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M.C.T. Silveira: Address to World Summit 2014
Written by H.E. Maria do Carmo Trovoada Silveira, Prime Minister (2005-06), Sao Tome and Principe
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Address to World Summit 2014, Seoul, Korea, August 9-13, 2014
First of all, I am very grateful for the invitation that I receive to participate in this important anniversary, which I am very honored. I want to also take this opportunity to thank you for the warm hospitality that was offered to us during our stay in this beautiful country.
I come from a small island State, known as the wonderful islands of the Gulf of Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe, a country that has walked a path towards building democracy, based on of the human rights principles and the UN Charter, with the will to transform our country into a society where everyone can live with dignity and happiness. It is from this small country that I bring to you the greetings, the warmth of its people and the wishes and the hope of the much-longed for and lasting peace for humankind.
After three days of intense and deep debates, we are coming to the end of a major exercise of universal citizenship: we exchanged ideas, and we corrected our viewpoints about contributing to the construction of the UNIVERSAL COMMON GOOD, peace.
This summit takes place in a situation of global economic and financial crisis and a terrible threat to universal peace and security due to armed conflicts whose consequences are irreversible.
These conflicts have multiplied in various regions of the world, especially those from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Great Lakes of Africa, and the Sahel zone, just to name a few. They took innocent lives and destroyed entire families, resulting in millions of refugees and reversed the countries’ development. This becomes a cycle that gives birth to new conflicts.
Let us mobilize all mechanisms at our disposal and build the synergy necessary to put an end to these atrocities; otherwise, we will witness the decimation of humanity.
I want to seize the opportunity provided to me to salute the Universal Peace Federation's efforts invested for the sake of peace in the world, building bridges between races, cultures and religions. For this reason, I would like to render due homage to its founder and leader, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, for this contribution to world peace. Let´s encourage the Federation to continue on this path and appeal to everyone present to unite around this noble cause.
We are convinced that it is possible to build peace. We need, above all, to build something that someone called "positive peace,” which means, besides abandoning permanently the idea of war, a cooperation among peoples and nations aimed at positive social interaction. This genuine peace must be the result of action against violence and war, through the protection of human rights, combating socio-economic injustices, and disarmament and demilitarization. Peace does not mean merely the absence of war. For this, we need to lift up the banner of racial, religious and cultural tolerance. We must educate for peace.
It requires a more just and a new world economic order. It is necessary to exert efforts to promote human rights and social justice.
I would add that we need to work for the reconciliation of humanity with the legacy of history that has resulted in a multi-polar world, politically, culturally and religiously.
Humanity needs to follow the example of Mother Nature that finds its harmony and balance in its geographic, animal and plant diversity.
We need to be tolerant of diversity.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate the thanks for the invitation and to express our appreciation for the successful conduct of the conference. We hope that the result of the discussions that took place here will be an effective contribution to world peace.
For more information about the World Summit, click here.