ADDRESS AT THE INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION 115TH ASSEMBLY
1ST STANDING COMMITTEE ON PEACE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
on the report and draft resolutions on
COOPERATION BETWEEN PARLIAMENTS AND THE UN IN PROMOTING WORLD PEACE, PARTICULARLY FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM AND ENERGY SECURITY

Nandor Tanczos, New Zealand

Mr Chair, distinguished colleagues
Let me begin by thanking the rapporteurs for their work in producing a useful document, and giving us a platform from which to debate these serious issues.

Some previous speakers have stated that ‘terrorism is the most significant threat facing the international community today”. I disagree.

I mean that without disrespect, but it seems to me that the world faces a much more serious threat in ecological degradation and in particular, climate disruption as a result of human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels. Our colleague from Chile touched on this environmental dimension to the debate, and of course it has enormous consequences for issues of food security and human well-being more generally.

So this matter of energy security is crucial. Not just who owns and controls fossil fuel reserves, but long they will last and even more importantly, how long we think we can continue to burn them.

Most of us do not have the resources, or the desire, to invade other countries in order to safeguard our access to oil, and as I have indicated, the world cannot in any case afford us continuing to burn fossil fuels at current rates. So we must begin to invest seriously in alternative transport and electricity generation technologies, as well as examining how our agricultural systems, industrial systems and material cultures can reduce their dependence on fossil fuels.

It is tempting in such circumstances to turn to nuclear energy. New Zealand categorically rejects that path. It is not just because of the questions it raises of who controls the uranium resources, how large those reserves are, the huge costs of building nuclear power stations and the way it diverts funds from other technologies and the unresolved issue of what to do with nuclear waste. It is also the inevitable connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. They are two sides of the same coin.

Which brings me to terrorism. First of all, let us not forget that many of the states represented here were born in terrorism - either state terrorism, that manifested in such things as colonisation and the dispossession of indigenous people (and I count my own country among those) or the terrorism committed by people desperate for freedom and the ability to express their political rights. It is ironic that many of those same states today face terrorist threats of their own.

But today the world faces new dimensions of terrorism and an expansion, it seems, of its use. We cannot excuse or belittle the enormous human suffering caused by violent acts perpetrated against civilian populations. Nor can we deny that the use of violence, itself leaves a bitter legacy that can take generations to overcome.

So we must do all we can to disempower terrorism, to make it ineffective as a strategy to achieve political aims, and we must do more to promote more effective non-violent frameworks.

So New Zealand supports the call for international cooperation as outlined in the report, and again thank the rapporteurs for their work. But we must emphasise that one approach in particular shows the greatest promise, and that is to use all our power to promote civil and political rights, to protect and assert human rights, and to recognise and support the right of all peoples to self-determination.

That last is an issue of importance and a source of tension in every region of the world today, in Asia, in North and South America, in African, Europe, the Pacific and of course in the Middle East.

If the thought, planning, energy and resources spent in the last few years on invading sovereign nations under the guise of fighting terrorism had been used to promote human rights, to provide education, healthcare, food and water security, we would have been today closer to, rather than further from, our goal of reducing terrorism and its attraction to marginalised people.

My great concern is that the fight against terrorism, or at least the things done under the guise of fighting terrorism, take us further away from what is needed to reduce terrorism. In fact that fight often infringes human rights, diverts spending from constructive objectives and promotes injustice.

Let us reject that course and through this report reaffirm our commitment to a truly just world.