{"id":197479,"date":"2021-10-18T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=197479"},"modified":"2021-10-13T03:56:18","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T02:56:18","slug":"un-told-failure-to-deal-with-diversity-is-root-cause-of-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/10\/un-told-failure-to-deal-with-diversity-is-root-cause-of-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Told Failure to Deal with Diversity Is Root Cause of Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this Saturday, May 8, 2021 file photo, Ethiopian government soldiers ride in the back of a truck on a road near Agula, north of Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Tigray forces say Ethiopia\u2019s government has launched its threatened major military offensive against them in an attempt to end a nearly year-old war. A statement from the Tigray external affairs office on Monday, Oct. 11 alleged that hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian \u201cregular and irregular fighters\u201d launched a coordinated assault on several fronts. (AP Photo\/Ben Curtis, File)<\/p><\/div>\n

13 Oct 2021 – <\/em>One by one, South Africa\u2019s former president listed African countries Tuesday [12 Oct] where the failure to deal with diversity was a root cause of conflict, from the Biafran war in Nigeria in the late 1960s to the current clashes in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region.<\/p>\n

Thabo Mbeki also cited \u201cthe centrality of failure properly to manage diversity\u201d in the conflicts in Congo, Burundi, Ivory Coast and Sudan.<\/p>\n

He pointed to the 2004 report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission \u201cwhich tells the naked truth, that it was as a result of the failure to manage diversity that the country experienced a very costly 11-year war which started in 1991\u201d — and there is a similar failure to manage diversity \u201cin the violent conflict which has been and is still going on in Cameroon.\u201d<\/p>\n

France\u2019s U.N. ambassador, Nicolas De Riviere, had some additions.<\/p>\n

In the Sahel region stretching across northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea, \u201cterrorist groups use differences to stir up hatred between communities,\u201d he said. And ethnic and religious violence is also prevalent in the Middle East including Iraq, Yemen and Syria.<\/p>\n

They spoke at a U.N. Security Council meeting on \u201cDiversity, State Building and the Search for Peace\u201d that was organized by Kenya, which holds the council presidency this month, and chaired by its president, Uhuru Kenyatta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key message I wish to deliver today is that poor management of diversity is leading to grave threats to international peace and security,\u201d Kenyatta said.<\/p>\n

He said inequality within and between countries \u201cis too often the result of exclusion on the basis of identity\u201d that becomes institutionalized in governments and in economic relations. \u201cAnd it manifests in stereotyping and bigotry,\u201d leading among other consequences to lack of work for billions of people simply based on who they are, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result is a profound sense of grievance and bitterness that populists and demagogues can easily exploit,\u201d Kenyatta said. \u201cIt is fodder for terrorism, insurgencies, the rise of xenophobia, hate speech, divisive tribalism, as well as racism.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cited a U.N.-World Bank study that found \u201cmany conflicts are deeply rooted in longstanding inequalities among groups,\u201d which leave people feeling excluded and marginalized because they are denied opportunities based on their culture, race, skin color, ethnicity or income.<\/p>\n

He pointed to the sharp increase in armed groups at the heart of conflicts — \u201crebels, insurgents, militias, criminal gangs and armed trafficking, terrorist and extremist groups\u201d — as well as a rise in military coups.<\/p>\n

While combatants can agree to end hostilities, Guterres warned, \u201cwithout including a wide range of diverse voices at every step of this process — without bringing all people along — any peace will be short-lived.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that women and young people must be \u201cmeaningful participants\u201d and that \u201cwhen we open the door to inclusion and participation, we take a giant step forward in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fawzia Koofi, the first woman to be deputy speaker of Afghanistan\u2019s Parliament who left the country after the Taliban takeover on Aug. 15, said her country is the latest test of whether the global community can come together to uphold the principles of the U.N. Charter, including promoting the rule of law, justice and equality for men and women.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are serious reports that fundamental freedoms are being flouted,\u201d she said. \u201cWomen and girls are once again regarded as second-class citizens, literally. They are making us invisible again … (and) thousands of people from religious minorities and other minority groups are forced to flee their villages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koofi said the Afghan situation shows how the imbalance in power is \u201cat the roots of so much conflict and inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, whose country was the scene of genocide in 1994 in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by the majority Hutu population., said sustainable peace can only be built if the root causes of conflict are understood by a broad range of the population, and it requires dialogue and search for solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not be possible to entirely prevent all conflict,\u201d he said. \u201cIn fact, disagreements and grievances will always be there in one form or another. But the intensity and the impact of conflicts can be minimized by remaining attentive to local needs\u201d and delivering \u201cthe results that citizens expect and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s Mbeki recalled that the Nigerian government was victorious against secessionist-seeking Biafra 50 years ago but its leaders announced \u201cthat they would follow a policy of no victor, no vanquished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking at the \u201cpainful example\u201d of the ongoing conflict between the Ethiopian government and ethnic Tigrayans, Mbeki said, \u201cthis is exactly what Ethiopia needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – apnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One by one, South Africa\u2019s former president Thabo Mbeki listed African countries Tuesday [12 Oct] where the failure to deal with diversity was a root cause of conflict, from the Biafran war in Nigeria in the late 1960s to the current clashes in Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region. He also cited \u201cthe centrality of failure properly to manage diversity\u201d in the conflicts in Congo, Burundi, Ivory Coast and Sudan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":197480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[237,680,442,355,124,92,481],"class_list":["post-197479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-africa","tag-conflict-resolution","tag-conflict-transformation","tag-diversity","tag-united-nations","tag-violent-conflict","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}