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Round Table: Dialogue among Civilizations United Nations, New York, 5 September 2000 Provisional verbatim transcription

Address by Javier Perez de Cuellar (Peru)

Mr. Perez de Cuellar: I should like first to express my gratitude to both the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Secretary-General of the United Nations for having invited me to attend this meeting, which is extremely important, not only for all of us but also for the international community as a whole.

I should like to be a little different in the sense that we should start by thinking of what we intend by using the expression "dialogue". I sense that it is important to deal not only with dialogue among nations but also dialogue within nations. That is very important because dialogue among nations is something we are doing in this very house. For almost sixty years we have been dialoguing here. I will not comment on the outcome of that permanent dialogue but what is now very important is to think and reflect on dialogue within nations. Almost all the problems we are now facing have arisen as a consequence of differences within nations X internal wars, internal difficulties, internal civil wars X and our first objective should be to help countries to start a real internal dialogue. There is no other way of having an internal dialogue than by democracy. Democracy is indispensable for obtaining what I think is indispensable and that is, I repeat, a dialogue within nations. That is a way of very shortly answering your question although not exactly in the way you want. Perhaps I can take the floor again once or twice but I did want to make this very important point of dialogue within nations and States.

[Next speaker Mr Richard Bulliet]

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