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Origins Going to work at the United Nations system (UNESCO) in 1993, I went with hopes that with the end of the Cold War the UN at last could be turned into an instrument of peace. Indeed, that was the purpose for which the UN and its specialized agencies like UNESCO were founded in 1946. There was a great potential for peace in 1993. With the end of the Russian veto in the Security Council it had been possible for the first time since the founding of the UN to take action by consensus. And, in fact, these actions were applied to peace. The UN helped, and in some cases actually sponsored, peace agreements in countries where there had been bitter civil wars in Central America (El Salvador), Africa (Namibia and Mozambique) and Asia (Cambodia). These were followed by major peacekeeping operations, UN monitored elections and promises of help for social and economic reconstruction. The theoretical basis was provided in a document presented to the Security Council in 1992 called An Agenda for Peace. [note added later: at the same time as there was hope for peace, there was also the specter of planes bombing Iraq bearing the flag of the United Nations. Would the UN help bring peace or would it become a global tyrant? An Agenda for Peace could also be interpreted as the rationale for a global army to enforce the decisions of the powerful states in the Security Council.] It was a time of hope that the revolutionary processes could now begin to be realized not through violence but through non-violent means. In Namibia, there was a promise that the defeat of South African Apartheid forces by Cuban troops at Cuivo Canavale would now be followed by national liberation which would lead eventually to a democratic south Africa. In Mozambique, the Rome accords held out the hope that the national liberation process begun against Portuguese colonialism and continued against the attacks of RENAMO, could get back on track and lead to a true African democracy. In El Salvador the Chapultepec peace accords promised substantial land reform and judicial reform as well as free elections. I was especially inspired by the remarks of the Salvadorean Communist Guerilla leader Shafik Jorge Handal, who saw in peace the opportunity to achieve the goals of justice of their revolutionary movement without the eventual handicap of militarism (what I would call the culture of war). He had written at the end of 1990 that "looking to the future, in view of recent world experience and our own experience in El Salvador, we are convinced that democracy, respect for human rights and, above all, economic development are all incompatible with militarism." Having come on sabbatical from my University to UNESCO in 1992, I presented a proposal to the Director-General for a Culture of Peace Programme which would engage resources of UNESCO and other agencies in the areas of education, culture, and communication for the social and economic reconstruction of countries where the UN had engaged in peacekeeping. It was assumed that sending soldiers could not by itself build peace, but that peace could only come from the transformation of conflict into cooperation for human development that would benefit all. This was to be UNESCO's contribution to An Agenda for Peace. The proposal was introduced to the UNESCO Executive Board in the fall of 1992 as document 149EX/28 presented by the Chairman of the Board's Programme Commission and when it was accepted, I was hired as the consultant to develop the proposal during 1993. |