United States of America, General Debate, 65th Session 23 September 2010. Address by His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama, President of the United States of America at the 65th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 23- September 2010).
President Obama UN Speech 2010 Statement Summary
UN SPEECH 2011 President Barack Obama, USA.
United States of America, General Debate, 66th Session 21 September 2011. Address by His Excellency Barack Obama, President of the United States of America at the General debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 21-24 and 26-30 September 2011)
UN SPEECH 2010 President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka
President Rajapaksa UN Speech 2010 Statement Summary
MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA, President of Sri Lanka, said the fact the United Nations was in the sixty-fifth year of its existence served to underline the Organization’s durability as an important mechanism to ensure cooperation between States and discussion between sovereign nations. Saying that he was giving this address at a critical juncture in the history of his country, he added that in two months, he would be assuming a second term in office. His mandate would be different from the last; he planned to deliver sustainable peace and prosperity, and ensure that terrorism would not be able to raise its ugly head again.In 2005, he was elected on a promise to rid the country of terrorism and was proud and humbled that Sri Lanka was now at peace. Over the past year, much was reported regarding the country’s liberation from terrorism. “However, far less has been said of the suffering we had to undergo and the true nature of the enemy we have overcome,” he said, and added that the rapidly forgotten truth was that the country faced one of the most brutal, highly organized, well-funded and effective terrorist organizations, which could even spread its tentacles to other countries.
Many of the atrocities of terrorism that the West experienced recently had been present in Sri Lanka for nearly 30 years. Almost 100,000 lives had been lost, among them the President of Sri Lanka, intellectuals and politicians. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was an organization so brutal that even those it claimed to represent, the Tamil community, were as much victims of its terror as the rest of the population. Those observing from afar who suggested the Sri Lankan Government should have conceded to the demands of those terrorists needed to be reminded that “terror is terror, whatever mask it wears”. His responsibility was to the peace and prosperity of the nation.
Invoking the capacity of current international humanitarian law, he said it must be remembered that such law evolved essentially in response to conflicts waged by the forces of legally constituted States, not terrorist groups. The asymmetrical nature of conflicts by non-State actors gave rise to serious problems which needed to be considered in earnest by the international community. He reminded that, “We, along with many others, made repeated attempts to engage the LTTE in constructive dialogue,” but the attempts were rejected.
The entire focus was now on building peace, healing wounds and ensuring economic prosperity. In order to fulfil those aspirations, economic development and political reconciliation needed to go hand in hand. Towards that end, constitutional changes would evolve with full participation of stakeholders. He mentioned the return of 90 per cent of the internally displaced persons, rebuilding of the eastern province, and establishment of a Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission. He welcomed support from the international community as rebuilding took place, and said the economy was well on its way to realizing the dividend of peace, as the economy grew by 8 per cent in the last quarter.
Despite the struggle against terrorism, the country graduated from middle income status, unemployment declined to around 5 per cent, poverty went from 25 to 15 per cent. In order to receive full potential he welcomed a supportive external environment. He concluded by saying that leaders who have been chosen by their people faced difficult decisions; they must be entitled the goodwill and confidence of the international community, and the results of their decisions needed to be evaluated objectively and allowed to speak for themselves.
UN SPEECH 2011 President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, General Debate, 66th Session 23 September 2011. Address by His Excellency Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka at the General debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 21-24 and 26-30 September 2011)
Sri Lanka under fire over PR firm Bell Pottinger speech
ReplyDeleteDec 6 (BBC) Sri Lanka has strongly denounced a report in a UK newspaper which said a leading lobbying company wrote a speech on behalf of the president. In a report on Tuesday, the Independent quoted a Bell Pottinger company spokesman as saying it wrote a speech the president gave to the UN in 2010. The spokesman is quoted as saying the speech was "very well received". Bell Pottinger has so far not commented on the contents of the Independent's report.
The speech in question was made at the UN's General Assembly last year when President Mahinda Rajapaksa said there were "serious problems" governing the conduct of war, implying it was advisable to re-examine international humanitarian law, which is embodied in the Geneva Conventions.
He argued such laws had evolved for conflicts between states, and not between states and what he called terrorist groups within them. But he stopped short of explicitly calling for the conventions to be changed.
Mr Rajapaksa was speaking 18 months after Sri Lanka defeated Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland.
Sri Lanka's armed forces have been accused of being responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths during the closing phase of that war - a charge denied by the government.
Bell Pottinger chairman David Wilson was secretly recorded as saying that Mr Rajapaksa had chosen the company's version of the speech in preference to one drafted by his own foreign ministry.
"He chose to use our version of the speech despite several attempts by the [Sri Lankan] foreign office to change the tune," Mr Wilson is quoted as saying.
"And it went a long way to taking the country where it needed to go."
'Scurrilous article'
The report in the Independent comes as part of a wider investigation in the UK by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism into the work of the public affairs company, to highlight some of the issues around regulation of PR companies and lobbyists.
Bell Pottinger representative Tim Ryan (right) meets Vickramabahu Karunaratne, general secretary of the NSS Party at a north London meeting in November 2010 Bell Pottinger staff attended a meetings of expatriate Tamils in London last year
Bell Pottinger describe themselves as "reputation management" specialists.
Correspondents say that their client list includes several countries with dubious human rights records including Uzbekistan, Belarus and Bahrain.
Last year the Sri Lankan government conceded that it paid Bell Pottinger about £3m ($4.7m) a year to try to enhance the country's post-war image. It said that the company was hired to lobby UK, UN and EU officials.
Mr Rajapaksa's media chief, Bandula Jayasekera, would not comment on the Independent report, dismissing it as a "scurrilous article" by the British media intended to "create trouble".
The government has been angered by coverage of the end of the war in 2009 by the UK's Channel Four and the Times over the conduct of the army, which has been accused of committing human rights abuses.
The BBC's Sinhala service's Chandana Keerthi Bandara says that Bell Pottinger has made no secret of the fact that it has represented the Sri Lankan government.
In December 2010 two representatives of the company attended a north London meeting held by mainly expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils on alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan military.
Our correspondent says that one of the Bell Pottinger representatives told the gathering that it was important to record what the Tamils had to say and report it back to Sri Lanka's leadership so that a response could be formulated.
Sri Lanka under fire over PR firm Bell Pottinger speech