Topic: UN's Role of Addressing Sectarian and Ethnic Conflict within a Nation
Country: Czech Republic
Delegate Name: Isaac Shao
School: Cranbrook Kingswood
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Czech Republic position papers GLIMUN 2008 committees
Ever since the United Nations was founded upon a principle of achieving world peace, the organization has been acting toward such an aim through many means. Today, as a result, most clashes between nations are resolved politically. However, half a century into its official existence, the UN has been unable to ameliorate the harsh reality that many parts of the world are still bound to seemingly endless turmoil, ravaged by wars caused by greedy divisions’ rejection of others based on diverse points of view or even sheer xenophobia. To just list a few, we feel disheartened to point out the UN’s failure to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre, the Second Congo War, and its continuing failure to prevent genocide in Darfur. Such absurd conflicts have been wrecking devastating havoc in those war-torn regions, hindering, if not completely impeding, any sorts of development. Czech Republic, having long been an advocate of human rights and world peace, feels obligated to make our voice heard on this issue.
Czech Republic has gone through a couple major political power shifts in the past, including the famous Velvet Revolution, all through successful and most importantly peaceful activism. Thus demonstrating to the world that our nation’s people values harmony and believes violence and terrors of war do not have a place in shaping competent governments or stable societies in the modern world.
Reviewing the past, it is easy to notice that sectarian and ethnic conflicts frequently evolve into what could be categorized as genocides, which tend to cause more and more concern in the international community during recent years. Czech Republic believes that in order to raise greater regards on such issue, the UN should further spread awareness among as well as within its member nations and states to ensure that the same indifference for which many mass killings had prolonged would be eliminated.
With the aim of ending on going conflicts as well as preventing future escalation of events, Czech Republic urges the UN to compel each nation state to impose stricter punishments against groups that either commit or indirectly support sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Czech Republic, as a successor state of Czechoslovakia that was one of the 51 original member states of UN, has been actively participating in resolving issues concerning human rights protection and seeks to promote the welfare of all world people. The problem of sectarian and ethnic conflicts we now encounter involves the livelihood and death of millions of people around the world, therefore a resolution requires the uttermost caution, decisiveness and the cooperation of the entire global community.
