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NEW YEAR’S GREETINGS BY THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS, WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY, 1994, ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT

NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS BY THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS, WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY, 1994, ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, MARY ROBINSON

A Oirircis, a Oirirceasa is a Uaisle Uile,

Tá áthas an domhain orm agus ar mo fhear chéile fáilte ar leith a chur romhaibh go hÅras an Uachtaráin inniú.   Is cúis mór áthais dúinn na beannachtaí a chuir sibh romhainn agus roimh muintir na hÉireann uilig.  Guím sonas, sláinte agus síocháin oraibh go léir agus tá súil agam go mbeidh blian nua faoi mhaise agaibh.

Your Excellency, Excellencies,

It is with great pleasure that my husband and I accept the kind greetings which you have offered this morning to us, and through us, to the people of Ireland.  May I begin by wishing each of you peace and prosperity in 1994.

I greatly welcome this opportunity to meet with the Diplomatic Corps at the start of another year.  New Year is an occasion for reflection - a time to look back and to look forward.  This gathering each New Year of the Heads of Diplomatic Missions accredited to Ireland is also an occasion to reflect on the relations between our countries and on international relations in general.

This is a time of conflict and suffering in many parts of the world.  It is difficult at times to be optimistic in face of that human conflict and misery which forces itself on our attention nightly on our TV screens.  But it has been said that the opposite to pessimism is not optimism but hope.  There has been change for the better in international affairs in recent years; and I believe that there are grounds for hope as we look to the New Year.

I believe there are always grounds for hope in the strength and resilience of the human spirit in face of adversity and oppression.  But now I find additional reason for hope in the increasing acceptance in our time that there are certain common human concerns between peoples which reach across frontiers and give meaning and depth to the phrase 'We the peoples of the United Nations...' with which the Charter of the United Nations begins.  This concern extends to many issues - the environment and ecology and population growth, human rights, the solution of long- standing conflict and the full participation of women in political, economic and social life.  On all of these issues I see a growing acceptance of the need for cooperative international action transcending the boundaries of individual States.

I know that Irish men and women certainly feel a strong sense of solidarity with the many millions elsewhere who face death from drought, famine, disease and war; and they show strong support for international humanitarian action to alleviate this misery.

I believe that in your countries too men and women increasingly share this sense that, however politically and ethnically diverse our world may be, the interests which we have in common as human individuals - men and women - are much greater than the differences between us.

This concern extends to what might once have been seen as local issues - conflicts in Bosnia or Angola or Sudan; the irrigation needs of particular regions; the AIDS epidemic which has devastated parts of Africa.  It extends more widely to how we can organise our world so that the end of the Cold War will mean not just an end to imminent conflict between the great alliances but real peace with all of the blessings that flow from that for people everywhere.

This is likely to become a more insistent theme for all of us as we approach the Millennium - the year 2000.

To give depth and shape and substance to this growing perception of common interests shared by humanity everywhere, and to so organise international society as to bring it to reality, are the particular and special tasks of diplomacy in our time.   You who represent your countries internationally also carry now a wider responsibility to work across national borders for our common future on which all particular national interests ultimately depend.

This new international society which we seek to evolve must be based in the first instance on a common perspective underlying particular and national interests.

A second requirement is to acknowledge that each culture has much to learn from others, and truth has many facets.  Our own traditions and convictions can be a starting point for understanding, respecting, and learning from what is best in the traditions of others. 

Thirdly, the realisation that we share a single planet points also most insistently to the need for a re-evaluation of the role of force in international affairs.   We need to work together instead to develop further the possibilities of collective action under UN auspices, with a particular eye to preventative diplomacy and to the range of possibilities outlined by the Secretary-General in his "Agenda for Peace".

Fourthly, we must further develop the concept of participation as a guiding value in the organisation of society.  We speak for example of 'the free market'.  But how do we ensure that where there are markets, there is also the ability to participate in them and that long-term common interests, including the protection of the environment, are adequately served? 

I believe that despite much conflict and suffering the year that is just over gives us some grounds for hope that we can move closer to an international society more responsive in these ways to actual human needs, more attuned to the objective of enabling every man and woman to find a real place in society.

Here in Europe, various forms of organisation bringing closer integration between peoples are gaining strength.  Of these the European Union is the most comprehensive and the most advanced.  But there are also the Council of Europe and the CSCE which continue to promote, among many other objectives, a growing together of norms and values throughout our continent.

At the wider international level the breakthrough in negotiations in the Uruguay Round of the GATT is important - both in itself and because of the promise it contains of the further development of international trade in the future on the basis of common rules.  I am glad that an Irish Director-General - Peter Sutherland - had a role in fostering this agreement and I congratulate him and all those who brought it about.

The World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna too showed a new willingness in international life to accept that violation of human rights anywhere is now a concern of all.  The Conference also highlighted more directly the relationship between concern for human rights, development, and the mobilisation of adequate economic resources. 

In the developing world there are grounds both for hope and disappointment as 1994 begins.

In Mozambique, Cambodia and Eritrea, there is hope.  In Somalia people are no longer dying from man-made famine, although political reconciliation remains to be achieved and progress on this front has been slow. But in Angola, thousands are dying every week;  in Southern Sudan the fighting and the famine continue;  in Burundi the number of victims of the recent civil strife can only be guessed at.

Elsewhere, however, some of the most difficult of the world's political situations are showing signs of progress as 1994 begins.  I am thinking in particular of the agreement in September between Israel and the PLO, and the transition to democracy in South Africa.  Do we dare to hope that in the coming weeks a political accommodation will hold out the promise of a peaceful future in former Yugoslavia?

On our own island, we enter this New Year at a time of unprecedented hope for the achievement of lasting peace.

The Joint Declaration issued by the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Major last month marks an historic attempt to bring an end to violence and to effect a profound transformation of the relationships between the different traditions which share this island.

People throughout Ireland, North and South, and throughout these islands, have a deep yearning for peace.  They wish to see the present opportunity taken to bring violence and suffering to an end forever.  They hope that those who currently espouse violence will renounce it and will instead devote themselves exclusively to the democratic political process.

I pray that these passionate hopes will be fulfilled during this year and that a new impetus will be given to the search for a lasting and comprehensive political settlement which will bring peace to this island.

Mar chríoch ba mhaith liom dá gcuirfeadh sibh mo beannachtaí pearsanta don bhliain nua in iúil do bhur gceannairí stáit.

Again, I thank you and all your colleagues for your good wishes.  I ask you in turn to convey to the Heads of State you represent, my own good wishes for the New Year.  More personally, I offer to each of you, to your colleagues and to your families, my warmest good wishes for the year ahead.

May all our hopes be realised; and may it be a year of peace for the world and for all of us.  Rath Dé oraibh go léir.