Topic: UN's Role of Addressing Sectarian and Ethnic Conflict within a Nation
Country: El Salvador
Delegate Name: Veronica Dulin
School: Royal Oak High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All El Salvador position papers GLIMUN 2008 committees
El Salvador recognizes the United Nations’ right and duty to ensure peace internationally and uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that the key to international peace is peace within all individual nations. When the government of a nation is unable or unwilling to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights within it’s borders, or to prevent substantial acts of violence, murder, or degradation made against the residents of said nation by any conflict of differing ethnic or sectarian factions within the nation, the U.N. should take action to prevent the nation’s descent into anarchy. El Salvador is willing to explore and compromise on resolutions that provide for the promotion of innocents’ welfare, the furthering or stabilization of democracy and eventual accession of peace to a nation, and that in some way include these provisions.
When a nation is subject to open war or any substantial violation of universal human rights between two or more separate factions, that if the innocent citizens within are being directly affected by the conflict through violent acts, or indirectly because of the negative impact to the nation’s economy stemming from the conflict, which hampers the citizens ability to provide for themselves and their families sufficiently, it is the U.N.’s duty to intervene as peacefully as the situation allows on behalf of the citizens of the nation.
A primary mode of intervention by the United Nations should be mediated peace talks in which the factions involved in the conflict should be represented and the current government of the nation, if it is not one of those factions. The goal of these peace talks should be to form a reasonable compromise between the factions and the government that promotes the well being of the citizens, the promotion of democracy, and peace in the greatest expediency. El Salvador found the U.N.’s mediated peace talks a key to the resolution of our civil war in 1992, and believes they can still come to fruition for countries such as Rwanda, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.
With the agreement of mediated peace talks by the U.N. a cease-fire should be agreed upon by the warring factions for a length of time necessary for the peace talks to be carried out without violence. During this cease fire, El Salvador believes that the nation in question should be open for humanitarian aid, and the extension of this aid will be defined and distributed by ECOSOC.
Should the conditions of a cease-fire be violated by any faction of the conflict, or if any or all of the factions prove themselves too belligerent to employ these peace talks, U.N. peacekeeping troops should be allowed access to the country with the first priority of defending the innocent citizens of the country in turmoil. These peacekeeping troops should have the right to infiltrate the country in turmoil, after approval by the Security Council as provisioned in Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, and defend the nation’s citizens should the citizens’ human rights be violated.
El Salvador is firm in it’s belief that peace talks mediated by the U.N. can be an effective remedy to a conflict within a nation should all factions of a conflict be willing and able to participate fully and with the well being of the nation as a whole, and peace in mind, but recognizes the difficulty of finding such sagacious combatants, and the need for specific solutions for today’s complex and unique conflicts.
