for providing that cooperation.
       This is the UN's 50th anniversary; but reading the 
     newspapers, you would think, at times, we were observing not 
     a birthday, but a wake.
       We have such short memories. The UN at 50 is far stronger, 
     effective and relevant than the UN of 40, 30, 30 or 10 years 
     ago. Cold War divisions are gone; north-south differences 
     have narrowed; the non-aligned movement is running out of 
     factions to be non-aligned with.
       Measured against impossible expectations, the UN will 
     always fall short.
       Measured in the difference it has made in people's lives, 
     we can all take pride in what the UN has accomplished.
       It matters that the ceasefire in Cyprus is holding; that 
     confidence is being built in the Middle East; and that 
     Namibia, Cambodia, 

[[Page E 2128]]
     Mozambique, El Salvador and Haiti have joined the great worldwide 
     movement to democracy.
       It matters that the economic pressure of sanctions has 
     improved the climate for peace in the Balkans; penalized 
     Libya for the terror of Pan Am 103; helped to consign 
     apartheid to the dustbin of history; and forced Iraq to 
     confess its program of deadly biological weapons.
       It matters that millions of children each year live instead 
     of die because they are immunized against childhood disease.
       It matters that smallpox has been eradicated, that polio is 
     on the way out, and that a global campaign to increase 
     awareness about AIDS has been launched.
       It matters that so many families in Somalia, Bosnia, 
     Liberia, Sudan, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central America 
     and Southeast Asia owe their survival to the World Food 
     Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
       It matters that the IAEA is working to prevent the spread 
     of nuclear weapons across the face of the earth.
       And it matters that the Wars Crimes Tribunals for Rwanda 
     and former Yugoslavia will strive to hold the perpetrators of 
     ethnic cleansing and mass rape accountable for their crimes.
       Let us never forget that the United Nations emerged not 
     from a dream, but a nightmare. In the 1920's and 30's, the 
     world squandered an opportunity to organize the peace. The 
     result was the invasion of Manchuria, the conquest of 
     Ethiopia, the betrayal of Munich, the depravity of the 
     Holocaust and the devastation of world war.
       This month, we observe the 50th anniversary of the start of 
     the Nuremburg trials. This same month, we observe the start 
     of the first trial of the War Crimes Tribunal for former 
     Yugoslavia. A cynic might say that we have learned nothing; 
     changed nothing; and forgotten the meaning of ``never 
     again''--again. We cannot exclude the possibility that the 
     cynic is right. We cannot deny the damnable duality of human 
     nature.
       But we can choose not to desert the struggle; to see our 
     reflection not in Goebbels and Mladic, but in Anne Frank, 
     Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Aung San Suu Kyi and the people 
     who founded and built the United Nations.
       We can understand there will be limits on what we 
     accomplish; without placing unnecessary limits on what we 
     attempt.
       We can believe that humans do have the ability to rise 
     above the hatreds of the past and to live together in mutual 
     respect and peace.
       We can believe that justice matters, that compassion is 
     good, that freedom is never safe and that the capacity to 
     work effectively with others is a sign not of weakness, but 
     of wisdom and strength.
       And we can recognize that the principles embodied in the UN 
     Charter matter not because they are so easy to obtain, but 
     because they are so terribly hard.
       When Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg returned to 
     Washington from the Convention in San Francisco where the UN 
     Charter was drafted, he was challenged by those who thought 
     it too idealistic, even utopian. He replied that:
       ``You may tell me that I have but to scan the present world 
     with realistic eyes in order to see the fine phrases (of the 
     Charter) . . . reduced to a shambles . . . I reply that the 
     nearer right you may be . . . the greater is the need for the 
     new pattern which promises . . . to stem these evil tides.''
       The Truman-Vandenberg generation understood that although 
     the noble aspects of human nature had made the UN possible, 
     it was the ignoble aspects that had made it necessary.
       It is up to us in our time to do what they did in their 
     time. To accept the responsibilities of leadership. To defend 
     freedom. And to explode outwards the potential of 
     institutions like the UN to keep peace, extend law, promote 
     progress and amplify respect for the dignity and value of 
     every human being.
       In that effort, I ask your help.

                          ____________________