Joe Higgins challenges Kofi Annan at Forum meeting

international | miscellaneous | news report

Wednesday October 20, 2004 21:34

by SP Member

On 14 October the Forum on Europe heard an address by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who had come to speak about planned reforms to the United Nations. All Party leaders were allowed to address comments to Kofi Annan. The following speech was made by Joe Higgins. Annan, reflecting the arrogance of all diplomats and members of the political elite these days, did not answer any of Joe’s questions or refer to any points made in his speech in the summation given to the Forum.

Joe Higgins TD:

“Secretary General, as a parliamentarian for the Socialist Party and member of the Committee for a Workers’ International, I represent a very different viewpoint to the political establishment, who you will mainly meet on your trip I presume. I represent in parliament, working class people and many people in relative poverty. Can I ask you, why should those people and the billions of working people and poor in our world, to whom you referred, place any hope for a better future in a reorganised United Nations, when two of its five permanent Security Council members can launch, and continue, an illegal imperialist conquest in Iraq, slaughtering in the process thousands of innocent people? And while all five permanent Security Council members, and many others, commit on a daily basis, thousands of scientists and tens of thousands of industrial workers to the design and creation of technologies whose sole purpose it is to incinerate ever greater numbers of people over greater distances and from greater distances. Wasting billions of resources, which, if redirected, could provide for example, clean waster, disease relief, clothes and shelter for the billions to whom you referred.”