25 sep 2007 20:15

Toespraak VN- veiligheidsraad (mix)

DISCOURS DU PREMIER MINISTRE GUY VERHOFSTADT À L'OCCASION DU SOMMET DU CONSEIL DE SÉCURITÉ DES NATIONS UNIES SUR L'AFRIQUE. NEW YORK, 25 SEPTEMBRE 2007. Monsieur le Secrétaire général, Chers collègues, Tout d'abord, je voudrais dire que je suis heureux que nous ayons approuvé la résolution 1778 relative à l'envoi d'une mission de pacification commune NU-UE au Tchad et en Afrique centrale. Plus que tout autre continent, l'Afrique a en effet besoin qu'on lui consacre une attention commune. Sur cinq enfants qui naissent aujourd'hui en Afrique, l'un d'eux meurt d'une simple maladie curable, de faim ou de malnutrition. Sur les quatre enfants qui survivent, deux doivent s'en sortir avec un dollar par jour. Et le troisième n'apprendra jamais à lire ou à écrire. Il y a de fortes chances que celui-ci soit livré au travail infantile. C'est pourquoi ne pas agir pour l'Afrique est non seulement injuste, mais aussi inhumain. L'effort à fournir pour améliorer le sort de ces enfants n'est pourtant pas énorme. Nous devrions dégager soixante milliards d'euros. Soixante milliards d'euros. Avec cette somme, nous pouvons résoudre tous les problèmes de base en Afrique. Nous pouvons garantir à chaque Africain l'accès à l'eau potable, aux sanitaires, aux soins de santé de base et à l'enseignement. Et ce, en un laps de temps très court. Toutefois, l'entrave principale au progrès en Afrique, c'est la guerre. Je me réjouis dès lors que nous ayons décidé d'envoyer de nouvelles troupes de pacification au Darfour et dans les pays alentour. Comme nous l'avons fait en République démocratique du Congo avec la MONUC. C'est également grâce à la MONUC que le Congo a pu, pour la première fois de son histoire, organiser des élections démocratiques. Toutefois, la lutte n'est jamais gagnée, et la communauté internationale doit rester vigilante quant au regain de violence sévissant actuellement au Kivu. But one of Africa's biggest outrages is that of child soldiers. Today, there are still three hundred thousand of them – each with their own horror story. Let me tell you one: that of Christine from Uganda, a girl that we adopted financially. Kony's rebel army forced her to kill her own uncle. She was 14 years old then. After that, she was kidnapped – for four years. Christine was taken to Sudan where she was presented as a gift to an army commander. He abused and raped her. In the end she found a way of escaping. She shot dead one of the guards in doing so. The other guard shot her in the head. But she managed to get away. Finally she was taken in by the army and treated in a hospital for her bullet wound. There she was also found to be pregnant. Christine's story is just one of many thousands of tragic, shocking tales of child soldiers. Each one of them is a stain on the soul of human civilisation – intolerable stains that politicians cannot and must not ignore. I have three measures in mind to deal with this problem. First and foremost, what is needed is an embargo on the export of weapons to countries with child soldiers, by means of a new international treaty on the arms trade. Secondly, the international community must reach an agreement on stopping development aid to countries which use child soldiers to their army. The current 'naming and shaming' system isn't enough. Offending countries must not only be named but actually be punished. But above all the offenders themselves must be put on trial. Take Kony, the so called leader of the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda, for instance. He alone has been responsible for the abuse of almost seventy thousand child soldiers. An international arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. We know where he is, but nobody arrests him. Worse still, his activities are going on to this day. The terror is continuing. From Congo he and his troops regularly invade Southern Sudan, where more children are kidnapped. The time for talking is over – the time for action is here. We know what Kony has done and we know what he's doing and where he is. There isn't any imaginable pretext for him not to be arrested. I therefore ask you, members of the Security Council, to do just that. Let's arrest Kony, put him on trial and make an example of him – as a warning to all criminals that deploy children in armed conflicts. Thank you.