The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, left this Thursday in Lisbon harsh criticism of European countries regarding the reception of refugees and the largest polluting countries in the fight against climate change and called for non-resignation.
Speaking on the occasion of receiving the Lisbon University Prize, which was awarded to him in 2020 but has now been delivered, Guterres praised Portugal as an “exemplary country in its refugee reception policy”.
“It is true that our peripheral location in Europe meant that we had less pressure from asylum seekers than other European countries. But it is also true that other countries even more peripheral than us, until recently in refugee crises, did not have the same generosity. and the same opening, “he criticized.
These countries, particularly from Eastern Europe, he considered, were redeemed in the recent refugee crisis derived from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the UN leader recalled that the same did not happen in the recent past, “in which refugees from Syria moved through the Balkans in a chaotic manner, seeing doors after closed doors”.
Guterres welcomed the openness that has been shown in recent months in the face of the Ukraine crisis, but at the same time left a warning: “It cannot but make us reflect on why Europe accepts Ukrainian refugees and so many countries to which Europeans were so reticent “. receive Syrian and African refugees”.
According to the former Portuguese Prime Minister, this situation “caused and continues to cause many of those who live in the so-called ‘global south’ a certain frustration, even a certain anger, which makes it difficult for them to express the solidarity that Europeans expect when Europe faces a crisis devastating, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and all the consequences it has had on our daily lives, in European countries and even more dramatically in third world countries”.
In another line of criticism, António Guterres said that, in addition to the conflicts, there is something that cannot be forgotten: “We are losing the fight against climate change. The possibility of maintaining a growth in global temperature is limited to 1.5 [graus celsius] is about to be lost and irreversibly. There continues to be, especially at the level of large emitting countries, a lack of political awareness that is essential to reverse this situation, ”he lamented.
Along these lines, he also recalled the need for climate justice, because “the truth is that the countries that suffer the most from the dramatic impacts of climate change are not the ones that contribute the most to these changes and are not the countries that have the most resources to respond to the needs for reconstruction, rehabilitation and support to the populations”.
For this reason, he points out “an enormous selfishness of the countries of the north in refusing to accept all the responsibilities, including those assumed in the Paris Agreement, of solidarity with the countries of the south”.
Speaking before the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the former head of state Ramalho Eanes, several members of the Government, the rector of the University of Lisbon, presidents of the higher courts, military chiefs and members of the diplomatic corps, Guterres He described spending Christmas and New Year with his family in a country that is “among the three safest and most peaceful in the world”, but the same did not happen with many UN officials, to whom he dedicated the award.
“They couldn’t spend Christmas and New Years with their families and they didn’t do it in a safe country, because they had to continue working in some of the most remote and dangerous places in defense of the noblest causes they unite. humanity”.
According to the UN leader, “by a paradox”, today there are peacekeeping operations “where there is no peace to maintain”. They were conceived in order, after the peace agreements, to consolidate those same agreements and transitions to democracy, “but the truth is that most of the blue helmets face situations in which armed groups, terrorist groups, some even better equipped and better armed than peace soldiers”.
That was the reason that led him to advocate at the United Nations to address this problem as a priority, that is, in Africa, with the creation of robust African forces to enforce peace and fight terrorism, under article seven of the Charter of the United Nations. and with funding secured through mandatory contributions.
“This was the most serious battle I lost as UN Secretary-General,” he admitted, continuing: “I couldn’t convince the Security Council to accept this necessity, and that’s why we continue to have peacekeepers defending civilians where “Unfortunately, peace does not exist, risking their lives, many of them losing their lives. I am proud to say that the Portuguese have been exemplary there and an absolutely decisive contribution to the United Nations and to those we want to protect.”
Finally, Guterres, by accepting the prize, endowed with 25 thousand euros, which he will donate to the Portuguese Council for Refugees, left a call for non-resignation.
“If this award represents something for me, it is the need to maintain total non-resignation in the face of a situation in which war continues to be a striking phenomenon in relations between peoples, and in relations within countries, between communities , ethnicities and religions. groups, we cannot accept that war becomes the normal way of relating to human beings in so many parts of the world”.
In short, he promised to “fight for peace, fight for the end or reduction of inequalities, reaffirmation of human rights and gender equality, and stop this crazy fight that we have been having with nature.”
Source: TSF
